Written by Becky Cloonan,
Michael Conrad, Jordie Bellaire
Art by Jill Thompson, Paulina Ganucheau
Published by DC Comics
What a delightful issue!
Our last issue of Wonder Woman’s journey through the godsphere showed her emerging in Elfhame, the realm of the faeries, dressed in a flowy renfaire gown.
If you’re going to put the princess in a faerie tale, you’d better do it right.
So imagine my utter pleasure opening up this issue, and seeing the immediately recognizable art of the legendary Jill Thompson!
Exactly the kind of a person who, as part of the original run of The Sandman, would know exactly how to illustrate this tale with the proper look and feel.
And, my word, does she.
This issue is the kind you read and then look over a few more times just to catch every detail from panel to panel.
The fluidity of storytelling, the dynamic posing and expressions; the breeziness of the linework matched by the warmth of the watercolors. It’s all there, and it’s gorgeous.
It also helps that Michael W. Conrad and Becky Cloonan deliver a story and dialog to match Thompson’s art.
You can feel the Sandman fandom and fantasy lore knowledge flow through Elfhame, with its beauty underscored by brutal, capricious, and treacherous magic. The food tricks you, the flowers lull you to sleep, and promises can’t ever be broken. It’s the land of childlike bearing paired with life-and-death consequences and horrors.
Diana and Ratatosk arrive in Elfhame and immediately are attacked by pixies and the newly enthroned King Gwyn. He’s new because the queen was murdered. Diana stands accused, and she and Ratatosk are quickly subdued by the land’s strong, druggy magic as they are imprisoned.
Of course, we know it wasn’t Diana who did the crime. It has to have been the unhinged future-facing half of Janus, still on rampage to slice through and destroy all the godsphere on her path to Earth. Has Janus taken Diana’s image in this realm?
For all this, an epic quest with an old flame, and Ratatosk turned into a human boy, pick this one up.
Also, you’ll live for instantly quotable Diana lines all throughout that sound straight from the history of Leonidas of Sparta.
Here’s one: “I am Wonder Woman, an Amazon, an emissary of the isle of Themyscira … and I can handle you a number of ways.”
Thompson draws that old flame from Asgard with the same plum, closed-mouth grin that I had reading that line.
