It's the End of the Road in Wonder Woman #779

In Wonder Woman #779, writers Becky Cloonan and Michael Conrad take us to an unknown realm where Diana finally confronts Janus. Will Janus’ plan for the future prevail, or will Wonder Woman reign her in? Art by Travis Moore, colors by Tamra Bonvillain and letters by Pat Brosseau.

Cat Purcell: What a wild ride through the Multiverse we’ve had. I’m both sad and eager to see the climax of this story. It’s been a lot of fun, and for that I’m glad we’re finally catching up with Janus for good, and since we’re keeping the same team going forward I’m now even more intrigued to see what will come next for Diana.

Andrea Ayres: Cat, this has been such a joy. I can’t believe how many threads Cloonan and Conrad have woven through the Multiverse. Diana disentangles these tangled yarns in Wonder Woman #779, and let’s face it; this was no easy task. I wasn’t sure it was going to work, but for the most part, I think it does. It did leave me with the feeling of having been part of a fairy tale. It reminded me of my favorite aspects about reading as a child, which is a credit to the entire team.

Unhand Me, Vile Whelp!

Cat: Appearing in nothing but blank, white space, Diana has finally caught up to Janus and there’s nowhere to run. Janus is ready to strike with Deadman lying …. well… dead at Diana’s side. The lack of any foreground, background, or colors made the scenes here so incredibly rich, but I also felt this strange anxiety simmering behind each panel. It made Diana and Janus’s expressions all the more intense and the differences between their costumes and colors stark. How did you feel about these first few pages, Andrea?

Andrea: I appreciate the clarity with which Pat Brosseau’s letters have enabled the storytelling in these stark places. I don’t have the language necessary to articulate the difficult needle Brosseau has thread throughout this series. There have been so many characters, scenes, backdrops, voices, and it just made me appreciate how talented he is.

The panels where Diana is in a white space have traditionally been a kind of red herring. I’m thinking back to the Doctor Psycho scenes and numerous other instances where we’ve been lead down one path only to have the team feint a different direction. So, I was ready to question what was happening here. Still, having Siggy and Ratatosk showing up?

Cat: I didn’t expect them to make it! But what a relief it was, even though Diana could have held her off just fine. Seeing Seigfried grip Janus’ arm with Ratatosk’s little “rawr” was just the best feeling! And then for the purple lasso to speak to Diana? That was my first shot of fear. If I remember correctly, Diana got this Lasso from the Valkyries in #773, but speaking of Dr. Psycho, I was skeptical that somehow this might have been one of his enchanted weapons lying around. I was so nervous as she wrapped it around Deadman, though how much more dead could he have become, I guess?

Andrea: Too Dead, Too Furious. The light emanating from Deadman’s mouth as Diana compels him to rise on page six was not NOT creepy. That said, it’s probably some of my favorite bits of interplay between the art, colors, and letters. The action in #779 leaves the creative team with no place to hide. It’s all about expression, emotion, and decisive movements. For instance, if we look at page seven, there’s the interplay between Janus and Diana, with Janus menacingly using the God Scraper. Diana’s lasso whips across the panels, and still, there’s room for a bit of levity with Ratatosk sitting atop Siggy’s head. It’s a delicate balancing act, and I truly appreciate just how uniquely equipped this team was to tell this particular story. Speaking of the God Scraper…it doesn’t do much scraping here, does it?

Cat: It sure doesn’t! Though Janus does her best in her struggle with Siggy, it doesn’t even cut through the lasso as Wonder Woman reminds Janus she “could make it as if she never were”. But it can’t slice through to another world, either. Now that Deadman is back, he explains that this is a pocket universe that exists outside of everything, apparently and might not even exist? They are trapped in nonexistence. How’s that for some existential horror? Yikes! I can relate to Janus’ outrage though. I’d be pretty upset about it myself. It turns out Boston is not the only one tricking people. Janus’ other half wanted this separation as much as his counterpart, and this Janus feels tricked and determined to utilize her own free will.

This raises such interesting questions. Are you essentially dead anyway if you do not even exist anymore? Did Deadman condemn them all to death without telling them? That’s not even to get into Diana’s comment that she could end Janus with her lasso or Janus’ attempt at free will. That’s a topic I’ve always struggled with. If people are the same at their core, would they always make the same choices in life? Could I be anything other than I am if it weren’t for the times I thought I was making one choice over the other? Better philosophers than I have wrestled with that one, and it never ceases to make me feel uncomfortable.

The Will to be Free

Andrea: I think you’ve given us a nice segue here, Cat, so thank you for that! We get into the meat of the issue and really all of Diana’s exploits through the Multiverse. What rules us, the past or the future? Janus represents feeling bound inexplicably to one or the other. Either way, there is no living in the moment. There are only reactions to shame and guilt about the past or fear of future events.

What if we are the same at our core? What if we are both sides of Janus always. Greedy, catastrophizing, narcissistic and so on. We are married to ourselves for our time on Earth, whether we like it or not. The pain of trying to detach (literally for Janus’s sake in the Afterworlds saga) only leads to more significant misunderstanding and pain. Well, it has for me anyway.

I love what we are wrestling with in this issue, the big question of whether or not our free will matters. Of course, we know it does. Wonder Woman #779 isn’t asking about the existence of free will, really. It’s positing, as you suggest, whether or not some past version of ourselves will always bind us or how others see us. Do our past decisions cast a dye we are married to? Janus and Diana both deal with this.

Cat: Cloonan and Conrad do a tremendous job in this entire arc of dealing with deep questions while a battle is happening. In WW #779, our heroes continue to wrestle with actions from their past, as we have seen Diana and Siggy do previously. Now Janus must figure where she wrestles with her past self and prepares for the unknown future. She’s trapped from her plans, forced to reckon with the now pointless destruction she’s left in her wake. The other Janus has what he has always wanted, to dwell in his past.

Deadman did some trickery of his own. He and Ratatosk took off from non-existence with information that the other Janus had planned this. I understand his desire to escape death again while misleading them. At the same time, while grappling with the past and future ramifications of their actions, it felt off to me. Janus reacts in outrage, attempting to slice Siegfried with the God Scraper. How did you take her insistence that she’s the master of her fate, Andrea?

Andrea: I have to say the God Scraper being the only tool to cut the future from the past, the entire back and forth between Janus and Diana in the middle of the issue are some of my favorite. As much as Janus insists she is the master of her fate, the Norns have other thoughts.

In Norse mythology, the Norns shape human destiny. They are not goddesses; instead, they are beings of time. I think Travis Moore’s art does a great job of encapsulating that element. These are creatures bound to the tapestry of time. I also like that the threads of the Norns to bind Janus are the same color as Diana’s mysterious lilac lasso. I’m wondering what you think about the concept of free will and destiny being compatible? Okay, maybe that’s too big a question, haha. How about within the context of this story?

Cat: I’m a sucker for stories of prophecy, and at the same time, I personally detest the idea that my choices aren’t really my own. The idea that some higher being or observable force already knows what choice I will make angers me.

But it’s apparent in this context that not only did the Norns know what both sides of Janus were going to choose but that Diana would receive their lasso from the Valkyries. THIS is a cool concept to me! The Valkyries are in the realm of death for heroes of Norse cultures, while the Norns look through what makes up a person’s threads of life. The two groups of women working together on this with what they both could see is a great pairing. And I agree. I LOVE Moore and Bonvillain’s purple threads that make up the Norns and how it relates to the lasso!

No Future Without the Past

Andrea: AHH! You raise such a good point about the Valkyries and the Norns; what a good pickup. I, like you, detest the idea of my past choices dictating my future ones in some way that the present me can’t control? I feel like Cloonan and Conrad get at an unhappy element of life that I enjoy pretending doesn’t exist, which is the following: past decisions do impact our future. The events of our life in the past inextricably impact the future, but that does not mean they DICTATE it. We are not married to our past selves (or tied in the case of Janus), but we do have to live with our choices. We do have to face them. That, to me, is getting at the nexus of this issue.

Janus literally and figuratively attempts to run away from the past towards the future. However, she finds it permanently foreclosed on her by something in her way; past Janus (in some form). The culminating confrontation between Janus comes to terms with our past choices and resolving to do something different… or maybe not. Either way, it’s a choice, and we bear responsibility to it whatever choices are made. As Diana says, “You are not defined by what has come before.”

Cat: Yes! And I think this is what I struggle with sometimes myself, which makes exploring these themes uncomfortable for me. Like a lot of people, there are parts of my past I’d rather not revisit. There are certainly folks I’ve written off because of the choices they made in the past. And Diana reminds us that we should believe that no one is beyond redemption. What is hope for the future without that belief? Even if it means recasting the “bad guys” in our own lives as redeemable people.

For Diana to choose to see that hope in Janus, to recognize we’re all cut from the same cloth and connected? It’s powerful stuff.

Andrea: The ending, I won’t spoil it, not that we haven’t done a bang-up job of that already, but I thought it was so sweet. It reminded me of my favorite fairy tale books as a child. I had that warm feeling of having been somewhere on a journey. I hope this series is collected in a TPB because it would be glorious to have as a collected edition. I think the series would lend itself well to that.

Cat: I’m devastated and hopeful for what’s to come at this ending. Andrea, you’re right. This whole run has felt like a fairy tale. It’s full of magic, fun, fighting, and sprinkled amongst all of it are some thoughtful ideas on what we make of our time here. I know it can’t be the end of Diana, and this team has highlighted the qualities in Wonder Woman that have drawn me to her since I was a child.

Andrea: I am not as versed in the lore of Wonder Woman or DC Universe as others, but this series has served as a beautiful dalliance throughout what makes both great.