The last issue of Wonder Woman was a big breaking point creatively and for Sovereign as a villain. Creatively, we saw Wonder Woman finally appear to reach her breaking point for all the physical and mental abuse Sovereign has done to her. Though none of what Sovereign has “accomplished” has made him a great villain. The way Tom King has developed him Sovereign is a villain you hate because of how poorly developed he’s been rather than because of how compelling his motives and actions are. Let’s see if Wonder Woman #10 can change things.
CREATIVE TEAM
Writer: Tom King
Artist: Daniel Sampere
Colorist: Tomeu Morey
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
WONDER WOMAN #10 SOLICITATION
“THE GIRLS ARE BACK IN TOWN! This cat has claws! Cheetah enters the fray as the Sovereign recruits Diana’s greatest foe to deal the killing blow! Meanwhile, the Wonder Girls may have promised their mentor that they’d stay out of her fight, but well-behaved heroes seldom make history. Will they reach Diana before it’s too late? Plus, Trinity takes to the skies… literally!” – DC Comics
REVIEW
If it was obvious before than Wonder Woman #10 sure does drive home how much of a waste of time dedicating the entire first year of a creative run-on Sovereign. There has not been one point where Sovereign was a convincible big threat requiring 10 issues to how he attempts to break Wonder Woman. If anything by the time this issue ends there is only a sense of relief that this storyline was forced to end as Tom King moves on to utilizing Absolute Power for the next phase of his run.
The complete failure that is the Sovereign storyline is that there was never any belief that what the villain was doing would work. At every turn we’ve seen each opportunity to make Sovereign a credible threat fall flat on its face. The finale to the Sacrifice arc is yet another example of this. Because what is Sovereign’s big final move to break Wonder Woman? Abandon Wonder Woman on an secluded island and have her fight Cheetah, who was also kidnapped by Sovereign and placed there. That was it?
For someone that we are supposed to believe is a great mastermind Sovereign is one of the stupidest villains we’ve seen. For one, Tom King shows that Sovereign failed to do his homework thinking that the way to get Cheetah to kill Wonder Woman was to also kidnap her as well. From the moment we learn that we knew his plan was going to fail.
Not even giving a hint that Cheetah is working with Sovereign was a big miss. It showed that Sovereign’s only strength was no one knew he existed before he debuted in the first issue of King’s run. But since he has shown up Sovereign’s one advantage was gone as we’ve seen why he was never an important behind the scenes figure.
There’s also the fact that for all of the narration King writes not at one point does Sovereign made sure to depower Wonder Woman before leaving he on the island. All he did was exhaust her so that all Diana needed was some rest to recover. We see this as a fact that even in her tired and tortured state Wonder Woman was able to survive her fight against a Cheetah that was looking for blood.
All of this drove home how short-sighted Sovereign is. Sovereign never built the credibility to have these types of errors in his plan to happen. Because as we see what ultimately happens is Wonder Woman used her empathy to survive. Sure, that does show how Diana’s greatest strength is the way she empathizes with the world around her. It is what allows her to come to understand others and herself.
Coming to that conclusion does not help answer the question why this storyline needed to be ten issues. Especially with the repetitive Tom King narration that felt like he was speaking to the reader this entire time rather than some other random character.
Compounding all the problems with this story is the frustration with the poor treatment of Donna Troy, Cassandra Sandsmark, and Yara Flor. After building up this subplot of the Wonder Girls teaming up to help Diana against Sovereing what is there role? Being Uber drives picking up Wonder Woman and Cheetah from a not so hidden remote island. That was it. That was King’s big idea Donna, Cassandra, and Yara.
All King ultimately accomplished was spotlighting the Wonder Woman franchise is just about Diana Prince. In King’s mind all other characters are nothing but set dressing. It is truly disappointing that King dropped the ball so hard not elevating the Wonder Woman franchise by utilizing all the potentially great characters in it.
As always the saving grace for Wonder Woman #10 Daniel Sampere’s artwork. Where the writing failed the story Sampere did everything in his power to elevate it. The artwork was absolutely stunning. It makes the incessant need to insert narration boxes in panels without dialogue eve more frustrating. The writing does all it can to get in the way of moments where the artwork should’ve been allowed to tell the story. Maybe if King gave Sampere the room to have silent moments in the action and emotional back-and-forth between Diana and Cheetah the story on the remote island would’ve been better.
FINAL THOUGHTS
All that can be said is thank the goddess that this Sovereign storyline is over. Whether forced to end due to Absolute Power or because this was the intended natural end point doesn’t matter. The failure of this story arc built around a poorly developed villain is finally over. And that is the only positive that can be said about the story itself. We at least had another great example in Wonder Woman #10 that showcased why Daniel Sampere is one of the best artists in the industry. So, there is that as well.
Story Rating: 1 Night Girls out of 10
Art Rating: 8 Night Girls out of 10
Overall Rating: 4.5 Night Girls out of 10
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