Wonder Woman 101

DC, $1.95

Short Review: Babe 3. Skip.

Okay, I admit it. The first John Byrne comic I ever read was Babe 1, and it was the last one, too (unless we got issue two. Guys, did we get issue 2? ... ) It confirmed for me that he couldn't characterise his way out of a brown paper bag, and he wrote lousy dialogue, to boot. Imagine my surprise when I found out that he was taking over Wonder Woman from the highly dodgy William Messner-Loebs. Here was his second (or third) chance, I thought. He can't be any worse. Well, he can.

The all-new look for Wonder Woman bears more than a passing resemblance to Babe, and the first member of the new supporting cast (Wonder Woman having moved city, this being the easy alternative to killing all her friends that Byrne didn't like) looks and acts much like the main male character in That Other Series. Now, I'm not saying that John Byrne can only draw a limited number of faces, because there's already enough people to say that for me, but for Pete's sake, couldn't he have not duplicated the physical characteristics of the two main characters of his last series?

So, having brought the characters together, John Byrne fleshes them out as only he knows how. Fights scene to start the issue, fight scene in the middle of the issue, and fight scene at the end of the issue. And a promise of fight scene in the next issue box, for dessert. Stay away, I tell you.