Wonder Woman #35
So this is it, it’s a final wrap for creative team Brian Azarrello and Cliff Chiang. They’ve had a strong run with the Amazonian goddess and their end goes out just as strong as their run.
Writer: Brian Azarello
Artists: Cliff Chiang & Matthew Wilson
Cover: Cliff Chiang
Publisher: DC
So far, Azarrello and Chiang have shown us a Wonder Woman that was always there but still needed to come out a little more, making her even more multi dimensional than we’ve already seen. She is in fact a walking contradiction—forgiving, unforgiving, kind, ruthless, loving, disagreeable, but that makes her interesting and worth every issue we’ve been given so far. Not to mention her family backstory, and these are elements we see all the way up until the end here. And even in this last issue we still see all of these things. For added heightened story telling we see all of these, one right after the other in a heavily paced battle to the end.
In just a few pages we see the many facets of Wonder Woman, but of course what makes this hold the core of any Wonder Woman story, is that Diana realizes that it doesn’t matter what she is, she has to be true to herself, no matter what they want to call her, or who her family is. She has strong moral values that she holds to and that’s what truly gives her her strength.
The ending and wrap up is poignant, giving Wonder Woman what she’s been fighting for this whole time—love and family with Zeke and Zola.
Diana gets some really great moments this issue, readers are never in doubt just which hero they’re reading about and what she represents. She’s powerful and that’s abundantly clear. She doesn’t abuse her power and that’s also abundantly clear, and will ultimately work to her benefit. She is given some amazing panels where there is exciting action, but there are also panels where she’s down for a few moments. It’s that dynamic that keeps the story from being boring. Even at the height of her story here, Wonder Woman can still go down, but she has other tricks up her sleeve.
Even then this story isn’t just about Wonder Woman, there’s Zola too, who gets a little surprising twist to her own narrative. Both Zeke and Zola have been through as much if not more as Diana and it’s good to see their own story wrap up as well. Not for spoiling anyone’s fun, but it’s worth mentioning that to see everyone have a happy ending by the last page was a relief and well deserved. And as always Chiang’s art has been amazing on the issues, Diana has been given some powerful poses and Zeke has never been a sweeter looking baby than in this issue.
Of course from such good collaborators there was almost no doubt that they were going to give us a grand finale. Strong characters, strong art, strong colours, strong ending. It’ll be sad to have such an able creative team move on, but they’ve set up Diana’s character and world building so well, that it’ll be interesting to see where Wonder Woman’s adventure takes her next.
A Look Inside
