Written by G. Willow Wilson
Illustrated by Xermanico
Published by DC Comics
Love, exciting and new. Except when it’s not. Except when it’s everyone falling under the spell of lust in Summergrove, CT.
With this new arc in Wonder Woman, “Love is a Battlefield”, Diana, Aphrodite and Maggie are following the desires of Maggie’s sword and find a small suburban town lousy with cupids, nudists and never-nudes and couples following their primal instincts. “Why don’t we do it in the road?” type stuff. One couple is breaking off their family by falling in love with other people, one of which is the babysitter.
Now, this is all fine and good behavior for a suburban town, but all at once is a bit daunting.
Let’s not ignore the craft here, while Xermanico gets to draw people of all sorts in their all-together, they also break up the page with some great panel frames reminiscent of P. Craig Russell or J.H. Williams. Great stuff.
To take on the writing, I’m feeling a welcome shift in this issue to a storytelling and world building that has more in common with Sandman than it does with other books in the Trinity at DC.
The weird tale of cute cupid creatures spraying love potion over the entire town seems a little like the monster of the week we’d get in serialized TV, whereas the mystical characters being introduced to the story do behave as immortals, with great power, able to seduce more than just one town with the will of their thoughts.
Aphrodite is center stage as she calms down and admonishes the small cupids, leading her to her son, Atlantiades by the end of the issue. Atlantiades presents as female in this incarnation, another name would be Hermaphroditus, perhaps explaining their dress. No matter, as now the challenge in Summergrove is to have everyone put their dang pants back on!
We don’t know if Atlantiades means to sow chaos in this Connecticut town, or if they are there simply to spread love, but Wonder Woman and Aphrodite will need to sort this out!
I’m here for the mythology lesson, but especially excited if this turns the corner into bottling the joy of reading early volumes of Sandman. There is something intriguing about The Endless, and the more we learn about these displaced Olympians, I am excited to see the parallels, intentional or not, from both books.
Atlantiades isn’t happy to see his mother, Diana took on a big face in the sky made of cupids and Maggie is questioning her past intimate choices.
Not a bad start for a new arc and the landmark issue number of love! Would love to have the sword bring us to more Olympians!
