Wonder Woman #3 Review

Writer: Greg Rucka / Artist: Liam Sharp / DC Comics Content warning: Abusive Relationships What can be said about supervillain Cheetah? Ruthless, cunning, proud, perhaps a dash of Eartha Kitt’s Catwoman for good measure, Cheetah’s relentlessly violent nature has served for decades as the struggle between the warrior and the pacifist in Wonder Woman, the temptation to forego the efficiency of savagery for grace. In some places you could argue that the dynamic has become almost too predictable. But of course, as Greg Rucka informed us in an interview at the beginning of the comic’s arc, “You think you know Barbara Minerva, the Cheetah? […] you’re just flat-out wrong.” At first glance Rucka’s Cheetah already stands out in her significantly more bestial design, an even more feral invocation of her nature than perhaps her closest counterpart in the DCAU. There are no hot pants, crop tops, or luscious flowing hair to distract the reader from the horrific reality of Barbara’s curse at the hands of a brutal and unforgiving god. I’ll admit it, I wasn’t quite confident in the series switching artists so frequently, but just as surely as Scott’s art was the lynchpin for the previous issue’s tender atmosphere, so too are Sharp’s lines necessary to revealing Cheetah for who she really is. More than ever we’re able to see how much she is so achingly everything Diana is not: vicious where Diana is gentle, erratic where Diana is calculated, beastly where Diana is beautiful. Rucka is correc…