The Stop Button

I’ve never read Denny O’Neil’s seventies Wonder Woman, so I can’t compare this flashback to it. I know the seventies didn’t have J. Bone—imagine Darwyn Cooke if he was incompetent—so the art must have been better. As for O’Neil’s plot, it seems like something out of “Xena: Warrior Princess” after a while… only with Diana Prince in a pant suit.

Some of the problem is just O’Neil’s writing, not even his plotting. His narration from Diana is awful. There’s not a lot of it, actually—no verbose expository thought balloons, which is better than the alternative. Bone’s art is so loose and unfinished, I’m scared to think what it’d look like if he actually had to incorporate a lot of text balloons.

The plot’s dumb too; it doesn’t fit Bone’s style at all. I wonder if O’Neil knew the style the art would be….

Terrible in every department.

CREDITS

Savage Ritual; writer, Denny O’Neil; artist, J. Bone; colorist, Kevin Couden; letterer, Dezi Sienty; editors, Chynna Clugston Flores and Kwanza Johnson; publisher, DC Comics.