DC Comics 9/19/23 reviews – Titans #3, Nightwing #106, Superman #6

Wonder Woman #1

Likely shocking no one, writer Tom King’s debut on Wonder Woman is laying the wrecking ball to Diana’s standard portrayal in service of King going all deconstructionist with the character. At least for the first issue it wasn’t an outright rejection of Wonder Woman at her core in order to tell some depressing, hopeless tale that happens to feature Wonder Woman.

There is a lot of senseless violence that lacks any trace of subtlety. At least it provides Wonder Woman some agenda for this arc.

An Amazon goes on a rampage and kills a bar full of patrons, prompting an Amazon ban in America. King doesn’t offer up much reason why everything suspects the killer is an Amazon or why the U.S. would resort to such extreme measures. The DCU tends to avoid directly referring to politics, but a far-right leaning president could be interesting from a story perspective but it’s something DC writers seem skittish about.

Sarge Steel leads the Amazon Extradition Entity, a weird sounding name seemingly solely so King could call it AXE, rounds up straggler Amazons who refused to leave the country. This is another twist as few Wonder Woman writers have written an abundance of Amazons living outside of Themyscira. Again, there could be an interesting explanation for this if say the Amazons decided they wanted to marry guys and be away from the island.

Sarge and AXE start casually gunning down Amazons thanks to armor piercing ammo. Wonder Woman takes awhile to actually appear in the issues as a mysterious narrator explains why she’s so unique compared to her Justice League allies and why she’s the one they fear most. That’s the tell not show modern storytelling approach so many writers use.

The premise for this arc isn’t bad and the villain introduced, The Sovreign, has potential but King has a reputation now of starting strong and faltering by the end.

Daniel Sampere’s art is stellar. The Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths artist has a dazzling portrayal of Wonder Woman with a little fun thrown in as well. When bullets ricochet off her bracelets, stars magically appear. Sampere has a solid cinematic style with his layouts highlighted even more by the reliable color work from Tomeu Morey and the lettering from Clayton Cowles.

Wonder Woman looks good and this first issue wasn’t a bad start. It’s more a matter of can King resist his occasional questionable instincts and avoid making this title too much of a dark and despair-inducing slog.

Rating: 7 out of 10

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