Wonder Woman: Agent of Peace #18 // Review
There’s a minotaur on the loose in Washington D.C. Colonel Steve Trevor is having a great deal of difficulty dealing with it. Thankfully, his good friend Diana shows-up to rectify the situation. She’s going to find that dealing with the threat is a lot more complicated than it seems in Wonder Woman: Agent of Peace #18. Writer Cavan Scott tells a concise tale of contemporary fantasy that is brought to the page with some intensity by artist Jose Lucas and inker Jonas Trindade. Colorist Rex Lokus stylishly pulls the art into the third dimension with impressive depth and radiance.
The minotaur is making a mess of things in the nation’s capital. Its heavy fist smashes into the hood of a car, smashing it beyond repair. Its deafening bellowing is only making matters worse. Diana arrives and instantly assesses the situation. Before long, she’s having a conversation with the poor beast below street level. The minotaur’s a nice guy named Reemo. It’s lost. As it turns out, it’s now become the property of a villainous entrepreneur who calls herself Roulette. Now Wonder Woman and her new friend must fight in Roulette’s gladiatorial arena. There’s a lot more than money at stake.
It can be tricky to get a story to fit into a single issue for a series like Agent of Peace. Every issue is meant to be totally self-contained without any ongoing story arcs. Any conflict that’s introduced has to be resolved at the end of the chapter. U.K. freelancer Cavan Scott crams a story that is roughly 5-10 pages shorter than it should be. From Washington D.C. to Roulette’s arena, the story really needs a little bit more length. The opening sequence between Diana and Reemo is beautifully rendered, but the resolution at issue’s end feels rushed. The basic plot is easy enough to follow, but the significance of what’s going on feels a bit lost in the momentum of the central conflict.
Lucas and Trindade do a beautiful job of conjuring the action between Diana and Reemo at the opening of the issue. There’s a profound sense of the contrast between hero and minotaur. Lokus amplifies Lucas and Trindade’s clever perspective work with coloring that lends a gorgeous depth to the panel. Things get a little bit lost once the action adjourns to Roulette’s arena. The arena’s mystical Pit Mistress Gorgyra (formerly a nymph of Hades.) Gorgyra’s surreally overwhelming physique is a powerful visual that would make her an appealing villain in the future.
Agent of Peace has had a really good track record over the course of its first 18 issues. The rush of one-shot stories isn’t always going to be genius. This one is a straight-ahead action drama that could have been far better as a two-part story, but it’s fun to see Cavan Scott swing through a few pages with a very respectable adventure for one of DC’s longest-lived characters.
