How To Build A House Amazon Style — Reviewing ‘Absolute Wonder Woman’ #8

Overcoming a grand world-threatening challenge and securing the freedom of a mother was just the work of eight wonderous issues. What could Wonder Woman achieve with even more issues?

Good thing we don’t have to wonder, since Absolute Wonder Woman is still trucking at full amazing speed. Kelly Thompson and Becca Carey reunite with Hayden Sherman and Jordie Bellaire for the series third arc.

Everything about this book just naturally feels right.

Thompson fleshes things out even more here as Diana builds a home and some of the forces working against her become clearer. This creates an issue where the hero mostly builds a home and the villains chatter this engaging speaks volumes. It speaks to the fact that Thompson not only knows her character and world through and through but has a solid extended plan.

She weaves that together with such intriguing character development is always a winning formula.

Veronica Cale is a character I’m quite familiar with from the previous years of Wonder Woman comics. Doctor Poison, though, despite the character longevity, is one I’m less familiar with. Mostly just the adaptation from the 2017 film, and that’s about it. Either way, the connections between them, Diana, and this world are tantalizing.

Part of what helps make this series so engaging is the art choices. While that is a given for a lot of comics, it really stands true with books like this. Sherman just cuts entirely loose with this series. There isn’t a single page that I recall that just settles for standard panel styles. They all are shifting constantly, changing shape and position to really create even more kinetic flashy energy.

Even when the characters are standing still conversing, there is movement. Nothing feels flat or stuck in place.

I love the way that his artwork flirts with both roughness and smoothness at all times, really giving the world this gritty but lush and beautiful feeling at the same time. This exhibits how this darker Earth created by Darkseid is slightly less so because of the emergence of forces like Diana.

Bellaire taps into that with the color choices here. Going for a palette that is vibrant and bright, but also very contained. There is a lushness at all times, especially since this is in the woods a ton, with plenty of countering midline tones. Again, it very much plays into the thematic overall idea of this new world being created from the ground up. A world very similar to our own, cloaked in darkness, is suddenly being beset upon brighter inspiring forces.

We sure could use some of that ourselves these days.

Artistically there is an overall open feeling here. While things are contained within panel shapes, there is a sense that this world could burst out of those seams at any point.

Each of the choices with the lettering embodies all these qualities as well. Carey gives the words a very airy but firm sense to them as they flow about the page. Each character’s distinctive word choices and voice are clear, even without too many changes to the delivery.

Even though we “know” these characters from decades past, we also don’t know them in this capacity quite yet. Just enough comes from the script and lettering execution to craft these new voices in our minds, allowing the new versions to really become as real and hearty as the ones we have known all along.

Absolute Wonder Woman #8 is now available from DC Comics.