Wonder Woman: Dead Earth
by Daniel Warren Johnson
2020
Wonder Woman: Dead Earth collects a 4-issue miniseries about Wonder Woman waking up from a medically-induced coma into a world that has been ravaged by nuclear war. She discovers a world without heroes, where humanity is on the brink of extinction, where giant monsters haunt the devastated landscape and periodically harry the last surviving remnants of our species.
Wonder Woman is discovered in the Bat Cave by some fortunate scavengers. She joins their tribe, and after being forced into a gladiatorial fight with a horribly mutated Cheetah, offers the tribes-people a new hope if they'll follow her and relocate to Themyscira, the hidden Amazon island, where she's certain that conditions will be better.
Wonder Woman espouses a philosophy of unconditional love, of using her godlike power to offer forgiveness and second chances to anyone who'll accept them, regardless of their past crimes. Cheetah, for example, resents being held in gladiatorial slavery, but Wonder Woman urges her to choose mutual survival over vengeance. In the aftermath of a war, her philosophy reminds me of Truth and Reconciliation.
Interspersed through all this are flashbacks to Wonder Woman's childhood that help to inform how she became the version of the character whom we see here.
On Themyscira, Wonder Woman learns the truth about the nuclear war that ended the world, about what happened to Batman and Superman, about how she ended up in her coma, about the origin of the monsters, about who is responsible - who needs forgiveness, or vengeance.
Johnson's art style is very different from the usual beautiful and statuesque way that Wonder Woman is usually drawn. Here, she looks like a cave woman. But the style suits the end-of-the-world setting. And with their scars, messy hair, muddy ripped clothes, and decidedly un-made-up faces, the characters in this book look, in their own way, maybe more realistic than most comic characters. Johnson's inks look more like marker than pen, and while I don't know his process, if you told me that he inked freehand without a pencil drawing underneath, I would believe you.
Wonder Woman is discovered in the Bat Cave by some fortunate scavengers. She joins their tribe, and after being forced into a gladiatorial fight with a horribly mutated Cheetah, offers the tribes-people a new hope if they'll follow her and relocate to Themyscira, the hidden Amazon island, where she's certain that conditions will be better.
Wonder Woman espouses a philosophy of unconditional love, of using her godlike power to offer forgiveness and second chances to anyone who'll accept them, regardless of their past crimes. Cheetah, for example, resents being held in gladiatorial slavery, but Wonder Woman urges her to choose mutual survival over vengeance. In the aftermath of a war, her philosophy reminds me of Truth and Reconciliation.
Interspersed through all this are flashbacks to Wonder Woman's childhood that help to inform how she became the version of the character whom we see here.
On Themyscira, Wonder Woman learns the truth about the nuclear war that ended the world, about what happened to Batman and Superman, about how she ended up in her coma, about the origin of the monsters, about who is responsible - who needs forgiveness, or vengeance.
Johnson's art style is very different from the usual beautiful and statuesque way that Wonder Woman is usually drawn. Here, she looks like a cave woman. But the style suits the end-of-the-world setting. And with their scars, messy hair, muddy ripped clothes, and decidedly un-made-up faces, the characters in this book look, in their own way, maybe more realistic than most comic characters. Johnson's inks look more like marker than pen, and while I don't know his process, if you told me that he inked freehand without a pencil drawing underneath, I would believe you.
No comments:
Post a Comment