Hopefully in issue two some plot and character development happens and perhaps some turns of phrase that aren't plucked from a book of overused idioms. It would be a shame for art this nice to be relegated to such a forgetful story.

Honestly the biggest disappointment withWonder Woman: Warbringer is that after this we don't get to spend more time with the characters introduced. Diana's destiny is to grow into the Wonder Woman of DC fame and in doing so that means she must return to Themysicira in order to leave again on her adult journey. It feels like a bit of a tease giving us these great diverse characters and then taking them away but it's worth it to have this time with them.

One of the hardest things about growing up is realizing that the path you've envisioned for yourself is not always the path that's best for you to follow. Another hard thing is realizing that just because paths have been closed off to you, sometimes due to no fault of your own, doesn't mean there aren't more paths available. The Tea Dragon Festival addresses both of these wonderfully with an added message showing skills have value even if you don't see it right away. We learn these lessons from changing careers and changing majors and often times it feels like a failure to give up on one dream but The Tea Dragon Festival really shows that deciding on a different path or being incapable of completing your original goals isn't a failure, just the start of a something new.

Pretty Deadly: The Rat #1sets up this new arc beautifully. It reintroduces the characters we have been apart from for so long and sets up the new setting and story in an engaging way leading readers to all sorts of questions as to how and why Clara Fields died and how Frank and Ginny will solve the mystery. Each volume of Pretty Deadly is both familiar and completely brand new at the same time and The Rat is no exception. A fine return to the world set up in previous volumes with a new framing and story-telling style, it sets up the rest of the arc in a way that the questions introduced can't be answered quick enough.

It really could have focused on the teenage activism that gets touched upon in the first part of the story as well as rounded out Pilan and Hikara who seem like great characters. It also would have firmly cemented Mera in her own story rather than rushing her off to be a part of Aquaman's origin. As it isMera: Tidebreaker tries to be too many stories at once and doesn't quite land any of them.