A rogue Amazon kills some dudes in an American bar causing Congress to pass a law calling for the expulsion of all Amazons from ‘murica, or something. But Wonder Woman doesn’t want to go - which makes her an Outlaw. Idiotic fighting ensues while an absurd villain cackles in the background in this abysmally stupid book.
Tom King’s Supergirl remains the worst comic he’s done but, if it weren’t for Daniel Sampere’s exemplary art, I’d rate this Wonder Woman comic on par with that boring nonsense.
The short preamble in this book is actually ok. It’s the future, Damian and Jon are Batman and Superman and they join Liz Prince, calling herself Trinity perhaps because Diana’s still around to be Wonder Woman, for some good old fashioned mythical Greek trials. The character line-up is interesting and the trials are fun but the purpose of this piece is to introduce the terrible big bad of the book: Sovereign. And to tell us that Wonder Woman defeated him. Not that it would go any other way but always a good start to a story when you tell the ending first!
And that’s it for the future flash-forward because we’re back to the present for the remainder of the story which is unfortunately well below ok. Sovereign is the King of ‘murica. Why? Because Americans like having Brits be the bad guys in their stories - it’s tradition, dating back to the Revolutionary War. So, in lieu of any Brits having power in the US, Tom King makes a British proxy in the form of one of Brit-land’s most famous institutions, the monarchy. Now there’s an unimaginative bad guy for American readers to rail against - boo, we’re against dynasties, that’s why we love the Roosevelts, Kennedys, Bushs, etc.
So we’re meant to believe that a lone Amazon killing some dudes in a bar is enough to have a law be passed against the Amazons as a whole. That’s astoopid. As is something a lone soldier does to himself later in the story, to again sway public opinion against the Amazons. But then this also feels like King wearing his political views on his sleeve, writing some cringey leftist fantasy where the good and right women are being persecuted by the evil and wrong men of the political, militarist right.
He so wants to do a Handmaid’s Tale homage with Wonder Woman that he’ll take anything, including flimsy motivations, to make it happen. All that follows is Wonder Woman standing up to the Trumpian Sgt Steel who, being the misogynist caricature that he is, condescends and gurns at her while she stands proud and just against an unjust world. Le sigh. This means Wonder Woman, as usual, deflecting bullets with her bracelets and letting her tiara beat up soldiers a la Yondu’s magical whistle-thingy (which I didn’t know it could do but whatevs). It’s so dull to read.
When people talk about “strong female characters”, it’s meant that female characters be strongly, ie. well, written - meaning they’re as realistic, multi-faceted and complex as the best male characters and not just there to serve a role in someone else’s story (eg. fridging). It’s not meant that women be literally strong, like Wonder Woman twirling a tank around her head!
I feel like that’s something an incompetent DC editor insisted upon Tom King because I can’t believe he’d be as dumb as to think that that’s what “strong female character” means. But that’s what we’ve got in this book: a literal strong female character, behaving like a man, as if that’s the best way to be, rather than a woman, which, by implication, isn’t. That’s modern feminism for you.
There’s a corny chapter of forced sentimentalism involving a sick kid that just felt desperate on King’s part, and an utterly pointless chapter where Wonder Woman tells her friends not to join her fight, even though they do. And then there’s more loud garbage as Wonder Woman demolishes the US capitol. Ugh.
Daniel Sampere’s art is much too good for this rubbish script. It’s polished without looking flashy, it goes big when it has to - the splash pages are brilliant - but nails quieter scenes too, communicating emotions skilfully with detailed body language. It’s genuinely a beautifully illustrated book and is the only thing that kept me the least bit engaged while reading.
Even if you took away the off-putting leftist pandering, what remains is still a dreary superhero comic that falls back on the least interesting aspects of the genre: soulless fight scenes and empty posturing. Tom King may have been an excellent writer on Batman but his Wonder Woman is far, far from wonderful. Wonder Woman, Volume 1: Dumb and Dumber is embarrassingly childish tripe.
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