Wonder Woman #19 Review

WONDER WOMAN #19
Written by Gail Simone
Art and Cover by Bernard Chang

I've been giving Simone's run on Wonder Woman a lot of praise since she started. It's well deserved, but this was the first issue that's fallen a little flat, in comparison, which is odd, since I enjoyed the first part of this storyarc. I think the problem stems from Simone adding too many plot twists to what should have been an otherwise straight forward story.

Case in point, last issue, we were introduced to the Khund, an alien race Diana has had conflict with before. They worship her and errected statues in her name after they defeated her, being the warrior race that they are. They brought her to their planet to help combat an alien menace that was killing Khunds by the millions, destroying them city by city, with no way for the Khunds to fight back. The issue ended with Diana in one of the strange craters of a former city, it filled with a strange green liquid, and was confronted by a random Green Lantern.

Seems like it should have been a straight forward 'stop the renegade GL, save the Khunds' or 'find the real culprit with the GL' type of story. Nuh uh. We needed the GL to have a tragic past and want revenge on the Khund, the green liquid is some kind of sentient alien thingy that is helping / using / in cahoots with the GL, the Khunds had to betray Wonder Woman and try to bomb the city and we needed the requisite fight scene with the GL. It was chaotic and painful to follow near the end. In fact, I have no idea how this book ended.

It was fine up until after Diana fought and then made peace with the GL and we got his backstory, but it all went to hell after that. The ending consisted of Diana telling the GL to do something, then we get a scene of him explaining the GL oath to some Khund. Where'd he get the ring? How's this stop the Khund from attacking other planets and civilizations? Who's the Khund (I think it's the princess, but can't tell)? Where'd the green goo go? What the hell was it?

In spite of the confusion and ending of this issue, this isn't Countdown bad or anything near that. I don't regret buying this book and I still enjoyed it, to an extent, but I also acknowledge there were definitely some flaws in this book and I probably over emphasized them in the review.

Verdict - Check It. This arc is over and for a two issue arc, it was hit and miss, but nothing I'd consider dropping the book over. I think the next arc should decide if Simone will be able to keep Wonder Woman interesting.

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