Wonder Woman is Busy This Month

By Zac Boone on Wednesday, August 22nd, 2012

Entertainment Weekly broke the news this morning that Superman and Wonder Woman would soon be hooking up in the pages of Geoff Johns and Jim Lee‘s Justice League #12. You can check out UTF’s coverage of the announcement here.

What I’m interested in is the cover. I’m sure many other readers noticed its similarities to last week’s Wonder Woman #12 cover by Cliff Chiang. The Justice League cover features the Man of Steel kissing the Amazon Princess, high in the sky, with the sun and a line of clouds low in the background. WW’s lasso swirls around them and wraps (kinkily) around Supes’ chest. The Wonder Woman cover sees her kissing the Greek god Apollo, high in the sky, with the moon and a line of clouds in the background. While WW shifts from being on top on last week’s cover to being on the bottom with Superman, the angle each couple is leaning at is the same. It might also be worth noting that one man is a godlike alien who draws his power from the sun, while the other is a god who is often associated with the sun.

While I don’t think for a minute that the similarity between the two covers is a coincidence, neither do I think it’s intended to hint at any significant story connection between the titles, other than the obvious, WW’s involvement. The current Justice League story-arc, “The Villain’s Journey,” is set in the DCU’s present day, while events in Wonder Woman #12 suggest that that story took place some time ago. I think it’s really an effort to create what I call resonance between the two books. I could go on about resonance for a long time, but in short its a connection – in this case merely visual – that creates a more unified feel for DC’s line of books. If that’s the case I’m glad, because unity has been somewhat lacking in the first year of the New 52. One other possibility is that it’s an effort at subliminal marketing: readers who enjoyed Wonder Woman #12 (because it was awesome!) decide to try Justice League #12, and vice versa.

The folks over at Comics Alliance also pointed out that the Justice League cover bears an even greater similarity to this scene from the 2005 Superman story arc, “For Tomorrow,” which shows the big blue boy scout with then-wife Lois Lane. That story was also penciled by Lee and was written by current Wonder Woman scribe Brian Azzarello. Coincidence?