The Princess of Hell has reached Man’s World. Learn the origin of the Wonder Woman of the new DC Earth in Absolute Wonder Woman #1, written by Kelly Thompson, drawn by Hayden Sherman, colored by Jordie Bellaire and lettered by Becca Carey.
A serial killer is targeting young criminals in Gotham, and they seem to be connected to a choice Thomas Wayne made as a doctor. And Bruce Wayne is offered a medical miracle to restore his youth. The All-In era begins for Detective Comics in issue #1,090, written by Tom Taylor, drawn and colored by Mikel Janin and lettered by Wes Abbott.
Will Nevin: “Hush 2.” We’re really doing it, aren’t we?
Matt Lazorwitz: Let it never be said there’s an idea the IP farms can’t revisit rather than trying to get a new idea.
Will: If it totally negates “Heart of Hush,” it might actually be worth it. A boy can dream! But, seriously, Tommy Elliot sucks. Maybe he can die in this new story. Then it would really be worth it.
Princess of Hell
Will: A Wonder Woman book? Why the hell not?!
You like what I did there?
Matt: Clever boy.
So, to start, this is a gorgeous book. I love Hayden Sherman, and this is a great looking book.
Will: Damn is it ever. Lush and striking with great layouts all around. Vibrant. Electric. I’ve been a Sherman fan for a long time, and I’m so glad they’re getting this spot to absolutely fuckin’ shine.
Matt: Those two-page spreads are incredible! And they draw a great Wonder Woman. She’s not as gigantic and muscular as we’ve seen some people draw Wonder Woman, but she’s not willowy either. She is drawn to be a warrior.
Will: I think her size was seen best when she’s next to Circe. She’s not overly ripped in that muscles-upon-muscles sense; she’s just bigger in all of her proportions. This Diana means business.
As Wonder Woman origins go (made from clay, daughter of Zeus, etc), what did you think of this one? Casting her into the pit is definitely an inspired take.
Matt: It is, and it absolutely is consistent with the way the Greek Gods (and especially Zeus) act traditionally. They’re a bunch of dicks. The snake coming to get Diana immediately after she is deposited on Circe’s prison island is a mirror of Hera sending snakes to kill the baby Hercules and him killing them; it sets her up immediately as a heroine in that classical sense. And I don’t think I have ever seen “Yeet” as a sound effect in a comic before, and I got a chuckle out of that.
Will: I laughed my fuckin’ ass off. That was great.
Even though I’m sure we’re going to have a much different Diana, this feels like a less radical alteration to the character — or at least her core — than we saw with Absolute Batman. With that book, the billionaire orphan is no longer a billionaire nor an orphan. This is a Wonder Woman who simply got shunted down a different path, albeit one that will certainly change her outlook.
Matt: The Trinity are icons, and there is always something at their core that helps define them. For Batman it’s his sense of justice. For Clark it’s his sense of hope. And for Diana it’s her sense of compassion. To take a character who is about compassion and put her in a grimdark world, you tread close to losing what defines that character. But here, the fact that she by nature wins over the monsters the gods send to kill her shows that sense of compassion and her empathy are still there. It’s a smart way to do it without beating us over the head with it.
Will: Gosh, those growing up in Hell scenes were cute, weren’t they? I know I said I liked the layouts, and the widescreen approach certainly helped with the narrative and showing the passage of time, but it would have been nice if Sherman got to show off more detail and really have fun with those demons. Alas.
Ultimately, I think my take here is that this is a solid (and beautiful!) first chapter, but we probably need to get a few more issues before we can see where this vision of Diana is going. Like, this was cool AF, but that’s all I’m coming away with.
Matt: I think we set up a lot of cool ideas here. Wonder Woman being raised by one of her arch-foes from Prime Earth, and painting a more sympathetic Circe is a great idea. This is the kind of revisionist look at the “villainesses” or Greek myth that we see a lot now as we aren’t set to look at things through the eyes of patriarchy. And we see Circe grow into her role as Diana’s mother. And the question of what the Amazons did to so thoroughly piss off Zeus hangs like the Sword of Damocles, speaking of myth.
Will: I see what you did there! I’m interested to see how this Diana — so shaped by Hell and darkness — interacts with Ares. But I didn’t need to see that in this issue or the next 10. *cough* Joker *cough*
Matt: I am curious what nemeses this Diana will be facing. With Circe off the board as a villain, her primary rogues are Ares, Cheetah and Dr. Psycho. Judging by the Harbinger, this is going to be a mythic foe the first arc, but this book does a really good job of not jamming in mentions of all the characters you expect in issue #1. No Steve Trevor, Etta Candy or any of those big rogues. It feels like a slower build than the Batman book, and I’m down with that.
Will: Gay Steve Trevor? Gender-swapped Steve Trevor? Gay, gender-swapped Steve Trevor? Let’s get funky.
Matt: Really front facing the queerness of Wonder Woman would be something I hope DC would have the guts to do in 2025. Let’s do it!
Buy Absolute Wonder Woman #1 here.
Above All, Do No Harm
Matt: I was with this issue pretty much till the last page. And if you have been listening/reading me for any amount of time, you know why that last page made me angry, or at least frustrated.
Will: Once again, gotta shout out colleague, friend of the pod and all around *actually* swell guy Robert Secundus for spoiling the shit out of this story on Twitter. WAIT AT LEAST A COUPLE OF HOURS BEFORE THE DISCOURSE, BOBBY. Anywho, yeah, if I was going to write a brand new, shiny Batman story, I don’t think I’d spend my time dancing in between raindrops trying to trace the overall arc of Joe Chill’s life. I probably also wouldn’t introduce a new character we *know* is going to also be our new and shadowy villain.
Matt: It’s not just that. Please prepare for the standard Batman origin rant: I detest connecting Joe Chill, or anyone, to the Wayne murder, in any way that makes it an agenda/a conspiracy/a plot. Batman’s war is with crime. When you make the murder of the Waynes a vendetta, it limits that, it makes him at war with this one guy and the people behind him. When it’s random street crime, there is no reason, there is no end point. That makes his quest all the more quixotic, and defines who Batman is.
That is also a very Tom Taylor move. Taylor doesn’t give a crap about continuity if it doesn’t suit his story, and makes fundamental changes to backstories when it doesn’t match with his story. I kind of expected this would come up at some point, and I’m kinda glad it came out right at the top.
Will: Taylor feels very… JJ Abrams-esque, you know? Until now, Taylor’s stuff didn’t have the capacity to bother me in that insufferable nerd way — either he was in some kind of alternate universe or working with a hero I’m not invested in. But this? This is the wheelhouse. And good goddamn, please help us if this is his “Into Darkness.”
You’re right on all the Chill points. He can’t be special. He can’t be part of a plan, either from the mob or the greater cosmos — it just cheapens the mythos. And this here feels like too much of a cute coincidence: Thomas Wayne makes an ethical choice to save Joe Chill at the possible expense of a daughter who lives anyway. A coincidence within a coincidence!
Overall? I thought this was sloppy. Beautiful but sloppy. Wanna know the two stupidest things that bothered me?
Matt: I mean, sure. Wouldn’t be much of a column if I didn’t.
Will: First, Joe Chill does not have an NHS number! This is America, damn it, and we face financial ruin in the absence of employer-sponsored health care, thank you very much. I don’t know how that made it through editing. Second, Oracle has this line about a kid Batman is chasing, how fast and spry he is: “You’ve had more knee surgeries than he has knees.” Huh? The kid only has two knees, Matt.
Matt: Will Nevin, ladies, gents and nonbinary friends: He will always hold it against a writer who don’t speak ‘Merican.
Will: Get your English shit outta here!
Matt: Australian in this case, but the point is made.
Will: Commonwealth, then. Jeeze.
Matt: Those are little points, but I can see them being frustrating. There was stuff here to like, for me anyway. It’s so rare to see Thomas Wayne as a doctor and not from Bruce’s perspective. And reinforcing the morality of Thomas, his embrace of the Hippocratic Oath, makes him a fuller character. And making Martha more than just the mother of Bruce and the wife of Thomas, making her the philanthropist and social crusader, helps flesh out a character with even less background than Earth-Prime Thomas.
Will: But even then Taylor couldn’t stop himself from being too cute. As soon as Martha popped in and started suggesting that little baby Chill should have a name, I knew it was going to be Martha. Overall, I think you’re right — there is stuff here to like, most notably the art and Thomas having principles that are imparted to Bruce. Oh, and Alfred. Always great to have him.
Matt: The sins of the father being visited on the son is a classic trope, and in this case that “sin” being principles and mercy makes for a twist on that trope. But by also tying in Joe Chill, it means that Bruce’s life has already been shaped by this, and so now it’s just one more thing that is coming from that one event. It’s too much.
Mikel Janin does absolutely kill the art on this issue. There are few artists in comics who draw more expressive faces, and so giving him an issue that is, what do you think, 60%-70% just character interaction is playing to his strength.
Will: Two more things to talk about (see,*now* is the time for discourse, Bobby): 1) I didn’t like Batman hitting a kid who was in the middle of panicking and apologizing, even if he called himself out on it later, and 2) I guess this is one of the stories in which “Venom” is not canon.
Matt: I am right there with you on your first point. This is what the Batman of Dark Knight Returns would do, not the one that exists in canon.
And not only does Batman hit the kid, but he basically just gives him a backhanded slap. If his concern was with the kid still holding the gun (a fair concern), that was not an incapacitating blow. If this kid wanted to shoot, he would have the minute Batman’s back was turned. A more properly written Batman either talks to the kid, tells him to drop it and orders him to help him save the shopkeeper’s life, or if he does view him as a threat (which I don’t see him doing), he takes him out of the equation. This was just to forward the story.
Will: I don’t think the analogy quite works, but I’m going to call it a narrative lens flare anyway.
Matt: And yes, this is clearly forgetting/ignoring “Venom.” I can’t imagine this drug that will restore Bruce’s youth is going to be something that ends well. I also have to say, the aging Dark Knight was something that was so central to both Ram V and Chip Zdarsky’s run, do we really need to go there again so soon? It’s starting to feel like Tony Stark’s alcoholism; it’s becoming this defining thing that doesn’t need to be mentioned every story, but writers keep going back to the well.
Will: Gotta keep plucking that DKR chicken, Matt. But, hey, this is one of the advantages of having two ongoing universes: Absolute Batman is still a 20-something strapping hoss who doesn’t need to drink the blood of the young to stay fit.
Buy Detective Comics #1,090 here.
Bat-miscellany
- Villains Month is getting nearer to its end, and this week we’re looking at stories about the guy who was Hush before Hush: Black Mask.
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Matt Lazorwitz read his first comic at the age of 5. It was Who's Who in the DC Universe #2, featuring characters whose names begin with B, which explains so much about his Batman obsession. He writes about comics he loves, and co-hosts the podcasts BatChat with Matt & Will and The ComicsXF Interview Podcast.
Will Nevin loves bourbon and AP style and gets paid to teach one of those things. He is on Twitter far too often.
