Continuing
his run of solid stories on Wonder Woman’s title, Eric Luke reinvented the
Golden Age villain Doctor Poison as a new nemesis for Wonder Woman to battle in
the two-part “The Pandora Virus” storyline.
Using
the blood of a mysterious donor, Doctor Poison creates a virus that transforms
men into living myths, leaving Wonder Woman and Rama (the Amazon Princess' new partner in crime fighting) to stop her. The diabolical Doctor
Poison is introduced as the grand-daughter of the original and is so menacing
in her appearance that she gives the Joker a run for his money. She is a unique
villain and fills out the ranks of Wonder Woman’s rogue’s gallery quite nicely.
Rama returns as a supporting character from his previous appearances and is presented as a pseudo-love interest and confidant for
Wonder Woman. The two characters have quite a bit in common but the hastening
of their relationship feels forced. Nevertheless, the battles waged in these
two issues are spectacular and Luke continues to impress with his writing of
Wonder Woman. He also works at setting up a future conflict with the presence of a mysterious villain enabling Doctor Poison's experiments that works in favour of this story in that it gives it purpose and direction.
The
art chores for these two issues fall onto Matthew Clark. His grittier style
works well in rendering Doctor Poison and he seems to be improving on
illustrating Wonder Woman. He also shows off a rather remarkable ability to
draw a spider monster so chilling it makes your skin crawl just looking at it. Clark effectively draws the mystery orchestrator as well prior to the reveal via shadows. Adam Hughes' covers continue to be amazing too and seemingly outdoes himself with the covers for this arc.
With
his run, Eric Luke proves himself to be a capable writer who truly understands
Wonder Woman’s character. “The Pandora Virus” is a concise two-parter that is
obviously filler but miraculously furthers overarching plots. Doctor Poison
makes for an eerie enemy and she is proof that Wonder Woman has a fantastic base of villains that are just as good as Batman's or maybe even better than his. The effort made to give Wonder Woman an
interesting love interest is duly noted as well but his abrupt departure at the conclusion of the arc is disappointing. While not as spectacular as previous issues, Luke and Clark tell a great story here.
Grade:
B-
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