Homecoming in Wonder Woman #780

Diana adjusts back to life again in Wonder Woman #780 written by Becky Cloonan and Michael Conrad, pencils and inks by Travis Moore and Steve Pugh, colors by Tamra Bonvillain and Kendall Goode, and letters by Pat Brosseau.

Andrea Ayres: Cat, I am a day late and a dollar short (as my mom used to say). Thank you for your patience with me. I don’t think I deserve it, but I am appreciative of it. We join Diana as she returns to Earth from the Afterlife in Wonder Woman #780. This issue serves as an interlude as we develop new tensions and relationships with old and new characters. It does not feel like a bunch to talk about here, but that’s never stopped us before! What’d you think of this issue?

Cat Purcell: Aww, no worries, Andrea!! I’m just happy to write about Wonder Woman with you! I really liked this issue. It’s a perfect interlude from Diana’s travel through death and a setup for several possible plotlines to come. I’m eager to dive into talking about it all!

Reunited, and it feels so good?

Cat: Opening up this issue with Diana coming back to warm welcomes (from everyone but Bruce, of course!) at the Justice League hall made me want to cry happy tears! Of course, the poor gal doesn’t get past all the hugs before being asked to help out with a situation.

Andrea: I am so used to things going so badly in superhero comics that I just expected everything to be horrible by the second page of this issue. Okay, maybe that’s just my general feeling about life at the moment. Do you just have those times where you wait for the other shoe to drop? That’s what it was like for me reading Wonder Woman #780.

Cat: That was the exact feeling, Andrea! My biggest fear was after all the trials of the last several issues, Diana wouldn’t be able to get a break! I know I’m not the only one who savors the few issues when a superhero gets to just hang out and have a beach day with their friends. So I was very thankful when Hippolyta shows up to tell the boys to chill out for a bit!

Andrea: Seeing how happy everyone was to see Diana return was a real joy. It made me go “aww, friends, that must be nice.”

Cat: Haha, awwww, Andrea, whenever we finally meet up in real life, this is exactly how I’m gonna greet you. Hopefully, in a badass costume like Hippolyta too. (AA: Yes, please!)

Rest, if only for a day

Andrea: Hippolyta and Diana share a wonderful mother-daughter moment. The two do that thing women tend to do where they devalue their achievements by saying something like, “Oh me, no. I’m actually shite, but you, you are the best.” Cloonan and Conrad don’t say it quite like that. Diana has difficulty accepting praise or the idea that she is allowed to recover, recuperate, and process. I think that’s a message a lot of people have difficulty hearing. Something was touching about Hippolyta saying she was a proud mother. It made me realize that what most of us look for at the end of the day isn’t hero worship. We just want others to be proud of us, to love us. It made me miss my mom so much. I haven’t felt that kind of love from another woman that was so… I don’t know how to put it, implicit? Just there. I didn’t question it. It just radiated from my mom. I feel like it does so here between Hippolyta and Diana. What did you think of this moment?

Cat: I was touched by it as well. It really felt authentic, and I agree, that feeling of just wanting someone to be proud of you at the end of the day is all we want. One of the interesting things I’ve talked about before is how I grew up wanting to be Diana (well, I still do), and now that I’m a mom, I relate to Hippolyta so much more. I find myself telling my daughter how proud of her I am, and her 3-year-old self shrugs it off. And I feel the reverse of this exchange: I just wish I could communicate how MUCH I love her, so she always feels it. So I love how much Diana’s mom insists she go back home and take a real break.

Andrea: Oh Cat, that is so sweet. I know she may shrug it off, but my guess? She feels it and knows it and will continue to as she grows. So, Diana finally relents and says, “Okay, I’ll take a break!” But that doesn’t really go off according to plan, does it?

Cat: No! And I laughed at this part because I related to it as well, as I tell myself I’m gonna use my day off during the week to do nothing and then end up scheduling a tire change, cleaning the whole house and running errands too. Just as Diana vows to go chill in Themyscira, she comes across a boat of people needing rescue and can’t help herself! How did you take this scene, Andrea?

Andrea: You know, I’ll be honest. I was a little uncomfortable with it. The ship appears to be a migrant ship of refugees, at least by my reading. Of course, I was happy to see the people rescued but not comfortable with the implications of having this scene depicted in this particular way. I guess it feels like these people are only there to serve Diana’s return to heroism, as is captured on cell phones on page 17. We don’t hear their story. These people do not get to speak for themselves and are quite literally a vessel for us to view Diana as the hero she is. So, I didn’t love it.

Cat: Actually, I’m glad you said that. I felt uncomfortable about this part, too, but couldn’t put into words why and you nailed it. We see Diana bring the boat to shore as people cheer for Wonder Woman, making a great, classic full superhero page, but we don’t even know whose hands she’s bringing the refugees into. I did think it was a clever touch to have the panels in page 17 be depicted as shots or video from a cell phone, which segues nicely into a few pages of people (including Donna, Etta, Yara, Dr. Psycho, and I think Steve Trevor?) around the world reacting to the news of Wonder Woman being back, finally finishing at her arrival back on Themyscira.

Andrea: As always, Tamara Bonvillain and Kendall Goode’s colors are stunning, and the rendering of the panels on page 17 is truly clever.

A place in the world

Cat: Nubia’s leading the women here and everyone is ecstatic to have Diana arrive. Things aren’t going smoothly, but Nubia is on top of things and asks Diana to join in a party. How did this reunion make you feel, Andrea?

Andrea: You know when Nubia says, “There is much to discuss”? Yah. That’s a real loaded sentence. There’s a helluva lot to discuss. And we also get a sense in the previous pages that Yara may not be as excited to see Wonder Woman return as, say, Steve Trevor. The later part of Wonder Woman #780 begins to set us up for what will undoubtedly be addressing the going’s on in Atlantis and, well, whatever else this creative team has cooked up for us. I was happy to see Diana say that Wonder Woman was no longer just one person and praise Nubia’s leadership while Diana was, erm, otherwise detained (aka dead). You know I’m going to ask you about the lasso scene, right? So… let me hear it!

Cat: Yes! The conversation here between Nubia and Diana gave me similar feelings to the one between Diana and her mom. Just gals talking shop about leading groups of people and general stuff is so refreshingly rare! But Nubia opening the box to return the golden perfect to Diana gave me chills! It was just… It’s more powerful to me than Thor getting his Hammer or Batman in the Batmobile. The Lasso has been with Diana since literally day one, and knowing the true lasso is back in her hands was wonderful. Paired with Nubia and Diana both holding it around their hands, I’m filled with hope. Not just for these characters, but again by this creative team. I really get the sense that they know these characters and will do right by them and their natures, no matter what sticky situations they throw their way.

Andrea: I think you’ve summed up the issue perfectly here. So I will only add that it’s nice to see an acknowledgment of something having changed and shifted in Diana. She isn’t the same person she was before, and that’s refreshing. It is nice to see something a superhero character has gone through addressed in such a straightforward manner? Like, we don’t need to always dwell on why we have changed. It’s not always the right time. It is enough to acknowledge it and move forward and hope that time will reveal more. It’s what my therapist would call “getting out of my head and into my life.” I anticipate there’s going to be a lot of life for Diana to get into…

Cat: She really has changed, in subtle ways that still make Diana Wonder Woman and Wonder Woman is still Diana. And this issue, as I said at the top, is a wonderful example of how a hero can be shown having a conversation and downtime, and it still be a catalyst for action-filled plot points to happen in the future. There were no fight scenes or battles, but this was far from a filler issue. And I am thankful for it! (AA: Me too!)

Wonderful Whims

“Even death can’t defeat Wonder Woman!” Excuse me while I cry.
Seriously considering making this version of Hippolyta’s costume as well as the movie version – Cat
Cat, if you don’t do that, I will be so upset. – Andrea