Future State: Superman/Wonder Woman #1: Walking on the Sun

This book is pretty weird. Not weird in a… weird way. Weird in that it starts out really well, but about 40% in, it takes a turn for the worse and can’t quite recover all the way. Actually, it doesn’t recover at all. However, it does make me want to read the next issue. Pretty weird, right? Author Dan Watters’ story is about a four on the one-to-ten scale, but I have a feeling that the things I really liked are the things that have been put into place by the “bible” or whatever the editors behind this event put into place. I like the atmosphere, the “universe” that it’s set in, it’s got a great feeling that gives the reader the sense that the characters actually control their world, not the other way around. Basically, the story starts to take a dive once we get to the Wonder Woman part. Her place in the universe is unsure, confusing, and contradictory. At one point Watters goes out of his way to make Wonder Woman ride a mythical “mule with no head” but he must’ve forgotten to tell the artist because the mule totally has ahead! Is there an editor anywhere here? Ugh. Watters pulls it together enough to make a great couple of pages late in the issue and, as I mentioned before, it has me curious to read what happens next. I think it might be morbid curiosity more than anything. 

Leila Del Duca is a very good artist. Frankly, the art in this book is really good. She renders both main characters with a certain “weight” that makes them automatically respect them, and they stand out from the rest of the characters in the book. Another thing I loved is that everything in the book is portrayed like our world, just advanced. There’s no weird tech or robots flying around, Del Duca draws our world, just in the future, a very nice change from all the other sci-fi landscapes that are portrayed in pop culture.