Wonder Woman #769 // Review
Diana wants to help Emma. It's not going to be easy. Emma is a powerful psychic who is suffering from a severe psychotic break. Thankfully, Diana's had a lot of experience dealing with the super-powered mentally ill as she faces Emma's alter-ego Liar Liar in Wonder Woman #769. Writer Mariko Tamaki concludes her work on the title in an issue drawn by Steve Pugh with color by Romulo Fajardo Jr. The finale of Emma's introduction is written to have a level of epic intensity Pugh doesn't quite manage to bring to the page. However, the finale is firmly in touch with those things that make Wonder Woman such an interesting character.
Wonder Woman is guarding a hospital. Emma has come there believing herself to be a hero...the only one willing to slay the monster that is her father. And since her father happens to be Maxwell Lord, she may be totally justified in wanting her father dead. Wonder Woman acknowledges this. Diana wouldn't be the hero that she is if she didn't believe that even the most villainous people in the universe don't deserve the same gift of life that everyone else has. To save the life of Lord, Wonder Woman must carve her way into Emma's insanity in hopes of making some contact with her.
Tamaki's run on Wonder Woman has featured some remarkable moments. The reluctant team-up with Max Lord has allowed for some interesting juxtapositions between heroism and villainy that point a spotlight at Wonder Woman's altruism. The final showdown with Liar Liar doesn't exactly live up to her best work. It's a slow, sweeping movement as Diana reaches out to help a girl who honestly doesn't want to be helped. Tamaki doesn't allow the villain enough emotional development in the course of the issue to make her overall development by the issue's end to feel all that believable.
To Tamaki's credit, she's giving the artist plenty of room to explore the power of a full-blown psychic conflict. The psychic conflict intensity would have needed to be delivered to the page with much more impact than Pugh has managed to give it in Tamaki's final issue. Isolated moments of movement feel impressive enough, but for the most part, Emma and Wonder Woman (or Emma's demonic conception of Wonder Woman) are given static and dramatic poses that feel flat on the page. Romula Fajardo Jr. lends a bit of depth to the panels with some clever color effects, and there IS a heartfelt emotional intensity to Pugh's work. Still, the conflict between Emma and Diana never quite lives up to the potential for a truly satisfying climax of Tamaki's run.
Mariko Tamaki has coaxed a very heartfelt hero to the page. While her final issue isn't a wholly satisfying conclusion to her run on the series, it's nice to see Tamaki's Diana spending a few more panels fighting for the sanctity of life in a world that is locked in so much madness. Becky Cloonan takes over in issue 770 in March. If she can find even her way to the character's emotional center the way Tamaki has, the series will continue to do justice to Diana.
