There is likely no comic book writer in the entire medium under greater scrutiny at the moment than Meredith Finch.  The Wonder Woman of the early new 52 was one which was all of a sudden a “cool” entity, and readers of the medium finally gave the character a chance when she had been generally ignored before.  After this run, Meredith was given the reins of the series to lead to a new place, back to the mainstream DC universe while also not forgetting about the character recent past and also her long publication history.  In essence she was given the reins of a series which had to balance the three together however possible and to presumably maintain interest in the character.

It should be said that Meredith is not a bad writer, in fact she is a pretty good writer, as numerous stories in other titles will attest to.  The problem with this title since she has taken over seems to be her own personal formula for how to turn this character into her own.  As with the three previous issues, this formula is an unbalanced mixture between superhero, God of War and Queen of the Amazons.  This issue is broken down into three unequal parts dealing with this fracture.  First with her Justice League allies she researches more about the seismic events that are causing problems in the world.  After almost killing some kind of possessed human, she is criticized by Batman for her recklessness by almost causing death, and she argues on behalf of her role as the god of war that sometimes killing one to save a thousand is better.  Finally she returns once again to Themyscira to try to settle the problems there, notably that the tribe of male Amazons is in danger.  The first bit as superhero seems like it could have come out of any Justice League of America comic from the 1980s, the second part as god of war is brief and undeveloped, and the third part is where the true interest in this story rests, promising for the second time in the past two issues, the proper reintroduction of Donna Troy.

It is in the combination of this all that the story gets lost.  It would seem that Meredith in trying to put her stamp on the character has gone for an all-out approach, throwing in every trick which she has, but it is not to the benefit of this series.  Instead a better approach might be to consider each one of these roles separately, as such a juxtaposition is a bit much in under 25 pages.  The potential for the character is here, and specifically rests it would seem in the Themyscira chapter, but as it stands the lack of focus is taking away from what could be accomplished here.

Story: Meredith Finch Art: David Finch
Story: 7.3 Art: 7.3 Overall: 7.3 Recommendation: Pass