Diana and the Island of No Return - The First of the Wonder Woman Adventures

Not too long ago, DC Comics published a young reader graphic novel featuring a child Diana (who would grow up to be Wonder Woman), and I thoroughly enjoyed it. More recently, the Wonder Woman comic published monthly by DC Comics has added back-up stories featuring a young Diana that have been in the same vein as the graphic novel, and they have been fun to read. Now, Random House has published the start of a series of novels, the Wonder Woman Adventures, which feature a twelve-year old Princess Diana who is desperate to begin training, so she can be a strong, fierce Amazon like all of her sisters.  And author Aisha Saeed gives readers a fantastic first adventure that sets Diana's course to become the greatest Amazon of them all!

Diana and the Island of No Return finds young Diana awaiting the arrival of her friend, Princess Sakina, for the Chara festival, which is one of the rare times visitors are ever allowed on Themyscira.  Soon, Sakina, along with hundreds of others, arrive for the festivities.  What none of them realize is that one of the boats carries a stowaway - and the young boy who dares to come to this island paradise will set in motion a chain of events that will take Diana, Sakina, and the boy Augustus away from Themyscira to the island where the chariots of the gods are created - an island that is now being controlled by a demon - the very demon who sent Augustus to Themyscira to bring back the young princess Diana!

Saeed tells a wonderful little tale of friendship, trust, honor, strength, and determination.  Diana so desperately wants to be an Amazon warrior, but her mother, the Queen, refuses to allow her to train. But when all of the Amazons are put under a spell, Diana and her friend, Sakina, must leave Themyscira with Augustus to his home island, where they must find a way to defeat a demon whose goal is to capture Diana and take him to whomever "he" is that hired him.  And to even get to the demon, Diana and her friends must face countless dangers on an island now filled with traps, face off against the islanders - Augustus' own people! - without hurting the mind-controlled people, and overcome a villain that can take over one's mind simply by speaking to them!  Sounds easy, right?  Well, for a grown-up Diana who has her full powers and the knowledge and skills of decades of training, sure.  But for a youthful young princess who has yet to train and who does not even know the full extent of who she is or what she can do - let's just say, it's going to be an uphill battle - literally!

While I do take some exception with a lot of the current slang and American phrases used by Diana, Sakina, and Augustus (where would these three even learn of these phrases), overall the story is thoroughly enjoyable and definitely keeps the reader's attention from beginning to end.  And Saeed certainly captures the essence of who Wonder Woman is - even if she isn't quite a woman yet.  This is the type of story that DC needs to take heed of - a character-driven tale that features an big baddie that must be defeated, seemingly overwhelming odds, a lot of innocents in danger, a huge climactic battle, a few tricks and surprises along the way, and a lesson learned by everyone by the end of the story.  This is what comic books used to be.  The stories do not need to be uber-dark and violent to be exceptionally written and fun to read.

Plus, it's obvious that Saeed is planting seeds for future stories - such as, who is the "he" that hired the demon to capture Diana?  Who wants her so badly?  What is trying to escape Doom's Doorway under the island?  And will Diana discover the truth about her newly discovered abilities that allowed her to climb the side of a mountain and break metal bands as if they were nothing?  I guess we will have to wait for book two, and other future books, to discover the answers to these questions.

I can't end this post without talking about the beautiful cover to this book. The fantastic cover art is provided by Alessia Trunfio.  I'm unfamiliar with the name, but her rendition of a young Diana standing at the edge of the island, the tumultuous waves of the ocean crashing down before her as lightning strikes in the background - the scene is so alive, you can almost feel the wind, hear the waves and the crackle of electricity.  I would definitely love to see Trunfio do more Wonder Woman art - it's a shame she was not permitted to do any internal illustrations for the book.  That is probably the only thing that could make this book more perfect than what it already is!

RATING:  9 gamma gazelles out of 10 for a superbly written Wonder Woman story of young Diana's pre-Wonder Woman days!