Wonder Woman #796 // Review
Steve and Siggy stand against a titan from ancient Greek legend. Diana and Yara stand against a god. Zeus isn’t very happy with Hera’s war on humanity, but neither is a certain Princess Diana of Themyscira in Wonder Woman #796. Writers Becky Cloonan and Michael W. Conrad continue a conflict between gods and mortals in an issue brought to the page with some degree of divine grace by Amancay Nahuelpan and colorist Jordie Bellaire. Bellaire’s back-up story of Young Diana features a similar conflict with a god as the future Wonder Woman comes into direct contact with immortal distress in an exchange rendered with delicate emotional weight by Paulina Ganucheau.
Eros couldn’t let go of his love, so she let him go. Now his dismembered hand is falling to the street below as she falls onto the back of the winged horse. A lost hand is the least of Eros’s concerns as he’s about to get bashed through an office building by Wonder Woman. She’s understandably angry at the magic he’s worked, which has forced so many people on the street below to instantly fall in love with her. He’s going to have a lot of explaining to do. Meanwhile somewhere in the past, young Wonder Woman runs into deeply emotional friction with the goddess Persephone.
Conrad and Cloonan are moving Wonder Woman back in a direction that puts her more in the direct paths of the gods than she’s been in a long time. Her resilience animates a few very intense moments, including an impressive moment with Eros. The extended ensemble gains quite a bit of dramatic momentum as well in a well-modulated multi-tiered conflict. Bellaire’s writing for Young Diana hits a particularly breathtaking high point as the girl who is to become Wonder Woman has a powerful formative moment with a god. Bellaire’s encounter between Diana and Persephone is a BIG payoff for a series that’s run in Wonder Woman for quite some time now.
Nahuelpan’s greatest strength lies in the emotionality of the scenes between Eros and Yara Flor. The complexity of the emotions between god and mortal is given a great deal of strength in a dialogue-heavy encounter that might have fallen heavily on the page otherwise. The conflict between Wonder Woman and Eros has some power to it, with some beautiful framing that gives a stunning perspective on Diana’s strength and power. In the Young Diana feature, Ganucheau’s art lives up to one of the more dramatically intense and emotionally moving moments in Bellaire’s story thus far with deftly layered dramatic moods that make a notable impact given the clean simplicity of Ganucheau’s style.
Gods and mortals shift about in one of the most emotionally engaging issues of Wonder Woman in the past couple of years. Cloonan and Conrad have managed that very, very rare accomplishment of making the extended, rather large ensemble of a title seem just as interesting as the title character herself.
