Wonder Woman #2 // Review
She’s meeting with Steve Trevor. He’s an old friend. The two of them go way back. He’s been ordered to give her an ultimatum: surrender, or they will attack. She’s Diana. They’re the U.S. military. They engage on the field of battle in Wonder Woman #2. Writer Tom King continues his adventure with Diana in a chapter brought to page and panel by artist Daniel Sampere and colorist Tomeu Morey. King’s combination of action and drama is deftly rendered in an intricate and well-balanced narrative. Aspects of the legend of Wonder Woman echo around a refreshingly interesting new emerging storyline.
Things aren’t going to go well between Diana and Steve. He knows this. He also knows that they have more than enough firepower to take down a small nation. So he’s not entirely confident that she’s going to be able to survive what they’re going to throw at her. Other Amazons have opposed the military with tragic results, and he DOESN’T want her to face a similar fate. She’s been underestimated before, though. It was a pivotal point in her past. She was competing for the right to wear the mantle of Wonder Woman. She had to face one more opponent before she could win the contest. It would prove to be a vicious battle.
King pairs the contemporary conflict between Diana and the U.S. with a conflict from her past, which sheds light on the current issues. It’s a strikingly clever pairing that delivers a hell of a lot of characterization on a whole bunch of different levels. King contrasts the U.S. military against a conflict with Diana’s first real challenge before becoming Wonder Woman. The alternating narratives cast a fascinating reflection into who Diana is, who she’s up against, and more than a few other elements that come into play around the edges of a rapidly evolving narrative of potentially great thematic complexity.
Sampere and Morey are given the challenge of delivering two different conflicts at once. Both the battle in the contemporary U.S. and the flashback battle on Themyscira have to seem vital and distinct while also mirroring each other with clever symmetry. Sampere and Morey nail the overall feel of it perfectly. There’s little question the outcome of either conflict, but Sampere and Morey manage to render a heroically brave Wonder Woman who still manages to seem like she’s ultimately in over her head. It’s a beautifully rendered chapter.
There might have been some doubt that Wonder Woman was in good hands at the end of the first issue of the current series. That doubt evaporates pretty quickly with the second issue. King and company aren’t doing anything with Wonder Woman that she hasn’t done before, but they manage to make it work in a way that feels new and novel while embracing the traditions of one of the most storied heroes in the history of popular fiction. Wonder Woman’s been a fugitive before. She’s been up against similar villains in the past. If King and company are going to keep things fresh, they’re going to have to continue to do the kind of job that they have done with the second issue.
