Some thoughts about Wonder Woman #52

Wonder Woman will have to face the person responsible of kidnapping Zeke.

Diana has been manipulated all this time and now Zeke's life depends on her making the right decision already. However, she might be tricked once again.

Well, this issue pretty much destroyed one of the most interesting aspects from Brian Azzarello's run which is something you would expect already but since this was the last issue of Meredith Finch's run, at least I thought she would go a bit more quietly.

Finch offers her final chapter by focusing on how Diana has been manipulated by people all this time and now Zeke is the one who is going to pay for it. It turns out that I was wrong during last issue when I though Finch killed Zola to give her story some weight, she didn't.

However, what happened was almost as bad.

You see, it turns out that Hera was the one who was manipulating anyone since she actually never cared about Zeke and the rest of the cast and she only wanted Zeus back so she tricked both Hecate and Diana to help her succeed on her mission.

Credit where credit is due, I think this twist could have worked. This is the kind of development that can be executed in a way that ends-up being shocking while making you question the whole nature of what you believed all this time. Is not bad per se.

The problem is that this is Meredith Finch we're talking about so the execution was obviously bad.

Hera didn't show a justifiable explanation about why she would betray everyone, the only reason that Finch gives is that she's an egomaniac who only cares about herself. The thing is that while that was the way how she was portrayed at the beginning of Azzarello's run, she showed a lot of character development where she became an important part of Diana's family and demonstrated to be more of what we initially thought.

The fact that Finch ignored such progress bothers me a bit but not as much as the fact that she didn't create a consistent development that caused such abrupt change of heart. There wasn't any indication about this, it almost feels like she did it at the last second to create shallow shock value.

And for that reason this totally ruins the character in that regard.

Miguel Mendonca's artwork is beautiful with really expressive and gorgeous characters. The best part of this story by far.

Aside from that. This run must have made a lot of fans and Brian Azzarello facepalm during its course.