Cassandra is determined to find her brother First Born, but she may be too late, as he is in the possession of Apollo who is torturing the demigod. Cassandra does some torturing herself trying to pry First Born’s location from the seer Milan, who refuses to help her.
Milan’s friend Orion charges in to save him. Elsewhere, Wonder Woman, Hermes and Siracca are also attempting to locate Milan and find themselves assaulted by First Born’s hyena “children.”
Strife was left to watch over Zola and Zeke, but she has her own conniving plans, involving the tiny weaopn Hephaestus forged for her. She seems to change her mind and hatches a different plan instead.
As Strife points out, this family that Wonder Woman has built from the beginning is crumbling. First Lennox, then War have died. Hermes betrayed them, but has since returned. In this issue, it appears that two… make that three characters also depart in one way or another.
Cassandra while menacing, has a sameness to her. All of these gods are selfish, paranoid, power-mad and back-stabbing. They have different features, but the major menaces tend to overlap.
Goran Sudzuka’s art maintains the overall look of the series. It’s not as dynamic as Cliff Chiang’s (the book’s main illustrator). The panel design is fairly boring and the art is a little static in places, but overall, it’s decent enough. And there is some excellent detail work in places, like a huge swarm of flies that had to have taken forever to render.
I know a lot of people consider this the best run on Wonder Woman ever. Unfortunately, it’s hard to argue that, considering the character has been plagued by lackluster runs and inconsistent depictions. And while I applaud it for being a different take on the character, I feel that overall the book is growing stagnant with too many similar characters… hell, too many characters in general. And not to spoil things, but Zola and that baby in danger again? AGAIN?! So while the issue is hardly terrible, the series overall is dragging and the art was just a little better than average.
WONDER WOMAN #26
Written by Brian Azzarello
Art by Goran Sudzuka
Cover by Cliff Chiang
