Michael W. Conrad

Too many cooks for this incoherent slurry of a story. Might be time to set Wonder Woman aside again for a while.

FOR REFERENCE:

• Young Diana in "Make Hay While the Sun Shines" / Jordie Bellaire, writer; Paulina Gnucheau, artist
• Young Diana in "A New Leaf" / Jordie Bellaire, writer; Paulina Gnucheau, artist
• Trial of the Amazons: Part 1, Trial of the Amazons #1 / Stephanie Williams, Vita Ayala, Joëlle Jones, Michael W. Conrad, and Becky Cloonan, writers; Laura Braga, Skylar Patridge, Joëlle Jones, and Elena Casagrande, artists
• Trial of the Amazons: Part 2, Nubia & the Amazons #6 / Stephanie Williams and Vita Ayala, story; Stephanie Williams, script; Alitha Martinez, pencils; Mark Morales and Alitha Martinez, inks
• Trial of the Amazons: Part 3, Wonder Woman #785 / Michael W. Conrad and Becky Cloonan, writers; Rosi Kämpe, artist
• Trial of the Amazons: Part 4, Trial of the Amazons: Wonder Girl #1 / Joëlle Jones, writer and artist
• Trial of the Amazons: Part 5, Wonder Woman #786 / Michael W. Conrad and Becky Cloonan, writers; Rosi Kämpe and Becky Cloonan, artists
• Trial of the Amazons: Part 6, Trial of the Amazons: Wonder Girl #2 / Joëlle Jones, writer; Joëlle Jones and Adriana Melo, artists
• Trial of the Amazons: Finale, Trial of the Amazons #2 / Becky Cloonan, Michael W. Conrad, Vita Ayala, Stephanie Williams, and Joëlle Jones, writers; Elena Casagrande, Laura Braga, Skylar Patridge, Adriana Melo, and Joëlle Jones, artists
• Covers and Variant Covers / Jim Cheung, Rose Besch, Alitha Martinez, Kyle Baker, Travis Moore, Paulina Ganucheau, Joëlle Jones, Jeff Dekal, Babs Tarr, Jen Bartel, Rafael Albuquerque, Tiago da Silva, Juliet Nneka, and Nicola Scott… (more)

I dropped out of the Wonder Woman series a few volumes back out of boredom and have skipped ahead to see if Becky Cloonan can bring some new energy to the title.

Soooooo . . . Wonder Woman has gotten herself dead or she's ascending to godhood or something at the end of Dark Knights: Dark Metal (not to be confused with her subsequent death for Dark Crisis mind you) -- and now finds herself in the afterlife. But not the afterlife of Greek mythology; no, no, she's in Valhalla. Turns out some rogue god is causing problems across the pantheons, so Wonder Woman has to set aside the rest and relaxation of death and get back to work tracking this big bad villain across the multiverse, with stops in Tartarus, Earth-11, the Phantom Zone, the Fifth Dimension, Gemworld, and a limbo called the In-Between. Fortunately she's helped by a cute squirrel (!).

It's a kinda cheesy, kinda fun road trip, and it all becomes a metaphor for healing the rift between the extremism of MAGA blindered nostalgia and Antifa anarchist revolution. Y'know, the kind of big, hopeful gesture WW is known for.

It's good enough, I'm going to keep on and check out some of the spin-off titles with Nubia and the new Wonder Girl.… (more)