Wonder Woman Evolution #6 // Review
Diana is on the run from all of her Amazon sisters. (But not really.) Everyone on Themyscira is hunting her down (but only in a nightmare of a trial by some strange alien intelligence.) Good thing she’s not alone. (Or is she?) Maybe that’s Donna Troy backing her up. Maybe it isn’t. Things don’t get any easier for her in Wonder Woman - Evolution #6. Writer Stephanie Phillips continues a journey into the psyche of Wonder Woman with a story that is brought to the page by penciller Mike Hawthorne and inker Adriano Di Benedetto. Color comes to the story courtesy of Jordie Bellaire.
The Themyscirans are only a part of the equation. Donna says they’re not real. Diana doesn’t know what to believe. Donna takes her to a place not far into the future. New York is a decaying wasteland. This IS the DC universe, but it wasn’t some megalomaniacal superpower that destroyed it. It was something far more insidious. Wonder Woman makes a promise to a dying mother. She will change things. Is it a promise she can live up to? Is any of what she’s seeing even remotely real? Diana has much to learn about the future, the nature of reality, and most importantly--herself.
Phillips’ narrative teeters back and forth along a very tight line. Judgment of humanity by way of science fiction is incredibly difficult to finesse, but she’s doing a solidly respectable job of keeping the narrative balanced. Wonder Woman’s optimism has always been her greatest, most distinct power. Phillips wields that optimistic altruism deftly enough to keep the story from falling over the edge into a dark condemnation of all things human. The contrast of super-powered heroism against the darkness of humanity almost approaches a kind of genius in moments in and within the sixth installment of the series.
Hawthorne and DiBenedetto excavate a dark future Manhattan without a hell of a lot of detail in the background. A couple of establishing shots are powerful enough to lock in the reality of a possible future. Then things get personal. The darkness of the survivors underground provides a powerful counterpoint to the golden twilight of humanity in Bellaire’s colors. The heroic climax to the issue feels like a towering triumph thanks to, in large part to, cleverly nuanced intensity on Bellaire’s part. The cool grey of the world beyond Wonder Woman’s trial makes for a very potent atmospheric conclusion to the issue.
The plot that reveals itself more fully at issue’s end might coax the entire plot in a direction that could seem pretty silly if Phillips isn’t careful. The nature of heroism and possible twistings of altruism has been explored in the pages of comics in great depth quite a lot over the years. The story that Phillips is working with might become a victim of its own ambition if she doesn’t find the right insight at the heart of her story. The territory she’s exploring has been paved over pretty heavily in countless panels over the past few decades.
