After the massive outcrying of, “how could you?!?!?”, towards J. Michael Straczynski after what he did (and can’t forget the impressive designs of one Jim Lee) to Wonder Woman in Issue 600 of Wonder Woman, I felt obligated to write something after reading Issue 601 of “The All New” Wonder Woman. Now, first off, those who complain about the iconic costume of old, saying you can’t change it, yadda yadda yadda… Do you know how many iterations Batman has gone through over the years? Even Superman, despite having changed back to a more classic costume, has changed over the years to fit the times. The Death of Superman gives us a prime example of DC’s attempts to connect with a wider, modern audience by throwing several new versions of the Man of Steel before heading back “Old School” once Superman returned. So, point there is if you have a problem with the costume, ehhh, you’ll get over it. They’re trying to make her current and the whole thing ties into the story, you’ll see…

Now, for the issue itself… I read Issue 600, which, like many oversized anniversary issues these days, was full of a lot of pages I wasn’t super interested in, but Staczynski, of course, caught my attention right away. What’s with the new costume, what’s with the retcon, what’s with the attitude, etc.

Issue 601 fills in a ton of those questions readers will have in excellent fashion giving us flashbacks of Diana’s history as per the new continuity and a new mission. You want me to ruin it for you? I didn’t figure… I will say this, however, Staczynski has a talent for making any character more believable, no matter how powerful they are. The more powerful, the more ambitious the missions they should have and the higher the cost of failure. I get a deeper sense of mythology within the pages of Wonder Woman in this single issue than I’ve seen outside of maybe Gail Simone’s essential run on the series. Other people bring in mythological figures, but it could easily be vanilla villain costumed as a mythological creature or god. I don’t see that happening with Straczynski and I’m certainly looking forward to where he’s going with this. Brilliant, IMO, going almost “Too Human” with the mythology, integrating it more into what we may see… You’ll see what I mean.

So I’m not singling anything out… Kramer’s art is amazing in this issue; I love his interpretation of characters on every page. Inks, solid of course, from Babinski. Sinclair’s colors are great, too. Between all of the art team, I’m enjoying the shadow-play in the modern era scenes.

Rating? Hmmm…. I’m not big on ratings because if I didn’t like it, I wouldn’t bother writing about it (unless I was really ticked off). Scale of 5? Sure! I’d say 4 out of 5 because I tore through it without my mind wandering, I’m not officially curious what issue 602 will bring, and it’s entertaining enough that I don’t want to ruin the story!