Absolute Wonder Woman #9 // Review
Diana holds Dr. Poison off a ledge many stories about the street below. Dr. Poison is a massive juggernaut of a woman in a sealed suit, but Diana effortlessly holds her with one hand. There are tiny mechanized spider monsters that she’s asking to good doctor to deactivate. When she’s done that, she’ll literally send them to hell, but that’s only the beginning of it in Absolute Wonder Woman #9. Writer Kelly Thompson and artist Hayden Sherman continue the single most satisfying entry in the emerging Absolute Universe. Modern darkness twists and fuses with ancient Greek legend in another satisfying adventure that is illuminated by the coloring work of Jordie Bellaire.
Dr. Poison claims that she knows where another Amazon is. It’s information that she had been keeping from Diana, who agrees to let her go in exchange for it. Dr. Poison speaks of a labyrinth beneath the top secret government installation of Area 41. It was there before the installation. It’s something of a prison. No way in. No way out. Diana has no problem with this, though. She makes her own doors. Her first door is going to lead in...right to a minotaur who is fighting-off a small army of fish men.
Thompson expands the mythology of the Absolute with a high-gravity adventure. Tradition states that Wonder Woman possesses the wisdom of Athena. Recent writers like Thompson and King have explored that wisdom with extreme cleverness. Diana’s wisdom in Absolute Wonder Woman comes across with striking clarity in the ninth issue as she navigates the complexities of a cautious descent into an ostensibly inescapable maze. Thompson does some beautiful work with Diana’s dark altruism throughout the issue. It’s a sharply-woven rendering of something very reassuringly familiar that also manages to feel quite engagingly new.
Diana doesn’t allow herself a whole lot of emotion in the course of the issue. Nevertheless, Sherman’s work is deft enough to provide a great deal of emotional expression in subtle changes in posture and facial expression. Some of the perspective in the issue is pretty dazzling as well. Thompson’s colors aid in a wonderful sense of depth in some of the bigger shots. The maze itself has its own kind of spectral illumination thanks to some dazzling illumination brought to the page by Bellaire. The mystic luminous reds and blues of the labyrinth below Area 41 give the place its own kind of distinctive presence on the page. It’s really cool seeing Bellaire allowed to totally wash over the visuals of an issue in such a big way.
Sherman and Bellaire are doing something with the visuals that seems every bit as distinctive as what Thompson is doing with the scripting. Diana has met minotaurs before. She’s been in a labyrinth on more than one occasion as well. She’s been in search of lost Amazons. There’s nothing new about basic components of the story that Thompson and company are conjuring. They’re putting it all together in a way that makes it feel like a totally new story, though.
Grade: A
