Blackest Night Wonder Woman #2 (Spoilers)

I had been particularly looking forward to this issue of Blackest Night Wonder Woman because it had the showdown most of us had been clamoring for Wonder Woman vs. our new favorite gal Mera. As the cover depicts the two ladies do indeed throw down and it was a good battle that I would have liked to see go on longer. However at the end of this issue author Greg Rucka pulls a trick that had me scratching my head and wondering what actually happened. If you’re spoiling for a blow by blow of the big battle then read on.

We open the issue with the newly converted Black Lantern Wonder Woman threatening Mera. We hear Diana’s voice inside her head desperately trying to fight the commands of the black ring. We also hear the ring urging her forward to take out Mera. Diana has one big battle axe as weapon while Mera has her trident, which she uses to fend off the attacking Wonder Woman. After last issue of Blackest Night where Mera had wondered aloud on whether she could take on Wonder Woman and had always wanted to find out, I was super pumped up for this battle. Mera opens the battle with the line of comic by declaring “You are NOT Diana and NO Queen takes orders from a Princess!” Mera pays a price for that barb with a battering by Diana’s fist along with a psychological pummeling to boot. These Black Lantern play dirty. Despite Diana mental cries of "NO!" and "Stop!" The Black Lantern throws every mental assault it can think of against Mera. It tells her that everything she loves is dead from Atlantis to her baby to her husband. She gives her a bloody nose and knocks her down to the end of the pier they are battling on.

Black Lantern Wonder Woman moves in for the kill. Is this over already and a first round knockout? No way! Our girl Mera got plenty of fight left in her. She battles back with a giant wave of water that knocks Wonder Woman off the pier and then crashes her back though the pier. Mera defiantly tells her that she won’t lie down and die for Wonder Woman or anybody else. She then leaps off pier and impales Diana through her back with her trident. A stunned Mera believes for a second she has killed Diana, but these damn Black Lanterns just won’t stay dead. Diana rises and knocks Mera back into a pier leg and tries to impale her with her own trident but Mera dodges it as the two come face to face. In the most dramatic page of the battle Mera looks straight into her opponent’s eyes and screams “you were my friend” and then spits right in dead Diana face (WOW!). Finally this allows the constantly protesting Diana to fight off the Black Lantern ring for a second and she tells Mera to “RUN!”

Mera stands her ground but it is Diana’s turn to run to protect her friend as she tries pull the accursed ring from her finger. She lands on solid ground elsewhere and tries to cut her hand off with her axe to free herself of the ring but fails to overpower the ring’s voice. Out of nowhere Cassie Wonder Girl appears followed by Black Lantern Donna Troy. Cassie tries to get though to Diana, but before she can Donna tell us that she has always hated Cassie (wow, where did that come from?) and rips Cassie’s heart out. The Black Lanterns fight each other as the stunned Diana then goes after Donna with her axe and dispatches her. As quickly as the two Wonder Girls showed up Hippolyta appears. The mother and daughter throw down and Diana quickly overpowers her. She threatens to cut off her mother’s head with her own shield but we have another surprise as Batman shows up!

This is where I should have realized something was up because as Wonder Woman tells us Bruce Wayne is dead. Here he is in the flesh and orders Diana to stop and grabs her and two kiss as a flash of violet light heads towards them. It’s a violet ring sent by Aphrodite who appears and destroys Black ring. Diana begs forgiveness for what she has done. Aphrodite tells her that she has done nothing and that she protected Diana. Aphrodite created a place where Diana’s possession could run feel with out harm. Diana accepts the ring and turns into a Scarlet Sapphire and flies off to the next issue’s adventure.

This left me as the reader puzzled and confused. How much of this issue happened? Apparently none of it happened which is good for Donna and Cassie but what about that bloody battle with Mera? We saw Mera and Wonder Woman face off in Blackest night. Was the first part of this issue more of that battle or do we get an epic battle that might have only taken place in Diana’s mind?  This left me very dissatisfied with entire issue. I loved the Mera part but hated the ending because it made the emotional battle seem not to have ever taken place.



Comments

[fishmilkshake]

Great write-up Max! And I agree, very disjointed