Wonder Woman Annual #2 - Spoilers & Discussion

[Nyssane]

This wasn't as bad as I thought it'd be!

Diana is teleported away to help the Star Sapphires combat a new foe. It turns out the new foe is one of the Dark Pantheon, the "God of Love" named Karnell. In the previous battle, he killed the Star Sapphire's leader (not sure if she was a new character or not). He represents the darkest and cruelest aspects of love.

In full Star Sapphire regalia, Diana goes to fight Karnell and finds out his backstory. He used to be a human in the Dark Universe until his leader, called King Best (awful name), plucked him from his tragic, abused life and made him into a god. Diana is eventually able to overcome Karnell and defeat him with the help of the other Star Sapphires.

When she returns to Earth, she finds one of the other Dark Gods heading straight for her.

While it seems like nothing happened beyond the fight between Diana and Karnell, it was actually a pretty interesting story. It had some of Robinson's dialogue problems of course, but I'm finding myself suddenly more interested in the dark pantheon. I like that they made the dark god of love male, though he looks quite androgynous. I've never been a big Green Lantern fan so I don't really know much about the Star Sapphires, but I love the name Miss Bloss. And they're not as scantily-clad as I remember, thank god. I did also like how the art shifted from standard comic booky to full-blown painting.

Other things to note:

• Wonder Woman serving as a Star Sapphire during post-Crisis's Blackest Night storyline is still in canon, as is Maxwell Lord who was briefly seen in a flashback image. So we can assume her snapping of his neck is also still part of the current continuity.

• No Carol Ferris, though she was mentioned by the others. They said she was "unavailable."

• There are 13 total Dark Gods evidently. Six of them, including Karnell and King Best, were taken from their world after Dark Nights: Metal. Seven remain in the dark universe.

[Koriand'r]

I greatly preferred the original WW/Star Sapphire costume, but after seeing this image I like the new one too. It's as faithful to WW's current armor as the first was to the old armor...and it still has the ladylike collar I love. lol

WW STAR SAPPHIRE 2018.jpg

[Last Son of Krypton]

Good story and excellent art. The WW movie's ending must have left its mark on Robinson.

[Rakzo]

Welp, this is a James Robinson story all right. He reintroduces ignored characters like Dela Pharon... only to kill her instantly.

The worst offender for me though, is that this could have been better implemented if it was some sort of one-and-done story that doesn't interrupt the current arc in such awkward way. This is especially weird since this is Robinson we're talking about and he tends to do great plannification for most his books, even Earth 2 despite of suffering of problems in terms of editorial and pacing, still managed to include chapters to progress individual stories naturally. I don't know what's happening here, is like he's just making things up as he goes.

Decent art at least.

[K. Jones]

Welp, this is a James Robinson story all right. He reintroduces ignored characters like Dela Pharon... only to kill her instantly.

The worst offender for me though, is that this could have been better implemented if it was some sort of one-and-done story that doesn't interrupt the current arc in such awkward way. This is especially weird since this is Robinson we're talking about and he tends to do great plannification for most his books, even Earth 2 despite of suffering of problems in terms of editorial and pacing, still managed to include chapters to progress individual stories naturally. I don't know what's happening here, is like he's just making things up as he goes.

Decent art at least.

That's a pretty stock trope of the Green Lantern books, of course. I wasn't that pleased with a reminder/slash/death of a character who never got a chance to shine other than being "one of the named ones" in the Star Sapphire Corps Guidebook group yearbook pages, but it's definitely as notable a "Green Lantern Trope" as pulling a random Lantern in for their specialty, sometimes both at the same time of course, as a character's specialty is used for a special mission that they also ... get killed off during.

I was happy as heck that he didn't throw Bloss or Miri to the dark god wolves, though - Miri is probably the Star Sapphire other than Carol and Fatality with the most dimensionality, and Bloss is just cool. I admit, I've been reading the Lantern books but can't actually remember what Carol's current status is.

I really liked that Frazer Irving was on art duty for the weird Dark Multiverse scenes! Because Irving's work was first introduced to me in Geoff Johns' original Green Lantern run, doing you know it, the first Star Sapphire story in the run. Nice throwbacks here to Rucka's Blackest Night tie-in ... no mention whatsoever of the Predator Entity or the inclusion of various dead Hawkman and Hawkwoman skeletons being part of the Sapphires. Always weird what's in-continuity and isn't.

I actually even like Karnell's rather obvious punny name.

[AmiMizuno]

I wonder if this means she isn’t the leader anymore

[Jackalope89]

A good issue, and showed that there's more to these Dark Gods then what meets the eye.

And, it looks like Diana needs to find out what happened on Earth. Sure, she helped save the Star Sapphires from 1 Dark God, but Earth, and particularly Jason, was left to confront multiple. Seems it didn't go very well.

[SiegePerilous02]

I wonder what the odds are that the Dark Gods will stick around after this run? I saw Karnell's picture on Comic Vine, and he looks pretty cool. As does that horned lady with her eyes covered by a shroud on the cover of #50. I wouldn't mind all 13 them being ongoing threats, and it seems to introduce them at the end of this (really bad) run when there is a possibility of them being dropped when the next regular writer comes on board. If Snyder come on as the regular new writer, I can see them being used though since they tie into his stuff, and he may have had a hand in creating them (?).

[Pinsir]

So, is the entirety of the Robinson run,essentially a backlog of stories of other characters by other authors? I read Wonder Woman for Wonder Woman stories, I shouldn't have to go around reading some Batwank event to 'get' a Wonder Woman story! So far the Silver Swan arc is the best story of Robinson's run simply because its coherent within the title itself.

[kjn]

I read this as a one-shot, and I'm not impressed.

I like a lot of the art-work, especially the change of style in the flashbacks and in Karnell's mindscape. But I also feel that the artwork poorly supports the story, and the story is flawed.

The start is good, setting up a basic conflict and drawing in Diana in an economical way. But then Diana gets drawn into Karnell's mental space, and it goes all "let me tell you all about my plan, Mr Bond". Then Diana, for some reason, works out that the rest of the Star Sapphires should fire at her, and that will somehow defeat Karnell, but instead she simply drives her sword through him. The elements simply do not connect with each other.

I also think the story misses something when all the Star Sapphires are from the same planet in the beginning, but then suddenly we get all sorts of species from page 27. Again, the elements simply do not connect.

[RepHope]

That was ok. It seems Robinson is going to end as weakly as he began which is disappointing to me.