Wonder Woman Generica: Wonder Woman: A Twist Of Fate Is A Scattershot Graphic Novel!

The Good: Morality, Moments of conflict
The Bad: Very stale plot, Dull character progression and resolution, Lack of vibrancy to the writing or the character
The Basics: Wonder Woman: A Twist Of Fate puts Diana in the middle of two conflicts as the is buffeted around without actually developing.


Meredith Finch must hate Brian Azzarello. I'm not basing that assertion on anything I know about either person, but I can imagine how it would be to finally get the crack at writing an amazing character like Wonder Woman and be left with the momentum for the character headed in a direction that the editors say I could not abandon and be pissed by having no idea what to do with it. Meredith Finch's writing in Wonder Woman: A Twist Of Fate is the graphic novel equivalent of trying to draw clues in Pictionary when one has only the vaugest idea what the card they've been given is.

As a result, Wonder Woman: A Twist Of Fate tries to juggle Diana's roles as Queen Of The Amazons (epic fail - she barely spends any time on Themyscira in the book), member of the Justice League (doesn't happen in this book!), heroine on her own (a little bit) and God Of War (which she continues to be all talk, no action on in Wonder Woman: A Twist Of Fate). Finch was dealt a pretty shit hand when Brian Azzarello left the book with the brand new momentum of Wonder Woman having so many roles to fill and Wonder Woman: A Twist Of Fate makes it pretty obvious that Finch was not ready to write the character in the directions she was headed when she was given the writing responsibilities for the book. So, Wonder Woman picks up a new costume, hunts Donna Troy, is hunted by possibly the least-inspired tool of a villain yet, and is moved around yet again as part of a conspiracy involving Greek gods that allows for Diana to do exceptionally little to resolve the problems in which she finds herself.

Diana arrives at Mt. Olympus to talk with the imprisoned Donna Troy. After her brief visit, she sees Zola, Zeke, Hera and then gets a new costume from Hephaestus. Returning to Earth, she encounters a young man threatening to blow himself up if he does not get to meet Wonder Woman. Talking her way out of the fight the boy initiates gives him time to escape, arm himself with weapons that might give him a fighting chance, and then attack her later as she comes out of a night club in London. Aegeus is the young man and he has been equipped with arrows that might do harm to Diana and a pegasus. While Diana is trying to learn her assailant's identity, Strife releases Donna Troy from her prison.

To try to find Troy, Diana unsuccessfully enlists the aid of both Hera and Milan. Donna Troy uses her newfound freedom to track down the Fates in London, where she learns they have no ability to help her die. Tracking Donna, Diana runs afoul of Aegeus again and he is able to shoot her with an arrow before fleeing. While Diana is attacked by Aegeus, who wants to take over as God Of War, Donna rescues Violet from a violent man. But when Link kills Donna Troy and Aegeus catches up with Diana and turns Troy to stone, Wonder Woman's world spins out of control. And the god backing Aegeus finally shows up for a showdown with Diana!

Spoiler alert; Diana is not the one who resolves the conflict in Wonder Woman: A Twist Of Fate and when the book's true, entirely hapless, hero emerges it is one of the least satisfying resolutions to a volume I have ever read.

Almost immediately, Wonder Woman: A Twist Of Fate gets off to a bad start. Diana, feeling the time crunch of all her responsibilities, takes a break to fly all the way up to Mt. Olympus to visit the imprisoned Donna Troy. That's fine and it illustrates a moral core of super heroes almost never visited in comic books; Wonder Woman does not simply imprison Troy and throw away the key, she tries to be a part of her potential rehabilitation. Cool. But the "conversation" is two pages (with the bulk of the second page being Diana flying away still talking to Donna Troy!) . . . so it goes nowhere. It takes Diana longer to get to and from Troy's cell than the time she spends actually interacting with the prisoner. As a result, there is a sense that the book is playing lip service to Diana's ethics, as opposed to showing a depth or something truly original for Wonder Woman.

On the plus side, Diana is characterized in Wonder Woman: A Twist Of Fate as her usual moral self. The character does not change, but she is not diminished, either.

The artwork in Wonder Woman: A Twist Of Fate is good. The colors are vibrant, but the best panels are in the final chapter when Wonder Woman reverts to a prior costume and David Linch is given a chance to draw the Cheetah.

Every now and then, I encounter something that I experience, I say my peace, and I can't muster up the enthusiasm to evaluate more. In some ways, it is appropriate that that is where I fell with Wonder Woman: A Twist Of Fate, as reading the book gives the reader the sense that that is where Meredith Finch was as well. The anthology reads like someone who was given an assignment - "Wonder Woman is now God Of War and Donna Troy is being thrown into the New 52 Universe, do what you can" - and she just keeps circling the drain, fleshing out the pages by simply repeating the assignment. Donna Troy has a hefty scene touring London, Wonder Woman does nothing that is actually godlike in the theater of war, and it's a tough sell for the reader that as the new God Of War, Diana goes out dancing. But hell, Wonder Woman survived working at a fast food restaurant, she can survive this era of her history. But like Wonder Woman working fast food, it is hard to imagine anyone reading Wonder Woman: A Twist Of Fate and ever hunting the volume down to read it again.

For other Wonder Woman volumes from The New 52, please check out my reviews of:
Blood
Guts
Iron
War
Flesh
Bones

2.5/10

For other graphic novel reviews, please check out my Graphic Novel Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2016 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Fractured Narrative, Fractured Art: Wonder Woman: War-Torn Gets Off To A Rough Start!

The Good: A few panels of artwork, Coloring, Character conflict
The Bad: Very choppy writing, Choppy narrative, Erratic artwork
The Basics: Wonder Woman: War-Torn reads like a good idea executed on a time crunch, attempting to do too many things . . . poorly.


I admire ambition in writing and with the graphic novel medium, I have come to appreciate both complexity and the skill that comes in making all of the various elements come together. A good graphic novel is like a good movie; the script may be translated into a magnificent work of art that expresses deeper themes and ideas well. A bad graphic novel is just a collection of comic books. Sadly, Wonder Woman: War-Torn is closer to the latter than the former.

Wonder Woman: War-Torn is a compilation of six comic books - issues 36 - 40, plus the Annual, and marks the beginning of Meredith Finch's term as lead writer of Wonder Woman. Finch teamed up with her husband, artist David Finch, for the chapters collected in Wonder Woman: War-Torn and it is unsurprising to me after reading the book that Meredith Finch has very few books under her belt including this one. The writing in Wonder Woman: War-Torn is exceptionally choppy and the transitions between scenes and panels are painfully abrupt. As a result, the process of reading Wonder Woman: War-Torn is very off-putting as readers find themselves flung between Diana's brief stints on Themyscira and equally brief adventures with the Justice League following clues surrounding apparent natural disasters that are swallowing whole villages around the world.

Opening with Diana in London being called to the Justice League, while on Themyscira, Clyemne voices an objection to men being allowed on Paradise Island. When an abrupt natural disaster wipes out tens of thousands of people in Thailand and nearby, Diana freaks out and attacks Swamp Thing in Thailand. While Aquaman talks both parties down, Diana continues to feel like she is being stretched too thin. Diana returns home to see how integration with the Amazon men is going and learns her mother has died. After her mother's death and another attack on Themyscira, the council on Paradise Island demands Diana return. The crisis with the Stymphalian Birds reaches its peak, Diana is called away again . . . just as an underground faction brings Donna Troy into the world to seize Themyscira.

When a dragon attacks Themyscira, Dessa is killed and Diana learns that as the God Of War, she is now a magnet for discord. But Strife has implanted that horrifying dream in Diana to shake her and in her rattled state, she is eager to leave. Recalled by Cyborg when a village in Peru is swallowed up, Diana is absent from Themyscira when Derinoe introduces Donna Troy to the Council. As Troy rallies the Amazon women against the men Diana brought to Paradise Island, Wonder Woman discovers she may be responsible for the natural disasters around the world. In trying to resolve the conflict, the Justice League learns of the aliens harvesting bodies below the Earth and after brokering a peace with the aliens, she returns to Themyscira to discover just how dangerous Donna Troy is!

Wonder Woman: War-Torn ends with a flashback story that finally fills in the backstory of Derinoe. Knowing the motivation of Derinoe only after her apparent death is almost as off-putting as the writing style and the lack of resolution for the main plot that allows the Justice League to get involved in the Wonder Woman book. In addition to taking the extraterrestrials living underground's word for everything, Diana (and the Justice League) illustrate a pretty powerful idiot streak by not resolving the essential problem they learn about. The aliens were influenced by the buried corpse of the First Born. So, the reader has a reasonable expectation that the body will be dealt with in some alternative form; instead, the story abruptly ends.

Wonder Woman: War-Torn is hampered immediately by a very choppy writing style. For example, the leap from the Justice League satellite to Wonder Woman attacking Swamp Thing is terribly abrupt. The reader is left to believe that Diana saw the carnage from orbit, arrived in Thailand still that angry, and attacked the first thing that moved?! There's character development and then there's just ridiculous redefinitions of the character and there are moments in Wonder Woman: War-Torn that are definitely the latter.

Equally troubling in Wonder Woman: War-Torn are the transitions between chapters. One chapter will end with Diana with the Justice League still in the middle of investigating a cataclysm in nature, the next will open with Themyscira under attack and Diana arriving back home in the middle of the battle. There is very poor flow for developing the story as the narrative hops around erratically. While Diana is feeling stretched too thin, the reader ought to be able to follow the logical progression of her story, but Meredith Finch's writing does not make it easy.

On the artwork front, Wonder Woman: War-Torn features generally good panels, but low flow between panels. In other words, each panel is rendered as a decent static shot of the action for the story, but movement within the panels and especially between the panels is choppy. This is the comic book equivalent of a movie with a long series of bad, hard cuts cobbled together.

What redeems Wonder Woman: War-Torn from being truly awful is the sense of the protagonist's morals. Diana continues to have a strong moral core and there is something refreshing about her turning around Bruce Wayne's chiding on the vigilante in their scene together. Diana wants what is best for Themyscira and she wants to be a part of the Justice League; she struggles to find her balance, but she is guided by ethics, even when she gets angry. While Derinoe is painted very thinly as an antagonist until the flashback, even she is motivated by a desire to save Paradise Island for the (female) Amazons.

Ultimately, Wonder Woman: War-Torn is a rocky start to the next phase of Queen Diana, God Of War's next chapter and Meredith Finch is given the unenviable task, like Wonder Woman, of trying to juggle a slew of plot and character elements already in play. It is, therefore, no surprise that the volume has a rushed tone and choppy artwork, even if fans would hope for better for the venerable hero.

For other Wonder Woman volumes, please check out my reviews of:
Gods And Mortals by George Perez
Wonder Woman: Challenge Of The Gods by George Perez
Beauty And The Beasts By George Perez
Destiny Calling By George Perez
The Contest By William Messner-Loebs
The Challenge Of Artemis By William Messner-Loebs
Second Genesis By John Byrne
Wonder Woman: Lifelines By John Byrne
Paradise Lost By Phil Jimenez
Paradise Found By Phil Jimenez
Down To Earth By Greg Rucka
Eyes Of The Gorgon By Greg Rucka
Land Of The Dead By Greg Rucka
Mission's End By Greg Rucka
The Hiketeia

4.5/10

For other book reviews, please check out my Book Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2016 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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