Review: Wonder Woman Vol. 5- Flesh

Quick Summary

Pros: The story is fun and exciting. Actions in this volume push the series into the future and detail some satisfactory developments. The closing chapter is a great cliffhanger. The artwork remains positive and works well with the narrative.

Cons: Nothing significant.

Overall: This is another great comic book that delivers on all fronts. It has great characters, exciting events, beautiful artwork, and a general sense of charm that is hard to deny. Plus, the entire volume serves to develop the series as a whole and helps push it toward this comic’s endgame. Though this isn’t a great place to jump into this series, it is an amazing volume for anyone who has been reading the story up to this point. 

Story

The quality of the Wonder Woman New 52 series has been so high and so consistent that each volume simply feels like one part in a fantastic and long-running epic. Wonder Woman Vol. 5: Flesh, by Brian Azzarello, is no exception to this rule. This volume recaptures the positives from the previous volumes and uses them to continue telling a story packed with charm, humor, and action. This volume also pushes forward the overall narrative of this series and closes in a way that builds a lot of excitement for the future. Overall, this is the high-quality book that fans of this series were expecting.

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The majority of the positives in Flesh are similar to the positives seen in the past four volumes of this series. The family element remains simultaneously fun and emotional, as Hera and Zola joke around at times but also bring up serious thoughts regarding their place in the world. In addition, the action and suspense remain strong, as Wonder Woman faces a variety of opponents and makes a couple of tense arrangements. In general, this volume is able to capture the same charm that has made this series great already.

However, Flesh also pushes the series into the future. In some places, this happens in small ways; Wonder Woman takes up War’s position among the gods, Hera gets her powers back, and the alliances of Olympus seem to have changed in Wonder Woman’s favor. Some of the fallout from these changes is seen within this book but a lot of it also seems to have been saved for the next volume.

Meanwhile, other developments are far more significant. Apollo’s defeat at the hands of the First Born is cataclysmic. It topples the villain the series has been setting up for volumes and suggests that the First Born is an even more powerful threat. The way this is done works well within the context of this single volume and within the context of the series as a whole.

All of these developments create an environment that allows the volume to close on an exciting and satisfying note. The closing chapter of Flesh positions the forces of the First Born and the restored forces of Themyscira on the brink of war. Both sides have incredible powers backing them and all indications point to the resulting conflict being a fantastic one. All in all, the end of this volume makes it seem as if readers are right on the precipice of something major, which is a perfect cliffhanger to close on. 

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Art

Like the story, the artwork in the Wonder Woman series has remained highly positive since it began. Also like the story, the quality of the artwork in Flesh retains this quality level. Cliff Chiang’s stylized approach to the characters and landscapes throughout this book continue to look great. Chaing’s ability to seamlessly jump between a variety of creatively designed locations also helps assist the narrative. The only complaint I would levy is that there are a few places where reaction shots felt like they were missing on pages where character’s reactions are important. However, this is still a beautiful looking book overall that is sure to please fans of this series.

Continuity

Wonder Woman Vol. 5: Flesh continues the story from Wonder Woman Vol. 4: War (Review).

The story here continues in Wonder Woman Vol. 6: Bones (Review).