Graphic Novel Mini Review: Wonder Woman Volume 1: Blood (Confirmed: EH 1/2)

A compilation of all the beautiful covers inside of Wonder Woman Volume 1  

Aside from Wonder Woman being the beautiful, black haired Amazonian who will have any male reader anxious to pick up her book she is also one of the few superheros my girlfriend actually likes, and any title or character that can get your significant other to read a comic when they usually do not  is always worth checking out.  So in order to create more of a comic bond between us (in other words letting her borrow the trade after I am done with it) I ventured out to one of my local shops to pick up Volume 1 of the New 52 Wonder Woman. You can find my lasso verdict of truth on this Wonder Woman trade after the break.....

An Epic real world Wonder Woman scene
rendered beautifully by artist Cliff Chiang !

     As shown from the first 4 or so issues of Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang's Wonder Woman Volume 1:Blood, Diana Prince was truly one of the characters that benefited from DC's line wide New 52 relaunch back in 2011.  Azzarello does a great job of setting up exactly what he wants this version of Diana Prince to be: a true heroine in our world that still plays a major role in the world of Greek mythology which Azzarello derives his version of Wonder Woman from.  The first 4 or so issues of this trade find the perfect balance of Diana's life as a heroine on Earth and the role Azzarello wants you to believe she plays in Greek Mythology.  However it is all down Mount Olympus from here! Once Cliff Chiang is replaced by artists Tony Akins and Dan Green on issues 5 and 6, anything Azarello was trying to do fell apart, so much so that the anti-climatic conclusion of  volume 1 was nearly incoherent because the artists were simply unable to sync with the story Azzarello was trying to tell.

Wonder Woman #6 provided one of the
worst endings to a DC comic in quite sometime!

     I really wanted to like this book, and really did for the first 4 issues which I would rate individually as great to EPIC.  However the ending is so bad it really tarnishes everything Azzarello had set up in the first four issues. Azzarello's ending was a bit sloppy and suffered from adding at least 4 new major characters at the last minute, but it was the incoherent and sloppy art of Tony Akins and Dan Green that ultimately kept this book from putting Wonder Woman on par with the likes of Batman and Green Lantern in the new DCU.  Fortunately, the talented Cliff Chiang returned for Volume 2 of the New 52 Wonder Woman. The question is, will that be enough to bring readers back to the title after the inexcusable ending to Volume 1? For this reader that answer is a resounding NO!