Wonder Woman and Maxwell Lord are in Miami.  Who wants to see Crockett and Tubbs?  Your Major Spoilers review of Wonder Woman #764 from DC Comics awaits!

WONDER WOMAN #764

Writer: Mariko Tamaki
Artist: Steve Pugh
Colorist: Romulo Fajardo, Jr.
Letterer: Pat Brosseau
Editor: Paul Kaminski
Publisher: DC Comics
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: October 13, 2020

Previously in Wonder Woman:  Wonder Woman and Max Lord are on the hunt for some missing and extremely dangerous weaponry from Lord Industries, and the search has brought this unlikely duo to…Miami?  Fun in the sun will have to wait, because if Diana and Max can’t uncover this illegal arms trade, the entire city could be blown sky high!

But we’re sure Max Lord will be nothing but helpful…right?

IN SEARCH OF MAX’S STOLEN TECHNOLOGY

Okay, so regardless of the reality, Max Lord is still a jerk.  We open with him using his powers to ruin a wedding, then setting out with an undercover Diana to find his stolen technology.  Their contact has told them to meet him on the beach (he’s the one with the blue and white towel, a bit of identifying information that proves to be utterly useless to them), only to turn on them and call up a horde of strange liquid/cyborgs to take out Diana and Max.  Wonder Woman’s strength proves up to the task of holding them off, but to finish them, she has to summon a shark (!!) to crush them with it’s massive jaws.  Max returns to the hotel room, where he is clearly up to something, perhaps even being behind the whole mess, while Wonder Woman communes with the ocean on a surfboard and worries that she just can’t trust him.

She is 100% right, by the way.

THE LETTERING IS *REALLY* DISTRACTING

The first thing about this issue is the lettering by Pat Brousseau, which starts out VERY distracting, and only settles down a little bit by the end of the issue.  Everything seems to be a little bit italicized, which puts me on edge a little bit, and it affects my enjoyment of the rest of the issue.  Sadly, there are transitional problems with both the script and the art, and while the sight of the water-encased robots is pretty interesting, their body language is very stiff, like most all of the figures in the issue.  The story-telling is a little bit awkward, even as I really enjoy Pugh’s buildings, settings and backgrounds.  This issue’s biggest problem for me isn’t one of clarity (though that comes up more than once), but one of motivation, as it’s hard to understand why Wonder Woman would want to work with Max, and there isn’t a lot of effort put into explaining why she would.

BOTTOM LINE: OKAY, NOT OUTSTANDING

It’s not a bad comic, certainly, but Wonder Woman #764 has a few wobbles in both story and art that bring the experience down for me, and the distraction of the lettering colors the entire reading experience, leaving us with a right-down-the-middle 2.5 out of 5 stars overall.  I like the character of Wonder Woman that Tamaki gives us, and Pugh’s take on her is visually impressive, but the finished product just doesn’t quite get past “pretty okay” for me.  I think I’ll check this comic out once Max is clearly the villain again.

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WONDER WOMAN #764

53%

53%

Feels Inconsequential

This issue's conflict is resolved oddly and awkwardly, while Max's obvious nefariousness makes it hard to understand why Wonder Woman would want to trust or work with him.

• Writing

  5
• Art

  5
• Coloring

  6
• User Ratings (0 Votes)
  0