Wonder Woman #3 REVIEW - Diana's quest for the truth gets personal

It looks like the order of business for Greg Rucka's Wonder Woman Rebirth series right now is that we are going back and forth each issue between getting a story of her present day journey to discover the truth about her origins, and getting a retelling of her origins in sum total. Since Wonder Woman #2 retold the first meeting between her and Steve Trevor, we get the next chapter in her present day quest in Wonder Woman #3, which has taken Diana Prince into the African jungle to ask an old friend, Cheetah for her assistance. 

This one gets pretty personal this week as Diana presents herself to Cheetah in a humbled, vulnerable position, which leads to some tender, heartwarming moments between the two in this book. Again, this is where my novice level of comic book reading comes into play because Cheetah is a character that has been established in Wonder Woman and DC Comics lore and I have no background for it, so when the tension appears between them from a past incident, I'm admittedly lost on what caused it and why it is as bad as it is. 

That being said, I don't need to know what the bad blood was between Diana and Cheetah to understand what's going on in this book. Diana isn't groveling by any means, but she is coming to Cheetah from a position of weakness, in need of her help in some way to reclaim her true memories, and as she indicated at the end of Wonder Woman #1, this wasn't an easy decision for Diana to make, but she made it and has fully accepted whatever consequences come from it, including whatever reciprocity Cheetah needs in return......which may include saving her from a ruthless tribal leader that continuously punishes her out of masculine spite. 

The book isn't all Wonder Woman and Cheetah, though. We do still follow Steve Trevor and his mates on a mission to hunt down a human trafficking warlord, also in the jungle. There's not a whole lot to tell on that front though, and really it feels like Trevor and his crew are there just to give Diana and Cheetah some time off the page, though it is clear that Diana and Steve's paths are destined to cross once again soon.

What I have been enjoying about this Wonder Woman Rebirth arc is the portrayal of Diana, one that I am admittedly reading for the first time. I have heard a lot about her character and it's pretty much been everything that's listed in the new Wonder Woman movie poster: Power, grace, wisdom, wonder. She has all of that in spades in this book and it really took off from the one-shot Rebirth issue and has just picked up steam since then. I've seen some people say that they look forward to the other books where we dig into the retelling of her origin and would rather skip the present day arc, but I disagree because while it's great for someone like me to absorb the origin of Wonder Woman in a retelling, it's also great to juxtapose that against what she's like in the present day, to see how regal, graceful, wise and wonderful she is. 

This continues to be one of the top series in DC Rebirth right now. I fully recommend jumping in if you can find the first three books and the one-shot issue. 

5 out of 5 - DC UNIVERSE REBIRTH: Wonder Woman #3

This is a biweekly series, next issue due out August 10th. 

FROM THE PULL LIST: Wonder Woman #2

Perhaps one of the more mysterious and emotionally loaded DC Rebirth titles so far has been Wonder Woman. Since the first one-shot issue where she discovers "The Lie" of her life and seeks out those who can help her find the truth, Diana Prince has been on a journey to find herself again, like almost everyone in the DC Universe coming out of the New 52 era. In Wonder Woman #1, Diana's quest for the truth took her around the world, put her on Steve Trevor's radar and ended with her asking a longtime rival for help in finding the truth about her past. 

In Wonder Woman #2, we get a retelling of that past of the first meeting between herself and Steve Trevor, in the form of alternating storylines that trade back and forth between Diana's life in Themyscira and Steve's life in the military, but mostly focusing on Diana. 

As personal and soul searching as the first two Wonder Woman Rebirth issues have been to this point, this one might be the most personal yet as we see young Diana struggling between her idyllic life as princess of her kingdom and her yearning to see the outside world where mankind lives and inhabits the Earth. We see many personal details of Diana, including her relationship with her mother and closest friends in Themyscira, and we also see the emotions of Steve Trevor and the void he wishes to fill in his life that he sees some of his closest friends being able to fill before him. 

In many ways, without having any real prior exposure to Wonder Woman before this series, it feels like a great setup to a passionate love story, and knowing the basics of Diana's relationship with Steve Trevor, it certainly seems like that story is what we are going to get here as it will provide important information for Wonder Woman as she roots out the truth of her past. It will also serve to hopefully bridge the gap of how strained her current relationship with Steve is since they are both in separate places at this time. 

The storytelling and emotional beats in Wonder Woman Rebirth have been strong and they keep on splendidly in this book. Much like the lush and vibrant jungle of Cheetah's kingdom in the previous book, great attention is paid to the artwork of Themyscira in this book and it serves the story well for our hero. 

It is fantastic that in her 75th anniversary, Wonder Woman is being honored with her first on-screen cinematic presence earlier this year in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, her first cinematic adventure in the self-titled Wonder Woman movie currently in post-production and set to release in June of 2017, and now in this excellent rebirth series from DC who has so far done a marvelous job with this line of comics for each of its characters. The classic and core of Diana Prince's story is coming to life once again and we all benefit greatly from the great care that Greg Rucka, Nicola Scott, and Romulo Fajardo Jr. have done with her story so far. 

5 out of 5 stars - DC UNIVERSE REBIRTH: Wonder Woman #2

This series wil run twice a month. Wonder Woman #3 is due out July 27.