Runner Up: Wonder Woman: Come Back to Me #1 – Amanda Conner, Jimmy Palmiotti, Chad Hardin, Alex Sinclair and Travis Lanham

After all of the Doom and gloom, sometimes it’s nice to get back to something simple.

As part of the Walmart Exclusive 100 Page Giants that DC published, each giant gets 15 pages of original story content and two of those have been published in this fun book. Where Tom King’s Superman was dreary, overbearingly awful and melancholy, Brian Michael Bendis’ Batman was interesting and fun, Conner and Palmiotti’s Wonder Woman is awe-inspiring and badass.

Before the book starts, we’re treated to a title page that’s just a splash of Wonder Woman posing like a badass, goddess of muscle and beauty. It showcases Hardin’s talent for shots of nice landscapes and backgrounds, but also an understanding of what Diana is all about; regality, strength and a love/respect of nature.

We begin with Diana and Steve Trevor enjoying a day at the beach. Within just a few panels we see just how much these two love each other with both of them making cute quips and Steve preparing their picnic lunch. Steve tells her that he’s going to be testing an experimental aircraft that he’d been working on, but he wishes that he had more time off with her. Steve drops her off at her house after a good swim and the two make out before he has to leave.

She and Etta Candy, who’s living in Diana’s house until her apartment gets repaired, watch the news and get word of a huge fire that’s trapped several firefighters and animals. Wonder Woman races off to save the day and in an epic shot, stuns the firefighters who were starting to get very distressed. Floating above them all, Wonder Woman looks amazing, a beacon of light in a dark situation, ready to help in any way that she can!

After making plans on how to get everyone safe, she displays an ability that has either been long forgotten or is new from Conner and Palmiotti as she talks to the animals to calm them down. I don’t actually know that she’s talking to them or if she’s just able to tell what they’re thinking by looking at them, but it’s an absolutely amazing ability that I hope gets used in the normal continuity of books too. The backgrounds in most of these shots looks great though. The harshness of the fire contrasted with the hopefulness of Wonder Woman’s presence gives me a warm feeling. The sight of the trees burning and the embers wafting away almost makes it feel like it could be touched.

Wonder Woman uses an entire tree to slap her way through the forest with the firefighters strapped to the backs of moose and bears. After extinguishing the flames she celebrates with the firefighters that she’s saved with drink before heading back home. Once she arrives, Etta tells her that Steve’s plane was lost somewhere near the Bermuda and it’s up to the two of them to save him. 

The latter half of the book involves them being sucked into a weird storm that destroys the Invisible Jet and leaves Wonder Woman without most of her powers. They arrive on a strange island where some of the animals talk back and others are HUGE masses of death.

While not featuring the world ending stories of Year of the Villain or City of Bane, it’s nice to take a step back to simple rescue missions. Whether it’s saving the man that she loves or an entire department of firefighters, Wonder Woman does what she can for everyone. She gets along with everyone, everything and definitely comes off as the most compassionate of the Trinity. Conner and Palmiotti wrote this simply enough, but also injected their brand of comedy to give things a bit of levity, especially when Etta wakes up and finds that she can talk to crabs.

Chad Hardin deserves a ton of credit for his art too. His lines are thick, his focus on anatomy is apparent and his faces are very expressive, showing all manner of sadness, joy and shock. With Alex Sinclair’s coloring, things are given a lot of depth. This helps a lot in seeing how bad the forest fire is, how far Etta and Diana fall after the jet breaks and most importantly, how jacked Wonder Woman is. 

Of all of these reprints, this might be the one I’m looking forward to the most. High recommend!