Wonder Woman No. 6
DC Comics
Ready to have your mind blown? Wonder Woman is one of the oldest superheroes whose comic books have been in continuous publication since she was originally introduced (way back in 1941). In the 66 years that have followed, dozens of different writers and artists have handled her monthly adventures, but only one, single woman has ever written them. That woman was Mindy Newell, who scripted back in the late ’80s, about 20 years ago now.
This month a second female writer will finally be given the chance to write the preeminent female superhero. She’s a newcomer to comic-book writing, but has had a great deal of experience (and success) writing prose fiction before: best-selling author Jodi Picoult, of The Tenth Circle and My Sister’s Keeper fame.
As way overdue as a woman writing Wonder Woman is, it’s really too bad that the results aren’t better.
Picoult’s Wonder Woman is depressingly similar to the one from the old ’70s TV show. She hides behind the secret identity of Diana Prince, holds a day job with the U.S. government and has a Clark Kent-like disguise consisting of a pair of glasses. She’s seeking to reconnect with modern human society after spending the last few years of her fictional career being a full-time superhero, a political ambassador from the Amazon nation of Themyscira (aka Paradise Island) and the Olympian Goddess of Truth.
Picoult uses this plot thread to play Wonder Woman as a sort of fish out of water character, struggling to figure out how to successfully order coffee from Starbucks and navigate subway turnstiles. Picoult fans will likely find it more charming than Wonder Woman fans will; after all, if our girl can fly an invisible jet despite all of the controls being, you know, invisible, how come she can’t figure out how to pump her own gas?
Even less charming is a somewhat tacked-on plot involving Diana Prince being assigned to bring in the fugitive Wonder Woman for questioning, and her archenemy Circe masquerading as Wonder Woman. The artwork, by penciller Drew Johnson and inker Ray Snyder, like Picoult’s first script, seems rather rushed and mediocre. In Picoult’s defense, this is her first comic book script ever, but it’s an awfully high-profile venue for such trial and error.
Aquaman: Sword of Atlantis No. 50
DC Comics
Another successful prose writer trying his keyboard at superhero comics scripting this month is Tad Williams, the long-time fantasy novelist with something like 14,000 books on his resume (I’m exaggerating—a little).
Williams’ past genre-of-choice when it comes to prose is more closely suited to magic and mythological superheroes than Picoult’s, and he’s had a little bit of past practice, having cranked out an original miniseries guest-starring Superman and a one-shot trying to make Golden Age superhero Ibis the Invincible relevant again.
His is probably the harder assignment, though, given that the book he’s taking over is the one starring Aquaman, a perennial punch line in the wider pop-culture consciousness. As the relatively freshly added Sword of Atlantis subtitle indicates, Aquaman’s book has taken a turn away from straight superheroics and toward underwater sword and sorcery (or swordfish and sorcery, as I like to call the new genre).
The blond in the orange sequins and green tights is no longer the one who telepathically talks to fishes, but a newer, younger one: a water-breathing mutant human who is new to the ocean floor and trying to play hero among the strange half-fish, half-human races that live down there.
Like Picoult, Williams only has one issue of the series under his belt, but the pressures he’s dealing with are relatively light. After all, it’s freaking Aquaman—he’d have to work pretty hard to make the book sell any worse than it already does. His main artistic collaborator is penciller Shawn McManus, whose cartooning is fairly strong, but whose work is easily eclipsed by the poetic beauty of cover artist Mario Alberti.