Sensational Wonder Woman #12 // Review
Some of Diana’s most relentless enemies have been taken over by a sinister villain known as Queen Bee. All of the other Amazons are under the villain’s control as well. Diana has to think strategically if she is going to be able to emerge victorious in Sensational Wonder Woman #12. Writer Sina Grace sprints fleetly through a parade of Wonder Woman’s rogue’s gallery in an issue rendered by artist Paul Pelletier and inker Norm Rapmund. It’s a very tight fit for the creative team, but they manage a solidly entertaining action sequence that brings the two-parter to a satisfying end.
Wonder Woman wouldn’t be able to take on everyone at once. Queen Bee has Dr. Poison and Giganta and Blue Snowman and the Silver Swan to deal with…not to mention a possible offensive by every Amazon that Queen Bee has under the power of her mind control. Diana decides to challenge Queen Bee’s champions to a contest. If she can defeat them all individually in combat, she’ll agree to join them in Queen Bee’s bid for world domination. Diana’s a warrior of her word (and she happens to be wearing the Lasso of Truth at the time she makes the promise), so Queen Bee agrees to it.
Prior to this issue, Grace set-up quite a challenge for herself. With so many villains crammed into a single Digital First issue, there simply isn’t enough space to give each villain enough time to make an impact on the page. Grace gives each villain a bit of space, allowing for a bit of personality from each to cascade across the page. The center of the story is satisfyingly executed, though. Grace even manages to pay homage to a central theme of creator William Molton Marson’s original vision for the character as Wonder Woman references the “loving submission” freely given to those in authority needing to win-out over the cycle of subjugation that continues to plague humanity. Nice to see Grace briefly cast a shadow of philosophy over an otherwise action-based issue.
Pelletier and Rapmund have to balance a hell of a lot of action on the head of a pin with this issue. Each of the villains only gets a few panels to launch an assault on one of the most iconic heroes in the DC universe. The pacing. Is almost perfect, with each villain asserting herself on the page in a distinctly unique way. Queen Bee’s gaze is felt throughout the issue, even though she’s only really present at the beginning and the end of the chapter. Pelletier and Rapmund do such an excellent job of conjuring her authority that she’s perfectly seated as the arch-villain in a dizzyingly brief narrative.
As it is with the best issues in this title and last year’s Wonder Woman: Agent of Peace series, the creative team in issues 11 and 12 seem to have been pulled out of a parallel dimension where they’ve been working together on a Wonder Woman title for a couple of years before arriving at this issue. There’s an implicit understanding between writer and art team as to how exactly to get everything to flow from panel to panel. DC is clearly working with enough talent to do several Wonder Woman titles.
