Wonder Woman #35

Say goodnight to a well written, well drawn Wonder Woman comic book!

I have no idea whether Meredith Finch can write a good story or not. I'll judge it when I read it (probably quite harshly!). But I do know that David Finch is only capable of drawing women (and usually drawing them looking fifteen years younger than they really are) and is not capable of drawing men that aren't in shadowy corners of the room and who don't have fish lips. He absolutely is a talented artist but only when he seems interested in the page he's drawing. And that interest only seems to extend to teenaged girls.

On an unrelated note, is Wonder Woman #36 being written by a teenaged girl?

But that small bit should be enough about the Finches for now. I'll have plenty of months in the future to disparage their ancestral line and question how many mutations must have occurred in their chromosomes. For now, let us just enjoy the final chapter in Azzarello and Chiang's run of Wonder Woman. You know, the chapter where we find out that Zeke was actually Zeus who was hiding so that the murderous prophecy of deicide could happen while he was safe in the arms of Wonder Woman?

And it appears Zola has become Athena! The "who" is a cute clue!

Poseidon, as usual, puts up a pretty shitty fight. I always feel bad for Poseidon. He wants to be so majestic and grand but he's just Aquaman writ large. He's just a big fish that's always out of his depths. He's fish stick day in the cafeteria when you were hoping for cheese pizza. He's ten thousand forks when all you wanted was rain on your wedding day. In conclusion, he's a loser and he's always been a loser and the greatest thing he ever accomplished was getting some sailor lost at sea for two decades.

The real adversary, The First Born, arrives to stop Zeke from ascending the throne. Too bad he brought his pal, the S&Minotaur, because that guy is probably going to betray The First Born and side with Wonder Woman. She's the only person that ever showed him mercy or love and he probably never forgot that. But before that can happen, more Gods need to die!

Oh, he'll be all right. I'm pretty sure he can't be killed by his Staff of Healing.

Forget about the Minotaur changing sides. Wonder Woman finds it's easier to gut him than hug him this time. Mostly because he killed a bunch of Amazons and he probably shouldn't have done that if he wanted to keep Wonder Woman as his friend. But the gutting doesn't take because Wonder Woman probably was feeling sentimental when she stabbed him. So instead of beating him, Wonder Woman is beaten by him. And The First Born takes out Zola and kidnaps Zeke.

Things aren't going very well for the heroes! Maybe I was rooting for the wrong side this whole time. Is The First Born the real hero? The child ignored and thrown away by callous parents that returns to punish them for their sins?

I don't think the good guy usually throws babies into bottomless pits, so I think I was rooting for the good guys all along.

I think this is the part of the story where everybody begins singing "All You Need Is Love" and The First Born goes running for his life because that song is so Goddamned repetitive!

But before throwing the baby in the pit and ending the prophecy and winning everything forever, The First Born catches a case of the Antagonist's Compulsion. He waits for Wonder Woman to awaken and then calls for her death at the hands of the S&Minotaur before he kills Zeke. Oh, The First Born. I know you've been locked away in a glacier for thousands of years but you could have at least familiarized yourself with the tropes that always cause the bad guy to fuck up in the end!

The beast refuses to kill Wonder Woman?! Who would have guessed?! WHO?

Seeing The First Born kill the creature that she spared so many years ago, Diana remembers that her most powerful weapon after hugs is mercy. She drops her weapons of war and challenges the First Born to a hug fight.

The First Born tosses Zeke and Zola into the pit but Hermes saves them because his Staff of Healing is also a Staff of Teleportation. It's a really powerful artifact! After that, Wonder Woman hugs The First Born really, really tightly with her Magic Lasso. And that's when Zola sets Zeke down on the Throne of Olympus.

Oh Strife. We all knew it! Practically from issue #1!

Here's what I wrote in my commentary on Issue #1:

By the end of the first issue, the oracles give a typically unclear oracle which leaves Apollo with the possible knowledge that maybe something bad might perhaps be going on and it could be Zeus’s fault, maybe? And that maybe Zeus doesn’t exist yet? Possibly because he got Zola pregnant with himself?!

Thank you! Thank you! I don't call myself Grandmaster Comic Book Reader for nothing!

Although I didn't guess that Zola was actually Athena. I did occasionally wonder where Athena was though. And then in Wonder Woman's Secret Origins, it was a bit telling that Athena had finally made an appearance to help Wonder Woman escape from lesbianism. I mean, from Paradise Island.

The First Born is knocked into the Abyss where he was planning on throwing the Last Born (who is the father of them both). Wonder Woman helps toss him in with a last lecture about love which she hopes he'll meditate on for the next seven thousand years instead of feeding the angry wolf. He is just a scorpion after all!

Tossing an old pair of shoes is actually really liberating.

Wonder Woman pleads with Athena to let the vessel which housed her for twenty plus years continue to live. And so, being wise and/or an owl, Athena agrees. And everybody lives happily ever after! If by everybody you ignore The Minotaur and Cassandra and The First Born and Ares and Poseidon and all of the dead Amazons.

Wonder Woman #35 Rating: +2 Ranking. I'm a heartless, emotionless, uncaring bastard that over intellectualizes everything but this ending may have caused my eyes to water. The best run of Wonder Woman I've ever read! Of course, it's the only run of Wonder Woman I've ever read! I hope the next three years of this comic book are at least tolerable.