No thread yet? Where's Nyssane?

It's the final showdown between Ares and Diana as she protects the prime minister of Durovnia from the rage of Ares. Ares manages to take the lasso from Diana, but Diana manages to reclaim it and school Ares in the ways of its use. Diana finally manages to hit Ares hard enough to make him pay attention, and Aphrodite uses that opening to talk some sense into Ares, but we don't get to read her punchline. Apparently, that was only for the gods.

Some sort of ceasefire between the government and the rebels is reached, to be followed by proper peace negotiations and possibly a separation. As a condition of that treaty, all the gods and their attendants must leave Durovnia, and that includes Diana.

Ares intends to leave on a quest to find Athena, and tasks Diana to complete it if he should fail. Diana finally takes her leave of a recovering Etta Candy (and a Steve who finally has managed to find a new shirt) and asks the sky if her mother and Themyscira is still safe.

Xermanico's art is good throughout, with a really menacing Ares, and a Diana who can be both decisive and strong, but also can show vulnerability when the script calls for it. The action is short and decisive, but I think Wilson overuses the use of grunts and other vocalised sound effects. The fight between Diana and Ares has no less than seven such, and that's at least five too many.

I felt this opening arc raised some good questions, but the question about the impact on the common people and civilians when gods or superpowers fight that was raised by the end of the Durovnian conflict felt a bit unbuilt. It was probably because we had seen so few of these common people yet in the story. We saw them rescued at times, but not much and they never received the focus or a voice.

I also miss the happy and fun Etta. The Etta we get here is a lot more somber, though I'm glad she's not the Amanda Waller-lite Etta that we got in #58.