Writer: Greg Rucka; with special thanks for the suckage to Geoff Johns Artists: Drew Johnson(p), Ray Snyder(i), Tanya and Richard Horie(c) Publisher: DC
Wonder Woman this week features the second part of a story that runs--or perhaps hobbles would be a better word--currently in Geoff Johns' The Flash. The book also serves as a precursor to Rucka's, Johns' and Judd Winick's big event comic book Countdown and the whole even darker DC age that will arise in its wake. On the bright side, if this dystopic trend continues I'll be looking to save quite a bit of money.
To put it bluntly this issue of Wonder Woman sucks. Its quality does not drop due to the forced crossover. Instead, it's just the writer(s) plain old laziness and/or stupidity that rob you of time and money. After scenes set on Mt. Olympus, which comprise only three pages, you can kiss any hope of intelligence in the writing good-bye.
The story proper commences when Rucka and/or Johns turn(s) the camera on the Flash bleeding from his throat. Wonder Woman narrates, or rather the narration takes the place of thought balloons. The narration heralds a downward spiral of research that would have taken maybe ten seconds to engage and prevented the story from becoming dismal.
"--And the smell of his blood being spilled is copper coating the back of my throat."--Diana; page four.
Either the writer does not know human blood is iron-based, or Wonder Woman does not know human blood is iron-based. Either choice does not bode well. See how the same sentence would sound with iron in place of copper.
"--And the smell of his blood being spilled is iron coating the back of my throat."--Correction
The only difference is that one is accurate, and the other one makes Wonder Woman ignorant of basic biology.
On page seven, Cheetah leaps at Wonder Woman, and the still bleeding Flash grabs Cheetah's tail, redirects Cheetah's trajectory and swings her into the wall.
Let me introduce you to Super-Hero Physics 101. Super-speed does not give Wally super-strength. If he were to grab the Cheetah by her tail one of two things should have happened. One, Cheetah should have carried him off his feet; amazingly, he stays rooted. Two--and more likely--the tail should have just whipped out of his grip. There's no way that Wally should have been able to swing Cheetah into the wall. He's using two hands, but that is irrelevant. He does not have super-strength or even the leverage. His speed stealing powers also do not negate Cheetah's weight. Only those with super-strength, Geo-Force and the pre-Crisis Light Lass, who both had the ability to deflect gravity, could have defeated Cheetah in the way depicted.
What could have been done instead? If the Flash had a good grip on the Cheetah's tail, he could have let her carry him off his feet. His added weight would have thrown her off balance and screw up the intent of her leap. His action without breaking the laws of physics would have saved Wonder Woman from becoming a scratching post. Simple, accurate, and the correction would have still served the story.
Cheetah's speed has been drastically increased. We learn in the story that Zoom "taught the Cheetah super-speed." Really? So, super-speed no longer derives from the Speed Force, a post-Crisis creation? This is what I hate the most about today's comic books. They have no sense of foundation or logic. If point A no longer counts, there cannot exist a point B, C or D. The implications of this new point A is that anybody if they apply themselves can learn super-speed or super-speed tricks.
"How long does it take to heal a severed spinal cord, lover?"--Cheetah; page nine
Level with me. You douchebags raise the idea of severed spines being mere distractions to male characters just to annoy me. So using the book's rules, if Babs Gordon "learned super-speed" she should be able to get out of her wheelchair. Even if DC mandated cutting off her legs--which I'm sure is a contingency plan, Babs should be able to apply super-speed to regenerate her legs and do the watusi. Tell me again how confining Babs Gordon in a wheelchair isn't ghoulish and misogynistic.
On page ten, Wonder Woman states: "This hurts more. Being punched at the speed of light will do that."
According to Einstein, objects lose their mass once they achieve the speed of light. If Professor Zoom struck Wonder Woman at the speed of light, she should have felt as though a flashlight beam was hitting her. Was there a way out of this poor understanding of physics? Certainly.
"This hurts more. Being punched at Mach Two will do that."
If Zoom hit a normal person at Mach Two, that person would be dead. Mach two would mean that Zoom's fist had broken the sound barrier. The blow would have hurt Wonder Woman, and the impetus of the blow would have carried her fairly far. Maybe not to Paris, but such artistic license would have been, given the weight of the physics behind the blow, easier to accept. We're hit by light, which surprisingly travels at the speed of light, every day. Feathers impact with greater force.
On the same page, Wonder Woman informs the reader "He's not truly faster than me. Rather, he's traveling through time."
That's quite an erudite statement coming from somebody who doesn't know that human blood is iron-based. In any case, it's once again inaccurate. Zoom's ability to travel in instants could be explained by time travel. However, his other tricks are definitely based on super-speed:
"I just punched your sisterr two hundred times in less than a second, Wonder Womaaannn."--Zoom; page fifteen.
So, if I accept the given explanation, Zoom is traveling through time "two hundred" times to hit Io. Not remotely possible. It's still going to take Zoom time and effort to initiate multiple time traveling, wind up for each punch and deliver each punch--perfectly I may add. He also has to avoid running into himself since matter cannot occupy the exact same place at the exact same time. Even without factoring in Io's natural Amazon strength and stamina, Zoom couldn't possibly do all that damage to Io by time traveling. No, what makes more sense is that Zoom is a speedster. He's staying in place. He's hitting Io at super-speed again and again, and by increasing his velocity, he increases his momentum to inflict more damage. This also explains how a high-speed punch--though not one at "the speed of light"--can send Wonder Woman careening. Time travel cannot explain such actions.
Furthermore, the turnabout of the battle depends upon Zoom and his "student" the Cheetah being dependent on super-speed. Wally heals himself from the clawed attacks of Cheetah and defeats his foe by stealing her super-speed energy. This means that even the climax relies on the earlier post-Crisis information hammered out by Mark Waid that's blatantly contradicted in the body of the story.
Zoom cannot be time traveling to create the illusion of super-speed. Otherwise how could he have "taught super-speed" to Cheetah? Super-speed cannot be in the first place "taught" since the Flash absorbs the Cheetah's speed as a result of his contact with the Speed Force. The entire climax corroborates the idea of Mark Waid's Speed Force--a dimension of energy that manifests on earth as super-speed conduits like Wally.
I knew this issue of Wonder Woman would suck. I didn't believe it would suck like a black hole. All one requires is a second of thinking, and Wonder Woman falls apart. On the other hand maybe all one requires is the ability to time travel.
