Comic Book Review: Wonder Woman #33

Wonder Woman is beaten, bloodied and broken from her battle with Genocide. She returns to Paradise Island almost unconscious. Her Amazonian sisters find her, barely alive, and her mother horrified of her child's torn condition. While the Amazons are hectic about Diana's condition, Ares stages his final attack by calling on the vassal of Poseidon to bring the deadliest sea creatures from the waters to assist his army of, what Dan Dido termed as "Manizons."

Hippolyta has her women prepare for a battle which the they have little chance of victory. Wonder Woman, who refuses to accept defeat, straps her lasso and an axe to her burned hands and defeats sea monsters.

Zeus later explains to Diana how he raised Achilles from the ground to be her husband and demands praise for this. Wonder Woman defies Zeus, and since the Amazons cannot deny the gods, she declares herself, "no longer an Amazon."

My Thoughts: This book was fantastic! Aaron Lopresti and Matt Ryan were at their best! The sea monsters, with their scaley, slimy, and ugly forms, were terrifyingly well done. As an artist myself, my jaw plummeted to the floor (with a thud) when I saw the fifth page where the monsters are charging at Paradise Island. I was HOOKED at this point. And of Course, Wonder Woman has the sculpted body and a Greek Goddess. very well done.

The story, without a doubt, is Gail Simone's best work. The dialog between characters is superb, the battle scenes make ones heart beat more intensely from anticipation, and the ending was a shocker! The dialog is fluid and does not waste time trying to explain what has lead to this point.

With Wonder Woman's hands in no condition to grasp anything, I was not amazed that she asked Phillipus to bind her lasso and an axe to her hands with bandages. She is an unrelenting Woman, as always. I was cheering Wonder Woman on as she flew in the sky and did some real damage to Poseidon's monsters.

But what I loved the most was how Wonder Woman completely defied Zeus by way of punching him dead in the face, knocking him to the ground. I thought to myself "Can you actually do that and live? She just punched a Greek God!!" Apparently you can, but there's a price...you can no longer be an Amazon. Now even though Diana made this choice of her own free will, I felt she had no other alternative seeing as how she denies the authority of Zeus which all the Amazons accept and obey.

Now I was not entirely sure what the scheme was between Ares and Zeus, but we can never truly know what the Greek gods intentions are, especially with the womanizing Zeus. I also felt the switching of sides came to suddenly, but seeing as how the book needed to be wrapped up in this issue, something needed to be done.

Overall, I thought this book was a hit! A great way to end this "Rise of an Olympian" story arc. You'll definatly see this book in my top five for the month of June!