Hello everyone!
For my book review this week I'm going back to basics with DC.
Now, for those of you who may not know me all that well, let me tell you that I frankly don't care too much about all this DC vs Marvel debate or hashtags or whatever.
I can understand that there's some rivalry going on, because, well, two competing comic book houses? Duh. It makes sense even to me. But I'm not one of those people who say YOU CAN'T GO FOR DC IF YOU'RE A MARVEL FAN THAT'S BETRAYAL. Or vice versa.
Me, I watch/read about the heroes I like. Whether they were created by Marvel or by DC means precious little, although I'll also freely admit I kind of like the tone of MCU better than of the DCEU at the moment.
That being said, however, Wonder Woman has become one of my favourites, partly thanks to Gal Gadot's amazing performancein the movie.
Which is why this week's book is all about the Warbringer.
I'll admit I didn't actually have plans to read this particular YA series, even though it's about the DC Icons. Heck, I only really knew it existed because Sarah J Maas is writing an installment in it. But then I was watching this video on Youtube by Sasha Alsberg and she was in this bookstore buying something or showing her own book, Zenith, off, when I saw what looked to me like Wonder Woman in her trademark arms-crossed position in the background.
So off I went to Goodreads, typing 'Wonder Woman' into their search engine, et voila! Wonder Woman: Warbringer was the book I was looking for.
I hunkered down and dug right in.
Diana, princess of the Amazons, is a teenager who desperately wants to prove herself, both to her mother and to the people she will someday rule. Trouble is, they all see her as this breakable, cute little thing who will never become a warrior like them, especially as she was born/made (this is a raging debate - in the book, it seems that we're going with the idea that Diana was made out of clay and life was gifted to said clay, but in the movie version she's actually the demigodess daughter of Zeus and the Amazon Queen) and didn't die to pass into the immortal, warrior afterlife.
This island sounds more and more like Valhalla in Scandinavian folklore.
Anyway, she enters a contest to win a footrace across the island, but she's distracted when she can see a ship exploding on the other side of the veil which keeps her home island hidden from the rest of the world (another note here is that, in the movie, you can't actually SEE anything through that barrier unless you're right on top of it, so Diana has no clue about the outside world there). She dives in and saves a girl from drowning, throwing the race and potentially dooming herself to exile as no mortal can set foot on Amazon homeland.
She has bigger problems, honestly.
Alia Keralis, the girl she rescued, a dark-skinned girl with a mixed Greek/New Orleans heritage, isn't supposed to be on the island to begin with - and by saving her Diana might have doomed everyone else.
See, Alia is a Warbringer (hence the book title), which means she's a direct descendant of Helen of Troy. Warbringers pop into existence every once in a while, bringing with them tension, destruction and bloodshed. It wasn't Helen's face that launched the Trojan war - instead, it was her very existence, and every descendant since has caused something catastrophic or other.
Consulting the Oracle, Diana learns she might have a shot at preventing disaster: if she can take Alia to the spring where Helen was buried, and Alia bathes in those waters before a certain time, then maybe, just maybe, they can effectively end the line of Warbringers.
Off the girls go - about time, too, as the island is self-destructing around them - and head to the mortal world, but instead of going to Greece, they land in New York, where they're quickly joined by a motley crew of other teenagers: Theo, Nim and Alia's older brother Jason.
Jason isn't a teenager anymore and is actually already on the board at Keralis Industries, and he's also super overprotective of his sister. For some inexplicable reason, despite the fact that Alia is actually in danger, he makes the lot of them attent a fundraising gala for the company.
Which is where they get attacked, obviously.
Diana saves them all and they grab a ride on the Keralis family's private plane which will take them to Greece, but of course it's not smooth sailing, either.
They crash-land with the plane, the pilot is unfortunately killed, and Nim and Theo are both incredibly affected by Alia's devastating power, trying to murder each other. Jason is immune - and Diana discovers why when she wraps him with the Lasso of Truth and finds out he's a sort of hybrid in the sense that he's a direct descendant of Menelaus - someone who was able to withstand Helen. Jason and Diana keep clashing - and share a moment - but mostly they just need to hike it over to the spring without getting caught, and Alia killed.
See, factions want Alia dead because, in their short life span, that means nothing bad will happen with this generation's Warbringer. And while Diana has sworn to kill Alia herself if they fail to reach the spring in time, she wants to prevent this from happening ever again.
Of course, they keep getting sidetracked by random Greek gods and goddesses who pop up at the worst possible moments just to play mind tricks with our lot. Do they not have ANYTHING better to do?
But when they actually reach the place of Menelaus and Helen's tomb, Diana and Alia realise they made a mistake: it's not at the tomb, it's at the river proper where Helen, as a teenager, was free to run and compete with other girls, protected by her brothers.
Sadly though this is where the Jasons of the world get to headdesk, as Jason Keralis reveals himself as the guy behind every assassination plot before-hand.
He's a bit unhinged, as we'd say, because since the death of their parents he's been digging into the genetic research they'd been doing to help Alia overcome who she is, but he's got other ideas: namely, he'll create an army who's immune to this Warbringer power and dominate the world by using Alia the way he sees fit.
All for the good of said world, of course.
Theo, Nim and Diana are all killed in the ensuing battle, but Diana is visited by the good goddesses - namely the Olympians, who tell her she is now a true Amazon and may pass to the island to become immortal, like the rest. Instead, she chooses to continue to fight, realizing that THIS is her test, from Olympus itself, to prevent world destruction. She only asks for Theo and Nim back - her champions, as it were.
The goddesses warn her she cannot bargain with them a second time, but grant her wish.
And then all hell breaks loose.
Theo and Nim make quick work of what Jason thinks are his indestructible trucks and stuff, while Diana battles Jason himself. He injects himself with a serum concocted from her blood, to be as strong and agile as an Amazon, but what he doesn't count on is the fact that all Amazons are mentally linked, and each feels the pain of the others.
Well, THAT's fun.
Unprepared, this mental assault cripples Jason and prevents him from fighting further, while Diana coolly tells him that he really should have thought things through.
Then it's a race against the clock to throw Alia into the water, but they do it! Happily ever after.
Mostly.
Diana promises to come visit Alia & Co when/if she can, but she has to return home - meanwhile, Alia didn't tell her friend everything. While the water DID cure the power inside her in the sense that people around her don't want to kill one another and it's out of control, it's STILL inside her.
She can just control it now. And that's the catch of the Warbringers - they were uncontrollable before, but the breaking of the curse simply means gaining control.
Meanwhile, Diana returns to the Oracle to find that the gods have granted her a gift: no time seems to have passed for her at home and no one knows she's been off the island, or about Alia, which would doom her into exile. What's more, the Oracle gifts her a vision of the future, where she sees Nim happy in a relationship with another woman, and Theo and Alia apparently together.
And teenage Diana vows to some day fight side-by-side with them again.
The end.
I have to say I'm torn about this book. It might be the YA aspect of it all, because frankly I've really outgrown the genre, I think. Or maybe it's because I prefer Diana Prince to be a grown-up, badass female warrior who gives everyone a run for their money. This book just didn't mesh as well with me as I was hopeful it would. That being said, however, I have to admit that the teenagers were portrayed accurately enough, and their little angsty problems and unwillingness to face reality seemed pretty much by-the-book.
I still don't get the need for the party, but that's just me.
Has this deterred me from reading the rest of the DC Icons? Absolutely not. I have Batman: Nightwalker on my reading list already.
... But I'm probably going to rewatch Wonder Woman, just because.
xx
*image not mine
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