Wonder Woman/Conan is co-published by DC Comics and Dark Horse Comics. It is written by Gail Simone with art by Aaron Lopresti.
Ahh. As expected, Gail Simone does not disappoint. I mean, we already knew she could write Wonder Woman, but while she hasn’t written Conan (to my knowledge, which if I’m wrong, sorry!), she has written Red Sonja. So, I wasn’t even remotely doubting her capabilities of writing this title. Confirmed, I was right.
What is so interesting about this team-up is that Wonder Woman is a hero and Conan is, well, a barbarian. He isn’t trying to save the world. But Wonder Woman, that is what she does. She doesn’t kill, she is a protector of the weak and innocent, a symbol of justice. Or, at least, she was. In this world, Diana doesn’t know who she is and barely remembers where she came from.
She isn’t just ruthless, she still has her strength and combat skills though, making her almost unstoppable, as we see when she fights 3 men on her own in the gladiator pits. And just….totally wrecks them. Which is extra interesting because in the very beginning, Conan also faces three men on his own and kills them. Though, he does it for money and not because his life depends on it.
We are given brief glimpses into Conan’s past and we know he once knew a girl when he was a child, one who looked very much like Diana, plus her name was Yanna. Which if it turns out she was Diana but like…in hiding or something, that would be the worst fake name ever. Either way, I’m pretty sure Yanna isn’t Diana. We get a small glimpse of Diana’s memory as well, but it doesn’t reveal anything to her, but we do get to see her lasso a shark, which is pretty rad.
Along with the flashback interludes, we are given scenes with 2 crows who are apparently following Conan, but we have no idea why. All we really know about them is they have a weird symbol in their eyes and the other thing we know I can’t tell you because it’s a spoiler. So you’re welcome.
Diana also gets a cooler and much longer fight sequence than Conan was given. She is so fierce and brave and just super badass while she beats the crap out of these dudes. But you never see her kill anyone. I mean, we don’t see for sure that they lived either, but you don’t see her explicitly killing them and seeing them die. That hero instinct is still inside her. She isn’t over-sexualized while she’s fighting either, which is nice because I really hate that shit when I’m reading a comic involving a female superhero. She may be in rags, but they aren’t falling off of her.
And while Wonder Woman is incredibly beautiful, she’s also huge and intimidating af. The way she should be. Lopresti really does a great job in his depiction of her and that coupled with the way Gail Simone writes her dialogue makes it all so perfect.
The only thing I didn’t really like about her look was the mud in the shape of stars. Did she do it? If she did, then why? Did her slave owner, Dellos? He does call her his “star”, but why would he paint stars on her raggedy skirt using mud? Why does she have a mud star on her head? Again, did she do it? Is it something she did because she remembers? Or did they just do it because they didn’t think we readers could figure out she was Wonder Woman. Even though it’s called “Wonder Woman / Conan” and she’s on the freaking cover. It just seemed really in-your-face. Like, HEY! HEY! SEE THOSE STARS? IT’S BECAUSE SHE’S WONDER WOMAN? SEE?! BECAUSE WONDER WOMAN WEARS STAR PATTERNS! It just seemed silly.
OVERALL SCORE: 9 / 10
I love Wonder Woman, but I hope we get a little more from Conan in the next issue. She was definitely the spotlight of this debut issue, which is great, but also I’d like to see Conan do more than kill three dudes in less than two pages and then sit and contemplate Wonder Woman’s identity for the rest of the issue. Even so, you should absolutely pick up this book. I can already tell it’s going to be a good read.
Make sure to pick up a copy of Wonder Woman/Conan from your local comic store!
Happy reading!
-Rachel Freeman
