After a strong start the second issue in Tom King and Daniel Sampere’s Wonder Woman run was a massive step back. It was a pure action set-piece that was only for the newest reader who did not know Wonder Woman was one DC Comics best fighters. Now that they got that out of their system, we can hopefully see the bigger direction with the world turning on Wonder Woman and the Amazons explored. There is a lot of potential in this story, especially if the DC heroes are brought in. Let’s find out how things go next with Wonder Woman #3.
CREATIVE TEAM
Writer: Tom King (Wonder Woman: Outlaw and World’s Finest)
Artist: Daniel Sampere (Wonder Woman: Outlaw); Belen Ortega (World’s Finest)
Colorist: Tomeu Morey (Wonder Woman: Outlaw); Alejandro Sanchez (World’s Finest)
Letterer: Clayton Cowles (Wonder Woman: Outlaw and World’s Finest)
SOLICITATION
“TRINITY, WONDER WOMAN’S DAUGHTER, MAKES HER BACKUP STORY DEBUT! The Lasso of Lies’ true power is revealed as the Sovereign continues his campaign against Wonder Woman! Could one unsuspecting soldier be the key to defeating our hero? Find out as Diana uses her own lasso in search of the truth about the Amazon massacre. Plus, the return of Trinity! Wonder Woman’s daughter makes her backup story debut in the first of many awe-inspiring adventures from the future.” – DC Comics
REVIEW
Wonder Woman #3 is a tale of two very different stories in one. At one end we have a deeply serious, multi-layered story that’s still finding its voice. The other side is a fun story with rich characters that does provide hope for the future generations in the DC Universe. All of this is done by Tom King, who shows all the strengths and weaknesses as a story crafter.
When King is simply focused on writing Wonder Woman and letting Daniel Sampere be the master choreographer with his artwork this issue is at its best. Wonder Woman #3 does everything that the second issue tried to do and gives genuine development for Diana. She showcases both her badass fighter side and how she will actively look to save the day.
The problem with the previous issue was that King just loved the idea of Diana as an unstoppable tank that he forgot the rest of the plot. Here we see the action of Wonder Woman easily defeating all of the soldiers to serve a purpose. They were on her path to find answers.
While she knew to expect a fight, Wonder Woman didn’t lose her voice as an ambassador of Themyscira. Losing her cool over everything that has happened is the last thing she or anyone else needs. Her experience comes through with how she calmly speaks in an authoritative tone.
This balances out how unhinged Sargent Steel is presented with how easily he loses his cool. He is on edge because he knows he can’t beat Wonder Woman but his machismo won’t let him say it. This shows how Wonder Woman shows she defeated Steel’s soldiers without trying. Busting out her Invisible Jet was a great argument to get Sargent Steel to calm down.
Which works into the revelation that Emelie, the Amazon who caused this current crisis and Wonder Woman defeated to be the ambassador of Themyscira, is pregnant. Given how King started his Wonder Woman run by introducing Diana’s daughter it looks like we got at least one answer to Trinity’s parentage.
This likely means Trinity is Diana’s adopted daughter and Emelie is her birth mom. That aligns with the future timeline that would mean Diana would have to be pregnant soon but now that doesn’t need to be a plot focus. Though who the Trinity’s father is still a question.
That may be a question we may already have a direction for an answer. That answer goes to Trinity’s design as Wonder Woman showing that she is wielding both the Lasso of Truth and the Lasso of Lies. We know from this issue and Wonder Woman #1 that the Lasso of Lies is in Sovereign’s possession in the present. So Sovereign or someone connected to his organization will be revealed to be Trinity’s birth father.
Though for all the good the present-day plot is King can’t help but get in his own way. That comes from intersecting the future narration from Sovereign. Now we know that the Sovereign will be defeated and locked up in the future. That is fine since we all expect Wonder Woman to defeat Sovereign as all superhero stories normally do.
What doesn’t work is how future Sovereign’s narration takes you out of everything going down in the present. For one, King struggles with making sure his voice as the writer is not what the reader is hearing. Which could be attributed to King still developing Sovereign as the main villain. Though that does no favors to the story structure since Sovereign’s narration dominates a large portion of Wonder Woman #3.
Most concerning about this reveal is that the Sovereign story will be what King builds his entire run on Wonder Woman around. King isn’t the best when building a long run around one villain. We saw this during his Batman run where it started strong with Bane’s presentation. All that good was slowly stripped as King’s story came apart at the seams with the result of Bane as the lead antagonist.
Everything about Sovereign gives the same vibes as Bane. Sovereign is using a lot of the same tactics outside of being a physical presence, though that will likely happen. King needs to be careful to not make his run centered around one villain as the longer this story arc goes on the more it can come apart. King should make sure that other Wonder Woman villains are used, they aren’t just brought in to serve Sovereign’s story as the series could lose its focus quickly.
King is definitely lucky that Daniel Sampere is the artist for Wonder Woman. Even for how much King tries to dominate the story with his writing Sampere’s stunning artwork cannot be overlooked. Sampere continues to make the argument of being the best artist working for DC Comics. The way he choreographs fights is well done to spotlight how badass Wonder Woman is. Wonder Woman is also made to just stand and express herself with a sense of authority. He also makes Sovereign come off as a threatening old man.
The back-up story with Jon Kent and Damian adventures in babysitting Trinity was a fun experience. The story had such a fun tone that it was honestly surprising to see King in the credits as the writer. This back-up story is distinctly different from everything King has written. King certainly embraced the fun to be had with the dynamic of Jon, Damian, and Trinity.
As we have seen repeatedly, Jon Kent and Damian Wayne arguably have the best chemistry of any duo in the DC Comics library. No writer has missed the fun dynamic that they share. Jon used to be Superman and being the only one close enough to deal with a dam breaking to get out of babysitting.
That leaving Damian to be the babysitter was a great move. Damian finally got the chance to be the big brother. It is a completely different role for him as he is normally presented as the Batman Family little brother. To King’s credit he made sure that while still having a rough attitude we do see a more mature Damian Wayne. Likely being around 18 or 19 years old it is expected he would have grown in maturity.
This is where Trinity was the perfect foil for Damian. She is a ball of energy who clearly loves spending time with Damian and Jon, who are presented as her big brothers. There was the big brother-little sister energy to Damian and Trinity’s dynamic. That includes Damian unintentionally teaching Trinity a curse word. Damian trying to get Trinity to unlearn the bad words was perfect and makes you want to see Wonder Woman’s reaction to this.
But out of all of this Wonder Woman #3 will likely be remembered for the debut of Trinity as Wonder Robin. Ortega nails the design. While it would’ve been good to see Damian taller given his age, the Robin and Wonder Robin team-up was fun to see. It certainly leaves you wanting to read more adventures of Robin and Wonder Robin in the future.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Wonder Woman #3 was a massive step-up from the disappointing second issue of the series. Tom King and Daniel Sampere did a great job presenting Wonder Woman as a badass who gets the job done to progress the story forward. The Sovereign side of things is more of a mixed bag due to the narrative choice King decides on going. Still, when you add in an incredibly fun back-up with Damian Wayne, Jon Kent, and Trinity this was a good recovery by King and company.
Story Rating: 6 Night Girls out of 10
Art Rating: 8 Night Girls out of 10
Overall Rating: 7 Night Girls out of 10