Solutions can create problems the require solutions that create more problems. A hero and demigod of considerable experience learns this lesson once more in “Planned Extinction,” the third issue in the new weekly DC Digital First series Wonder Woman: Agent of Peace. Writers Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti craft a very concise single-issue adventure for Diana that is brought to the page by artist Daniel Sampere with colors by Adriano Lucas. 

A number of proud soldiers lie dead at the feet of Wonder Woman and General Tolifmar. They’d been killed by a threat brought to Earth by Wonder Woman. She had been called in to halt the potential disaster of a massive asteroid crashing into the planet. An initial assault on the object broke in two. One of the pieces flew off into space. Wonder Woman managed to slow one down and get it to come to rest in the Atlantic. Evidently, it was a spacecraft carrying a deadly sociopathic creature with psychic powers. Now Diana and the gorillas of Gorilla City must hunt the beast down before it becomes an even bigger threat than it already is. 

From plot structure to dialogue and dramatic tension, Conner and Palmiotti construct a thoroughly enjoyable 16 pages of story in this chapter. The characterization of Wonder Woman is deftly nuanced as she is seen in her personal life with Steve Trevor briefly before dealing with one crisis that leads to another in a story that cleverly echoes classic sci-fi peppered with some very poetic bits of dialogue. “The human brain is capable of creating multi-dimensional structures operating in as many as eleven dimensions,” Diana says to the alien entity with which she is engaging in psychic conflict, “I am not only human. I am also a demigod.” She says this having pulled the alien to a tranquil place of meditation within her. Tranquility along a beach serves as a crucial turning point in a conflict in an action sci-fi story...and it works. Conner and Palmiotti are doing a wonderful job here. 

Sampere and Lucas are doing a beautiful job with the visuals as well. Sampere manages an intense and atmospheric world for the adventure to resonate through. From the lush jungle of Gorilla City to the beautiful beach of Diana’s inner beach of tranquility, there’s a powerful sense of sweeping adventure flowing through the issue. Lucas’ color brings an almost breathtakingly vivid depth to the panels, whether in the sunset of the beach, the dark shadows of the jungle, or the overwhelming percussion of Wonder Woman slamming into a meteor just outside the earth’s atmosphere. Palmiotti and Conner take this issue a great distance in a concise span of time. Sampere and Lucas bring it to the page with an impressive impact. 

A wide-reaching series that has already had adventures on Coney Island and one of the tallest mountains on earth now finds its way to Gorilla City in Africa in a compelling alien invasion story. In three brief issues that have been shot out onto the internet over the course of the past month, Conner and Palmiotti have given Wonder Woman in a fun new direction.

Grade: A+