Wonder Woman #761 // Review
Diana has woken-up to find herself in a compromising position. For her, that means doing serious structural damage to her apartment building and serious questions about her ability to accurately perceive reality in Wonder Woman #761. Writer Mariko Tamaki challenges both her physical and conceptual assumptions in an issue drawn by penciler Carlo Barberi and inker Matt Santorelli. Colorist Alejandro Sanchez casts the panels in the dull radiance of mind control and other atmospheric elements. Tamaki's plot's specifics may feel slightly absurd at times, but they don't tarnish the complexity of the themes the author is exploring in an otherwise thoroughly engrossing issue.
Wonder Woman had awoken in the horror of combat inadvertently caused by her own hallucinations. Now she wakes up in a hospital bed with a very sympathetic Etta Candy trying to understand what had happened to her. The fact that there have been reports of many, many reports of people acting aggressively on vivid hallucinations more or less assures Diana's innocence. Still, it only makes things that much more frightening for everyone involved. What's worse: Wonder Woman can't trust her own senses, and she has to trust the earnestness of the villainous Maxwell Lord: perhaps the only one capable of stopping the spread of the plague of hallucinations.
It's a smartphone app. The outbreak of hallucinations that are endangering people all over the place is the result of an Instagram-like app that had been developed by Maxwell Lord's company. It's really silly. Aside from that nagging, little detail, everything that Tamaki is putting on the page is powerful and resonant. Diana's entire concept of trust and faith are put to the test. She can't trust her senses, but she has to trust a villain who truly thinks of himself as a hero. It's all very, very provocative stuff thematically and really engaging emotionally. So much of the issue is SO well written. It's just that... y'know...it's an app. All this fuss is over an app. A neurological interference signal of some sort is shot out through a smartphone in the time it takes to take a selfie? No. It's just silly. It's... it's just too bad Tamaki couldn't have come up with something more plausible.
The emotional precision of Michael Jannin's art in recent issues is replaced in 761 with the fluidly passionate work of Carlo Barberi as inked by Matt Santorelli. A change in art team, even if only for this issue, seems to fit thematically. The entirety of the visuals shifts to something much less exact. As Diana is forced to deal with a less accurate world in the wake of a major hallucinatory fugue. Sanchez's colors bring a gentle, vividness to the emotion of the issue. As the dully glowing eyes of hallucination make for an eerie mood around the edges of all the uncertainty.
Silliness with a malicious app aside, this is an enjoyable issue that explores the passions and intentions of superheroing in a unique light. Wonder Woman's distinctive personality is thrown into a conflict that feels fresh even if it's nothing she hasn't handled before in one way or another. Tamaki's brilliance falters a bit, but she's definitely leading to something that could stand as one of the better-executed Wonder Woman stories in the character's 75+ years of existence.
