Written and Illustrated by Joëlle Jones
Published by DC Comics
You know how it goes. You’re a 21-year-old woman of Brazilian extraction visiting the old country, meet a hot tour bus driver named João, you encounter some supernatural forces and then almost get killed by a pair of warrior women on an airplane.
Then you find out you have super-strength, but wreck a passenger plane in the process, but Olympian gods have landed the plane because they’re also looking for you.
Simple stuff, right? Happens to anyone.
Eros, that god of physical love and lust, has appeared on an errand from Hera to bring Yara to Olympus. But just as he missed his arrow’s shot, a gigantic anaconda wreathed in blue flame arrives on the scene and clearly isn’t friendly.
Yara, seeing a man in danger, begins pursuit.
She surely thinks she’s saving an innocent victim from harm, not knowing who he truly is or may want. Yara doesn’t even know who’s chasing her, or that multiple groups of people are chasing her.
But she meets a few more, other creatures from the Brazilian forest who possess the same blue glow of the snake.
Meanwhile, the action moves back to Cassie Sandsmark aka Wonder Girl and Artemis, who are seeking Yara on behalf of Queen Hippolyta and the Bana-Mighdall, respectively. And they’re fighting what appear to be other, rogue Amazons.
After besting the Amazons in combat, Cassie and Artemis team up to continue their search for Yara. Jones gets to flex her comedy muscles here with this odd couple; Cassie all breezy, confident teen, and Artemis the too-serious warrior who is hilariously short-tempered and gruff.
But if Cassie and Artemis hope to reach Yara, they’d better hurry up. Eros stabs Yara with an arrow for her to fall under his spell and take her to Olympus for Hera. But those fearsome creatures, it turns out, are Brazilian and of the land itself. They, like Iara who gifted the bola, are looking to recruit Yara and reveal the roots of her power.
Yara struggles between Eros’ enchantment, and the creatures’ pleas that Yara’s destiny is in Brazil’s soil and she must remain to protect it.
Perhaps Joëlle Jones is using Yara Flor as a commentary on the West. This native daughter of Brazil, who so far appears to be part of a lineage of indigenous warrior women and a culture and mythology all her own, is being taken away by the gods from ancient Greece, what white Westerners revere as the cradle of civilization.
Another captivating issue with propulsive action and beautiful artwork and lots of fightin’ women!
