Review by Ian Keogh
Lords and Liars begins with Wonder Woman mulling over her career as she moves into a new apartment. If you really want to know, this continues from Steve Orlando departing Wonder Woman with The Four Horsewomen, but beyond a little knowledge of Wonder Woman’s supporting cast this is a clean start from Mariko Tamaki.
Wonder Woman’s problem becomes people who’re being mind-controlled, and that being Maxwell Lord’s speciality, the finger points in his direction. He’s in jail, though, so can it really be him? Wonder Woman’s infallible lasso of truth says not, but readers will surely pick up on a common connection between several incidents.
Although drawn by several artists, Lords and Liars is more or less a single story over eleven chapters exploring the idea of mind control as a downloadable app that anyone can employ. It’s not a pretty picture, although moreso when drawn by Mikel Janín or Steve Pugh rather than by Carlo Barberi, whose cast are all pinched faces and hair impossibly gelled into preposterous styles. Pugh is the most thoughtful artist, for instance emphasising Wonder Woman’s Amazonian stature when standing next to ordinary people, and the elegant sample art is his by virtue of drawing more of the book than anyone else. Also, look out for Pugh’s creative designs. Why Janín earns cover credit for the opening two chapters, and there’s nothing for Barberi also drawing two, and Rafa Sandoval for drawing another two is something their agents might want to take up with DC.
Tamaki’s story twists around in sending Wonder Woman from one location to the next, but always with a sense of prolonging a plot. There’s time for Count Vertigo and Deathstroke, while Lord explains his worldview at almost tiresome length, so Wonder Woman is kept busy while standing still. A tragedy wrapped in might have been given greater emotional weight, but is never anything more than unconvincing motivation, and it leaves Lords and Liars as a disappointment for being average when Tamaki has shown herself to be so much better elsewhere.
