Wonder Woman #7 Review http://www.o-r-c.co.uk/media/reviews/photos/thumbnail/400x400s/ab/20/b3/_ww7cov-1334521864.jpg

Story: 0.5/5 (half a point since 0 isn't an option)

I'm going to be fairly mean about this one. Consider it tough love, since at the beginning of the Wonder Woman relaunch, I had very high hopes for the title. Previous issues have boasted some very strong moments, and with a writer like Azzarello at the helm, there's been great potential for Wonder Woman to reignite fans' interest. But it's not going to happen with this issue...

DC's New 52 has had some real duds, especially where female characters are concerned, but I feel perfectly confident in calling this issue the single worst thing that has happened so far. I barely know what to say about it, other than that everything about is horrible.

The seventh issue of the new series makes a few things very clear: in the new DCU Wonder Woman isn't a strong warrior, nor even a dignified princess. She's just a girl who's been tricked into believing she and her people are something special. Luckily, there are men around her to tell her the truth. How good of them. As a woman who has been a comics fan since childhood, I'm so glad DC has rewritten the story of the ONLY woman in the entire DCU who stands on equal ground with Superman and Batman so that she's just a powerless little idiot whose only talent is occasionally befuddling deities. I'm absolutely ecstatic that the woman who is perhaps the most famous fictional feminist icon has been reduced to utter powerlessness. I think it's wonderful that her society, which has previously been built on principles of sisterhood and which had an understandable reason for prohibiting men to set foot on their island, has been rewritten to be a group of sirens who literally would kill male children just for being male. Yes, DC, that's what we women readers want to see. We want to be reminded that women really can't be heroes, and that a woman can only appear (but never actually be) strong if she's a stereotypical "man-hater." Gee, thanks.

Moreover, thanks for being so gracious and kind as to include a lowly woman like Diana in a comic book about Zeus's family. That's really swell of you.

It seems as if every issue of the title, and this one especially, involves Diana being put in her place by male characters. She wields no authority. She's literally told in this issue that her signature weapons are actually useless. she doesn't do anything. She just stands around, immeasurably hurt by yet another revelation that the women in her life are all sadistic liars and the only people she can rely on are the men of the Greek pantheon.

And nothing else really happens. If Diana's going to have a crisis of identity, can it at least wait until her identity has been established? New readers coming into this title will have no idea who Wonder Woman is supposed to be, but they will know that she's apparently not much of anything.

Here's hoping #8, in which Diana goes to Hell, will see the Amazon warrior reclaiming her power as a superheroine.

Art: 4/5

The art was good, but overshadowed by the horrifyingly ridiculous story. I rather liked the character design for Hephaestus, and with Cliff Chiang returning for the interior art, the awkward facial expressions that marred the past issue are gone. Great art, but it's hard to get excited about it when it's accompanied by this story. However, on a positive note, while the character design for Hades is hit-or-miss, I'm quite looking forward to seeing Hell in the next issue.

Cover: 5/5

Art-wise, it's a great cover. Hephaestus's arm lends a grotesque element to a scene of Diana, face grave and resolute, forging a weapon. If the cover were in any way indicative of the storyline, it would undoubtedly have been a great issue. As has happened with the past couple of issues, this one places Diana in a position of strength she never actually attains in the story...ever. However, it's great art.