Retro Trade Review: Wonder Woman by George Pérez Vol. 2 For DC Comics

Columns, Top Story

Contains Wonder Woman Vol. 2 #15-24, Annual #1 (April 1988 – December 1988)

Written by George Pérez (#17-24, Annual #1)

Idea by Carol Flynn (#20)

Plotted by George Pérez (#15-16)

Scripted by Len Wein (#15-16)

Pencilled by George Pérez (#15-24, Annual #1), Brian Bolland (Annual #1), Chris Marrinan (Annual #1), Art Adams (Annual #1), John Bolton (Annual #1), José Luis Garcia-Lopéz (Annual #1), Curt Swan (Annual #1), Ross Andru (Annual #1)

Inked by George Pérez (#15, Annual #1), Bruce Patterson (#15), Bob Smith (#16), Dick Giordano (#17-18), Frank McLaughlin (#19), Bob McLeod (#20-22, Annual #1), Will Blyberg (#23-24, Annual #1), Mark Farmer (Annual #1), Art Adams (Annual #1), John Bolton (Annual #1), José Luis Garcia-Lopéz (Annual #1)

Coloured by Carl Gafford

Spoilers from thirty-three years ago

I enjoyed the first collection of George Pérez’s Wonder Woman, but felt that it was a little too wordy and over-complicated.  I also felt like I wanted to see Diana get involved in the rest of the DCU a little more.  As Pérez moved into his second big set of stories, he had Diana returning to America, having brought peace to Themyscira and Mount Olympus.  The plan was for her to preach peace and love to “man’s world”, which she was still very unfamiliar with.

I’m curious to see how this all plays out, and am looking forward to another big chunk of Pérez artwork.  Let’s go!

This book features the following characters:

Villains:

  • Henry Cobb Armbruster (#15-16)
  • Silver Swan (Valerie Beaudry; #15-16)
  • Circe (#17-19)
  • Mikos (Circe’s Servant; #17-19)
  • Theophilus Ventouras (Circe’s servant; #18-19)
  • Demetrios Ventouras (Circe’s servant; #18)
  • Skeeter LaRue (publicist; #15-17, 20)
  • Phobos (#23-24)
  • Euryale (#23-24)
  • Ixion the Assassin (#23-24)

Supporting Characters:

  • Solomon Buchman (#15-16)
  • Myndi Mayer (publicist; #15-17, 20)
  • Steve London (#20)
  • Deni Hayes (#20)
  • Max Sterenbuch (#15-16)
  • Vanessa Kapatelis (#15-19, 21-24, Annual #1)
  • Lt. Etta Candy (USAF; #15, 17, 24, Annual #1)
  • Col. Steve Trevor (#15-17, Annual #1)
  • Eileen Flowers (Vanessa’s friend; #15, 17, 22-23)
  • Barry Locatelli (Vanessa’s boyfriend; #15-16, 22)
  • Inspector Ed Indelicato (Boston PD; #15-16, 20)
  • Lt. Michael Shands (Boston PD; #16, 20)
  • Hermes (Olympus; #16-17, 19, 21, 23-24)
  • Hippolyte (Themyscira; #17, 21-22, Annual #1)
  • Menalippe (Themyscira; #17, 21-22)
  • Hellene (Themyscira; #17, 22)
  • Phillipus (Themyscira; #17, 21, Annual #1)
  • Heracles (Olympus #17, 21)
  • Zeus (Olympus; #17-18, 21)
  • Hera (Olympus; #17, 21)
  • Aphrodite (Olympus; #17, 21)
  • Athena (Olympus; #17, 21)
  • Artemis (Olympus; #17, 21)
  • Dionysus (Olympus; #17)
  • Hephaestus (Olympus; #17)
  • Professor Julia Kapatelis (#17-24, Annual #1)
  • Stavros Christadoulodou (#17-19)
  • Christine “Chrissie” Fenton (Myndi’s assistant; #17, 20, Annual #1)
  • Hades (Olympus; #18, 21)
  • Poseidon (Olympus; #18, 21)
  • Spiros (rebel; #18)
  • Katina Leikos (rebel; #18-19)
  • Agostos Deneiros (Julia’s father; #18)
  • Maria Deneiros (Julia’s mother; #18)
  • Gregori (rebel; #18-19)
  • Apollo (Olympus; #21)
  • Mnemosyne (Themyscira; #22, Annual #1)
  • Horace Westlake (Vanessa’s teacher; #22-24)
  • General Hillary (USAF; #22)
  • Venilia (Themyscira, Annual #1)
  • Panopea (Nereid; Annual #1)
  • Antiope (Themyscira; Annual #1)
  • Pythia (Themyscira; Annual #1)

Let’s see what happened in the comics, with some commentary as I go:

  • Diana has a dream where she meets Superman in the sky, and wakes up wondering about the new feelings she’s having.  An unnamed guy has broken into a lab and is going through some computer files.  After finding what he’s looking for, he knocks out a guard and climbs out a window.  Myndi Mayer, Diana’s publicist, and her team prepare for the upcoming Wonder Woman Festival for charity, and Myndi’s employees are annoyed that she can’t see that her art director, Skeeter LaRue, is taking credit for their work.  Myndi seems to be falling for his Southern charm, manifested in some pretty terrible attempts at duplicating a Southern accent.  A woman is in Boston’s Chinatown at night, wondering why her friend would want to meet her there, when a car drives right at her.  She barely escapes, and runs into an alley.  The car follows.  Someone shoots out one of its tires, so it crashes.  The driver gets out and is about to shoot the woman when he hears someone call him.  That guy shoots him – it’s the man from the science lab.  He approaches the woman and shoots her himself.  Diana prays in the nude at the lake near the Kapatelis’s home.  Vanessa finds her and we learn that Julia has gone back to Greece for a vacation.  Vanessa leads her back home, and mistakes her confusion around Superman for nerves about the festival.  The woman, Miss Sterenbuch, wakes up cuffed to a bed, and learns that the man, Solomon, just tranquilized her.  They talk.  We learn that Sterenbuch’s friend Val is behind the attempt on her life, but the woman doesn’t believe it.  She explains how she found Val as a penpal in their teens, and they became very close friends, although she never even saw her picture.  At one point, Sterenbuch flew to her town to meet her, but she’d disappeared.  Recently she’d heard from her, and they arranged to meet.  Val is a beautiful woman, and they connected instantly, but her companion, Henry Cobb Armbruster, didn’t want Sterenbuch around.  She heard him yell at and hit Val.  They continued to meet, and Val displayed some animosity towards Wonder Woman which Sterenbuch couldn’t understand.  Solomon shows Sterenbuch a picture of a deformed and damaged woman, claiming it’s what Val Beaudry really looks like, due to her parents’ involvement in nuclear testing.  Solomon explains that his father was involved in treating Val, making her beautiful and giving her sonic powers.  Val destroyed the lab she was treated in, and killed the father.  Armbruster is unhappy to learn that Sterenbuch survived his attempt to have her killed, and we learn he has plans to have Beaudry, the Silver Swan, kill Wonder Woman that afternoon.  Etta Candy is on a diet, and has lost a lot of weight, but still worries that Steve Trevor will like Diana more than her.  Trevor is at the festival, on Boston Commons, where he runs into Julia and her boyfriend Barry, who seems to only have eyes for Diana.  The Festival begins, and we see that Solomon and Sterenbuch are there, figuring that Silver Swan will strike.  Diana arrives, surprised at the turn-out.  Silver Swan arrives and tells everyone to obey her commands.  Someone pulls a gun on Solomon.  Diana tries to talk to Silver Swan, but she screams at her, causing a ferris wheel to start falling over.
  • Diana works to hold up the ferris wheel, and needs Steve’s help to catch a kid that falls off.  The cops at the festival start shooting at Silver Swan, while one of them arrests Solomon.  Sterenbuch, whose first name is Max, apparently, hides and worries about her friend.  Silver Swan is freaking out a little and asks Armbruster, through a comlink, for help.  He tells her to use her level three scream, which devastates the fairground.  Once things quiet down again, he has her give a speech about how Diana organized this event for her own self-aggrandizement, not for the charity, and so her associates are going to take all the money that was raised.  Some guys in black get out of a weird looking van to gather up the money.  The organizer of the event is upset with Diana, and Diana is too naive to stand up for herself.  Armbruster and his associate, a Mr. Choi, talk about how Silver Swan is also going to be collecting some computer chips that an inside man put with the money, so they will be able to take over Silicon Valley (seriously, I have no idea what is happening now).  Some of the guys in black insist that Diana fly two bags up to Silver Swan, and she agrees.  Max recognizes that Solomon is in a tree, about to fire a crossbow at Silver Swan.  He is waiting for her to drop her sonic shield to accept the bags from Diana, but Max yells out a warning, and Diana deflects the bolt, saving her.  Silver Swan fires a blast at the tree, and then Diana grabs her and flies much higher, causing her to drop the bags in the woods.  The two women fight in the air, until the Swan’s sonic powers cause feedback along Diana’s lasso, making her fall into the ocean.  Armbruster has the Swan fire blasts into the water to make sure Diana is dead, getting close enough that Diana is able to use her sodden cloak to smack the Swan.  Next she throws her very sharp tiara at the woman’s wing, cutting one off so she starts to fall.  Diana wraps her cloak around her mouth, but in her panic, Silver Swan lets fly with a very powerful blast.  Armbruster sends a helicopter to get Silver Swan, who is on Martha’s Vineyard, feeling bad about herself.  Diana is knocked into a restored historical village, and as she flies home, feels the depths of her naivety.  Later, she meets up with Steve and tells him about how she met his mother’s spirit; they agree to be close.  Later, we see from a news broadcast that the police captured the robbers, and that the two bags that were dropped couldn’t be found.  Max is flying home (although I’m pretty sure that the last issue established she lived in the area) and reading old letters from Valerie.  We also learn from the news that Solomon Buchman is in critical condition.  Later still, Vanessa is considering confronting Diana about the fact that her boyfriend, Barry, seems interested in her.  Diana comes to talk to her, and reacts to a poster of Superman Vanessa has.  The girl realizes Diana has a crush on Superman, and encourages her to meet him.  Later, Diana is at Myndi’s office while Myndi tries to arrange a meeting between the two heroes.  She talks to Clark Kent on the phone, offering money to arrange the meeting as a publicity stunt.  “Superman” gets on the phone to talk to Diana, and they make plans to meet up, but then Kent won’t tell Myndi the details, and Diana is already gone, so she can’t ask her.  On Mount Olympus, Hermes is being chased by some beings that are wrecking Olympus.  He gets hit by an explosion and falls limply to the ground.
  • A pigeon leaves Themyscira, and blessed by Hippolyte, makes it through the mystical storm around the island.  Diana prepares to leave with Vanessa on a trip to Greece, and talks to Etta about their mutual jealousy when it comes to Steve, which has now been resolved.  Vanessa argues with a friend on the phone about whether or not Barry actually likes her, and then joins the others.  The pigeon arrives just before they leave, and Diana finds a note from her mother on its leg.  As they drive to the airport (with Steve), she reads the letter, explaining that something happened on Mount Olympus again (Diana figures this might have had to do with her and Superman’s fight with the forces of Apokolips there, which I remember as happening in Action Comics).  Hippolyte also talks about how the Amazons are divided on learning about the modern world, and how much she misses Diana.  Diana writes a note back at the airport and sends the pigeon back before they board their plane.  On Olympus, Heracles is upset that they haven’t done more about Darkseid’s attack.  All the gods talk a lot, with Zeus reaching the conclusion that they should leave Olympus, and heads off to discuss this with Hades and Poseidon.  The others notice that Hermes is not his normal self lately.  On the plane, Diana thinks about how she doesn’t really like Superman the way she thought she did.  When they arrive in Greece, they are met by Julia and her old friend Stavros Christadoulodou.  There is a big crowd there to see Diana, including some man who looks very scared and wants to warn her about something, but can’t get close enough.  A cat and a bird, both with red eyes, watch him.  Myndi calls on her assistant Chrissie, and is generally terrible towards her.  Chrissie is worried she’s drinking too much, and shouldn’t be trusting that Skeeter guy.  A woman in shadows makes plans to guard against Diana discovering her.  Diana tours the Acropolis on her own, reflecting on the influence the gods have had on Greece.  The others take her to a number of other key archeological sites, and she reflects on how her people once lived there.  On the Ionian Sea later, she talks to Julia about Vanessa’s father.  She feels strangely about a nearby island, and then collapses.  When Christos looks at the same island, a strange feeling comes over him, but he shakes it off.  On Cephalonia, some shepherds find a dead man, and we see that one of the sheep’s eyes has turned red.
  • Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades travel to the corpse of their father to renew the pact they made that originally formed Olympus.  Diana has made a full recovery at the hospital ion Cephalonia, and is convinced that whatever she sensed from that small island was the cause of her illness.  She meets Theophilus Ventouras and his nephew Demetrios, who are local rich people.  They discuss the rumors of curses (called ‘magia’) that come from that island, but everyone rejects the idea.  A nurse overhears and informs Mikos that Diana and her friends are going to see Ventouras at his place.  Mikos turns into a bird and flies to report back to his mistress, not noticing that two young people, Spiros and Katina, are spying on him.  Julia takes Diana to meet her parents, Agostos and Maria, and then Stavros takes the old man out to watch the boats.  He pauses when he sees a note on his car, and makes an excuse to leave.  Mikos reports to his mistress on that island, and she is not happy that Diana hasn’t left already.  Julia and Diana talk about Julia’s past, and reaffirm their affection for one another.  Stavros goes to see the people who left the note on his car; there are a group of rebels who are fighting against whoever lives on that island.  A man named Gregori gives him a scroll to translate.  They hear gunshots – two of the rebels shot at and believe they killed an evil cat.  Spiros goes with Stavros to watch him translate the scroll.  Vanessa comes to the door, having made plans to call her boyfriend from there.  Diana and Julia are at the Ventouras’ mansion for a visit, and Diana researches the mysterious island, learning that it’s inhabited by an eccentric old lady and her servant.  They leave, and then Theophilus discovers that his nephew was killed by the rebels; Theophilus turns into a centaur, while other servants of the witch make similar transformations.  Julia and Diana approach Stavros’s house, and find it in flames.  Diana flies in and rescues Stavros, and learns that Vanessa ran away.  She goes after her, and is attacked by a giant bird.  She lands next to Vanessa, and learns about the scroll, just before being surrounded by the centaur and a dozen other beasts.  Diana puts her lasso in a circle around Vanessa, to protect her, and starts fighting, recognizing the centaur as Theophilus.  She fights for a while, until a blast from the sky knocks her out.  We hear Circe, the witch, tell the beasts to bring Diana to her, and to ignore Vanessa.
  • Julia finds Vanessa, who gives her the scroll and tells her what happened to Diana.  They are joined by the rebels, led by Katina.  Diana wakes up on Aeaea, Crice’s island.  She’s bound to a floating skull.  Circe (who talks a lot this issue) talks about how Diana is a threat to her.  Diana tries to escape, but gets blasted unconscious.  Julia, studying the scroll, discovers that it was wrapped in a herb called moly (as in Holy Moly?).  Diana wakes up in Circe’s atelia, still bound.  Circe talks about being the legacy of Hecate, and tells the lengthy myth about the moon goddess that was spurned by Hades and ridiculed by Hera.  Circe was a princess who wanted revenge on men.  She joined with Hecate, replacing her own soul with the goddess’s, and then gathered up some servants who could turn into animals.  She then talks about how she liked the Amazons, but didn’t like it when Antiope (Hippolyte’s sister) ended up getting together with Theseus, so Circe killed her.  This makes Diana angry enough to break her bonds, but Circe blasts her again, knocking her out.  At the same time, Julia leads the rebels (there are almost two dozen of them) onto the island, having wrapped Diana’s lasso around their boat to avoid detection.  The rebels kill the animal spirits and make their way to Circe’s place, where Mikos attacks them.  Circe and Theophilus have put Diana in a pit of mud, as Circe again explains how she fears that if Diana were killed, Hecate’s soul would bond with her body, and Circe would die.  She hopes to turn Diana back into clay so she wouldn’t be a threat.  Julia arrives and shoots the goblet with some kind of potion in it before Circe can pour it on Diana, and tosses our hero her lasso.  Diana stops Julia from shooting Circe, worrying that it would mean Hecate would possess her still.  Diana gets blasted again, and Circe is about to kill Julia when there is a bright light in the room.  Circe recognizes someone, then disappears, along with her tower.  Diana and Julia find themselves outside, and get surrounded by the rebels.  On Olympus, we learn that Hermes teleported Circe away.  Later, Diana and the Kapatelises prepare to leave Greece, checking in with Stavros on the phone to learn that he’s okay.  Vanessa brings them a newspaper that shows them that Myndi Mayer has been killed.
  • Diana confronts some Asian criminals, looking for information.  Most of issue 20 is written as a manuscript for (perhaps) the memoirs of Inspector Indelicato, a chapter he calls “Who Killed Myndi Mayer”, and it looks like Pérez was indulging his inner Agatha Christie.  We see how he and Lt. Shands (who is now Black) attended the scene of Myndi’s murder, where she was found with a bloody letter opener in her hand.  Indelicator and Shands went to speak to Chrissie, her secretary, who was not surprised to hear Myndi had died, but was surprised to see that the sketch based on a witness’s report showed Steve London, Myndi’s art director, who had been fired the week before.  The cops interviewed London, but he only remembered going to Myndi’s place when he was really drunk.  He did have stab wounds in his shoulder though.  London explained that Myndi had discovered that her company was falling apart, facing numerous lawsuits, and fired a number of people, but not Skeeter LaRue, who many thought were behind Myndi’s misfortunes.  London didn’t believe he could have hurt Myndi, despite the facts stacked against him.  Diana questions Mr. Choi, a crime boss, about LaRue, and has to use her lasso to find out where he is.  Indelicato and Shands spoke to Deni Hayes, London’s assistant, and learned that she’d been with London, and told him about how she discovered that LaRue was using the company as a front for his cocaine operation, and had something to do with the computer chips at the Wonder Woman Fair.  Hayes tried to get Myndi to hire Steve back, but she refused.  Hayes stirred London up at the bar, and encouraged him to go confront her.  Diana came to see the cops, with Julia and Chrissie.  LaRue is hiding out in a warehouse in Bedford, and that’s where Diana comes to find him.  She fights the guards that Choi gave him.  Diana spoke to the cops, and suggested using her lasso to learn the truth of the situation.  In the end, London’s wife and lawyer were against the idea.  Indelicato gets a call that they found LaRue, whose real name is Michael Boyd.  He’s hanging dead on the electric fence around the warehouse.  Diana explains that she followed the trail to Skeeter, and had him admit while wrapped in her lasso what he’d done.  Myndi knew what he was up to, and was trying to get rid of him, but he left her with some cocaine, and threatened to expose her.  He explained to Diana that Choi wanted Skeeter to kill Myndi, so he returned and found Myndi wouldn’t even listen to him so he shot her (the narration can’t decide if he used a shotgun or a rifle).  London entered just then, so Skeeter stabbed him with a letter opener, and staged things so it would look like London killed her.  Some of Choi’s men opened fire on Diana, so when she went to stop them, Skeeter ran, and got fried on the fence.  After she finishes her story, Indelicato explains that they got the lab report, and learned that Myndi actually died because of the cocaine Skeeter gave her.  Diana feels very sad for Myndi, and Indelicato wraps up his narration.
  • Menalippe receives a message from Apollo.  Diana and the Kapatelis’s return home from Myndi’s funeral, and Vanessa seems pretty down.  Diana and Julia talk about things, including Diana’s doubts that the gods are supporting her.  Hippolyte’s pigeon turns up with a note calling Diana home, so she says goodbye and heads out.  Hermes watches her travel, and it’s clear he’s torn.  Diana makes it to Themyscira, where she is expected to take part in a ceremony, since she, Hippolyte, and Menalippe have been summoned to Mount Olympus.  They stand in front of all of the Amazons, who watch as the three women are transported to Olympus.  They are surprised to find the place in ruins, with evidence of the fight with Darkseid everywhere.  This shakes the women’s faith, but then the gods appear and explain they they’ve decided not to fix the place, but instead to destroy it and engage in a cosmic migration.  I just skimmed this part, because it got too wordy, but it seems like Hermes doesn’t agree, but has decided to go along with his family while still firing shots at them snidely.  The gods apologize to Diana about not warning her about Circe, and reveal that it was Hermes who ended the fight.  All of the Amazons are given a vote on what the gods want to do, and then all side with them, so after Hippolyte and Heracles chat about stuff, Diana heads under the mountain with Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades to channel their power and blow the place apart.  The three Amazons find themselves back in Themyscira.  Hippolyte mentions that tomorrow they are all voting on whether or not they should open Paradise Island to the modern world.
  • The Amazons gather for Diana to read out the results of their vote on the opening.  The majority agrees, but they are pretty somber about it all.  Some glowing ball of light courses through the galaxy towards Earth.  Diana goes to see Hellene, who was the spokesperson for the ‘Leave’ Thexit vote.  She’s wary of the outside world, Diana tries to make her feel better, and they maintain their friendship.  Some guy sitting under a tree in a forest in New Hampshire sees a bright light, and then runs away from what looks like his double.  Vanessa tracks down Barry, who has been ignoring her.  He’s hanging out with a new girl, Lucy, and it’s clear he’s with her.  Vanessa is upset, and her friend Eileen is not much comfort.  Outside, Julia talks with Vanessa’s Geometry teacher, Horace Westlake, who ends up asking Julia out on a date.  Julia’s main house (remember, she has three) has been rebuilt, but they haven’t moved back yet.  A woman in robes teleports in, sensing that Diana has been there, and worries that she won’t find her in time for something.  Vanessa is grumpy in the car, while she and Julia are stuck in traffic.  They are surprised when Diana appears out of nowhere and carries their car through the air.  As they fly, some guy with binoculars watches them from very far away, and scares off other people trying to use the park he’s in.  Diana takes the Kapatelises home, and then tells them that she wants them to be the first to visit Themyscira.  Both are excited, even though this means that Julia has to reschedule her date.  Diana goes to see General Hillary, looking for Etta Candy, and learns that she’s on assignment.  She also mentions that she hasn’t been able to get Steve Trevor on the phone.  After Diana leaves, an aide says something to Hillary to make us think that Candy’s mission is dangerous and/or hard to believe.  The body double of the guy in New Hampshire watches the glowing ball of light fly through the sky (this is starting to feel like an episode of Star Trek).  The robed woman also sees this thing flying, and runs from it.  It looks like it hits her, but also doesn’t?  I’m not sure.  Diana leaves a message for Trevor on his answering machine.  Diana then reasserts how much Julia means to her, and then departs to prepare things on Themyscira for their visit.
  • Annual #1 fits in here, and has chapters drawn by different artists.  It is also exceptionally boring.  Diana takes Julia and Vanessa to Themyscira, where they are welcomed by Hippolyte and the other Amazons.  Julia feels like she recognizes one of them.  Vanessa watches a ritual involving diving, and learns a story about Diana when she was young, and why the Nereids like her.  Hippolyte tells Diana a story about the time before they came to Paradise Island, when Antiope wanted to help a woman who had been cursed by the gods, and it sucked.  Phillipus tells Vanessa the story of Egeria, the first Amazon to die keeping Doom’s Doorway closed.  Mnemosyne asks Julia about her childhood, and introduces her to Pythia, who actually once saved her from drowning as an infant.  It turns out the Amazons were always given young girls who would have drowned, to bless and return to the world.  Julia credits this intervention with her academic drive.  Diana tells a story about how she recently helped Steve Trevor in his new job as an aviation inspector or something.  I could barely read this part, but it culminated with Diana spinning around the nose of a jet like a propeller.  Diana takes her two friends home.
  • In the Private Lives backup story, Diana attends the reading of Myndi Mayer’s video will.  She meets her sister, who is not that nice, and her brother, who is gay and whom only Myndi supported.  Chrissie gives some insight into Myndi, and Diana is tasked with spreading her ashes off the coast of Paradise Island.  This was a disjointed and strange story, because it basically developed a character who had been written out of the book.
  • Vanessa’s become a bit of a celebrity at her school, especially after one of the pictures she took ended up on the cover of a magazine.  Her friend Eileen is annoyed that the girl who took Barry away wants Eileen’s help to get Vanessa to sign her magazine, and then learns that Barry was previously dating Vanessa.  The man we saw before taking the image of a guy in the woods acts strangely at a news stand, and then transforms into a burst of light.  Diana addresses the United Nations, and during a press scrum afterwards, is approached by the woman in robes we saw before.  She claims Diana is not who she’s looking for, and takes off.  Diana follows, but the woman is gone.  A reporter asks about the fact that Hermes is in Boston, and Diana flies off quickly.  She finds Hermes floating above the city, and while he is coy about why he’s not with the other Olympians, he starts showering gold and diamonds on the people below him.  This leads to two guys grabbing everything and shooting some kid.  Hermes stops them.  Later, on the news, we see that he then healed the gunshot victim.  Hermes and Diana are at the Kapatelis’ home, and Julia is clearly annoyed with Hermes and his actions.  Hermes gets offended by her, and insists that Diana leave with him.  Diana explains to Julia that he is her god, so she has to obey him.  Vanessa is angry with Julia because of this.  After a week, Julia explains things to Horace while they’re on a date, when they see Hermes and Diana appear in the sky above them.  Diana is having some doubts, as it seems that Hermes just wants to fly around and gain clout.  He sends her away to think about things, and then is drawn to a woman who speaks to him in Classical Greece.  She lures him away, claiming that her ill father still worships Hermes.  They (along with a camera crew) go to a rough neighbourhood no one recognizes, where they find the old man in bed.  When Hermes tries to use his caduceus to cure the man, Hermes feels pain.  The man is actually Phobos, and his “daughter” is actually Euryale.  Hermes falls through the floor into a deep pit, where he finds a large living statue he calls Ixion the Assassin.  
  • Vanessa watches the news, which is broadcasting from downtown, even though the cameraman that was with Hermes has lost his signal.  Hermes is surprised to find that Ixion is now imprisoned beneath Boston, when he used to be beneath Olympus.  Phobos explains that he was able to move him during the Cosmic Migration.  Phobos uses Hermes’s caduceus to free Ixion, who is a giant, and he starts rampaging.  Vanessa wants to show Julia what’s happening on the news, but she’s annoyed that he’s interrupting her date with Mr. Westlake (they aren’t on a first name basis yet, apparently), but then Julia sees Phobos on the TV, and worries that he’s coming after her.  Euryale, who is a Gorgon, starts turning random people to stone, while Ixion squeezes Hermes and stomps on people.  Julia freaks out some more, while Hermes fears for his life and gets squeezed some more.  Meanwhile, Diana is swimming in New Hampshire.  Hermes reaches out to her, and she flies quickly to help.  At the same time, Etta is examining some signals being picked up from outer space.  She manages to break some kind of code, and recognizes that it’s proof that an alien invasion is coming (I’m sorry, but wasn’t she just Trevor’s attaché before this?).  Diana attacks Phobos and ties her up with her lasso before realizing that Ixion is the bigger threat.  She tosses him away from populated areas, and then starts to fight him while he begs for death.  Euryale tries to free Phobos from the lasso while soldiers shoot at them, but isn’t able to.  Hermes, who has the caduceus back, uses it to behead Euryale, and then turns to Phobos.  Hermes takes him to Diana, who has Ixion tiring, and begging to be killed.  Hermes wants to imprison him again, but under Paradise Island this time, which Diana does not agree with.  Some jets arrive, and Ixion attacks them.  They fire their missiles at him, and manage to kill him.  Diana heads to Julia’s house, where she finds Julia and Vanessa watching TV together.  Julia sends Vanessa to her room so she can apologize for not being more supportive of Diana before.  She blames this on menopause (actually) making it hard for her to control her moods.  They embrace, and then Diana explains that when she disagreed with Hermes, it hurt him because he’s used to being worshipped, so he’s left.  Julia is convinced that Hermes has feelings for Diana, and we see him fly away.

Okay, so we go from praising the last volume for its clear and casual feminism, but this volume ends with Julia explaining her less-than supportive behaviour on menopause?  I wonder how that ever got included, and why Karen Berger (the book’s editor) didn’t talk George Pérez out of including that scene.

Anyway, I’m going to be honest, reading this volume was a bit of a tough slog.  In the first volume, I assumed that the overly wordiness of the text was all Len Wein’s fault as scripter, but after he left and Pérez took on solo writing duties, things got slower and more ponderous.  There were some bright spots in this book – I liked the Myndi Mayer mystery issue, but the main plotlines over this time were dull.  

The Silver Swan story didn’t work.  We spent so much time getting to know her, her friend, and the guy who wanted to kill her, but then all of those plotlines evaporated.  The stuff with the Olympians deciding to leave was also pretty dull.  Again and again, Diana was a common thread to these stories, but didn’t really feel like the main character for long stretches of time.

The most important thing to happen during the issues in this volume – Darkseid’s attack on Mount Olympus – didn’t happen in this book at all, but in a single issue of Action Comics (I think).  It’s not even summarized here, so readers are left thinking that they’ve missed something.

It did feel like things were working properly during the Circe storyline for a bit, but again, Diana needed a group of local rebels and some divine intervention to reach the end of that story.

I was pleased to see the Olympians leaving, hoping that their exodus would leave more space for Diana, but quickly, the book started focusing too much on Hermes, and Diana was relegated to being a subservient sidekick for a couple of issues.

While I liked the way her naivety was portrayed at the beginning, by the end of the second year of her book, she really never found space to come into her own.  

Pérez often seems more interested in the circle around Diana.  Vanessa is growing to be an interesting character, with her typical preteen drama and turmoil.  Even Julia got to meet a man and see her friends.  Myndi’s story, followed up with the reading of her will, made her the most compelling and interesting character in the book, but to get there, she had to be killed off.

The most redeeming quality of this book is Pérez’s artwork.  He excels at backgrounds, and often has interesting page layouts.  I like the way he’ll put a column of panels in the middle of a page to show something else that is happening at the same time as some major action.  He is good at conveying a lot of information visually without slowing down the page (which works against his writing style, which slows things down too often).  

Sadly, the next book in this series opens after Pérez stepped down from art duties.  This does not bode well for things, although I like that the Invasion tie-ins at least have Diana interacting with the DC Universe, which I’d hoped would happen more in this volume.

I guess we’ll see if things improve.  I know I read the Invasion issues, but have no memory of them.

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