Wonder Woman #5 – Tom King, Writer; Daniel Sampere, Belen Ortega, Artists; Tomeu Morey, Alejandro Sanchez, Colorist
Ray – 10/10
Ray: This is probably the best issue of the series and one of the best issues of Tom King’s career, and it’s all about one thing—building armies. The Sovereign is assembling the deadliest villains Wonder Woman has ever faced to take her down in the name of the United States government, and it’s having mixed results. Some, like Giganta and Doctor Psycho easily sign on. Others, like Grail and Circe, exert a higher price, while Silver Swan has more complicated feelings. And then there’s Angle Man, who King seems to have a special plan for. Diana’s rogues’ gallery often gets short shrift, so I’m very excited to see what the master plan here—but this isn’t the army that makes this issue sing.
Diana has her own allies, of course—the Wonder Girls—and their absence has been conspicuous so far in the series. None of them is actually an Amazon, per se—Donna is the closest, Yara is from another tribe, and Cassie is an American-born Demigod. And Diana wants to protect them from the coming war—so a series of Amazon-inspired trials are devised between each of them and Diana. Yara chooses archery, Cassie chooses arm-wrestling, and Donna chooses… video games. Along the way, each trial contains some great moments that really dive into the complex relationship Diana has with each of her sidekicks, with Cassie probably having the best segment—and the final page is the perfect capper to an issue that sets the scales for the rest of this run sky-high.
And then, there’s the backup. If the main story is emotionally intense, this backup is just pure joy every month as Lizzie is aided in her heroic journey by Damian and Jon. This time, the trio has decided to start their own team—they just have to pick a name. They each have strong opinions, and there’s only one way to settle it—with a Kanga race. This is such a fun, chaotic issue that shows off Lizzie’s personality and provides some great dialogue for the two boys (who I suppose are men now). King is multi-talented, and it’s great to see him flex his comedy muscles here.
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