Rosi Kämpe

Too many cooks for this incoherent slurry of a story. Might be time to set Wonder Woman aside again for a while.

FOR REFERENCE:

• Young Diana in "Make Hay While the Sun Shines" / Jordie Bellaire, writer; Paulina Gnucheau, artist
• Young Diana in "A New Leaf" / Jordie Bellaire, writer; Paulina Gnucheau, artist
• Trial of the Amazons: Part 1, Trial of the Amazons #1 / Stephanie Williams, Vita Ayala, Joëlle Jones, Michael W. Conrad, and Becky Cloonan, writers; Laura Braga, Skylar Patridge, Joëlle Jones, and Elena Casagrande, artists
• Trial of the Amazons: Part 2, Nubia & the Amazons #6 / Stephanie Williams and Vita Ayala, story; Stephanie Williams, script; Alitha Martinez, pencils; Mark Morales and Alitha Martinez, inks
• Trial of the Amazons: Part 3, Wonder Woman #785 / Michael W. Conrad and Becky Cloonan, writers; Rosi Kämpe, artist
• Trial of the Amazons: Part 4, Trial of the Amazons: Wonder Girl #1 / Joëlle Jones, writer and artist
• Trial of the Amazons: Part 5, Wonder Woman #786 / Michael W. Conrad and Becky Cloonan, writers; Rosi Kämpe and Becky Cloonan, artists
• Trial of the Amazons: Part 6, Trial of the Amazons: Wonder Girl #2 / Joëlle Jones, writer; Joëlle Jones and Adriana Melo, artists
• Trial of the Amazons: Finale, Trial of the Amazons #2 / Becky Cloonan, Michael W. Conrad, Vita Ayala, Stephanie Williams, and Joëlle Jones, writers; Elena Casagrande, Laura Braga, Skylar Patridge, Adriana Melo, and Joëlle Jones, artists
• Covers and Variant Covers / Jim Cheung, Rose Besch, Alitha Martinez, Kyle Baker, Travis Moore, Paulina Ganucheau, Joëlle Jones, Jeff Dekal, Babs Tarr, Jen Bartel, Rafael Albuquerque, Tiago da Silva, Juliet Nneka, and Nicola Scott… (mere)

Spring 2021 (April);

Color me shocked through and through (even writing this review a month later), but I actually found the first thing I actually liked written by McGuire. This was a delightful new start for a Gwen series, where she's popping between worlds, to go to college in the 616-Earth universe because her identity being public knowledge makes it harder for her to continue having an uninterrupted life at night.

Her relationship with Peter, and the one with the girls in her band, all make me pleased, because nothing is being replaced by something else, nor is either (including the boy to date!) becoming a "more important than you" setup. This was good. Not very deep, mind you, but it made me smile along the way.… (mere)

I'm not sure I've ever read a Seanan McGuire Hugo finalist that I've unreservedly liked, but this collection of comics about Ghost-Spider (the hero formerly known as Spider-Gwen) came the closest. This was pretty delightful superhero stuff: Gwen Stacy is trying to be in a band and fight crime in her own universe of Earth-65 while also trying to attend college and make a friendship with an older version of Peter Parker on Earth-616. It's pretty typical "young superhero" tropes with just enough novelty to make it enjoyable; in the Marvel multiverse, Deans of Admission just shrug off when new students are transfers from other timelines! I've been a fan of Takeshi Miyazawa ever since Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane, and he is as dependable here as always, a perfect match for what McGuire is doing on writing. Overall a cute package that made me want to go back and read all the Spider-Gwen comics.

My main reservation is that the story basically just stops; this collects the first five issues of a ten-issue series. Assuming McGuire sticks the landing in the last five issues, I would recommend this unreservedly, but until I read it, who knows.… (mere)