Wonder Woman, Tome 1 : Liens De Sang (2012) - Plot & Excerpts
When it comes to super heroes, I tend to lean more Marvel than DC, and I realized it's because I often look at DC heroes and find them off-putting. They're either gods or Batmans. Gods, like Green Lantern and Superman, can be boring because they're so powerful that only the most extreme or weird challenges get in their way, which often seems to involve pages of them floating in space having serious conversations. Batmans are just played out, especially since actual Batman has about 20 different books a month all on his own.Azzarello's Wonder Woman probably gets called a reinvention, but to me it's a lot like Jeff Smith's work on Shazam. They both went back to the core character, really considered why it's interesting, and expanded from there. Changing a character to something else entirely always suggested to me that someone shouldn't have been assigned the character in the first place. This book presents a Wonder Woman who's confident, assertive, and at times pretty darn clever. Unlike a lot of books of this type, she doesn't feel like a projection of someone's ideals.It just highlights one of the best things you can do when it comes to inclusiveness in comics. You don't have to write a story pandering to demographics, just write something with interesting characters acting the way it makes sense, and make some of them women. Don't get weird about it.I didn't expect to like this series as much as I did, since I often found Azzarello's 100 Bullets convoluted and frustrating, but given a different genre he certainly rose to the challenge. It's a series worth continuing. Sort of a jerky start, especially with how stereotyped and boring Hera started out, but things warmed up a bit by the time Hermes was allowed to be more involved. In respect to the gods here, I don't really understand why they were designed to be so...boring looking and lackluster. Other than Wonder Woman herself, the character designs leave a lot to be desired, which is a shame given how remarkably different and charming the style is for the book. If I didn't see Hades as I kept reading, I would think that I could chalk this up to DC's general distaste to being seen as enjoying or making "comic books" lately. Wonder Woman herself wasn't doing much for me in this volume, but I pushed on to the next anyway and am glad I did, as I can assure you things heat up soon and Diana is allowed to be a character again. Not the best start, but once you continue, a more than serviceable lead-in to the good stuff.
What do You think about Wonder Woman, Tome 1 : Liens De Sang (2012)?
While I wish WW played a stronger role I enjoyed the story line, art and new take on WW's origin!
—Shawnee
What fun. I'm looking forward to reading more. I love the bold lines and color palate.
—blaze
