Rate King & Sampere's Wonder Woman #1

[Dr. Poison]

How would you rate King and Sampere's Wonder Woman #1? Please wait to vote until after you read the entire issue.

[Fuzzy Mittens]

Im going to stew on this question and come back to it in a year. Reactions can change heavily over time, and what the writer blossoms from that initial issue can impact ones impressions.

Curious to see how the votes turn out though.

[Alpha]

I mean, the political scandal is very weirdly precipitated, but I do think it's a story that moves well enough.

[WonderScott]

By my measure of what I like and appreciate in superhero storytelling, I give four or five stars. Definitely a good kick-off issue that told the story really well.

[Vworp Vworp]

3 star story
5 star art.

So I met in the middle. 4 stars.

[OBrianTallent]

I would give the story with the first issue 4 stars and the art would get 6 stars out of 5 giving the book a 5 star rating. Wonder Woman's book has had more than a handful of really great artists like Byrne, Dodson, Nord, Xermanico, Ordway, Sharp, Scott, Evely and Chang, but few have matched Perez and Jiminez for their work, Sampere though stands to be extremely close to their work. He doesn't have the background detail of those two, instead letting the eye focus completely on the subjects, but does include just enough detail so the panels dont feel empty.

[Devaishwarya]

I gave it 3 stars.

A very interesting and promising start but that could change on a dime...it's King.
Hate Sampere's tiny head Diana but everything else was very well done.

[Koriand'r]

Great first issue, it felt like I'd read a version of it before though. There was a strong sense of deja vu because it seemed as if King put the Amazons Attack aftermath and Rucka's first run in a blender and sprinkled in a lot of nonlinear storytelling for extra flavor.

Still I can't say it wasn't tasty so far. The badass tiara toss and Diana sending her sword home sealed the deal for me, but there were lingering concerns about the high number of Amazons in America, them all dressing too similar to Diana and Themyscira only having shields and paltry magic to protect it. Also how is our government sending Amazons home on ships when Themyscira can't be found? Do they stick them on a raft in the Bermuda Triangle and hope for the best?

Before Amazons Attack the island was loaded with tech and the Purple Death Ray, but none of it was used during the invasion. Instead of tech they relied on mythological beasts, magic and killer hornets and we all saw the outcome of that. Now they have even less, if they have to go up against the strongest military might on the planet, they're going to have to level the playing field somehow. Hopefully King cooks up something delicious in order for them to do that.

[Primal Slayer]

I gave it a solid 4.

Art was 4.5/5 only because of the Amazon designs being WW-lite.

Story was enticing and I really enjoyed it. But I hate jumping into the middle of storylines that I dont see getting fleshed out and the Amazons having integrated into everyday regular life was a big one. I think its a very interesting one but its something that needs its own issue to go over what they've done since rejoining Mans World.

[Celgress]

4 out of 5 stars, a fantastic start, IMHO. I'm very pleased.

[Jim Kelly]

I give it two stars. But I should say I'm not a lover of modern mainstream comic books. To me they're a great comic book ruined. As I read them, I'm always thinking how much I could cut out to get to the meat of what the story is about. I value economy in writing and in art. Less is more. If you cut away all the filler in this issue, there's a good eight page story there.

For example, what do all the talking heads add to the story? You could cut that down to a few panels. News doesn't go on that long--it's all sound bites these days. You wouldn't have a man on the street interview where a guy would gas on at length--he'd be cut off.

Colourful skies are nice to look at but what do they add to the story? A lot of time there's a good comic book illustration sitting on the page surrounded by decorative backgrounds. It's like the artist really doesn't want to present a dynamic page of action and would do anything to avoid it.

The unknown first person narrator ties the hands of the writer. Instead of being direct and getting to the point, the narration is forced to be indirect. But first person narration is the preferred style in modern comic books. For heaven's sakes, we can't have an omniscient third person narration--that would be too easy.

Modern comic books test my patience. Just get on with it and don't waste my time.

[Alpha]

I give it two stars. But I should say I'm not a lover of modern mainstream comic books. To me they're a great comic book ruined. As I read them, I'm always thinking how much I could cut out to get to the meat of what the story is about. I value economy in writing and in art. Less is more. If you cut away all the filler in this issue, there's a good eight page story there.

I mean, that's the way I feel about Chris Claremont and George Perez stories, not about something like this.

People do say Tom King writes 12 issue minis that have a lot filler, but that's when they're talking about his plotting, not about how he fills a page or even an issue.
In his long run with Batman (and probably in Grayson).

For example, what do all the talking heads add to the story? You could cut that down to a few panels. News doesn't go on that long--it's all sound bites these days. You wouldn't have a man on the street interview where a guy would gas on at length--he'd be cut off.

Lol what? This issue literally escalated from a confrontation at a bar, to the public debates concerning that event, to a law being passed, people aprehended, a couple fighting back, and Diana discussing and considering all the options and implications, and finally, a reveal of the nature of the villain. This was not a slow issue, in fact, some people think the progression of events was too fast.

Colourful skies are nice to look at but what do they add to the story? A lot of time there's a good comic book illustration sitting on the page surrounded by decorative backgrounds. It's like the artist really doesn't want to present a dynamic page of action and would do anything to avoid it.

It was literally background for Diana and Steve's conversations in which they considered their options

The unknown first person narrator ties the hands of the writer. Instead of being direct and getting to the point, the narration is forced to be indirect. But first person narration is the preferred style in modern comic books. For heaven's sakes, we can't have an omniscient third person narration--that would be too easy.

He's not unknown. In Issue 800 we saw a flashforward to the future, in which the villain had been in prison on a hidden cave forr decades (I think it said he was in prison one year after these events took place) which means we already know the villain will lose, and this is him telling Diana's daughter what happened from his perspective.

Now we know that the person narrating this was the Sovereign, the villain introduced in this issue as the king of america. And it gives us details like the respect he apparently feels for Diana's fighting style, etc

Modern comic books test my patience. Just get on with it and don't waste my time.

they didn't. next issue Diana is supposed to fight an army. This story is advancing pretty fast

[Jim Kelly]

Not having read 800, I didn't know that about the mysterious narrator. This was a first issue, which should mean a new reader can read it absent of anything. That's all.