Wonder Woman #17 // Review
The Sovereign is playing chess with Dr. Psycho. Literally. It’s not like...some kind of metaphor or anything like that. He’s literally playing chess with a guy who can control the minds of others. There’s not much else that he CAN do. He’s been exposed by his greatest enemy. She’s taken down his fortune. All he can do is recede into his castle on the Potomac and wait for the final assault that he knows is coming in Wonder Woman #17. Writer Tom King continues a fun opening arc for his run on Wonder Woman with artist Daniel Sampere and colorist Tomeu Morey.
Wonder Woman is keeping her distance. She has been resting with her newborn daughter. Now she’s getting a little restless. She’s punching the walls. (Literally. This isn’t some kind of metaphor. She really IS getting tired of waiting around, but she DOES have a plan that has to take effect before she can finally spring into action and do what must be done. It’s not going to be easy for her, but there’s an order that needs to be mainained...and that order requires that the rest of the women in her squad move-in to eliminate threats around the edges of the Soverign before she moves to act.
King has been playing a bit of a chess match between various elements in the long and winding history of Wonder Woman. Though she’s been many different things at many different time over the course of the better part of the last 100 years, there ARE certain struggles and themes and villains that she has had to overcome over the years that have echoed. King is doing a splendid job of paying homage to all that’s come before while moving forward with an entirely new story that feels bigger than much of what she’s had to handle in the past.
Sampere and Morey have a lot of different bits to bring together under a single cover. There are many different moods and settings that all have to cascade gracefully across the page: frustration, tenderness, aggression, action and so much more. It’s difficult to articulate all of these elements in a way that feels consistent and coherent, but Sampere and Morey do an admirable job of amping-up the tension that they’re working with while moving everything forward in a respectable way. Sampere and Morey manage a well-balanced dynamics for action and drama.
The overall feel of King’s run continues to be quite impressive as everything falls into place on a remarkably well planned-out series that goes back a year and a half now. The way the script has played-out in the course of the past 1.5 years...it really feels like King has been breathtakingly patient in allowing his villain to slowly emerge and gradually be defeated in a very satisfying way by Wonder Woman and her allies. Others have planned this sort of slow roll-out in various ways, but few have managed King’s level of modulation with The Sovereign. It’s quite an accomplishment..
