Okay, as promised, talking about Wonder Woman #600. You've been warned.

My sun burn is getting better- a situation I'm finding very appealing.

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Went out to pick up my comics in a bright bright sunshiny day- which means an excursion with my tilly hat which I will go ahead and pretend is an awesome cowboy hat as per usual. That plus my shorts which rest a full inch above my white white legs, my tall socks, my loitering in a Food Basics while singing along to the tunes they're playing... I see I'm an old man. Wonderful.

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Got my previous pay, and today was a pay day as well- I haven't had this money all at once in years. Allow me a moment to luxuriate before I pay a bunch of debts.

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Okay, so let me talk about Wonder Woman #600- first of all it was released the week after Batman #700 and Superman #600, so keep in mind everything about this issue is considered in relation to those two books.

First is the loving introduction by Lynda Carter, a name so synonymous with Wonder Woman it may as well be another secret identity for her. Which would actually be a lot better (i.e. less obvious) than Diana Prince. So, introduction- a big plus over Superman and Batmans books, neither of which had one.

The first story has Wonder Woman teamed up with a bunch of other female heroes against some evil robot sirens- so, yes there's a reason there aren't any men in this little battle- but if you have enough time to mobilize an army of heroines you could probably get, I don't know, Red Tornado (a robot) or Superman with a sound dampening helmet or SOMETHING. Really, my trouble is that it's a contrived way to get a whole bunch of the super women together so that they can go nuts at the fact that they got to work with Wonder Woman after the fact. The story would have been far more satisfying had it just been Wonder Woman and say... Supergirl teamed up. We could have been afforded some real interaction then, a true reminder of why Wonder Woman is awesome, as opposed to a bunch of random characters telling us "wow, she's pretty great, amiright?"

Although I'm complaining, it did end on an awesome note- Wonder Woman ditches the other super dudes to attend the graduation for Vanessa Kapatelis- a character important to the Wonder Woman series as done by George Perez in the 80's, so she's been around about as long as I am. Wonder Woman tends to get her series cut off and restarted, certain plot points getting brushed aside in the fallout, and to get some closure on this particular person is sweet and appropriate.

The second story was done by Amanda Conner, best known for her work on the cute-yet-cheesecake filled Powergirl series, pulling double duty as artist and writer. It was okay, except for the inclusion of Batgirl... she served no purpose in the story. And even though she was only in five panels Connor managed to get her all wrong...

I know that sounds dumb and really geeky, but come on. Batgirl used to be a great character but she hasn't been written properly in something approaching five years. In fact, getting Batgirl wrong has become something of an internet meme (well, maybe a niche meme). It would be amazing if Connor was purposefully using Batgirl wrong as a joke, but that'd be pretty far fetched.

There's the third story that's pretty much just a goofy brawl with Superman and Wonder Woman teamed up against some guy I don't really recognize (and if I don't know who it is, I'm pretty sure his name isn't going to help anyone else. Okay, fine, it's Aegeus. I still don't know anything about him). It's a throwaway story that would have been better served as the actual cold opening going into the graduation from the first story. But maybe that's just me.

We're given a prologue of the upcoming Wonder Woman storyarc by J, Michael Straczynski, a writer whom I have a lot of trouble with. He tries WAY to hard to upset the various applecarts without remembering what made them work so well in the first place.

Like, "wouldn't this applecart be cooler and faster without the APPLES!?!"
"Straczynski, I think that'd defeat the purpo-"
"Too late, I already got rid of them."

And yet he's the upcoming writer for both Superman and Wonder Woman. Well, two books I won't be buying.

But anyway, the Prologue Straczynski gives us is of an alternate timeline where everything is messed up. It's basically Back to the Future 2, so I would enjoy it in theory.

But after the fact we're given a mini essay from Straczynski on the new costume for the story- he explains how fans see Wonder Woman in a very limited way and that he needed to work to expand that. An idea I actually agree with, but to solve that problem with a different timeline i.e. something that will get wiped away by the end of the story, and really a different person- Straczynski isn't working on solving the problem, he's only putting off dealing with the problem or giving it to the NEXT writer.

That plus, this all new all different costume... she's got a leather jacket and pants. Fair enough, it is pretty awesome. It was especially awesome when the 90's happened.

But it's troubling... I mentioned this was a mini essay specifically concerned with the costume; he mentions her gauntlets leave a "W" on guys faces when they get punched (which is just dumb anyways), but doesn't go into why exactly she has such a thing in the first place. It's all superficial, it's all image. There have got to be twice as many pin ups of Wonder Woman in this comic than in Superman #700 and Batman #700 combined.

Wonder Woman is the most prominent female super hero in all of comics, that's a pretty big deal as far as I'm concerned- but for the most part this book doesn't honour that.

Wow, I sound like I love Wonder Woman.
She can be pretty good.