When it comes to how DC Comics has been promoting Future State its been clear that Yara Flor’s Wonder Woman is viewed as the face of this direction. Of all the characters that we have seen revealed part of Future State the one that stuck out visually the most was Yara Flor’s Wonder Woman for multiple reasons. What I found most intriguing about Yara Flor’s Wonder Woman is how she opens the door to further expand the whole Amazon mythos within the DC Universe. Up to this point DC Comics has kept the Amazons strictly centered around Greek Mythology. With Yara Flor’s background we are going to see that be expanded in whole new ways as we could learn more about other Amazons who weren’t born and raised on Themyscira. Let’s see how things go with Future State: Wonder Woman #1.
Writer and Artist: Joelle Jones
Colorist: Jordie Bellaire
Story Rating: 8 Night Girls out of 10
Art Rating: 9 Night Girls out of 10
Overall Rating: 8.5 Night Girls out of 10
Synopsis: Deep in the Amazon Rainforest, Wonder Woman (Yara Flor) comes across a Hydra. Wonder Woman holds her own but as the fighting goes the Hydra grows more heads. Wonder Woman calls on her Pegasus (named Jerry) to help her out. With Jerry’s help Wonder Woman is able to cause the Hydra to bite a part of itself, causing its own poison to kill it in the process.
Later Caipora (the forest guardian spirit) to catch up with what her friend is doing. Wonder Woman reveals she is going to cut off one the Hydra’s horns and take it to Hades to demand he hand over her Sister Warriror. She goes on to say if Hades refuses she will use the Hydro horn to torture him until she can bring her sister back herself.
Caipora does not take kindly to Wonder Woman poaching in her land. Wonder Woman quickly uses mystical boleadoras to tie up Caipora and convince her to take her to the Underworld.
In the Underworld courtyard Caipora questions the front desk attendant Wonder Woman tries to enter through the turnstiles but they don’t move. Wonder Woman breaks the turnstile and gives the attendant the broken pieces.
Inside what looks to be an Underworld subway system Wonder Woman questions Caipora on where they are exactly. Caipora reveals that they are in the Underworld’s transit hub where the dead are sorted and sent to their designated place in the afterlife.
When they get to the boat they will take to Hades, Wonder Woman is surprised that Caipora didn’t tell her that they would have to pay a toll to get on the boat. Wonder Woman sees someone who is not paying attention to their money and steals it from their hand. This causes a huge brawl to break out between the dead, with Wonder Woman and Caipora ending up in the middle of the fight.
The fighting causes the Cerberus guarding the gates of the Underworld to suddenly appear. End of issue.
The Good: With Future State direction taking place over the course of a long timeline creators aren’t being boxed in to tell new origin stories for the characters involved. We see how helpful that is with Future State: Wonder Woman #1 starting out with Yara Flor already established. Joelle Jones takes full advantage of the freedom to tell a story that is first and foremost fun.
One of the reasons this approach of dropping us into an adventure where Yara Flor is already Wonder Woman is that the entire flow of this issue felt natural. We weren’t worried about having to know every single detail about Yara Flor’s background and how she got to the point she is when we open Future State: Wonder Woman #1. Instead, Jones allows the world to be unveiled to the reader as Yara Flor’s current adventure progresses.
Going with this direction for Future State: Wonder Woman #1 made way for both the dialogue and artwork to play equal roles in how the world around Yara Flor is built out. You can see how Jones experience working on both the writing and art, along with Jordie Bellaire’s wonderful coloring, helps provide a balance to the storytelling. Jones picks the right moments to have the reader focus on the words being spoken and when the story plays out visually. It creates a whole different feel to how the story in Future State: Wonder Woman #1 is told in comparison to other titles.
Further adding to the fun is how Jones doesn’t try to set out to beat us over the head with how different Yara Flor is as Wonder Woman compared to Diana Prince. Yara Flor is her own character because she is part of this world. We understand why she does what she does by the way she talks and interacts in both the Amazon Rainforest and later in the Underworld. It all builds on one another to help us learn about who Yara Flor is as a character.
With how we see Yara Flor’s character is established Jones shows us how what we know about Greek mythology within the DC Universe extends past Greece. We get that from the start with how Wonder Woman’s fight with the Hydra plays out. A Hydra being located in the Amazon Rainforest hints at how these mystic beasts are all over the world.
That is further established with the introduction of Caipora, a forest guardian and Yara Flor’s friend. With Caipora, Jones shows us how the Amazon in South America has its own gates to the Underworld like we see in Themyscira. Jones does this with how the story develops both in the writing and visually.
Jones also does a good job in making Yara Flor and Caipora have a natural chemistry that you believe they’ve been friends for a while. The way they get on one another throughout their journey from the Amazon Rainforest to the Underworld spoke to a comfort-level you would only have with friends. Even instances like Caipora spending time talking to the front desk clerk of the Underworld played well into providing comical annoyance for Yara Flor.
At the same time, this relationship between Yara Flor and Caipora provided Jones an avenue to explain how the Underworld of this time works. The explanation is kept simple so we don’t have to get into all the minutiae of everything we are seeing. That further allows Jones artwork to shine as we can visually work out things not talked about in this version of the Underworld.
The journey into the Underworld and Yara Flor’s mission to free her sister from Hades was a good set-up for a story you can get behind. It gives clear motivation for what Yara Flor is doing. There are personal stakes that will allow the next issue to further inform us about Yara Flor’s background through story developments.
The Bad: Nothing.
Overall: Future State: Wonder Woman is off to a strong start. Joelle Jones quickly establishes this series as one of the standouts of DC Comics’ Future State direction. Jones does a wonderful job with balancing out the way the story unfolds both through the writing and visually. That balance made the world built around Yara Flor’s Wonder Woman be something you want to learn more about.
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