Eyes of the Gorgon

While Diana tries to avert war at the White House, Medousa shows up and turns Wonder Woman's world upside-down. Wonder Woman must make a terrible sacrifice to defeat the Gorgon and prove herself to her JLA comrades and the world.

Grade 7 Up Earth's most famous Amazon is back, and this time she's up against Medousa. The enemy of my enemy is my friend philosophy makes unlikely allies of such characters as Circe, Medousa, and Dr. Veronica Cale, who pool their abilities to harm Diana as much as possible. At the same time, the gods pull lots of strings behind the scenes to serve their own agendas. During the course of this book, Diana is buried in rubble, bitten by Medousa's snakes, and beaten and bloodied numerous times. Most horrifying, though, is the moment when she destroys her own eyes with acid rather than risk being turned to stone. Diana's JLA confederates make brief appearances, primarily in the scene in which they test her abilities after she has been blinded. Luckily, her superhuman hearing enables her to hold her own. In fact, she's able to withstand all of their attacks, up to and including a bullet fired by Superman (she deflects it with her enchanted bracelets, in case you were wondering). It's good that Diana gets in this practice, because her final task is to serve as Athena's champion and fight Zeus's champion Briareros, a gigantic hundred-armed monstrosity that towers over her. Readers will fly through the pages to see what challenges Diana will face, and several cliff-hangers will have them clamoring for the next book. Andrea Lipinski, New York Public Library
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In this long, well-plotted story arc (continued by Land of the Dead), Wonder Woman, aka Diana, is faced with challenges on every level. The Amazon island Themyscira, no longer floating above the ocean, now rests off the coast of the Carolinas, which brings up all sorts of U.S. security issues that Diana, as official Amazonian ambassador, must deal with. Unknown to her, the deadly gorgon Medousa and her evil sisters have been released and want revenge against the goddess Athena and her champion, Wonder Woman. At the same time, Athena plots a bloodless coup against Zeus for the rule of Mount Olympus. Medousa challenges Diana to a fight to the death, and in order to beat the gorgon's deadly gaze, Diana blinds herself. While Wonder Woman triumphs, the cost--the life of her friends' young son--is almost too much for her to bear. Then, Athena herself calls upon the still-blind Wonder Woman to help her cement her power on Olympus. Rucka serves up an exhilarating adventure while still allowing us to see the classic superheroine's softer side. His Wonder Woman still packs a punch but also comes across as very human. A traditional comic-book style reigns in the artwork. Tina Coleman
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