Review: Wonder Woman #6

Review: Wonder Woman #6 (#806)
[Editor’s Note: This review may contain spoilers]

Writer: Tom King
Art: Daniel Sampere and Belen Ortega
Colors: Tomeu Morey and Alejandro Sanchez
Letters: Clayton Cowles

Reviewed by: Matthew B. Lloyd

Summary

Wonder Woman faces off against her rogues gallery as recruited by Sarge Steel and Trinity can’t sleep in another adventure in babysitting with the Super Sons.

Positives

The best thing about Wonder Woman #6 and this series is the art by Daniel Sampere.  That’s about all that’s good about this issue.  I mean, there are a lot of aspects that Sampere excels at, but it’s important to know that his art is not only THE best thing, but perhaps the ONLY thing as well.

Negatives

It’s hard to know where to begin….  Six issues in and almost nothing has happened in this series.  To say that the pace has been glacial is an understatement.  We should’ve been at this point in issue #4.  King has spent so much time on set up and developing The Sovereign that this has become one of the most tedious and boring series I’ve ever read.  Like Brian Michael Bendis’s run on Superman King has a faulty premise and his execution of that faulty premise is not only going nowhere fast, but the approach is slowing the already slow plot down.

Even if you believe the idea that Amazon’s make up a large enough demographic to be a threat in America, and somehow the people of the United States would turn against Wonder Woman because of the actions of a single rogue Amazon and the hatred and bigotry in America stems from the machinations of a shadow monarchy, it doesn’t make up for the fact that the narration of this tale by The Sovereign drags the decent ideas down.  Wonder Woman #6 is a perfect example of this.  As a big action issue with Diana battling all the rogues that were recruited last issue, the narration takes all the excitement, tension and fun out of it.  It’s a story that should rely on Sampere’s story telling and art.  However, King is too in love with the sound of The Sovereign’s voice and he HAS to talk over the entire conflict.  It’s not even exciting narration!  The Sovereign is reflecting on his mistakes as he narrates to Lizzie in a future time, and it’s a very dry and from his perspective disappointing sequence of events.  King definitely makes this come through, because it’s wholly uninspiring.

King has the ability to write a gripping and engaging story.  Human Target for all its faults in characterization of the Justice League International characters is a tight, intriguing noir-style mystery.  For that it’s quite good, but the personalities are so far afield, the JLI characters are like actors cast in a movie playing roles and they clearly aren’t themselves.  In Wonder Woman, the characters are off, but the story doesn’t even hold the reader’s attention.

Negatives Cont’d

This run, the story and even the execution by King has made me think of “The Emperor’s New Clothes.”  In that story, an emperor is told by some con men that these “new clothes” will make him look great.  Of course, there are no clothes and the emperor goes before his people completely naked.  For whatever reason, many people want to believe Tom King is writing a great comic here.  King believes it and he’s telling us how great Wonder Woman is as he brainwashes the reader with The Sovereign’s narration.  Unfortunately, there’s nothing beyond the beauty of Sampere’s art.  Every aspect of the execution is slow and downright boring, and most of the set up just doesn’t work in the context of Amazons in the DC Universe.  Readers want to believe the analogy is deep and meaningful, but it just doesn’t line up.  It’s a poor analogy.  

If readers aren’t actually familiar with Wonder Woman, Steve Trevor and the Wonder Girls then I can understand why those readers might be drawn to this sort of thing.  It all sounds very dramatic, but there’s no real drama in last issue’s showdowns between Diana and the Wonder Girls.  That whole bit made no sense.  It’s not just Diana’s problem, ALL Amazons have been targeted, it’s natural for the Wonder Girls to be involved.  Additionally, not everything on Themiscyra is decided by rite of combat.  That whole bit demonstrates how little King understands Diana’s relationships with the people she’s closest to.  This goes hand in hand with her awkward dialogue with Steve Trevor at the beginning of Wonder Woman #6.  King writes Diana like she’s new to Man’s World and English.  Let’s just forget that Amazons know a multitude of languages, but she’s been around for a while…she shouldn’t have stilted dialogue.  Plus, recapitulating her “No thank you,” response in this issue doesn’t work as King thinks it does.  It’s another example of style over substance, as if saying “no” is somehow emblematic of Diana’s persona.

The adventures in babysitting with the Super Sons backup in Wonder Woman #6 is no different than the other chapters.  Jon and Damian don’t seem to have matured and there’s no endearing quality to Lizzie because we know how she turns out from her first appearance in Wonder Woman #800.  As we learn why Lizzie is a brat, it doesn’t do much for creating anticipation for her appearances as an adult.  King killed any hope for Trinity to be likable in her first appearance and he’s not changing anything with these stories.

Verdict

The appeal of this series is to readers who are easily impressed by superficial ideas and manufactured drama and for those who aren’t really familiar with Wonder Woman and her supporting cast and world, readers who are just familiar with the idea of Wonder Woman.  I guess that describes King as well, since that’s what he’s given us.  For those fans of Wonder Woman who know what a Wonder Woman story is supposed to be like I recommend the previous run by Becky Cloonan and Michael W. Conrad or the post-Crisis George Perez era.