I Like My Ivory
Like My Eggs: Scrambled
Written By: Christos Gage
and Ruth Fletcher Gage
Art By: Dario Brizuela, Kelly Fitzpatrick
Letters By: Wes Abbott
Digital Price: $0.99
Release Date: February 29,
2016
*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*
It’s Leap Day!
The one extra day every four years that anything
can happen! Why, you might go to sleep in your own bed and wake up in Tahiti!
Or you could fall into an open manhole right onto a pile of money! Or you might
idly decide to look at what’s been “Just Added” at the DC Digital Store, and
discover a new chapter of Wonder Woman ’77
has been released with no advance warning or fanfare! Wait, that’s true of
every day in the year. Yep, a new chapter beginning a new two-part story came
out today, and as usual it’s like someone farted into the wind. This one has
not one writer, but two—and they’re a husband and wife team: Christos and Ruth
Fletcher Gage! That’s an interesting hook upon which to promote a comic book, right?
Hello? You still promote comic books, right DC? Wait a minute…this phone I got
that’s supposed to be a hotline to DC Comics is just a banana and a tissue box!
Well, if they’re not going to talk up their digital line, I suppose it’s up to
me. Read on for my recap and review!
Explain It!:
Diana “Wonder
Woman” Prince and her colleague/romantic interest Steve Trevor are down at the
docks dispatching some smugglers. A couple of them are about to get away in a
boat, so Diana wrenches a giant crane out of the ground and just sort of tosses
it at them. I can accept that her throw is so precise that the smugglers were
not in danger, but how is this a way to capture anyone? Was the idea to
distract them and use that opportunity to apprehend? If so, tossing a glass
bottle would have had the same result. Trevor notes that Army Brass will take
care of the bill, which is basically an admission that the military-industrial
complex wipes their asses with our tax dollars. Wonder Woman and Steve take a
peek at the smugglers’ ill-gotten booty, and discover a warehouse packed with
elephant tusks (and some skulls)—these criminals are dealing in ivory!
This is actually
a pretty interesting storyline, because in 1977—ostensibly when this comic
takes place—ivory trade was still legal, though heavily restricted. Much of the
world’s ivory was procured through the illegal poaching of elephants, often
secretly sanctioned by local governments in Africa and Asia. Centuries of ivory
trade had already eliminated the elephant in North Africa, and had virtually
depleted their numbers elsewhere. By 1989, with many elephant species
endangered and extinct, killing the gentle giants for ivory was deemed illegal
internationally—but in 1977, this business existed legally yet was exploited
for tremendous profit. Steve Trevor more or less explains this to Diana, who
then does that pouty thing with his bottom lip that he can’t resist, and the
next thing you know they are on a plane to Africa.
There, Wonder
Woman meets Grace Mbesi of the Internal Security Force—I suppose they’re in the
country of Internal?—who has been tasked with curtailing elephant poaching.
Diana is impressed to see a woman in such a position, but Grace admits that it
reflects how unimportant her country’s leaders consider the job—something she
intends to correct! She goes further to explain that a new poacher named Orion
the Hunter has set up shop on the plain, and armed his people with military
rifles in order to, uh, cut through the elephants’ flak vests. I mean, we
haven’t seen any wearing flak vests, but they could start. You don’t want go
hunting elephants with a measly 84 caliber gun and find out they’re wearing
flak vests resistant up to 85 caliber. Then you’d be screwed.
The next day,
Wonder Woman gives a speech to members of the press assembled on the savannah
about how poaching elephants is lame and shouldn’t be done. She’s there with
the leader of the country of Internal, whose name we don’t even learn. Who
cares? Some asshole that’s allowing his elephants to be killed for their tusks,
that’s all. While Wonder Woman tells him off a little, Grace runs over to say
that while she was playing all high and mightly elephant lover, Orion the
Hunter and his men killed an elephant in a remote area of the park. The two
women rush over to discover the dead beast, being mourned by a bunch of
doleful-looking elephants. Diana talks to one of the elephants to find out
where Orion went, and the pachyderm points her trunk to the left. Oh, you
didn’t know Wonder Woman could talk to animals? Yep, that’s one of her more
awesome powers from the TV show. Bless the Gages for bringing it back into
play. The same nameless leader of the country shows up, or may have been
standing behind a tree in the previous scene, but he wears a stupid tie and nobody
even knows his name, so who cares?
Grace and Wonder
Woman take a Jeep over to the estate of Arthur Okadigbo, a wealthy supporter of
this wildlife preserve who donated much of the land in use. They go to him for
help, to find out whether or not he’s seen the poachers go by, but I bet you’re
thinking he’s secretly Orion the Hunter? Well, I’ll tell you what: you’re
right! And now Grace and Diana are being held at gunpoint by his thugs!
This is
a pretty cool story, seems to fit right in with the television show, yet it’s nothing
they could have done for lack of money to destroy giant cranes or fly a crew to
Africa. The art is good, but not great—some of the faces look like they’re
sliding off their heads. But it is definitely decent and there are some select
panels, like when Wonder Woman interacts with elephants, that look cool. I’d
say this is a worthwhile story to read for a buck. It’s not going to make you
pump your fist in the air with joy, but then it won’t make you annoyed and
disgusted with the character like a certain Wonder
Woman comic out now that need not be named, but is definitely not Legend of Wonder Woman, which is another
awesome comic book you should be reading.
Bits and Pieces:
This is what you
call a nice comic story. It’s not incredible, and the artwork is just about
passable, but upon completion I feel you will consider the money and time
investment to be worthwhile. Since you’re taking investment advice, would you
like to contribute to my Kickstarter campaign? I’m trying to raise enough money
so I can buy the license to publish Wonder
Woman comics and hire the folks doing the digital-first comics to write
them. I mean, for crap’s sake. I want to see Diana protecting elephants, not whatever
the hell is happening over in the main book.
7/10
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