“Song of the Dead? It doesn’t make sense.” Artemis: Requiem

William Messner-Loebs wrapped up his run on Wonder Woman by introducing Artemis, a Bana-Mighdall Amazon (a Mideastern group that splintered off the Themiscyrans) who replaced Diana as Wonder Woman. It turned out that this was an elaborate ruse by Hippolyta, who had visions Wonder Woman would die: if that was so, it wouldn’t be her daughter! The visions came true — Artemis died — but almost a year later, she returned.

ARTEMIS: REQUIEM by Messner-Loebs and Ed Benes opens with Diana having nightmares of Artemis’ soul in Hell rather than in the Elysian Fields. Wonder Woman of course sets off to rescue her frenemy only to discover Artemis is doing reasonably well: she’s become the wife of Dalkrig-Hath, a high-ranking demon prince, also serving as one of his generals. It’s a lux life and she has no desire to leave it … but dammit, Diana came to hell to save her! As in his WW run, Messner-Loebs makes the cliche of the superhero inspiring good in others work. The end result is Artemis returns to life on the mortal world.

Her emergence from a graveyard proves an unwelcome surprise to the Hellenders, a team of demon-fighting superheroes organized by the enigmatic occult expert Nathaniel. Although she helps the Hellenders on their mission, Nathaniel is unimpressed — until she points out that his right-hand woman is a demon (“Tell me more about this screening procedure.”).

Artemis takes the codename Requiem, to Nathaniel’s annoyance (“Song of the dead? It doesn’t make sense.”) and proceeds using her fighting prowess and her intimate knowledge of Hell for the benefit of the cause. In the final issue they take the battle to Dalkrig-Hath — he wants his woman back, if only to punish her for leaving — and get involved in Hell’s internal power struggles before returning home.

As you can see from the first-issue cover, Benes’ art suffered from the 1990s boobs-and-butt visuals. Nevertheless it’s a solid six issue run with Messner-Loebs’ trademark humor, albeit often black humor. In one issue Artemis goes on a tabloid TV show to be interviewed alongside a demon … who turns out to be a metahuman actor who uses his shapeshifting power to provide tabloid hosts with whatever they need (“Tomorrow I’ll be an irresponsibly pregnant Hispanic teenager — it’s really no different from playing Hamlet except the pay’s better.”).In the final issue we learn Dalkrig-Hath’s magic phrase is “Mip mip kazoo.” Artemis explains that at his level of power, anything can be a magic phrase — he just thinks it’s funny to choose a silly one. That’s the kind of magic system I enjoy reading about.

Artemis subsequently appeared in John Byrne’s Wonder Woman run , which I’ve almost finished, so the review will come soon.

#SFWApro. Wonder Woman cover by Brian Bolland, Artemis covers by Benes.