A review by rhganci
Guts by Brian Azzarello
5.0
I was fully prepared to give this book 4 or even 3 stars as a result of the strange mid-story direction that the book takes during Wonder Woman's bizarre engagement to Hades, but the final six pages of this book contained a genuinely shocking plot twist, one that I didn't, couldn't, and wouldn't have seem coming even though I know I should have. Hermes' trickery in the abduction of Zola's child was a highlight moment in this story, and indeed all of the New 52 books, and as such, it renders the entire book deserving of full marks as story, art, plot, and social concern.
What strikes me so much about Hermes' duplicitous action is that I SHOULD have seen it coming. He's Hermes! He's the trickster god, no stranger to pranks and thievery, and if it was a trustworthy deity that Azzarello and Chiang were after, well, it wouldn't have been Hermes. But the creative team carefully misdirects us away from that by stacking the odds against the group with angry, jealous, or otherwise emotionally flawed gods, making the most of these situations like it's Greek mythology itself. Apollo's bravado contrasts with Artemis' severity just like it does in your 10th grade mythology, class, Hera's vindictiveness and her husband's nightly indiscretions drives the plot forward to its terrific, story-winning climax, but somehow Azzarello tricked me into just looking past what I already knew about Hermes: he cannot be trusted. It's a brilliant slight-of-hand, one that many stories attempt these days but few pull off, and though it seems, as one is reading, that it comes out of nowhere, it doesn't--as an act of character, the abduction remains as true to its source material as the rest of the other characters and plots in their entirety. It takes an element of resolution and turns it into the vehicle for a subsequent plot, one that raises the stakes, allows the overarching absence of Zeus to continue to operate as the "big mystery," while both resolving the current arc and providing the reader with a truly surprising twist, the kind that the reader doesn't see coming, but feels in retrospect that he or she SHOULD have.
The art of Cliff Chiang is likewise pronounced, something that is as specific and unique to the WONDER WOMAN book as the terrific plotting and execution. When he steps away for the middle two issues of this volume, it does hamper the story a bit, but I far preferred Chiang's absence in the middle of the book to his absence at the end of it, as the sequence in which Wonder Woman beats the stuffing out of Artemis in a fight as one-sided as it gets wouldn't have been the moment of gratification that it was without Chiang's stylings. His art is a stark, minimalist contrast to other detail-focused artists currently working in the DCU, but for the one book that directly addresses the mythic and cultural history of heroism, his simpler pencils are perfect; his art LOOKS Greek, and as such compliments the story that Azzarello tells fully and perfectly.
There is little else that I could ask from this book--though it does seem to some degree disconnected from the Justice League story and her burgeoning romance with Superman, WONDER WOMAN V2: GUTS offers the reader a wide range of action, plottiness, and memorable moments (Wonder Woman's shooting of Hades with Eros' love-guns was another great moment, one that salvaged that entire plot thread) and stands out even from the higher level of quality that the New 52's second volumes offer readers. Hermes' abduction of Zola's baby is one of the truly great moments in the New 52, and the reviews of this issue agree. This volume, not without its challenge moments, manages to invest, entertain, surprise, and otherwise impress upon the reader with all of the things that make good stories worth reading.
What strikes me so much about Hermes' duplicitous action is that I SHOULD have seen it coming. He's Hermes! He's the trickster god, no stranger to pranks and thievery, and if it was a trustworthy deity that Azzarello and Chiang were after, well, it wouldn't have been Hermes. But the creative team carefully misdirects us away from that by stacking the odds against the group with angry, jealous, or otherwise emotionally flawed gods, making the most of these situations like it's Greek mythology itself. Apollo's bravado contrasts with Artemis' severity just like it does in your 10th grade mythology, class, Hera's vindictiveness and her husband's nightly indiscretions drives the plot forward to its terrific, story-winning climax, but somehow Azzarello tricked me into just looking past what I already knew about Hermes: he cannot be trusted. It's a brilliant slight-of-hand, one that many stories attempt these days but few pull off, and though it seems, as one is reading, that it comes out of nowhere, it doesn't--as an act of character, the abduction remains as true to its source material as the rest of the other characters and plots in their entirety. It takes an element of resolution and turns it into the vehicle for a subsequent plot, one that raises the stakes, allows the overarching absence of Zeus to continue to operate as the "big mystery," while both resolving the current arc and providing the reader with a truly surprising twist, the kind that the reader doesn't see coming, but feels in retrospect that he or she SHOULD have.
The art of Cliff Chiang is likewise pronounced, something that is as specific and unique to the WONDER WOMAN book as the terrific plotting and execution. When he steps away for the middle two issues of this volume, it does hamper the story a bit, but I far preferred Chiang's absence in the middle of the book to his absence at the end of it, as the sequence in which Wonder Woman beats the stuffing out of Artemis in a fight as one-sided as it gets wouldn't have been the moment of gratification that it was without Chiang's stylings. His art is a stark, minimalist contrast to other detail-focused artists currently working in the DCU, but for the one book that directly addresses the mythic and cultural history of heroism, his simpler pencils are perfect; his art LOOKS Greek, and as such compliments the story that Azzarello tells fully and perfectly.
There is little else that I could ask from this book--though it does seem to some degree disconnected from the Justice League story and her burgeoning romance with Superman, WONDER WOMAN V2: GUTS offers the reader a wide range of action, plottiness, and memorable moments (Wonder Woman's shooting of Hades with Eros' love-guns was another great moment, one that salvaged that entire plot thread) and stands out even from the higher level of quality that the New 52's second volumes offer readers. Hermes' abduction of Zola's baby is one of the truly great moments in the New 52, and the reviews of this issue agree. This volume, not without its challenge moments, manages to invest, entertain, surprise, and otherwise impress upon the reader with all of the things that make good stories worth reading.