NB of the Week

Gots me a good case of Moment vs Issue this week. For future importance, it shall be know as MvI. Cuz abbreviation if cool. We'll start with the easier moment.

FF #7 - The Sepremor Seed
Awesome moment as we get the full return of Black Bolt. Bolt "died" during War of Kings when he and Vulcan (the third Summers brother) obliterated each other and created the Fault (a tear in space/time). In a simple explanation, Bolt woke up in the Fault, fought a squid creature (not the one from Watchmen, that we know of) and was able to go home. He is now the leader of the Universal Inhumans, takes his bride from each of the kingdoms and prepares to rule them all into the history books. Badass. (and that cover image never actually happened so pay it no mind)
Onto Issue.

Wonder Woman #613 - Odyssey: Chapter Thirteen
Chapter twelve ended with New Wonder Woman coming face to face with Old Wonder Woman. Come to find out, Old WW is actually "new" villain Nemesis. Turns out WW went to fight her before all this and was stabbed through. Instead of Nemesis being able to drain all of her soul, the Fates grabbed a little piece and that's what became this new Wonder Woman. And that's pretty much most of the issue. Fighting and explaining. But Nemesis is a bad chick and beats up on WW a bit. After grabbing the lasso and pulling WW in, Nemesis stabs her through (again), expecting to now possess all of her soul. But the Fates are tricky bitches. As we found out a little ago, this new lasso is actually WW's life string, given to her by the Fates. With all of her life now connected to her stran, her soul is pulled out and she is Wonder Woman fully once again. And just in time for one last charge into battle against Nemesis.
This story has been pretty awesome from it's start in #600. It had a slow start with a lot of questions that we wanted answers to but they slowly came and with 'em, the story took surprising turns and it has all been paying off. I think most surprising is that Phil Hester's writing may actually be better than Straczynski's. Granted, he got the tail end where all the reveals and action happened but that's not the point. Bringing in a new writer to finish another's story is a huge risk. It could have easily changed the entire feel and pace of the story (as Roberson's writing did on Superman) but it didn't. He managed to keep the tone and speed and turned it into his own. This story should make people look at Hester's writing more. He has proven himself with this one.
With one issue left until Azzarello's launch with the DCnU comic, I would recommend picking up trades for this one. Completely worth the money.