I'm not a big superhero fan, but this was a fascinating storyline with wonderful, clearly drawn art and quality dialogue. It also continues a series that is great for those who watched the movies and want to start getting into the Wonder Woman graphic novels.

This second volume was a bit of a let down following the first volume. Something about it just fell flat for me.

I have a lot of conflicting feelings about the storyline of this one, especially considering how much I loved volume one. Volume one was amazing and a top read for me. In the political climate, whether unintentional or not, I am particularly sensitive to and repulsed by nazis presented as a sexy power fantasy... which it felt like was occurring in the story. The fanatical love story was also just not particularly appealing to me, nor did it feel particularly original.

I still like Morrison's take on Wonder Woman, and the allies she has with her, but this one fell flat for me.

A thrilling sequel to the first Wonder Woman: Earth One collection. Fans of Wonder Woman will enjoy this series.

ARC from Netgalley.
Bouncing back and forth between 2 different locations (Paradise Island & the rest of the world) and 2 different time periods (1940's and present day), this second Volume of Wonder Woman: Earth One does much more to explore the gender roles, popular influence, and legacy of Diana, rather than the physical power and fighting that we see often in her main title. Incorporating a Nazi Uberfraulein as a Amazonian convert, turned eventual traitor is a something that definitely allows for the reader to explore their own opinions on "submissive harmony", and the scene with Diana's conversion via mind control definitely caused some cringing with me, but showed a great example of how certain truths can be construed.
Grant Morrison has continued this title well, setting up for an amazing showdown in Volume 3.
Strong recommend, though only after reading Volume 1, of course.

I had enjoyed the first volume on this alternate take on Wonder Woman, but this second volume fell short by falling into a preaching storyline. The artwork was great, the colors vibrant, but the story felt off and I had to keep forcing myself to finish the book.

I'm more used to the recent interpretations of Wonder Woman lore in the main DC universe, so this alternate universe throwback doesn't quite jive for me, from the submissive nature of Wonder Woman's bracelets/cuffs, the campy and ill-defined Uberfraulien, and the clearly MRA/incel-y take on Dr. Psycho (who's a dead giveaway from his first appearance).

Grant Morrison and Yanick Paquette's second Wonder Woman: Earth One volume, emerging post both the wildly successful first Wonder Woman movie and the start of the #MeToo era, needed to reflect these important times and does so with a villain plucked from today's headlines. At the same time, Morrison's Wonder Woman: Earth One Vol. 2 is breathy and fun, with Morrison overlaying essentially the oldest Wonder Woman trappings on a present-day story -- Kangas and Paula von Gunther, Etta Candy's brother "Mint" and the Amazonian "mental radio." The third volume will seal this as an interesting trilogy.

Oh crikey Moses. After lauding the first book in this series, which was fine in and of itself and really didn't need padding out to a trilogy, we get this. And it's not only bad, but reprehensible, in every way. We open with a hybrid of Marilyn Monroe and Power Girl trying to capture Themyscira for Hitler, only for her entire Nazi army to get zapped by something violet-coloured and turned into wincy nothings groaning in the surf like it's the world's hottest orgy. Power Monroe says she now only wants to serve the island's Queen. Jump forward a bit, and modern day Diana is facing the whole world's demands for sexual equality – oh, and for trannies to be allowed to call themselves Amazons too, while we're all at it. She's even set up a Million Woman March – which the bigwigs in the Pentagon don't like. Oh, and while she's gallivanting around with Steve (a person of colour, if you remember) she's also gone and invented herself a Wonderburka, so she can rescue women from Islamic terrorists. This must count as the most "woke" WW title ever.

And it's utter bull. Turning this iconic figure into an icon for the author's goody-goody liberalism is a travesty through and through. These books are supposed to be entertainment, not polemics. How can you have one of the bustier WW for decades on one page, and her kowtowing to asinine Islamic expectations on another? It becomes instantly clear why the prologue featured one of Hitler's Aryan best – because clearly we're all Nazis if we're going to call any of this out as shit. Yup, I'm a Nazi then. Because this is shit. I wanted to stop reading at the start of every scene, but it was real driving-past-a-pileup thing, travelling mile after mile past mangled wreckage of what was a perfectly fine car in the hope of seeing the last person still speeding along the road in ignorance just manage to swerve to avoid the collision with fate at the end.

Diana has always been about helping everyone – about putting herself out and putting herself about to save the world for us all. But when the baddy here is so blatantly Mr White Male Man, she loses all credibility as a token figure. This book dumps on 70 years of her history, and should not exist.

Zero stars.

The texture of Wonder Woman continues to evolve especially in the respective area of how she interacts with the general populace versus the political and military circles she traverses. With “Wonder Woman: Earth One Vol. 2” [Grant Morrison & Yanick Paquette/DC/120pgs), the idea begins with a continued recollection to World War II as the Nazis try to attack the Amazonians’ private island with a super female in the guise of Mala who has the power to take on Diana’s mother Hera (though she does take a special romantic interest in Diana). Even though the attack is squashed, the inherent structure of psychological warfare takes an inherent underpinning throughout this volume. Diana becomes a rallying cry for women’s rights in the current climate but the ideal becomes how militant does the movement become. The Amazonian ideal works in the texture of peaceful authority but the metaphor becomes the question of this movement as male submission. This is an interesting question, especially when the idea of the beauty myth comes into play. Some of the protesters speak that the image Diana/Wonder Woman portrays is not attainable for most women. Diana can attack and defend at will which makes her undeniably also a target for the military since they see her presence as a foreshadowing to invasion. Her relationship with Steve Trevor, a black military pilot for which she has always maintained a romantic interest, also comes to a head when her invisible jet takes the military’s brand new psy-jet on in a test run. Trevor is almost killed. While that weighs heavily on her shoulders, Diana also has to engage with Zeiko, a charming psy-ops leader in the Middle East when she liberates women there who are being subjugated. Zeiko’s interaction with her and his ongoing psychological warfare protracted in discussions and sensitivity are most dangerous than any weapon since she is undeniably interested in him, even though he makes it clear he is married. The alpha female in her is undeniably drawn despite the dangers. A scene involving him shooting an automatic weapon at her at her request so she can show how quick she can reflect them is an inherent metaphor that is all too obvious. Take into account another attack from within on the Amazonian island by the supposedly reformed Mala and the motivations create an interesting dilemma between the aspect of being altruistic and domination. “Wonder Woman: Earth One Vol. 2” continues an interesting discussion impacted by both real world narratives, the recent blockbuster film and the inherent entertainment and character development this specific story progression provides.

B

By Tim Wassberg

My thanks to NetGalley and DC Entertainment/DC Comics for an eARC copy of this to read and review.

I love Wonder Woman, really love that character, so I read this with high hopes.

They were dashed. Badly.

SPOILERS beyond this point.

1) Nazis as bad guys. The entire book world has been SATURATED with the whole Nazis as the bad guys thing. From now on, unless the book is STELLAR, I am deducting one star whenever the Big Bad is the Nazis. Stop already, we get it, Nazis bad, everyone against them good. Move on.

2) The artist can't draw hands to save their life. Wonder Woman has the WORST man/old lady/talon hands and it is really off putting and hard to not see once it is noticed. Ruined all of the rest of the decent art. Everyone else has badly drawn hands too, but hers were the worst.

3) Also, the Big Bad Dude was FUGLY. Not sure how he was supposed to be this amazing woman seducer. His mental powers weren't exactly wowing me. And I'm sorry, but we are shown exactly ONE scene between the Big Bad Dude and Wonder Woman and we are supposed to believe that he was able to mentally get into her head with rather poor conversation in that one time? So much so that when her friends were like, "He's a bad dude, can control the mind of people, specifically women," she IGNORES her trusted friends and is all like, "you're WRONG about him". No, nope nope nope-ity nope. Not MY Wonder Woman. She wouldn't have fallen for that poo in ONE conversation.

4) Back to the beginning re: Nazis attempting to invade the Amazon island paradise. We are told towards the end of this that NO ONE has made it to the island and left again to tell anyone about it (this is before WW leaves), so HOW IN THE HECK is the German Frau Hitler Super-Human saying to herself, "Ah yes, as our intelligence indicated, they speak Ancient Greek, they should be able to understand me when I speak this...." If NO ONE left the island once they found it, how is there ANY intelligence on this place and it's inhabitants??

5) Also, I just LOVE how this story and the art were all done by men, and the view of the Amazon women only paradise and how they dealt with men is NOT what I would think would be a paradise thought of by women.

The Amazons have these pink/purple rays that they shoot at the men that at first cause pain, but then seem to cause EXTREME pleasure. ("AAAHHHs become OH YEEEESSSS"). Then the men are sent to Aphrodite via some sort of transporter where the men are given the pleasure that they crave. Ew. That is SO not what I think a female paradise is all about. And of course all of the Amazonian chicks are into one another. Again, not all females would think that is paradise. Some would and more power to them, but not all. So not a paradise for all women. Sounds like a paradise for women thought up by a dude.

What happens to the Nazi chick? She is forced to put on the "Venus Girdle" to bring her mind back to her female self, which also has some sort of "pleasure" giving dopamine.

6) Oh, and did you notice that I said the men were sent to Aphrodite, but she is wearing a girdle named after Venus.

WHAT THE ABSOLUTE WHUT?!?!? Aphrodite is Greek, VENUS IS ROMAN. WHY ARE YOU MIXING TWO COMPLETELY DIFFERENT THINGS?!? Yes, Aphrodite and Venus are the same concept of love goddess, but different names from different cultures and didn't we establish with the Frau Hitler that the Amazon warrioresses speak GREEK?!?!

7) Oh yeah, and did I mention the Wonder hajib? It was ugly and gaudy and not sure why WW would have worn it. I get she was saving women in a Middle Eastern country, where that is traditional dress, but there is no WAY she was passing as a native in that get-up. So why wear it at all? It seemed kind of rude to me, but I am not from that area of the world, so maybe it is ok? They did get outside thoughts on the design of it, from a woman no less, so they did try to be thoughtful, but I think it missed the mark, at least it did with me. And her hands looked REALLY talon-like in these scenes. So distracting.

8) Also, men versus women trope. Men are fearful and want to maintain power, women are easily fooled by a smooth talking man. Can we PLEASE can the stereotypes? This just perpetuates the man vs. woman antagonism. It's not helping and may very well be hurting any attempt to actually bring about healing and peace where there is already a LOT of discord. Do we REALLY need another book of man vs woman? I'm done with all of that. Can't we just all get along? How hard can that be? Maybe the next volume shows world peace, BUT since the end of this is leading into a war between the Amazons and "men" (America's military, which is something else that irks me. At least it's not the Nazis though, so that's a plus. Sort of.) I somehow doubt we're going to get to peace, unless the Amazons have a HUGE pink/purple ray that they can engulf the world in. I doubt it, too easy a resolution.

So, in short, (too late), this particular graphic novel was rather horrendous to this particular reader. YMMV, but I will not be recommending it to anyone. 1, very sad, star.

I thoroughly enjoy reading Wonder Woman graphic novels, but I did not find myself as enthralled by this volume as I was in the first one. While I found Diana’s scuffle with Dr. Psycho to be interesting and a wonderful throwback to her early days, I was not as invested in this story as I was in the first volume or in the New 52 series. However, this novel was still worth the read and I am curious where they will go from here. I would recommend this novel to others who appreciate Wonder Woman and to those who enjoy recreations of characters and story lines. The art was pleasurable and I very much enjoyed seeing Wonder Woman respect another’s culture by donning a burka in the beginning of the novel while overseas.

DC keeps missing out on what to do with the only DC character interesting enough to carry a billion dollar movie franchise anymore. This book isn't crafted well enough to be excellent Morrison and isn't Wonder Woman enough for me.

Whew. Definitely started In Media Res. Nazis attacking Themyscira in the past I think. Then we pick up where the previous volume left off.

Diana is having second thoughts that she can make the world better. And then to make matters worse, the Government sics a psy-ops guy on her. I did not like that part and felt like it didn't quite ring true to Diana's character.

It's also a sort of lowest common denominator plot. Oh, then men with guns don't want the powerful woman to have any power. Go figure. That's life in 2018.

I did really like the stuff on Themyscira though, and it was definitely a different sort of use of Paula too.

And of course, because of the cliffhanger ending, they've hooked me if there's a third volume as well.

I received this book via Netgalley thanks to DC Entertainment.

Here is yet another gorgeous volume from one of the most prolific and respected DC comic creators currently working, Grant Morrison, and the talented Yanick Paquette. The artwork does a stellar job of showcasing the power of Diana without over-sexualizing her, which makes for an interesting contrast to the overarching theme of this volume--a volume which touches once more upon the difficulties of integrating the Amazonian mindset of peaceful submission to a loving authority into the world of men, which is ruled by military patriarchies. I'd give this more stars, only it's kind of gross to subject Wonder Woman to yet another "seduced by a powerful man" narrative while also having her be betrayed by a woman whose love for her is unrequited. I mean, it's great having a woman be one of the many villains and all, but to render sapphic love as cause for betrayal and the death of an important Amazonian figure is incredibly, incredibly gross.

Romantic love between women has historically been perceived as a threat to the "natural order" of our male-dominated world; here it is also a threat to a female-dominated culture. We've had enough of that narrative, thank you very much. The Male Gaze lives on, unfortunately.

I have never really gotten into comics or graphic novels. I decided to give Wonder Woman a try because the cover appealed to me. Grant Morrison and Yanick Paquette did an excellent job portraying Diana as a modern day Wonder Woman solving modern day issues. I am eager to go back and read volume 1.

This is so good! I really enjoyed and I can't wait to see what the finished product looks like! This series is so exciting the art work is amazing its a really good overall!

The Earth One series has continually been examples of great standalone entry points to characters. They are easy books to give to someone interested in learning about a new character. Wonder Woman vol. 2 is another good entry in the series. It is a standalone graphic novel which expands the world of the character--good for first- or long-time fans. We are getting it for my library's collection, and I will be recommending it.

I liked this volume better than the first. Diana and her responsibilities as Wonder Woman and relationship to the world change. I recommend picking this one up, even if you didn't like the first volume. You won't be disappointed.