2017-2023 Wonder Woman ongoing comic has been incredibly frustrating

[Shaggy]

During the last 3 months or so I've been catching up on the WW ongoing comic (as well as all the related minis) that came out between 2017 and 2023 (I haven't gotten to Tom King's run yet). I just finished Wonder Woman #800 and I hate saying this but I don't think I could recommend any of it. There are bright spots here and thee, sure, but there are really no satisfying conclusions to be had for any of the runs.

Right off the bat, the drop in quality following Rucka's Rebirth run is just astronomical. We first have a filler arc (Heart of the Amazon) by Shea Fontana and with the exception of Mirka Andolfo's art for the fist issue, it's just the most generic cape comic I've ever read (the government wants Wonder Woman's blood to make super soldiers). Or so I thought until I read the next 20 issues by James Robinson.

I'm honestly baffled that Robinson's run on WW is as bland and boring as it is. Robinson is a great writer but it very much feels like DC just needed someone to write the book and Robinson wasn't that interested in it. I can't even begin to stress how bland the dialogue is and how little seems to happen across 20 issues. I immediately got the sense that Robinson doesn't know how to write Diana so he introduces her long-lost brother instead (something that was, admittedly, hinted at in Johns' Darkseid War). Speaking of Darkseid War, Darkseid and Grail return here and the story attempts to follow up on Johns' JL but Darkseid and Grail are both one-dimensional mustache-twirling villains who simply monologue at WW every chance they get. As a follow-up to Darkseid War, this was wholly unsatisfying. And finally we have the Dark Gods arc which, while a little more interesting in concept than what came before, still suffers from boring writing and the conclusion feels incredibly rushed.

Next up is one of the bright spots of this entire era - Steve Orlando's The Enemy of Both Sides arc. After 25 issues of pure mediocrity (and worse) these five issues felt like a fresh breeze. First there's a one-issue story about WW rehabilitating a villain by offering compassion and friendship and I immediately got the sense that Orlando gets the character. And in the following four issues Orlando lays a lot of groundwork for more Amazon characters and politics getting incorporated into the stories to come (something that I very much like) by reintroducing the Bana-Mighdall and characters like Atalanta, Faruka and Artemis. Good stuff.

When I got to G. Willow Wilson's run I was pretty excited as I had enjoyed quite a few of her books in the past. It turned out to be a bit of mixed bag for me though. Wilson does something that I generally don't like by introducing a bunch of new characters that take away focus from the established ones. In this case in the form of a comedic relief trio made up of a pegasus, a minotaur and a satyr and also a new human character named Maggie that is meant to be our window into the world of WW. I personally feel like Wonder Woman herself should be our window into the story and if you need to introduce a new character it kind of indicates that you don't know how to write the main character. I've often observed that a lot of writers show WW through the eyes of other characters because they don't know how to write her as character. BUT Willow's writing is so good that I was able to overlook all of that here. Wilson actually makes a real attempt to build on the lore that was set up way back in Rucka's Rebirth run, picks up on loose plot threads and makes the Greek Gods actual characters again. So, I was quite enjoying thus run. Until the last third, the Loveless arc. The only explanation for the sharp drop in quality is that there were editorial mandates related to the Year of the Villain crossover/event (have not read any of it) that completely derailed the run. Diana's and Steve's romance being done away with felt especially egregious but it's not like anyone post-Rucka had any idea what to do with Steve anyway. And then Wilson bails to do another comic and we have another unsatisfying end to the run. If I were to recommend this run to anyone then I guess I'd tell them to read issues #58-76 as a follow-up to Rucka's Rebirth run and then bail on the last 5 issues.

So, after DC has run the book into the ground again they bring back Orlando who tries his best to tie up loose ends from Wilson's run and also follows up on his aforementioned Enemy of Both Sides arc. I don't think he's entirely successful in concluding Wilson's story but it's also hard to blame him. And he continues to do good work by building up the Amazons and their politics. Orlando's stint also ends with pretty much the restoration of the status quo that we last saw in Rucka's original run with the Amazons establishing an embassy in man's world. As that original Rucka run is still my all-time favourite then I was really happy to see that. I was excited to see this new status quo getting fully explored. So, of course, Orlando's second stint on the book gets followed up by a Maxwell Lord-focused filler arc by Mario Tamaki and then the book changes direction completely after the Dark Nights: Death Metal event.

Finally, we've come to the Becky Cloonan and Michael W. Conrad run. In terms of issue count it's the longest since Azzarello's. So you'd think that finally there will be a clear direction for the book and we get some great long-form storytelling. Sadly, that is not the case. This run is perhaps the worst example of a wasted opportunity. The first 4 issues where Diana is in Valhalla are probably the best issues because there's so much potential right out of the gate (not to mention the gorgeous artwork by Travis Moore) but then the remainder of the arc starts to really drag and as for the rest of this run...woof. You have a writing team that for the life of them can't end a single story arc in a way that doesn't feel rushed and unsatisfying. Modern comics are mostly better reads in collected editions but this WW run is the opposite. When you read it in chunks then it becomes super obvious that the writers have no idea where they're going with the story. Altuum the Survivor is a good example of that. He gets introduced in the 2021 annual as an interesting new big bad, then barely appears in the next 6 issues, cameos in the Trial of the Amazons event and is then done away with in the first half of the following issue. Absolutely baffling. First time Ive felt an author has undiagnosed ADHD. Additionally, they also don't know how to write or what to do with most pf the characters (Steve, Etta and Siegfried are kind of just there for the entire run). If I had to say something positive about this era it's that I like the extent to which other Amazon characters are involved with the story and that they got a number of minis. But seriously, if writers don't know what to do with Steve and Etta then maybe just replace them with Donna, Artemis, Cassie and Yara. I'd read that book.

I'm honestly not trying to be a hater but I came away incredibly frustrated. If I had to recommend WW comics to a normie then after all these years it still boils down to three runs - the two Rucka runs and Azzarello's (I know it's controversial in many ways but at least it feels like it's somebody's consistent vision for the character and a complete experience). Before anyone jumps on me, I fully admit that I haven't read anything WW-related prior to Rucka's original run so that's why I didn't include Perez' or Jimenez' runs. I remember not liking Simone's run very much but I've been thinking of revisiting it to see if maybe I feel differently about it now.

I'll soon be diving into Tom King's run. I have never read any of his books so I'm curious if I fall in the love or hate camp (his writing seems to be very divisive). I will say this though, the Tom King story in Wonder Woman 800 that I assume serves as a set-up for his run was more intriguing than anything written by Cloonan and Conrad.

Anyone agree with my overall sentiment regarding the quality of the ongoing WW comic or am I just whack?