Wonder Woman #1 - Preview, discussion, spoiler

[nj06]

I posted in a Facebook group I’m in that I’m liking the dueling eagle iconography/symbology. Not only from Wonder Woman’s initial costume, but also how the eagle is present as a symbol of Hippolyta (on her staff/scepter as drawn by Perez) and of course the golden eagle being a symbol of Zeus (this bit doesn’t work so well with the Amazons.) But, I guess it’s that ruler/king/queen thing. I kind of like the eagle being a personal symbol of Hippolyta alongside the lion, wolf and jaguar for the current three tribes of Amazons.

And aside from the U.S. Bald eagle iconography, Sovereign’s is distinctly Nazi eagle-ish in design, automatically bestowing us with themes of autocracy, genocide (no, not that Genocide), discrimination, eugenics and all the other uncalculating evil acts those people are responsible for.

King and Sampere are giving us a whole lot here in terms of words and imagery and connections to tell the story, and I hope they keep at it. I’ve got lots of questions in my head and that’s a result of me being interested and concerned for Diana - exactly the spot I want to be in in my serialized fiction and in particular a Wonder Woman story.

Well said. I agree with all of this. Sovereign's design and him having the Lasso of Lies is a great way to show him being an inverse to everything Wonder Woman is/represents. I like the tone that King & Sampere have set with this first issue. Things really hit the ground running and K & S have created a tense atmosphere for Diana and the Amazons. I'm definitely interested in what comes next.

[Agent Z]

Steel being a Z-list hero also means his presence isn't a draw either way, so if King had made a new character, it wouldn't make a difference.

I'm not exactly a Sarge Steel fan but I agree it would have been better to use an original character.

[wonder39]

The Amazon in this preview is wearing bracelets and no one has been seen breaking or resisting the lasso in this preview.

I was responding to the other post, which didn't imply that those things happened in this issue. Just mentioning a dislike when that stuff happens 😉

[wonder39]

Etta being in the military pre-dates Perez. When she was re-introduced in the Bronze Age, she had graduated and became a secretary to General Darnell, alongside Diana, in the Air Force. This was also adapted into the 70s Carter show.

It's probably from there where Perez got the idea, or at least carried on with it.

Did didn't Etta in the military start in the show? I always thought the comics reflected that in the stuff from the early 80s....

[K. Jones]

I liked this. I can find nitpicks in anything, but I thought the whole thing was well-structured and interesting, I think the premise is interesting, the art was lovely, and the selection of characters (and amount of characters used) was smart. I'll keep reading it.

Hypothetical Cons Aplenty.
It's a Tom King comic which means if he doesn't have a tight twelve plotted out (and thankfully we heard about this run quite a while back so he's probably been working on it for a few years) we're bound to get a chapter derailed by his tropes, non-sequential storytelling or repeating "phrases" and scenes barely recontextualized by slight changes in context. So far we just had "mysterious narrator whose dialogue had synchronistic word play with the diagetic dialogue" as a trope, and honestly I noticed it right away but then it kind of paused and let the art and events proceed and breath ... then it came again. So it was paced well, and lent itself to transforming over the issue into something more ominous (like when I realized it was using "the royal we"). On top of that ... he was in control of the trope and it felt very ... Frank Miller. Bear with me. Which is weird. Because everything I've ever read Miller do with Wonder Woman is terrible to me, but some of the storytelling chops of "Eighties Miller" really are due to be used in a bit of a tense thriller of a WW story, a gritty and oddly ... well, when I say "Testosterone-Driven" storyline I mean to say like, and it's really a pretty good place to be explored by this very dude-written, dude-drawn storyline. Plenty of guys, gals, theys, thems, queers, straights, and in between have told the kinds of Wonder Woman stories I like the best (I'm big into stories finding far-out ways to reconcile WMM's original Golden Age wild ideas).

It's Grim, It's Gritty ... but Also Grounded.
I suppose the Miller-isms are only really just in three key things within the presentation; 1. The narrator over action. 2. TV talking heads. 3. Honestly, Sarge Steel almost reads himself as a critique of how Miller used Wonder Woman and I look forward to seeing if that reading of it builds. And because he featured in this 10x the amount even of our leading lady, it felt like his issue and it felt Millery. (There might be a dash of Hunter S. Thompson in there, too, but I might be reaching for that one.)

There's also a lot of Brubaker Captain America here. And this is probably my biggest thing that pleased me the most. Politics and Armed Forces and patriotism and all that have been built into WW since Sensation # 1 when it was an American fighter pilot who landed in that mythical lost kingdom. It usually revolves around Steve, in his various permutations. He's the superior choice. But having guys like Steel and Nemesis and others cycle in makes a ton of sense. I do like that thus far it's not "A.R.G.U.S." or "D.E.O." or "D.M.A." or falling under the banner of "Task Force X" yet. Obviously they name-drop Waller immediately and we might assume Peacemaker will enter the picture at some point. Waller, after all, is also about to go to war with Super-Heroes and that'll all factor into the run pretty readily and thematically. Brubaker Captain America obviously has its fair share of Steranko Captain America. King having already done "Dick Grayson, Boy Wonder x Steranko's Nick Fury" means this could almost work as a pair with Grayson, and Wonder Woman being the DCU'S Captain America works for me harder than I thought it would. Throw a little Kirby in there, too, why not.

Shared Universe.
It's smart not to immediately dive into trying to show where all of our other "Wonder Women" are as they hear the news in this first issue. It's an event. It happens. Diana will find them in media res (and we have the same emotion as her right now; "I hope my friends are equipped to protect themselves while I try to get to the bottom of this quickly!"), and the others who are less vital to this storyline will deal with it in comics they feature in that bear the branding of "Wonder Woman: Outlaw Tie-In!" in a corner on their covers.

And my lingering notions? I often like Tom King's first issues but begin actively griping against his runs around the midway point as the tropes and slavishness to tricks of format (fishing for Eisners) always ruins forward momentum. I've said it a hundred times, I like King a lot - Grayson was a run I loved so much I bought the Hardcover. It's been hit and miss since then for me, really, depending on all kinds of factors. I've been liking Danger Street. I think it's esoteric enough that being this rambling and quite weird ode fits in 12 issues, but other 12 issue runs have felt like they could have been told in half the issues, half the pages, and that would be more fun. He can drag! He can drone! It gets full of itself. Everyone wants to be Chris Nolan ... sequential storytelling is becoming novel, why learn the artful craftsmanship of foreshadowing when I can just SHOW YOU WHAT HAPPENS but without context so you don't actually care about it? So we'll see! The Grayson "spy stuff" was tempered by Tim Seeley with wild Morrison-ite creativity but centering it in Washington with D.C. "AMERICA" proper feels like, in a turn of phrase you don't often hear in regards to Wonder Woman, "the right man for the right job."

So far, so good.

[K. Jones]

I'm not exactly a Sarge Steel fan but I agree it would have been better to use an original character.

Not that Steel has always been depicted as quite as much of a hard-nose killer with a little dash of patronizing toward "girls" but I liked his inclusion. He didn't necessarily read as "made more into a bad guy" for me. He's a solid candidate for an "Anti-Steve", brings a dash of the Charlton (and thus, Watchmen) and a heaping helping of continuity from John Ostrander, on down. I expect to see Peacemaker too (honestly I'm amazed there's never been a serious Wonder Woman vs. Peacemaker thematic breakdown). Anyway, back to Steel, he just seems like a government gun. The ruthless angle might go back to Multiversity: Pax Americana, where Earth-8's Sarge Steel is more of an icy assassin. Sarge was definitely in another run of WW comics, too, right? If not Simone, right around then? I read a lot of DC during the time when Amazons Attack came out, but I hadn't gotten into Wonder Woman yet.

[Koriand'r]

Yaaayyyy Sasha made one just for us!

[j9ac9k]

I've only seen a few pages, but is she beating on regular guys with guns? If so, King seems to be on the side of "WW is not nearly as strong as Superman" because a fight between Supes and those guys wouldn't look like that. He also wouldn't need to deflect any bullets coming at him. (or am I missing something?)

[Primal Slayer]

I've only seen a few pages, but is she beating on regular guys with guns? If so, King seems to be on the side of "WW is not nearly as strong as Superman" because a fight between Supes and those guys wouldn't look like that. He also wouldn't need to deflect any bullets coming at him. (or am I missing something?)

Nothing about that fight says he looks at het weaker. It was a great fight

[Koriand'r]

Nothing about that fight says he looks at het weaker. It was a great fight

It was, but it would've gone very differently if it had been Superman instead of Wonder Woman. Firstly a group of soldiers would pose no threat to Superman and a hidden sniper in a tree wouldn't matter. He'd blitz them all at superspeed, and it'd be over in 5 seconds. There's no drama in that. Wonder Woman had to work a little harder but with minimal effort and she was actually in danger within the sniper's crosshairs. That's why making her bulletproof (as some posters here want) is such a bad idea. It greatly reduces the kinds of scenarios you can put her in and lessens the tension that's needed for a superhero comic.

[Koriand'r]

Yaaayyyy Sasha made one just for us!

This is the first review I've seen from someone that's not a MAGA oriented dudebro that wasn't positive.

[Primal Slayer]

It was, but it would've gone very differently if it had been Superman instead of Wonder Woman. Firstly a group of soldiers would pose no threat to Superman and a hidden sniper in a tree wouldn't matter. He'd blitz them all at superspeed, and it'd be over in 5 seconds. There's no drama in that. Wonder Woman had to work a little harder but with minimal effort and she was actually in danger within the sniper's crosshairs. That's why making her bulletproof (as some posters here want) is such a bad idea. It greatly reduces the kinds of scenarios you can put her in and lessens the tension that's needed for a superhero comic.

Exactly. Diana isnt into blitzing in fights. She also wasnt attacking anyone who wasnt attacking her.

[WonderLight789]

It was, but it would've gone very differently if it had been Superman instead of Wonder Woman. Firstly a group of soldiers would pose no threat to Superman and a hidden sniper in a tree wouldn't matter. He'd blitz them all at superspeed, and it'd be over in 5 seconds. There's no drama in that. Wonder Woman had to work a little harder but with minimal effort and she was actually in danger within the sniper's crosshairs. That's why making her bulletproof (as some posters here want) is such a bad idea. It greatly reduces the kinds of scenarios you can put her in and lessens the tension that's needed for a superhero comic.

Please. A group of soldiers should not pose a threat to WW either. And she should and can speedblitz them too.

And her getting hurt by normal bullerts will never be a good look for a character that is supposed to be a powerhouse. Also king said the soldiers were using special weapons to kill amazons. And so far Rebirth WW has been bulletproof to normal weapons in her latest showings.

[WonderLight789]

Exactly. Diana isnt into blitzing in fights. She also wasnt attacking anyone who wasnt attacking her.

WW can and has speedblitz in many fights. She also shouldn't have any trouble with soldiers. I don't think she struggled against them in the issue.

[Primal Slayer]

WW can and has speedblitz in many fights. She also shouldn't have any trouble with soldiers. I don't think she struggled against them in the issue.

She isn't a Blitzer in majority of her fights. She didn't have any trouble with any of them nor did i say she would.