It’s no secret that Tom King is polarizing. Pick any of his DC Comics’ series and there’s bound to be loads of complaints about something. It is most often the characterization of the one of the main characters. This is, not surprisingly, happening with King’s current run on Wonder Woman and the most recent issue drives this home. However, this run on Wonder Woman has other problems as well.
Faulty Premise
Back in Wonder Woman #1 (Legacy #801), King introduced readers to a murder by an Amazon, later revealed as ‘Emilie’) that resulted in the United States Government expelling all Amazons from the country. King shows the “every man” point of view of distrust and animosity towards this Amazons with a man on the street interview as well as the opinion of Congress that the United States doesn’t know enough about the Amazons in the country and “what they truly want.” With this idea, it raises some questions about the DC Universe.
1. When did so many Amazons immigrate to the United States?
2. How many Amazons would have to immigrate for them to be statistically significant as a “group?”
3. How many Amazons are there in total?
As of 2024 the population of the United States is almost 36 million people. King is using the storyline as an analog for bigotry against minority groups in the United States. As a comparison, in 2023 the estimated number of Hispanics from Mexico and Central America is 14.4 million and the number of Middle Easterners is 1.7 million. These two “groups” are the most recent identifiable “groups” to face this type of retaliation. The current political climate has demonized Hispanic immigrants and the terrorist attacks on 9/11 focused on Middle Eastern immigrants. Using these numbers it’s clear that for the average person in the DC Universe to genuinely feel threatened by a an immigrant group they would have to compromise a certain percentage of the population. Part of the manufactured fear in situations like this is based on the rest of the population that lives in their own countries or elsewhere in the world.
It’s difficult to conceive that there are enough total Amazons in the DC Universe to be statistically significant even if the ALL immigrated. That would entail a million? Perhaps a little less. The Amazons are from a small island. There aren’t that many to begin with. Are there even 5,000? Or, is it closer to 2,000? The settlements of Bana-Mighdall and the Esquecida are even smaller than Themiscyra and would not add a lot to the total population. It’s like making people afraid of the people of Lichtenstein, one of the smallest countries in Europe whose population is less than 40,000 people. It just doesn’t make sense. It’s something so connected to the real world that it can’t fall under umbrella of “suspension of disbelief” because it’s relies on something rooted in the real world and unrelated to the fantastic.
Furthermore, King does a poor job of showing how this distrust of the Amazons turns people’s opinions on Wonder Woman herself. She is shown as a target of the U.S. Government and those susceptible to political rhetoric that claim she is dangerous. Wonder Woman in the DC Universe is not a mysterious or volatile character. She’s not a Batman hiding in the shadows of whom little is known, she’s not quite got the godlike powers of Superman. She is quite the public figure as a foreign embassador and super-hero who has protected and defended the people of the United States from extraterrestrial and supernatural incursions as well as everyday citizens against everyday criminals. Her status as a hero is known worldwide in many, many countries. Her attitude of caring for others is central to her public perception. It seems it would take a lot of bad publicity to turn the people and government of the United States against her. Â
King’s premise requires the reader to believe that rhetoric and fake news are capable of turning the people against Diana. He assumes the entire population is ignorant and gullible. As the series progresses it’s clear that these people are not under the sway of the Lasso of Lies, that requires touching it as seen in Wonder Woman #3. King tells us this has happened and fails to show HOW, completing the faulty premise that his story relies on to actually take place.
There’s an additional aspect to this that is troubling. King’s villain, the Sovereign, is shown to be one in a long line of men who has used this lasso to run the U.S. government from behind the scenes all the way back to the Revolutionary War. This is inadvertently places all the blame for hatred, bigotry, racism and misogyny on the Sovereign and makes him the scapegoat for all the people in the DC Universe who have ever been guilty of these attitudes. It also compromises any integrity of the U.S. government inside the DC Universe. Is that what King wants to say? Does he really want to imply that the U.S. government is and has always been operating as a force for hatred, bigotry, racism and misogyny? One would have to believe this is also his opinion on the government in the real world as well.
Narration Style
As King tells the reader of the events, instead of showing them or even better, dramatizing them, he does so in a narrative choice that can only be described as confounding because it is so utterly boring. The Sovereign is the narrator in (nearly) all of the issues and this takes away any sort of excitement or tension from the story. It has a very “ho-hum” aspect, as one gets from an old relative over talking as they relate an old story of which you already know the outcome. It is overwritten and at times unreadable.
In issue #14 we get the death of Steve Trevor, and while it should be something very tense and dramatic, the way it plays out is anything but. It doesn’t help that the solicit announced it ahead of time. Whether one believes this is permanent, or just another comic book death (Trevor has died two or three times already!), in the story itself it should feel significant and substantial, but the sequence has the feeling of watching laundry dry. There’s been no buildup to it in the overall narrative.
This is the case with every issue. The narration sucks any energy from any possible drama. Anything that should’ve been interesting is not. Over and above that, because we’re seeing and hearing everything from the Sovereign’s point of view, this story is no longer Diana’s, it’s the Sovereign’s. He’s insufferable, egotistical, a megalomaniac and generally dislikable in every aspect which translates to the perception of the run as a whole. No one would ever want to listen to what he has to say in his opinions and rhetoric, so why would anyone enjoy having to hear him bluster on every issue, taking the focus away from the main character.
Wonder Woman’s Lack of Agency
Perhaps, stealing Wonder Woman’s spotlight is all part of King’s plan to show how the Sovereign makes the story of Wonder Woman’s victory his story. (We know she wins because he tells us in the prologue Wonder Woman #800). However, it doesn’t make for an exciting story. It’s one thing to begin at the end, but it’s another thing to make the journey as uninteresting and as tedious as possible.
One thing King does is remove almost all agency from Diana, as she waits for things to happen and takes almost no initiative to solve the mystery of Emilie’s murderous rampage. He even turns to torture porn as Wonder Woman is held captive for a couple issues by the Sovereign and it’s almost like King is inviting the reader to enjoy seeing Wonder Woman helpless and under the Sovereign’s thumb.
There are essentially two moments in the fourteen issues in which she decides to do something of her own volition that moves the story forward or gets he closer to a resolution with the Emilie mystery or defeat of the Sovereign (well, three if you count eating a rat). In issue #3 she goes to Sarge Steel’s offices to get a lead on Emilie and in issue #14 she decides to create a child of clay (like herself) with part of her soul and Steve’s. Outside of this she is mostly just waiting and talking or …crying.
After not allowing herself to be taken in at the end of issue #1, she has a similar defiant moment in issue #2. In issue #3 she makes her visit to Steel’s office to find a lead on Emilie. Issue #4 finds her distracted by a “Make A Wish Foundation” patient. Issue # 5 sees her pointlessly dueling with the Wonder Girls to show them that she can do this on her own. (This is the definition of wasting an issue- everything is out of character and the plot point is non-sensical- they’re all Amazons, they’re all affected by what’s happening. Diana sound utterly stupid saying, “I can do it myself!”).
Knowing she’s Public Enemy No. 1 of the U.S. government you’d think she’d take some steps to figure out what’s going on, prepare in some way. She doesn’t even seem to realize that something’s not right, she just accepts that the U.S. government and its people have turned on her. Maybe King thinks she’s as stupid as he thinks the American people are…. She never questions it…she just kind of goes “oh, well” and does nothing. Which is where she is in issue #6 when she and Steve are attacked at the Washington Monument by the members of her rogues gallery that the Sovereign has recruited to capture her.
Issue #7 is another issue off where she has time to travel into space with Superman and leave those worldly cares behind. I guess being wanted by the U.S. government isn’t that big of a deal. By this point it also seems strange that she’d put buying a birthday gift for the Batman ahead of finding Emilie and figuring out why she killed those ten men or making an attempt at discovering why everyone has turned on her. (Note- this issue is nearly unreadable. I stopped on page two the first time because the dialogue was so atrocious).
Issue #8 is our first foray into the torture porn. Diana is locked in a basement and tortured and interrogated by the Sovereign as King attempts to show why Christianity, and the traditional role of the wife are both inherently misogynistic. It’s overplayed because King seems to assume that no women want to be wives (and mothers). If this is Diana’s nightmare and torture and the Sovereign’s method of torture, then it must be true that this is what Diana wants the least in life, what she fears, what is truly terrible to her… (we’ll come back to this). She escapes the Sovereigns delirium because her mom comes by and gives her the confidence she needs….
On the last page of the issue she literally has the Sovereign by the throat and instead of dragging his sorry ass away and giving him what for…at the beginning of issue #9 she’s still captive of the Sovereign (this is where she eats the rat). I guess King forgot what he wrote in issue #8! (Actually, he realized he had more bad comics to write so he couldn’t end the story, YET!). If there’s supposed to be a line of dialog that explains this…it’s hidden. A very poorly executed transition. Just like the transition to issue #10!
Issue #10 opens with Diana on the shore of a small island. How did she get there? Apparently, Diana’s mental toughness was too much for the Sovereign and he let her loose on this island so the Cheetah could kill her! Again, Diana can’t even escape on her own. She just…endures…she suffers torture and King won’t let her have a little bit of agency to do something…anything…. (It should be clear by now that everything in this series is contrived).
Well, Cheetah doesn’t and they both collapse from exhaustion. They talk it out, they hug it out and cry together because Diana knew all along that Cheetah was captured by Sovereign and she allowed herself to be captured in order to save Cheetah. I’m sure that King thinks he’s being clever playing on the theme of submission that was rife in the Wonder Woman stories of the Golden Age. However, the overwriting as mentioned above, takes away from any sort of surprise at the revelation. He’s trying to say, “ha, ha, got you! Didn’t expect that!” And, instead, it comes off as one of a number of moments that don’t seem connected, but rather haphazardly thrown together vignettes designed to explore Diana’s character. Unfortunately, he seems like he’s just discovering for the first time what people like about her character, as if he didn’t know until he wrote this, not realizing HE’S the one who’s behind the learning curve.  And thus, again, Diana has waited…allowed herself to be captured, because heaven forbid she be smart and capable enough to figure anything out on her own!
The next three issues are Absolute Power tie ins and are mostly unconnected to the story King has been telling so poorly since issue #1. When the series returns to regular scheduled programming we get the death of Steve Trevor and the birth of Trinity. While Diana does take the initiative to create Trinity from clay like she herself was…she wastes most of the issue doing nothing, well, mostly she cries. After she learns of Steve’s death she morns for fifty days or so? Something like that. I guess when the man you love is killed and you are the MOST respected super-heroine in the history of comics you just mourn and cry.
Not long ago (Wonder Woman #770-779) Diana herself returned from the land of the dead. The question becomes, why does Diana not make an effort to rescue Steve? Since she has part of his soul (needs it for Trinity) why does she not find a way to use it to bring him back? Why does she not make any and every attempt? Why does she make no move against the Sovereign? Why does she not go after him to make him pay for his crimes? It’s inexplicable. It makes no sense. A period of mourning DOES MAKE sense, but not at this time. Was she so bereft? Was she absolutely destroyed by this that nothing else mattered? Not even bringing Steve’s killer to justice?  Why do nothing? Â
Were this to have been the Epilogue it would have been a beautiful, touching moment. Had Diana tried and failed to bring Steve back and caught and imprisoned the Sovereign and this was the end…this would have worked. It’s out of place here and is confounding as it emphasizes Diana’s lack of motivation and initiative to confront the Sovereign.
The strangest part of this whole scenario is that King seems to have pushed Diana into the traditional role of mother when he was railing against traditional roles just a few issues back. Revisiting those issues puts this in a whole different light.
Trinity is…Unlikable…
From her first appearance in Wonder Woman #800, Trinity came off as rude, disrespectful, full of herself and generally unlikable. You only have one chance to make a first impression, and nothing we’ve seen since has done anything to change that. For a while, King dropped clues that Trinity would not in fact be Diana’s natural child, but rather Emilie’s. With writers like King, one often fears the worst and it was easy to assume that Emilie had been sexually assaulted and Trinity was the result. With this type of background it would be easy to forgive Diana and the others around Trinity while she was growing up to maybe avoid tough love and discipline because they felt bad for her….
However, knowing that Trinity is the result of Diana’s own initiative and decision making while emotionally distraught, it just makes it seem like Trinity was raised poorly by Diana because she was too busy being Wonder Woman. She farmed out maybe more than just babysitting now and then to Damian and Jon. Maybe, Diana neglected her time with Trinity and instead of a spoiled brat who got everything out of pity, she’s a brat because she didn’t get the love and attention from her mother and she doesn’t have a father figure in her life. Good job, Diana. Good job, Tom King.
Characterization and Characters’ Voices
Diana’s lack of agency is probably the biggest issue in this run when it comes to character. King is known for destroying characters- just look at Wally West in Heroes in Crisis and Adam Strange in Strange Adventures. In this run we see King removing almost all of Diana’s agency, thus presenting Diana essentially acting out of character most of the time. It’s awkward considering how much time King spends trying to highlight Diana’s attributes. I guess he doesn’t consider taking initiative being an attribute. Her lack of agency also makes her somewhat ineffective as she’s always waiting around wasting time instead of trying to solve the Emilie mystery or track down the Sovereign. And, as mentioned above she seems to have taken for granted that people’s turn against he and the Amazons is just natural and part of some conspiracy. This makes her pretty stupid.
King tries to make her aloof and above everyone else. She won’t accept help. She won’t let others comfort her when she’s grieving Steve’s death. King tries to suggest that Steve is he only link to the world and without him she’s alone. This couldn’t be more wrong. She’s got her Amazon sisters, the Wonder Girls and friends like Bruce and Clark. Remember, she stopped everything for Bruce’s birthday. These character bits King has thrown in are just at odds with one another.
Diana’s voice is stilted like she’s new to Man’s World still. Her speech pattern comes off as monotone and unemotional almost always. And the “no thank you” tag line King has introduced instead of being clever is simply awkward and forced. Instead of adding something to her character it just never feels right. Of course, he’s on record as believing that she’s “a rebel.” This again is a complete misunderstanding of Diana. She’s not a rebel, she’s an ambassador of a foreign culture. King is also on record as believing she’s hard to write and that maybe he couldn’t do it. Well that’s one thing he was right about, it is hard for him and he shouldn’t have done it.
The Wonder Girls fare very poorly as a group. King seems to have no sense of any of them. He writes them all as stupid when they try to fly the Invisible Jet. It’s supposed to be cute and funny, but it really just exposes how little King cares about DC Comics characters. He just wants to tell his story no matter how much he damages characters. Their voices are way off, Donna has none of that experience and wisdom as the oldest of the group and Yara Flor just comes off as an aggressive bitch with none of the nuance from Joelle Jones’ Wonder Girl series in which she starred.
Uh…Emilie?
The hook in issue #1 was the murder. There’s enough there to believe that she was mind controlled. We are supposed to think that she’s pregnant. Diana’s mission seems like it’s supposed to be to get to the bottom of the mystery of why she killed those ten men and where she is now. King has essentially ignored this since issue #3. Maybe that’s it. Maybe it’s all just misdirection and King once again believing he’s clever. If it really has no meaning don’t give it false meaning, because it detracts from the competence of the narrative. He’s given enough detail and attention at the beginning to make it feel important. It must be noted that there are aspects of Strange Adventures that felt important that King never developed either. So maybe this is just one of the tells of his bad writing. One assumes there’s more to it, because if there isn’t, then King revealed everything we need to know about what happened in issue #1 and the rest of the series has just been one long torture session. If he though everyone was interested in the reveal about Trinity, he’s mistaken, we just want her to disappear into comic book limbo.
Is There Uh..ANYTHING GOOD?
Undeniably, Daniel Sampere’s art is phenomenal. It’s gorgeous to look at. He does so much so well it’s truly a shame and waste of his talent that he is shackled to such a poorly written and conceived comic. Like Clay Mann on Heroes in Crisis and Mitch Gerads and Doc Shaner on Strange Adventures, Sampere’s work will be associates with something terrible. It’s a shame because these artists don’t deserve it. No one wants to reread either of these other series and I can’t imagine King’s Wonder Woman being any different. Â
The other best thing about this series is that Diana’s true and original origin has been restored. She is once again the daughter of Hippolyta, clay that was molded into the shape of a baby and given life by the gods. The New 52 origin as a daughter of Zeus was always a bad idea. It took away her uniqueness and made her just another of Zeus’s progeny. It also removed the theme of love from her origin. Hippolyta wanted a daughter to love so much…that…. Well, you get it.  It fits with the character much better.
RETCON!
Jeremy Adams saved Wally West AND Mister Terrific (Michael Holt suffered in Strange Adventures also!) from Tom King’s writing. Someone, undoubtedly will come along and do the same for Diana. It will be a bit easier. Brining Steve back is a no brainer, and I’m not convinced he won’t be back by the end of this run. As long as we move on from this series and forget it, there won’t be any permanent damage to Diana. The real lasting problem is Trinity. DC has a track record of ignoring new characters that don’t get over. Why do you think Yara Flor was pushed aside so quickly? Trinity can easily be moved to the future…I mean she’s just a baby right now, that’s a long time for her to actually grow up! She can also be a dream Diana had. Or, maybe she’s the key to bringing Steve back.
