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by R.J. Carter Published: February 10, 2003
Carol Lay readily admits in her acknowledgments that superheroes are, for her, unfamiliar territory. Not that she's a lightweight in comics themselves, but her Story Minute strips and Mad Magazine bits are a world apart from the cape and cowl set. So it's to be forgiven if her research results in a Justice League that's perhaps a bit varied from what fans are familiar with. (For instance, she still has the JLA inhabiting their satellite headquarters of the 80s... and Wonder Woman, Hera help us, is doing her secretarial duties of typing up the League's latest adventure!) And it's also to be expected that she presents each character as though it's the first time someone is meeting them--which isn't really a bad thing, since it's always someone's, first time, but difficult to pull off and make interesting for the old-timers who might tend to skip ahead. (Longtime fans of comics with a passing familiarity with Wonder Woman don't really need to read six pages describing the history of Paradise Island and the birth of Diana.) So let's move past that and into the story itself. In the area known as the Bermuda Triangle, a husband and wife--Henry and Ana Lindstadt--are diving. During some strange weather events, Henry disappears as he investigates an island that has appeared out of nowhere. The island isn't the Themyscira that is the hidden home of Wonder Woman's Amazon sisters--but it's damned close. Close enough to merit investigation by the Amazon Princess as she sets out to find the missing man and discover the mystery of this other island. What she finds is a mirror image of Themyscira, populated entirely by men protected by Ares, God of War. The man plan to arm themselves with power and launch an attack against the Amazons of Themyscira. And the missing Henry is among them, all memory of his past life gone. Wonder Woman attempts to rescue Henry, but he doesn't wish to leave. And when a mystical orb is brought into play--an orb that imbues Henry with great powers--Wonder Woman finds herself helplessly bound by her own magic lasso, and it's up to the JLA to come to her rescue. The only problem is, all the remaining members of the JLA are men--and the orb of Ares takes over the thoughts of men, bending them to his rather chauvinistic and primal view of how the sexes ought to relate. Which makes it difficult for Wonder Woman to defy the prophecies of the oracle on this island of men when Flash, Green Lantern and Superman are no longer her friends. There's a sense early in the novel that Lay is struggling to get a grasp on the characters, trying too hard to write the sentence never before written. The narrative tags are varied, as are character references (Batman is once even referred to as "the man in black.") The dialogue for Batman never comes across naturally, being overly verbose for the grim and terse Dark Knight, although the younger Green Lantern and Flash deliver their narrative flawlessly. And as the chapters go by, Lay finds her voice and takes control of the story, setting up the problem and it's ultimate resolution, displaying her years of honed writing skills--which isn't a bad way for a first novel to be remembered. If you're a Wonder Woman fan, you'll definitely want to be adding this one to your collection. |
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