Reviewstravaganza : Wonder Woman: Earth One

The Earth One series added another title in its line up with Wonder Woman written by the legendary Grant Morrison. How does this title stands up with the rest of Earth One line up and does Grant Morrison able to maintain its reputation ? Hit the jump to know my thought.

Before I start review, let me preface that I haven't read a lot of Grant Morrison's work except for Multiversity. I know he is a great writer, and just based from Multiversity, I am well aware that he is both weird and great. And that is exactly my thought of this book.

Wonder Woman: Earth One is a retelling of the character's origin based on the more realism world of Earth One. The Amazonia decided to leave our world known as the Man's World after the cruel act of Hercules and the Greek army. Years later, Diana found a man; Steve Trevor crash landed on Themyscira. Combined with her desire to explore the Man's World, she goes again her mother's request and ran away for a new adventure.

It does sound like a normal Wonder Woman origin right ? Well Grant Morrison gives the origin story a twist by adding the bondage fetish of its creator; William Moulton Marston. Adding this element first, made the book not suitable for everyone. If you are uncomfortable with even a vague depiction of sexual element of lesbian and bondage, this book is not for you. However, it does in a some way make Wonder Woman very sexy, sensual, and dominance.

Few thing that I enjoy on the story, it really successfully gave a great twist on Wonder Woman's origin. As I mentioned earlier on the basis, it sounds like a normal origin story, but I can assure that will changes right at the first page. It also manage to portray Wonder Woman is still a naive character in our world which at times resulted to hilarious effect but doesn't make her look stupid. They also managed to make Steve Trevor relationship to Wonder Woman make sense and not just some pretty boy who happen to crash on Themyscira though the choice of his race was questionable at the beginning. I'll come back to that later.

In addition to Steve Trevor's race changes, there are several changes that work in this book as well. Wonder Woman's invisible jet works really well with the futuristic look of Themyscira. The reason why Wonder Woman has superstrength which got to do with her origin also make sense. To me, at times Grant Morrison manages to walk the line of including the bondage element into it and adding sexual element for sexual sake. However, at times I do feel that there is some weird choice made by both the artist and the writer. I'll come to this later as well.

As for art, overall it is super beautiful. Themiscyra especially is done in super detail and every clothing are done to make the world feel real in the sense of this comic. While it is not that obvious it does struck me that the artist, Yanick Paquette uses reference to create the character and especially for Wonder Woman, I feel like he took Asa Akira for reference as she does look asian at times and bear a quite resemblance to her.

Other than that seemingly odd choice, as the resemblance of Diana strikes me early on, added with the whole lesbian and bondage theme from page one, the moment you see Steve Trevor is a black one, it does strike you that Grant Morrison is creating his own Wonder Woman porn parody though he justified the choice of Steve's races near the end of the book.

Speaking of the end of the book, other that those odd choices problem (?), the pacing is a little bit odd as the third act is not particularly exciting. That is I think the biggest flaw of the book as there is no real book other that the ideology clash between Wonder Woman and her mom.

Overall, just like I said at the beginning of this review, Grant Morrison is great and odd. That's exactly how I sum up the book; great and odd. I'd say if you never read Grant Morrison's stuff before, go ahead and read it and then decided it by yourself. However, if you are uncomfortable with bondage and lesbian element, you might not enjoy it. In the end, I gave the book 3.5 out 5.0. Great book, but the third act fails to give a satisfying ending.

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