Wonder Twins #9 // Review
When DC announced its first round of titles under its new Wonder Comics banner, Wonder Twins was announced as a six-issue mini-series. The first few issues were fantastic comics, and soon the title’s remit was expanded to twelve issues. With issue #9, it’s not entirely clear if the expansion was the right idea.
A lot happens in Wonder Twins #9, though it’s unclear how much of it actually matters. Zan and Jayna join Batman and Superman in dealing with an international incident involving refugees. Jayna explains to Polly Math the reason for her and her brother’s exile to Earth and begins to hatch a plan to free Polly’s father from the Phantom Zone. Polly explains her father’s greatest failure. The Scrambler tries to initiate the Great Scramble but fails. And all of this sort of connects at the end with a cliffhanger.
Writer Mark Russell, whose strength lies in character, dialogue, and humor, seems to be having difficulty filling twelve issues with a coherent plot. The return of The Scrambler is welcome, but his placement seems almost pointless. Aside from setup to a gag with a disappointing follow-through. The sequence with Batman and Superman, while connected thematically in the most tenuous of ways, seems similarly pointless. The secret to the Twins’ relocation to Earth is interesting, and it ties into Filo Math’s exile unexpectedly.
Stephen Byrne’s art remains solid. His only-slightly-cartoony style fits Russell’s humor well, and he particularly shines in the flashback sequences to Exxor, the Twins’ home planet. Byrne’s style makes the action-filled Batman and Superman sequence seem slightly ridiculous, though that’s probably an appropriate choice for this book. Letterer Dave Sharpe handles the book’s preponderance of exposition well.
Wonder Twins had a promising start, and there’s still some good material here. One wonders, though, if the title might have been better served with the shorter run, it was initially promised to maintain the title’s focus rather than diffuse the book’s humor and themes over twice the length.
