Written by Kelly Thompson
Art by Hayden Sherman
Published by DC Comics
This was a nice surprise when it came out. It also has been a nice surprise in general in the issues following this volume.
The creative team of writer Kelly Thompson and artist Hayden Sherman have really been knocking it out of the park quality wise issue to issue. They obviously have a bigger plan in play as well and I have just found this series incredibly enjoyable.
The whole story starts here in this volume.
This book collects the first seven issues of the series. In it, we see a sort of darker version of Wonder Woman than we are generally used to seeing. Diana is exiled as a baby to the underworld in this comic and raised by the witch known as Circe.
Circe is really bad news as you can imagine, so Diana has a whole new role model here to look up to and not necessarily a good one. The creative team uses this concept to full effect here and there are a lot of interesting wrinkles that come about because of it.
This plot point makes Diana formidable in the area of black magic. We get to see her use it in action a few times in this volume and it makes things very interesting to say the least. This first volume focuses on Diana rising up from the underworld to become a part of earth’s civilization. As you can probably imagine, things don’t go as well as planned. In fact, hell might just be coming to earth in a way that nobody was expecting!
She makes her way to Gateway City. That is where something pretty crazy is happening. There is a ravenous monster that has appeared on its shore and it is threatening to wreck havoc upon the world. Artist Hayden Sherman has designed one hell of a monster here and it is a formidable foe. The scale of this creature is huge and we see that the threat is a pretty severe one. Thankfully, this Wonder Woman is up to the task of challenging it. And challenge it she does!
A lot of the book is basically Wonder Woman fighting and going up against this creature, known as Harbinger Prime. It is pretty damn thrilling to witness. We get to see where this creature comes from and we also get to see why it is doing what it is doing. This Wonder Woman fights a bit differently than most other interpretations, and isn’t afraid to get her hands dirty. The whole thing is pretty thrilling to say the least and a lot of it is unexpected.
There are also a lot of supernatural incidents that are happening around the globe. Wonder Woman has to look into that as they are all related to the Harbinger Pride creature on a way that we don’t expect. Wonder Woman has to look into the Myth of the Amazons which is incredibly intriguing, and we see her delve deeper into this new and complex world. There is a pattern happening with all of these incidents and she even enlists someone by the name of Etta Candy to help her. I love the way the creative team takes these concepts and turns them completely on their head in new ways.
Eventually, Wonder Woman has a breakthrough with all of this but it also leads to new questions. She also has a final confrontation with the Harbinger Prime which leads to something else as well. Following this, we do get a two part story with art by Mattia De Iulis that has to deal with Wonder Woman’s confrontation with Hades just after she decided to defy the gods and leave Hell. It is pretty much a nice cap on the initial story and is very smartly done as well. The whole book really is.
This is one of my favorite interpretations or reinterpretations of Wonder Woman that I have seen done in a long time. The whole thing is really far out but completely accessible and enjoyable. The writing by Kelly Thompson is terrific. I have always found Thompson to be a top notch writer but also underrated and undervalued. If this book changes all of that, I would be more than happy. Artist Hayden Sherman is doing tremendous work here as well and they work great together. I can’t wait to see what this team has in store for us next.
I know it is going to be something completely unique like this first volume of this great comic is for sure.
RATING: A
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