Wonder Woman #775 Review!

Wonder Woman is traveling the afterlife worlds from Asgard to a familiar Olympus, but everything has changed.  “Afterworlds part 6” is by Michael W. Conrad and Becky Cloonan and Andy MacDonald provided the art.  MacDonald worked on several titles for Marvel and for DC, and provided art for the last issue.  This issue features a cover by Travis Moore that has Wonder Woman against a gate of the Graveyard of the Gods with many arms reaching out for her!  The variant cover is by co-writer Becky Cloonan, a moody piece with Diana in a pit of green smoke with a skeleton behind her.  Janus, the dark counterpart to Diana, walks the steps of Lesser M’aleca’andra under the red skies of Mars.  She has killed many of the Green Martians who look like the Martian Manhunter.  She uses her God Scraper, a hand scythe, to slash open a gate to other worlds and walks through it.  At the Graveyard of the Gods, Diana is walking with Deadman and Ratatosk, she looks a little scrawny.  

She wonders about the missing headstones in a field of grass.  Diana drives her sword into the grass and there is a rumbling in the ground, headstones begin to burst up like in Poltergeist (1982), “You only moved the headstones!”  In a splash page, Deadman explains to Diana that they are the graves of forgotten gods.  Diana leads Deadman away, there’s a strange bit of dialogue, “On me”, I’m not certain what this references.  They notice a figure in a green robe chisling a new headstone, he works out, “Hro”, I think this refers to H’ronmeer, the Martian god of death.  The figure says he has been waiting for Diana!  His eyes are sewn shut with snaggly teeth.  Ratatosk leaps off Diana’s shoulder to find the missing residents.  He has found the tomb of Hermes and tells Diana that he found it when the fog told him. The massive Keeper of the Grounds appear behind them.  He has a staff, black robes, and a plague mask with a long beak.  

The Keeper asks if she is the reason for all of the death and she explains that she is going to return the Olympians and finish Janus.  He threatens to keeper her in the Graveyard. She challenges him to a game of wits.  Diana’s giving the Keeper the Bill & Ted: Bogus Journey treatment!  The Keeper challenges her the riddle game and will return the gods if she wins.  Diana should give The Keeper a melvin!  Scratch that the riddle game is a big part of myths.  The well known riddle giver was Gollum.  Diana thinks to her time in Asgard with Siegfried.  She has the answer.  The Keeper continues with the next riddle and Ratatosk says he has the answer and ends up crushed by The Keeper.  Deadman and Diana try to explain that Ratatosk was not part of the deal.  The Keeper tires of Deadman talking and seals his mouth, Matrix-style.  This gets him laughing like a crow.  A final riddle which Diana happens to answer.  The Keeper will return the gods, but not her friends. 

Diana gives him a riddle that the Keeper know the answer, but can’t say.  He frees her friends and the gods.  Deadman gasps for air, but they do not have a coin for Charon.  Diana makes a bargain for one to stay while the gods and the ones Janus killed return.  The gods return in a shower of green-tinged white light!  Deadman says he is going to leave to see about Janus.  They return to the robed figure chiseling “Diana” on the tomb!  The tomb is now a portal back to Olympus.  The male Janus is being punished by the other gods, but Diana speaks up for him.  Hephaestus, the smith of the gods, he kinda looks like Hellboy, says the other Janus took the God Scraper from his forge.  Hermes confirms it.  Zeus sends away the other gods to speak with Diana. Later, she asks Hermes where the female Janus could have gone, he says the Satyr’s Grove.  Hephaestus says he will destroy the God Scrapter when she returns it.  She finds the well and plunges into it finding herself upside in the fairy world, Elfhame!  In “Cursed Object”, Young Diana faces a Clio possessed by Circe.  She is able to be brave and free Clio.  Still, the pages Diana found are dangerous, as well as Circe!  Wonder Woman #775 offers a strange afterlife with some seemingly familiar characters, can't wait to get to Elfhame!  

Three Lassos of Truth out of Five! 

#WonderWoman, #Afterworlds, #LesserMalecaandra, #GodScraper, #TheKeeperOfTheGrounds