The war between Wonder Woman and The Sovereign comes to its conclusion. Just how messy is it going to get? Your Major Spoilers review of Wonder Woman #19 from DC Comics awaits!
WONDER WOMAN #19
Writer: Tom King
Artist: Daniel Sampere
Colorist: Tomeu Morey
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Brittany Holzherr
Publisher: DC Comics
Cover Price: $4.99
Release Date: March 26, 2025
Previously in Wonder Woman: The Sovereign took away Wonder Woman’s world, and now she has taken away his. As their war reaches its end, the two icons prepare for battle. Who will emerge victorious?
Find out as Diana’s quest for peace comes to a bloody end!
THE DISTANT FINALE
As the Sovereign concludes his tale of the Wonder War, explaining to Trinity, the daughter of Wonder Woman, how things came to her terrible future, we flash back to the present and the White House. Wonder Woman calmly walks into the Oval Office, and the cowardly Sovereign immediately begins begging for his life. She throws aside the Resolute Desk, calling upon her Mother to grant her a gift. A magical dagger (seen earlier in the issue in a VERY different context) materializes in her hand, and she politely asks The Sovereign to stand up. At the same time, the rogue Amazon Emilie (whom you may remember from Wonder Woman #1 as a blonde in a Wonder Woman costume) is busy giving birth with the assistance of Wonder Woman’s associate, Etta Candy. Her child is revealed to be Lyssa, the prophesied murderer of Diana in Trinity’s future, where The Sovereign explains that Diana didn’t stab him, nor did she order him to slit his own throat. Instead, she entreated him to “write something true.” As the old man begins slicing his own flesh, we cut to the future Sovereign in his cell, with a scar that reads “LIAR.”
DID THIS NEED TO BE 19 ISSUES?
The biggest takeaway after a year-and-a-half of King’s Wonder Woman for me is the lengths to which the writer will go to avoid actually writing Wonder Woman, with the Amazing Amazon speaking very few words, a total of 21 balloons, for those keeping track, in a 32 page book that feels like it has wall-to-wall narration. I suspect that the intention is to make the character feel godlike/legendary, but all it really does is make her feel remote and inscrutable. It’s kind of a shame, too, as Sampere’s art is some of the best Wonder Woman stuff I’ve seen in forever. It’s comparable to Nicola Scott’s take, which is the definitive Wonder Woman for me since George Perez, and the sequences of a future battlefield on which Wonder Woman and her lieutenants lie dead are breathtaking stuff. Even when the story turns to the unsavory sight of a wizened, elderly man undressing, it makes for a riveting narrative, with an incredible payoff in the reveal of Sovereign’s truth.
BOTTOM LINE: OVERWRITTEN, BUT GORGEOUSLY DRAWN
As cynical as it sounds, the biggest question I have about Wonder Woman #19 are logistical, questions about the way the plot has unfolded, whether we needed to see page-after-page of Diana being tortured and imprisoned in order to get here for the payoff, but Sampere’s work elevates the strangely staccato plotting once again, leaving us with 3.5 out of 5 stars overall. As a reader, the fact that this big finale issue is actually just going to continue into another arc is also a bit annoying, but that’s not the fault of this creative team. It’s just another problem with the modern comics industry and its solicitation process.
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WONDER WOMAN #19
King fills every panel of every page with narration, but still manages to leave me wondering what just happened, and the distant narration continues to drag. Sampere's art does the heavy lifting here, and almost overcomes the plot issues with sheer awesome.
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Writing5
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Art9
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Coloring8
Once upon a time, there was a young nerd from the Midwest, who loved Matter-Eater Lad and the McKenzie Brothers... If pop culture were a maze, Matthew would be the Minotaur at its center. Were it a mall, he'd be the Food Court. Were it a parking lot, he’d be the distant Cart Corral where the weird kids gather to smoke, but that’s not important right now... Matthew enjoys body surfing (so long as the bodies are fresh), writing in the third person, and dark-eyed women. Amongst his weaponry are such diverse elements as: Fear! Surprise! Ruthless efficiency! An almost fanatical devotion to pop culture! And a nice red uniform.