It looks like the order of business for Greg Rucka's Wonder Woman Rebirth series right now is that we are going back and forth each issue between getting a story of her present day journey to discover the truth about her origins, and getting a retelling of her origins in sum total. Since Wonder Woman #2 retold the first meeting between her and Steve Trevor, we get the next chapter in her present day quest in Wonder Woman #3, which has taken Diana Prince into the African jungle to ask an old friend, Cheetah for her assistance.

This one gets pretty personal this week as Diana presents herself to Cheetah in a humbled, vulnerable position, which leads to some tender, heartwarming moments between the two in this book. Again, this is where my novice level of comic book reading comes into play because Cheetah is a character that has been established in Wonder Woman and DC Comics lore and I have no background for it, so when the tension appears between them from a past incident, I'm admittedly lost on what caused it and why it is as bad as it is.

That being said, I don't need to know what the bad blood was between Diana and Cheetah to understand what's going on in this book. Diana isn't groveling by any means, but she is coming to Cheetah from a position of weakness, in need of her help in some way to reclaim her true memories, and as she indicated at the end of Wonder Woman #1, this wasn't an easy decision for Diana to make, but she made it and has fully accepted whatever consequences come from it, including whatever reciprocity Cheetah needs in return......which may include saving her from a ruthless tribal leader that continuously punishes her out of masculine spite.

The book isn't all Wonder Woman and Cheetah, though. We do still follow Steve Trevor and his mates on a mission to hunt down a human trafficking warlord, also in the jungle. There's not a whole lot to tell on that front though, and really it feels like Trevor and his crew are there just to give Diana and Cheetah some time off the page, though it is clear that Diana and Steve's paths are destined to cross once again soon.

What I have been enjoying about this Wonder Woman Rebirth arc is the portrayal of Diana, one that I am admittedly reading for the first time. I have heard a lot about her character and it's pretty much been everything that's listed in the new Wonder Woman movie poster: Power, grace, wisdom, wonder. She has all of that in spades in this book and it really took off from the one-shot Rebirth issue and has just picked up steam since then. I've seen some people say that they look forward to the other books where we dig into the retelling of her origin and would rather skip the present day arc, but I disagree because while it's great for someone like me to absorb the origin of Wonder Woman in a retelling, it's also great to juxtapose that against what she's like in the present day, to see how regal, graceful, wise and wonderful she is.

This continues to be one of the top series in DC Rebirth right now. I fully recommend jumping in if you can find the first three books and the one-shot issue.

5 out of 5 - DC UNIVERSE REBIRTH: Wonder Woman #3

This is a biweekly series, next issue due out August 10th.