I hate to admit I don't appreciate this series as much as I should. The writing and art are solid, but I don't know, something is missing from it for me to fully enjoy what I am reading. One other consistent series I could compare it to is Daredevil from Marvel - they have a similar visual style and consistent storytelling over a long period of time, but I get this feeling there is something missing here that is not missing from Daredevil and I think that missing IT has to do with characterization.
We don't get to know Diana as well as we should. She is largely a blank slate, tough-girl. Sure she is reluctant to embrace her destiny of becoming the God of War - which she fully embraces in this issue, BTW, but other than that I don't see anything beyond that skin-deep approach. The same can be said about almost all the other characters. First Born is just a rage-monster, "I AM MAD". Almost every character, is nothing but a caricature. The three characters I thought were interesting - the dude made out of stone, the original God of War, and Orion had actual depth to them. Hera's journey also gives her some much needed depth as well and OK, maybe strife is kind of cool machinating behind the scenes. Like I said, I don't appreciate it as much as I want to or that others do. Something is just missing, but for what it is, it isn't bad.
We got recent word that Brian Azzarello is moving on and a new creative team will be taking over in the indeterminate future. David Finch is going to take over art duties and I was amazed by how pretty he can make Diana - an artist known for making things look ugly, in a good way. So Diana is definitely in good hands going forward.
RATING: C
