Be Keen to The Green
Writer: James Tynion IV
Pencils: Emanuela Lupacchino
Inks: Ray McCarthy
Colors: Romulo Fajardo Jr.
Letters: Dave Sharpe
Cover: David Yardin
Variant Cover: Jenny Frison
Assistant Editor: Dave Wielgosz
Editor: Chris Conroy
Group Editor: Jamie S. Rich
Cover Price: $3.99
On Sale Date: October 24, 2018
**NON SPOILERS AND SCORE AT THE BOTTOM**
Here’s the penultimate issue of this swell “Witching Hour” event, and I am chomping at the bit to read it! So let’s not delay with my review of Wonder Woman #57, and get right to it!
Explain It!
While Hecate is controlling Diana, and having her beat the crap out of her teammates on Justice League Dark as well as any nearby citizens of Nanda Parbat, her soul self if being kept in a black-and-white alternate dimension…on the moon! Well, allegorically, at least. There, Black Orchid’s and Manitou Dawn’s soul selves are unconscious while Hecate uses their bodies, but Witchfire, having died, is hanging around smoking butts. And Diana is also alert in rendered in color, I suppose because of the tremendous willpower or ancestry or whatever. Neither of them are going anywhere, so let’s shift over to Nanda Parbat, where people are getting their asses kicked and Zatanna and Constantine are huddled behind a wall.
Ever since the Upside-Down Man extracted John’s demon blood, his cancer’s been coming back—and now he coughs up blood. That’s why he’s become so fatalistic, you see: he’s going to die. And frankly, this reads like bullshit to me, not very Constantine at all. He’s always throwing himself into mortal peril, in order to save this dimension; always burning bridges with people by using them in magic rites, though it pains him. This is not a character that would shy away from a little apocalyptic conflict. Anyhow, Zatanna tells John to believe in himself and use the Care Bear Stare, and they come up with a plan.
Over at the Parliament of Trees…oh. Oh dear god. It’s bad. Black Orchid is torching this tree stand, and Swamp Thing’s attempts to stop her seem ineffectual. Back to Nanda Parbat, Zatanna and Constantine are able to pull a little sleight of hand and trap Diana for some kind of naturalistic exorcism—which works! Diana is restored to her white witch magic form, instead of the furious Hecate-controlled dervish that rampaged through Rama Dass’ domain. In the moon dimension, Witchfire notes that this may have come at a cost: Diana is dead!
Whew! Another great chunk of action and intrigue in this crossover event that feels tailor-made for me. There’s a lot of moving parts, but they are handled adeptly and paced well so that I didn’t feel overwhelmed. Except for the stuff with Constantine and Zatanna: I don’t mind them making nice, but John really didn’t seem character-correct to me, which was surprising since Tynion wrote one of the best runs of Constantine, since he was folded into the DCU after the New 52. This one seemed very tepid. Also, Wonder Woman was sort of sidelined in her own book, which might annoy regular readers of the series. I liked it though, and cannot wait for it all to wrap up next week!
Bits and Pieces:
Looks like the world of magic as we know it is going away, and Justice League Dark continues trying to stem the tide. Except for Wonder Woman, of course, he's possessed by Hecate. Too bad, that.
7/10
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