Absolute Wonder Woman #7 // Review
Hades sits next to Lady Persephone. (She’s on his right.) On his left sits Circe who cannot speak as her mouth is completely covered. They sit in audience at an arena in the underworld bearing witness to Diana as she fights to the death with a noble adversary. There’s a legend involved involving an ancient tale of a lady and a tiger. All this and Francis the flying devil pig in Absolute Wonder Woman #7. Writer Kelly Thompson delivers another admirably-told story with artist Mattia De Iulis. Having explored a bit of adventure on Earth, Thompson and company deliver a very satisfying tale told entirely in the underworld.
Ages ago Diana slept peacefully in bed on the wild isle in the underworld. Circe called upon Hecate for some sort of guidance. It’s not easy getting audience with Hecate. She is swift in delivering an ancient text: the story of the princess and the tiger. Diana is told the tale over and over again throughout her upbringing. It’s a simple tale made all the more cunningly complicated by any attempt at gleaning meaning from it. If Diana is to survive her time in Hades’ arena, she’s going to have to learn the most important lesson from it.
Thompson delivers a staggeringly clever story about stories and the lessons they reveal. It’s the type of things that’s been cascading its way through legend since the dawn of storytelling. Thompson is able to make it feel fresh and new in spite of this. Diana and Circe come across with great heroism in the face of great danger. There’s a grand feeling of ancient legend moving about the page which is interesting as it is clearly something that Thompson has been quite cunning in crafting in a way that feels totally new. Impressive stuff.
Mattia De Iulis mixes a very contemporary style of comic book art with something that feels like it’s drawing on imagery from ancient aesthetics. The legend of the princess and the tiger is brought to the page with the silhouetted aesthetic of a Grecian urn. Beautiful stuff. Diana has the opportunity to call on some pretty powerful forces in the course of the comic...those forces assert themselves on the comics page with substantial power under the influence of Mattia De Iulis. Everything about the visual reality of the seventh issue feels remarkably well-rendered.
It’s remarkable that the series has already burned through seven issues. There’s so much that’s being explored with such a strong delivery of such a fresh perspective...the first year of the series is passing by like a bit of a dream. Though it is quite distinctly unlike any previous incarnation of Wonder Woman, it draws on a reality that feels like it’s been there since the beginning. Thompson opened the series with a fresh perspective on Diana on Earth. She continues a thoroughly satisfying opening year with a fresh perspective on Diana in the realm of the gods themselves. It’s going to be fun seeing where she takes Diana next.
