Absolute Wonder Woman #6 Review

In Absolute Wonder Woman #6, Diana stands before Hades on his throne to give an account of her recent rebellious activities. Diana begins by removing all her armor and weaponry for inspection. When Hades orders one of his minions to bring him the red lasso, the minion is instantly shocked by its touch.

Hades orders Diana to explain how she and her mother created the Nemesis lasso. What follows is a lengthy flashback where Diana details how she scaled Mt. Prometheus and temporarily freed the legendary figure in exchange for a vial of blood. Grateful for the temporary rest, Prometheus offers the tip of his finger, a vial of blood, and a burst of fire magic to bring forth Pegasus to aid Diana on her journey.

Hades recognizes there’s more to Nemesis than Prometheus’s blood. Diana explains she visited the liar of the last Basilisk. The giant serpent can kill with a look and has a keen sense of smell, so Diana magically blinded herself and stifled her nose so she could avoid the snake’s sight and launch an attack with a horrid stench bomb before chopping its head off.

Hades is impressed with Diana’s feats but not satisfied with her disrespectful attitude. The issue ends with Hades showing he knows the power of exploiting weaknesses by unveiling he has Circe in chains.

Absolute Wonder Woman #6 is a sudden departure for the series with a guest artist you have to see to believe and a script by Kelly Thompson that focuses on answers rather than creating more questions. It’s almost as if you’re reading a completely different series.

How’s the Art?

Kelly Thompson heavily leverages classic Greek mythology to answer the open questions from the first issue. Namely, how did Diana get those miraculous weapons, and how did she get out of Hell? The first arc put the cart before the horse, but now that we see the horse in action, the concepts are interesting.

What’s not great about Absolute Wonder Woman #6?

Mattia De Iulis’s glorious art goes a long way toward covering for a slow, ponderously worded script from Kelly Thompson. The connections to classic mythology are interesting at a high level, but the dialog is way too overwritten, which slows down an issue that’s effectively two flashbacks that didn’t need more than three pages each to communicate their ideas.