Okay, anyway, on to a more comprehensive look at the issue:
Well, I don't really think anything could have really saved this confrontation based on the implications from the last two issues. I talked about it a lot in the past, but the whole thing about how this "odyssey" somehow made Wonder Woman more loving and able to defeat Nemesis' influence when she couldn't have in her previous love-state is pretty much a dead on arrival, bum critique that doesn't really hold any water to anyone with even passing knowledge of the character or what she represents, but whatever. She beats back Nemesis and returns the timeline. Hooray, hooray. And look, the Amazons actually have their bracelets now, BrainWilly would be so proud if he still posted.
But anyway, the crux of the quality comes from the end. It's a bit on the sappy and cliched side, sure, but it's a nice moment that highlights something that has been missing from the book for quite awhile, the whole mother/daughter dynamic. It gets a bit too heavy-handed to me with the whole 'change is coming, don't be afraid, Kiko' stuff. Obviously, very meta on the whole reboot/relaunch thing, but it feels unneeded to me. I don't know how many of the other final pre-FP issues of series did or didn't do this, but eh, I know change is coming and don't really need to be reminded about it, and how it's all going to be okay in the end. But besides, a nice moment. I think Hester mentioned he was going for it to be a Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? moment, but it came off much more like Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader? in that it felt much more like 'this character will never actually have a farewell', as opposed to trying to say farewell to a version of that character. While good, it is still a bit marred when Diana goes on about how much this odyssey showed her this and that and blah blah and yadda yadda. I already talked more than I cared to in the past about that, but it's just a souring note in an otherwise enjoyable tune.
Anyway, as a whole, Odyssey wasn't horrible or anything. It was marred by a lot of different things, though. Partially its very slow pace, a characteristic it seems of even JMS' higher caliber work, but in the end, I think part of it stems from the fact that this just wasn't really a Wonder Woman story. Yeah, yeah, we were told it was a Wonder Woman story, and some stuff was shoehorned to make it kind of, sorta resemble one, but it never really escapes the feel that we're reading about a character that just doesn't really fit with anything Wonder Woman. Kind of like reading a newly created character from Top Cow where the creator tells you that he/she drew from Wonder Woman for that character, and then you tilt your head and you kind of, sorta see what they're getting at, but not really. Not that that's an inherently bad thing all its own, if this had been a purely an Elseworld, but it attempts to meld it into the actual character or Wonder Woman, and the justification just goes down like a blimp shot point blank by a bazooka.
I said this in the past and will stick with it now, but I really do think JMS should have just taken this story, stripped anything Wonder Woman-related he was trying to do, and pitched his own series to Vertigo. Much like his talks about Superman when unveiling details about Grounded, I always felt like JMS came off as very out of touch and, frankly, even unknowledgable about what he was even talking about in regards to the character. He had some people bobbing their heads to a lot of the crap he was saying, but I noticed the cried of brilliance and opened arms to a new age of Wonder Woman weren't really there when Odyssey actually started, and going by the sales charts, it was probably never there en masse to begin with. I tend to stay away from saying anything about creators themselves, because in the end I'll probably never break into the industry and will remain among many failed writers who just commentate on actual writers' work (and JMS has been at it since before I was born), but I have to call this one like I see it. No doubt, someone is out there to bring a new spin on the character, maybe even untangle the problems that's plagued her for decades, but that writer really wasn't JMS, and this simply comes off like some pseudo-'this is how I would have done it' attempt at a character, while trying to find some kind of relevance and communication with something they never really grasped.
Anyway, all that said, I'll stand by the assessing that this story still wasn't terrible. There were some things that made it go that path on a meta-level, but it remained a fairly decent story despite its flaws. I won't say I regard it as a regret in buying, but I won't lie in saying that I am glad the ****ing thing is completely over. And, if there's a light to be found at the end of the tunnel, the bar has been set kind of low for Brian Azzerello and Cliff Chiang's relaunch. Okay, well, that doesn't sound like much of a compliment or anything...but really, I think this puts a much softer gaze on what they'll be doing, at least for me.
