Wonder Woman #759 review

It’s a big day for Wonder Woman as, aided by her Amazon sisters, she moves into a brownstone in Washington DC. She quickly meets the neighbours.

Emma takes Diana to IKEA, sorry, FURN, where Superheroine No1 is rightly unimpressed by the retail proposition.

In the car park – who knew our star could drive? – Diana and Emma see a young mother drive off with her infant son, leaving her other child and her partner in the dust. Wonder Woman gives chase…

And a big welcome to new Wonder Woman writer Mariko Tamaki, last seen writing Diana in the anniversary #750 and author of an excellent Diana/John Constantine team-up a few years ago. She gets off to a great start by making this a jumping-on point, having the villain of the piece introducing us to Diana. The narrator ruminates on good and evil, heroes and villains, before standing revealed on the final page.

New supporting character Emma is delightful. She’s a bright teenager with trauma-induced memory problems who just gets on with life. I look forward to seeing what she and Diana can teach one another and meeting any other members of her family beyond that foul-mouthed bunny.

I’ve not always been a fan of Diana talking to the animals, but here it makes for a sweet moment. I am a fan of Tamaki dialling down Diana’s powers – when she goes after the runaway mom there’s no flying at super-speed, nope, she dumps her heels and sprints after the people carrier.

The sequence is perfectly placed to showcase the talents of the other half of Diana’s latest creative team, Mikel Janín, whose work on Grayson and Batman amply demonstrated his way with a chase sequence. Determined, Diana races down a busy road, finally leaping on to the speeding vehicle (I did say this was a jumping-on point…). It’s an exciting scene, with Janín’s talents perfectly complementing Tamaki’s sparse, focused narration.

There’s a lot more action in this issue and Janín, partnered with talented colourist Jordie Bellaire, sells every bit of it. He’s equally great at the quieter scenes – literally in the case of the Amazon moving team, who don’t say a word in their several-panel cameo. Janín’s people are beautifully rendered, and Bellaire casts the colours to reflect their personality, from Diana’s red, white and gold training shoes to Emma’s new rug, chosen to tone with her hair.

Pat Brosseau’s lettering looks to be hand-drawn – the robotic perfection of bot fonts is absent – and it integrates nicely into the overall art job… and if he is using a program, well, it’s one I like. Whatever the approach, it has to be said that Brosseau doesn’t get enough credit. He does fun sound effects too.

A shout-out to Brittany Holzherr and Paul Kaminski – creative combos this good don’t just come out of nowhere, and everyone needs editors.

The cover by David Marquez, which looks like an inventory piece, is decent, but I hope to see Janín strut his stuff in this space soon.

Action, humour and humanity at every turn, this is the Wonder Woman I want.