Wonder Woman #45 Review and *SPOILERS*

Peace Be With You

Written By: Meredith Finch
Art By: David Finch, Jonathan Glapion, Johnny Desjardins, Trevor Scott, Brad Anderson, Rob Leigh

Cover Price: $3.99

Release Date: October 21, 2015

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

Who's ready to get their Greek on?  Well, you'd better hurry up and get ready because we're doing this shit now.  Wonder Woman has been fighting an opponent named Aegeus, who on top of being a whiny bastard, who's distantly related to Poseidon, he's also got the God of War job in his sights and after being armed with a god killing bow and arrow and a Pegasus by an unknown benefactor, this entitled little fuck plans on icing Diana and taking the War God mantle for himself.  If this wasn't enough to keep Wonder Woman busy, Strife went and let Donna Troy out of her cage and our little clay beauty was then framed for killing the Three Fates.  Shit's just not working out for our heroes, especially with last issue's cliffhanger, where we saw that Strife wasn't behind Aegeus's attacks, but it doesn't matter because somehow he managed to break into Olympus to continue his attack.  Let's jump into this issue and see how it all works out.  Let's check it out.

Explain It!:

Our issue gets going right away as Aegeus shows up and declares how important he really is before beating the holy hell out of Wonder Woman..... and then continues about his importance during the beating.  It's kind of weird because Wonder Woman just kind of takes the hits, even though we're told that Aegeus has been given an upgrade and is actually hurting our hero.  Besides for the brutal pummeling, this part is actually kind of funny because Aegeus talks about how he's stronger now, but all we see is him flexing a bit like a douche and really, he doesn't look any stronger than he did before....... I'll go with it because he needs to be a threat more than to just Wonder Woman's ears with his whining, but what I won't go with is out of nowhere trying to make Aegeus a sympathetic character by him saying that Wonder Woman is just like his mother, who allowed his father to beat both him and her.  It's a lot like any of the re-imagined origins for Batman's villains.  Just make them abused and they're instantly sympathetic, but this just doesn't add up to me because for as much as Aegeus seems to despise his father being a monster to his mother and him, he's acting so much worse........... plus I don't go with it because besides for this quick "feel bad for me" moment, everything else we've seen of the character just paints him as a piece of shit, plain and simple.  The fight is finally broken up by an unamused Strife, who grows large enough to threaten Aegues with eating him if he doesn't tell them who put him up to the attack, but before he can spill the beans....."POOF", he's gone.  

Back in London, Donna Troy is led on a tour of London from her new friend, who's finally named here; Violet.  After the sight seeing, Violet says goodbye to Donna, but she's sure they'll see one another again........ but really they should have seen each other instantly because Violet left her purse behind, but I guess Donna decided that it would be more fun to go searching for her later because she doesn't instantly call out to her friend or get up and say "You Forgot Your Purse".  The book doesn't say how, but Donna does find Violet later in a dilapidated building, where the girl is going back to old habits.  I'm not saying that Violet is a prostitute, but the guy who Donna stopped in the previous issue from beating her new friend is at it again and he really comes off as a pimp.  Donna intervenes again, but this time Violet falls and hits her head........which kills her.  

That's right, this strange character that happened to see Wonder Woman get attacked by Aegeus before befriending Donna Troy out of nowhere is just dead.  It just feels really weird for her to pop up where these two characters happened to be at two different times and for her to just be dead without a bigger purpose.  Before Donna can kill the pimp for her friend's death, Wonder Woman shows up and tries to get Donna to hold back her anger........ It's just too bad that instead of holding it back, she refocuses it on Wonder Woman for manipulating her into not killing the pimp when she had the chance the first time they met.

In the end, Aegeus shows up and seemingly kills Donna Troy by shooting a god killer arrow through her heart, but instead of this being an act of a villain, apparently he was just trying to save Wonder Woman from being attacked............crazy right?  After all the huffing and puffing Aegeus has done about how Wonder Woman doesn't deserve to be the God of War and how he feels that the world owes him something, Aegeus completely flip flops here because he's afraid of being killed by his benefactor for failing so many times.......... who we see in the cliffhanger is the Goddess of Peace: Eirene, who apparently is still holding a grudge against Diana for killing Ares.  

That's it for this issue of Wonder Woman and while I initially liked seeing Donna Troy being treated like a "real girl", it was quickly turned back into a confrontation between Wonder Woman and her and it really feels like one step forward, two steps back territory.  Another thing that irritated me is the complete about face that we see Aegeus have here, with only a sob story in the beginning of the issue to try and convey that he is more than a whiny douchebag........ sadly, it doesn't work and this development in the story comes off really forced because of it.  As always though, you can totally count on this book looking great and after reading this issue, it's about the only thing that I found myself really enjoying in the long run.  Donna is the real star of this book and I only wish that her character could come off more than just a Hulk, who you wouldn't like when she's angry because that's all she seems to be here besides for a brief shining moment, where she was becoming a real person.  I'm sure we'll get the chance to possibly see more of that "could be person" since we saw from the Three Fates that Donna can't die but sadly, her friend Violet can't say the same and her character is just wasted with her death.  A very strange and forced issue, but at least it looked great.

Bits and Pieces:

While I had been enjoying this story arc previously, this issue doesn't really do much than make you smack your head and wonder what the hell is going on with everyone in this book with their flip flopping attitudes.  The cliffhanger is very enjoyable though because it offers a chance for this book to get into some exciting territory, but besides for that this issue feels like a rerun because we've seen everything here before.  Fantastic art as always though so at least we've got that.

4.5/10