By Dustin Cabeal
Conan has a childhood crush on Wonder Woman… that’s sadly all you need to know about this first issue of what is a decently large crossover. A crossover that I don’t particularly understand other than when you take a deeper look at Dark Horse’s dwindling amount of releases you can’t help but wonder if their crossovers are keeping them from sinking out of premiere status.
At any rate, Simone is not my favorite writer. As a person, I like her quite a bit. I like that she bucks the system and fucks with the good ole boy's attitude that plagues the comic industry and has lead to their declining numbers over the years. As a writer, I just haven’t liked much of what she’s written. Trust me, I read plenty of her work, but it never resonates with me.
There’s this weird timeline of personalities for Conan. Depending on his age in the story depends on his personality. Currently, he’ll do anything for money. Which isn’t the Conan I like. I like hero fucking Conan or old as hell with one more fight in his veins Conan. Moneygrubbing Conan is an annoying dick… which is present in this story when he frees a man that’s about to have his jaw melted. The dude offers Conan money, which as it turns out, is money he doesn’t fucking have. He beat on a champion losing in the gladiator battles… guess who? Yeah, it’s Wonder Woman… he bet against her because she’s a woman. Which even by the era’s standards is dumb logic, if she’s killed everyone then a smart gambler bets on the winner, not the winner to lose. Wall Street bets on failure, gamblers bet on winners.
There are bits of flashbacks of Conan as a kid meeting a little girl and falling in love, but Wonder Woman doesn’t remember shit. She does seem to know that stars are her thing as her clothes have them and she’s painted one on her forehead… possibly with blood, the coloring wasn’t perfect for her outfit.
The story is just typical crossover stuff. For once, just for fucking once I would love for it to be a world that already exists; that Conan and Wonder Woman have met a hundred times before and this is just them crossing paths again. Instead, it’s all world set up and making sure new readers know who the fuck is who. Come on… this didn’t get the green light because people in the year 2017 reading comic books are clueless as to who Wonder Woman and Conan are… so why waste our time with intros? Seriously, the first crossover that just pretends there’s a shit ton of history already instead of a multiverse, let’s fight, now we’re friends and need to defeat to mid-card villains that have teamed up to sell a t-shirt, will go down as the greatest crossover ever. EVER.
The story is dull, and the art is appropriate for the story. It’s not exciting, but it’s clean and tows the line between both house styles. The inking is strong and looks good as well. The coloring is actually excellent until you get to Wonder Woman. Her reds are too dull and flat; the mud looks like brown streaks instead of mud. The stars, are they blood? Are they berries? Who knows. Everything on WW’s costume was strangely faded compared to everything else in the comics. I get it, it’s a build up for when she gets her clothes and becomes all vibrant and such, but for now, she looks out of place and poorly colored because of this choice. It doesn’t look like earthy tones, but a shirt stuff that’s faded in the wash.
It’s unlikely that I’ll review any more of this series. I’m sure that it’ll hit the perfect spot for a lot of people, but I find it incredibly dull. It’s a cash grab no matter how you look at it when it could have been something blockbuster, something special. Something that made Warner Bros go out and get the rights for Conan and say, “We’re putting this fucking dude in the DC movie universe because of this comic.” Instead, it’ll be forgotten the minute the sixth issue hits, if not sooner.
Score: 3/5
Wonder Woman/Conan #1
DC Comics and Dark Horse Comics