Cara's Reviews > Wonder Woman: Paradise Lost

Phil Jimenez’ run (at least that which is collected in TPB) has great ideas, but the execution is often off, largely because the second story feels rushed. This volume is really unbalanced. Four issues are spent on the fun Gods of Gotham that, itself, doesn’t have significant ramifications for Diana, and two very rushed issues on an incredibly important development for Diana. I don’t know why Jimenez allocated his stories in this way, but it does a real disservice to the very interesting story he’s telling.

In Gods of Gotham, Ares’ children possess Gotham villains: Joker (Deimos, God of Terror), Poison Ivy (Eris, Goddess of Discord), and Scarecrow (Phobos, God of Fear). The plan is to use the credulity and despair of Max Zeus’ followers to return Ares to the world. Wonder Woman and Batman pair up in facing the main set of villains, while Artemis and Huntress team up and confront the mortal fanatics. Eventually, WW and BM are joined by Donna Troy (Troia) and Nightwing, and Robin (Tim Drake) and Wonder Girl (Cassie) pair up with Artemis and Huntress. Everyone then teams up for the final conflict. The team-ups are interesting; Artemis and Huntress have an interesting discussion about faith (although it’s pretty forced—who holds deep philosophical conversations while fighting crazed zealots?), and Jimenez does a great job showing off the friendship of Troia-Nightwing and Robin-Wonder Girl, as well as the relationships between Nightwing and Robin and Troia and Wonder Girl.

The arc doesn’t need 4 issues, however; there’s a fair amount of filler in the back-and-forth between the villains and the heroes’ setbacks before they once again appear on the road to victory.
I don’t think the filler would be so noticeable if the second arc, Paradise Lost, wasn’t comprised of only 2 issues: Loving Submission and Winds of War. There’s a prologue, “Who is Troia?”, but it is only 6-pages, and it’s really a way for Jimenez to summarize Troia’s complicated history for WW readers who don’t read Teen Titans.

Paradise Lost details the civil war between the Amazons of Themiscyra and those of Bana-Mighdall, the “lost tribe” that Messner-Loebs’ run transported to Themiscyra, resulting in an aborted civil war resolved when Circe transported everyone to a dimension overrun by demons. This arc is full of really great ideas—the tension between Hippolyta and Diana over Hippolyta’s continuing activity as Wonder Woman, even though Diana serves in that role; the tension between Hippolyta (and, to a certain extent, Diana) and the Bana-Mighdall, who feel disenfranchised and marginalized; the tension between Hippolyta and the Themiscyran Amazons, some of whom feel abandoned by their queen; and the tension between the Themiscyran and Bana-Mighdall tribes, who have differing ethos and visions for themselves and Paradise Island. Two issues isn’t nearly enough to flesh out even half of these, let alone all of them. So the story is rushed, and there are gaps in execution.

There wasn’t enough set-up of the various themes. There is a bit of the Diana-Hippolyta/Hippolyta-Artemis tensions at the beginning of Gods of Gotham. The divisions between the two tribes deserved much more development, particularly in terms of the different ways the tribes wanted to interact with the outside world. And we should also have seen more of the troubles between Hippolyta and the Themiscyrans. There are also relationships (Ipthemia-Anaya) that are not fleshed out but are important.

The lack of set-up means that the civil war feels incredibly rushed. There are also some notable gaps. One is a bit small—Donna creates a bond with some of the Bana-Mighdall by teaching them photography, which apparently they’ve never heard of. How did a tribe who designed and sold advanced weaponry not know that there are things called cameras? A more significant one is how Diana and Donna are taken out before the war starts. This is done entirely off-panel. I actually wondered if I was missing pages, as there is no explanation of how they are both defeated (view spoiler)[ by Fury (hide spoiler)]. Fury’s presence in the story also problematic—she plays a significant role, but she comes out of the blue, without any set-up. In light of the motivation that drives her (view spoiler)[(rivalry with Diana due to her belief that she (Fury) is a better daughter than Diana) (hide spoiler)], and Donna’s elevation as a princess of the Amazons at the start of this story, it is bizarre that Fury doesn’t show up until late in the story.

The final story is a day-in-Diana’s-life, as told through the eyes of Lois Lane, who is writing a story about her. The story allows Jimenez to show Diana in her various roles (U.N. Ambassador, social activist, philanthropist, Justice League-er), and to explore the latent tension between Lois and Diana, and their individual relationships with Clark/Kal/Superman. It’s a good story, but I wish more time had been spent on the personal dynamics between Lois and Diana. There are some nice moments between the two, as Diana gets at least a glimmer of why her relationship with Kal is so difficult for Lois to accept. But the structure of the issue (Lois writing a story) doesn’t let this develop as much as I’d like, and the resolution is too quick.

The art is very good. As many others have noted, it’s George Perez-like in terms of detail and proportion. The characters are not over-sexualized (well, no more than women typically are in comics—but certainly not as they were in the Byrne or Deodato eras). It’s a treat to look at.