Another week where a lot of my favorite comics come out! But I’m not reviewing everything anymore these days. Some times a new comic is just really enjoyable, but there’s not much I have to say about it, so to spare my sanity sometimes, I’m just not going to include it. Looking at you, latest excellent issue of Nightwing…But we do have new Batman and Ultimate Spider-Man comics!

Comic Book of the Week goes to Wonder Woman #10 for a truly emotional and heartfelt issue that finally addresses the Cheetah in the room.

Meanwhile, not much else going on for me right now. I’m juggling a few different video games until I settle on something big and new. Maybe Elden Ring, finally? I’m not really vibing with The Acolyte, haven’t started The Boys. Haven’t read any of my big pile of graphic novels. Moving along nicely on making Gamer Girl & Vixen. And surviving this heat wave. So yeah, just kinda strolling along through life.

Comic Reviews: Batman #149, Ultimate Spider-Man #6 and Wonder Woman #10.

Batman #149
Writer: Chip Zdarsky
Artists: Michele Bandini and Steve Lieber
Colorist: Nick Filardi
Letterer: Clayton Cowles

This isn’t the final issue of Zdarsky’s Batman run, but it really seems to wrap up a lot of ongoing storylines and revert some of Zdarsky’s changes. So that’s something.

Robin-En-Arrh is a clone of Bruce Wayne who is rapidly aging, and Batman wants to do everything he can to help. He calls in favors from other superheroes, digs into Zur’s files, butts heads with Damian and all sorts of things. He even finds out that Zur had been hiding money for a long time, so Bruce is now wealthy again. There’s nothing to be done for his clone, so they say their goodbyes, and Bruce reflects on growing old. With his new wealth, he buys a new mansion (Pennyworth Manor) and sets up shop with all his Family under one roof.

Comic Rating: 8/10 – Very Good.

I enjoyed this issue because it serves as a nice epilogue to everything that’s come before, with Batman and his Family recovering after the mess of Zur-En-Arrh. It’s a little annoying who matter-of-factly Zdarsky reverses some of the changes he made, but I can live with that. I’ll talk more about it later. Just know that this issue is a very nicely handled wrap-up story, that also touches on some of Zdarsky’s bigger themes. He spent a lot of issues addressing Batman getting older, and now Bruce gets to sit and watch a clone of himself literally go gray and die right before his eyes. It allows this Bruce to reflect and accept certain things about himself, and I liked that part. There’s also a big role for some Family members, which I always enjoy. And I really do like the Pennyworth Manor set-up for future stories. Could be a lot of fun!

This issue stumbles in a lot of the suddenness of events. We only learned that Robin-En-Arrh was a clone of Bruce in the previous issue, and the character only first appeared in the issue before that. So there’s no emotional connection for the reader, even though Bruce is clearly going through a lot with this. Then there are the scenes where, 1) Bruce finds that Zur hid $3 billion, so he’s rich again, and 2) Clone Bruce cuts off his hand so that Bruce can get a flesh and blood hand back. I realize that when you’re done writing a popular comic book character, the general consensus is to put them back in the toybox no worse than when you found them…but this is going a little too far for my suspension of disbelief. Especially considering Bruce missing a hand or Bruce being poor never really impacted the story in any significant way. Batman and his Family operated the same they always have, so the poor thing never mattered. And Bruce missing a hand never mattered because he instantly just replaced it with a perfectly fine robot hand. It’s all just a little too pat for my tastes.

But what do I know? It’s an otherwise perfectly enjoyable issue that wraps some things up and sets some things up.

TL;DR: A very nice epilogue to Zdarky’s big Batman stories, though some plot points are wrapped up a bit too cleanly, in my opinion.

Ultimate Spider-Man #6
Writer: Jonathan Hickman
Artist: Marco Checchetto
Colorist: Matthew Wilson
Letterer: VC’s Cory Petit

I’m back with Ultimate Spider-Man and things are going smoothly.

Spider-Man and Green Goblin attack Wilson Fisk in his home, but Fisk is prepared and whoops their butts! So Peter Parker has to explain his black eye and bruised face at the breakfast table the next morning, and comes clean to his family about being Spider-Man. They’re all pretty cool with it, and Mary Jane comes up with his superhero name, which I didn’t realize he didn’t have until now.

Comic Rating: 8/10 – Very Good.

This is just a well-written, very well drawn and generally enjoyable Spider-Man story. I like how Peter Parker is such a dork. Green Goblin and Kingpin have so much already going on, so much at stake. And here’s Peter just sort of swinging along, trying to be a good person and do good things, but really getting led around by his nose. It’s fun and silly and totally works. I thought it might be a bigger deal when his family found out, but they gloss over it pretty quickly. Obviously it’s much more fun if MJ is fully on board from the get go, despite the hiding. Don’t want to turn her into the nagging wife trope. I’m a little surprised that he hasn’t used the name ‘Spider-Man’ before this, especially since apparently 4 months have passed, but that’s fine. No big deal.

TL;DR: Fun issue that keeps the story going along, though it treats pretty major events pretty casually. But I suppose this is a fairly casual comic so far overall.

Wonder Woman #10
Writer: Tom King
Artist: Daniel Sampere
Colorist: Tomeu Morey
Letterer: Clayton Cowles

Welp, this is possibly my favorite issue so far of this outstanding series. When this is all over, I’m buying the hardcover omnibus, I love this so much.

After all other attempts to break Wonder Woman have failed, the Soveign moves on to his next plan: feeding Wonder Woman to Cheetah. Rather than recruit Cheetah to his super-villain team from earlier, they captured her and tried to break her so that she wouldn’t be a wildcard, but she wouldn’t break. So they abandoned her on a nearby island and left her to get good and hungry, and now they’ve washed Wonder Woman onto that island as well for an epic, multi-day beat down as the two archrivals go head-to-head. But are they arch rivals? Is Cheetah the Joker or Lex Luthor to Wonder Woman? The Sovereign explores this possibility in his narration.

Comic Rating: 10/10 – Fantastic.

I’m not even sure where to begin with this issue, it’s so damn good. OK, so, I’ve been waiting for a while for Cheetah to show up. Clearly King is tackling a lot of the major characters and themes of Wonder Woman in his series, so it was only a matter of time for Cheetah to make an appearance, since she is considered to be Wonder Woman’s archnemesis. I believe she was referenced in that earlier villains issue, so I’ve been eager to see what King did with her. And he did not disappoint! This is a momentous issue, one steeped in what it means to be Wonder Woman and to have compassion for even her greatest enemies. That point is really driven home in the touching, emotional nature of their love/hate relationship. It very brutal, it’s very tender, and it’s explored well in this issue.

I especially enjoyed how King, through his Sovereign narration, broke the Fourth Wall a bit to explore why Cheetah is Wonder Woman archnemesis. Batman vs. Joker and Superman vs. Luthor are easy to understand, easy to fit into simple archetypes. It’s why they work so well to begin with. But why Cheetah? Why is the Cheetah Wonder Woman’s archnemesis? What does she have to do with anything? This issue may not have a definitive answer (or if it did, it may have gone over my head), but the story does a great job of showing us why it is what it is. And I very much enjoyed that.

I don’t think this is the start of any sort of romantic relationship between Wonder Woman and Cheetah. I think this is just a very good example of all the different forms of love, and how Wonder Woman feels them all. Her love for Cheetah is different from her love for Steve Trevor which is different from her love for the Wonder Girls. And this issue expresses all of that nicely, and includes a fun, comedy B-plot for the Wonder Girls.

And, of course, the art by Daniel Sampere is career-defining. I hate that I never know what to say about art. The work is beautifully detailed, no skimping on anything. The action is just as awesome as the tender moments. The whole art team is doing genre-setting work here. DC would be wise to keep this art team together for every issue and just work in delays or skip issues if needed.

TL;DR: This was a highly anticipated issue and it did not disappoint. King and his art team go a long way to exploring and underlining the Wonder Woman/Cheetah rivalry and how it’s particularly special.

The comics I review in my Hench-Sized reviews are just the usual comics I grab from Comixology any given week, along with a few impulse buys I might try on a whim. So if there are any comics or series you’d like me to review each week, let me know in the comments.

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