the m0vie blog

Earlier this week I reviewed Wednesday Comics, a rather spanking anthology from DC Comics. I kinda figured, however, it might be worth my while to break out some of those fifteen stories on their own (but not all of them) and discuss them, as it’s easy to lose sight of a particular writer/artist’s work in an anthology. Now it’s time to discuss the most controversial (or, at least, divisive) of the bunch: Wonder Woman.

When you discuss the ambition of DC Comics’ wonderful Wednesday Comics series, the argument inevitably comes back around to Ben Caldwell’s Wonder Woman strip, which seems to be the most divisive of the bunch. Everyone hates Teen Titans and loves The Flash, but Caldwell’s take on the iconic Amazon has served to split readers down the middle. It shouldn’t be too surprising, though, since the strip is really one of the handful to play with the extra space the book was allowed. While I’m not exactly overjoyed with the story, I certainly respect it a great deal for having the guts to follow through on some fascinating design ideas.

Wonder Woman fans should get a kick out of it...

Wonder Woman is one of the few strips in the collection to make true use of the giant pages available to the writer and artist. While – with the exception of Michael Allred and Neil Gaiman on Metamorpho – most artists seemed afraid of the extra space, simply treating it like a regular comic book page, down to the layout, here Caldwell does something wonderfully counter-intuitive. The urge with bigger pages might be simply to go bigger, louder and brasser. Splash pages, it would seem, would be particularly daring when you only have one page a week to tell your story. However, Caldwell does the opposite: he goes smaller.

The hardcover collection is reportedly an inch or two smaller than the original edition of the strip, and I get the sense that Wonder Woman is the strip which pays the price. Most pages are overloaded with panels – I’d reckon the “busier” pages have up to sixty different little panels. Most contain dialogue and are shaded with variations of the same colour – red/pink or blue/purple. This doesn’t make the story the easiest to read or to follow – at times it’s almost tough to distinguish what’s going on in a given panel, particularly for a reader intent on gobbling down the multitudes of the delights in the collected edition.

Not-so-pretty poison...

Add to this the fact that Caldwell eschews the tradition left-to-right format of comic books for several pages – and within blocks, some times. Sometimes you read a strip from top-to-bottom rather than left-to-right, sometimes you read right-to-left. In fairness, Caldwell, working as writer and artist, does his best to guide the reader along, and it becomes much more fluid on subsequent read-throughs. For the most part, the gutters indicate a good general direction to read. Still, trying to determine which way to read a page can take a reader out of the strip, and seems a particularly tough exercise given the conventional formats of the other stories collected in this volume.

It probably doesn’t help that Caldwell’s story would arguably have enough going on without worrying about the page layout. Most stories in the Wednesday Comics collection are content to offer straight-forward, almost cliché plots. Batman gets tangled in a predictable noir mystery. Green Lantern faces down an alien invasion. Metal Men foil a bank robbery. Hawkman does different, random, crazy awesome things with each passing page. Even the novel ones, such as Supergirl taking care of the super-pets, can’t help but feel fairly simplistic. Perhaps because there isn’t really a paint-by-numbers Wonder Woman plot, or perhaps feeling it too obvious to follow the path of least resistance.

I just can't fall in love with this comic...

Instead, Caldwell offers us something of an origin story, mixed with a classic quest tale (fittingly modelled on the myth of Hercules), along with some straightforward villain-thumping and children-saving action. Using the framing device of having Wonder Woman engage in a series of dreams to find seven parts of her iconic uniform, Caldwell keeps the plot moving efficiently. He’s openly acknowledged that ending the first few pages with Wonder Woman waking up is a nod to Little Nemo.

Caldwell rightly recognises the whole mythological basis of the character, in the same way that perhaps Superman is a science-fiction hero or Batman is a noir detective. As such, he gives his story a wonderful legendary sort of feel to it – drawing above and beyond the Greek stereotypes traditionally associated with the character (since the notion of Amazons as warrior women traditionally originated in Greek myths and legends). In the space of his twelve-page storyline, we visit Arthurian legend, the Norse myth of Fenrir (here bound by Wonder Woman’s iconic lasso), and many more. It certainly gives the story an expansive feel and offers a rich tapestry that events can play out against – it’s an inventive approach which suits the character and her surroundings, which is likely no easy task. Indeed, despite dealing with a character who has had great difficulty in finding her voice in recent years, Caldwell has a wonder and engaging manner of portraying her.

What a Wonder...

However, the simple fact is that there’s a bit too much going on here. Most of the stories written in this collection trim back a hero’s supporting cast, to offer a more streamlined version of continuity for more efficient and condensed storytelling. However, not only does Caldwell include all manner of Wonder Woman mainstays – and for a character not exactly as firmly entrenched in popular consciousness as Superman or Batman, she has quite a few – he also offers them sizable roles, even those who have fallen by the wayside in mainstream continuity. The original Cheetah, faithful sidekick Etta Candy, baddie Dr. Poison and Ares all show up, among others. That’s quite a crowded storyline, if I do say so myself, which leads to a lot of introductions and a lot of dialogue, by necessity.

In fairness, Caldwell gives each their own voice and personality, which is no mean feat in a relatively condensed narrative. It feels like a rather wonderful pulpy take on the character, and never one that takes itself too seriously. Indeed, Caldwell seems to have a genuine love for the character and the material which shines through. Indeed, the fact that he can piece together such a wonderfully-constructed and fully-realised version of this character who has certainly lacked consistent creative vision of late is a testament to his skill.

Sometimes you just have to dive in...

However, while I love Caldwell’s unquestionable enthusiasm and admire the fact that he’s more willing to play with the potential offered by this unique format that most of his contemporaries, I’d by lying if I called this a complete success. There’s simply too much going on in too confined a space – it’s difficult to follow sometimes.

Caldwell pulled double duty here – also providing the artwork for his story – and I really dig he almost manga-esque take on the world of his protagonist. The drawings actually look more like sketches than finished drawings, which arguably reflects the state of Wonder Woman herself this early in her career. Still, such artwork might have done better to have a little room to breath – indeed, on the rare occasion where his work is given space (for example, around Fenrir) it looks stunning. Crammed into tiny boxes, it isn’t always the easiest to determine what’s going on.

She doesn't quite soar, here, I'm afraid...

The colouring doesn’t quite help matters. He seems to have opted for tones of blue and red, with the story running from cold (blue) to hot (red). It’s a clever concept, in theory, and fits the tone of the work quite well. However, the lack of specific colouring means panels are likely to end up looking like blue or red squares, making it tougher to distinguish shapes within the tiny box. This is one of those things that the read notices, again, for the few panels scattered throughout the work where the shading was toned down. Normally this wouldn’t be a serious concern, but with the smaller panels (which would be small even on regular pages), it becomes a bigger problem.

With regards to the story itself, the large scope and the unique format means that the saga is heavily reliant on huge info-dumps and large amounts of dialogue. Caldwell seems aware of this weakness (“That is an awful lot of exposition for such a little girl,” the wolf observes), and most of his dialogue is witty enough to avoid seeming forced, but certain lines can’t help but feel awkwardly shoe-horned in (including a brief history of English folklore with Bran the Blessed – “do you need everything explained to you?”). As mentioned above, this tends to slow down the reading of the story, certainly in contrast to the others in the collection.

What a Woman... A Wonder Woman, if you will...

Still, Wonder Woman is a brave story, and one of the few to make a genuinely interesting attempt to adapt itself to the unique format of the project. And, like the similarly ambitious version of The Flash, it’s also a rather interesting take on the character herself, and one which suggests that Caldwell might make a suitable author for the character in a… more permanent capacity. At its worst, it’s an interesting failure. However, I would remark that it reads much better the second time through, once you’ve adjusted to its rather wonderful approach to the heroine.

It’s not one of the very best stories collected in the volume, but it’s an experimental story featuring an often-forgotten character in a setting which fits rather wonderfully. Indeed, the blending of urban adventuring (yes, that’s a “Wayne” advertisement you see in a screenshot above) with the more mystical roots of the character now seems a magical foreshadowing of J. Michael Straczynski’s current take on the superheroine. It’s certain a story that deserves your respect, even if it can’t earn your love.

Filed under: Comics | Tagged: ben caldwell, dc comics, wednesday comics, wonder woman |