Wonder Woman #2 Review!

Wonder Woman #2 has Diana facing an army in the present and a duel in the past! Re: cap - Wonder Woman #1; It begins with the Amazon, Emelie, who killed ten men at a pool hall in West Billings, Montana. This becomes a national incident closing the Amazon embassy and leading to the Amazon Extradition Entity (A.X.E.). Sergeant Steel is appointed the head of A.X.E. He doesn’t know how appointed him, but he eventually takes a team to capture Wonder Woman. 

She defeats all of them and crushes Sgt. Steel’s cybernetic hand! At the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, Diana walks with Steve Trevor and she asks about the Sovereign. This is the name to the mysterious villain who assigned Sgt. Steel. He is about to crowned and his narration mentions that a “young lord” conqured Central Virgina and took a weapon from priestesses’ temple. Once the Sovereign is crowned, he takes his throne with the black Lasso of Lies!

The cover of Wonder Woman #2 by Daniel Sampere has a closeup of her bracelets with her blue eyes peering through as we see stars and in reflection an army of attacking vehicles! “Wonder Woman: Outlaw Part 2” is by Tom King and Daniel Sampere. It begins with the Sovereign’s narration explaining about a tournament on the “island of warrior women” where we see two women, it looks like Diana, and other wears a helmet with plume. She faces another Amazon with a lion banner at the center of an arena. We see Wonder Woman facing a soldier on an empty field, in each panel, Wonder Woman and Diana walk towards their opponents. 

The Sovereign mentions a “horrible burden” won by the victor of the tournament and that led to the Amazons bringing their message to Man’s World. We see the two scenes in long panels from behind, Diana facing the Amazon, an arrow in a shield in the foreground. Rows of red stars separate the panels. Then, Wonder Woman facing not one soldier, but tanks and trucks mounted with guns, and attack helicopters and jets in the skies. The Sovereign drips with contempt at her hope and message of love. 

We see Colonel Steve Trevor lighting a match for the cigar of Sgt. Steel, closeups of the match and Steel’s cigar. He is resigned that Steve failed to do the “right thing” and now he has to send in an army. Sgt. Steel wants Steve to give the order, all bluster, and not up to giving the attack order. We see Wonder Woman detach her Lasso of Truth and gets its ready. This is in the nine-panel grid showing closeups until we finally see Wonder Woman fully revealed! 

The Sovereign goes over her knowledge of tactics, first artillery, then jets, the artillery fires, Wonder Woman swings the lasso, and the missiles descend! We see the explosion of missles, out of the fire and smoke, Diana survives and this shifts make to her day in the tournament with gold helmet. She leaps at he opponent, striking her shield, and then gives a war cry that strikes her against a wall. The Sovereign’s narration gives his insight to Diana’s thoughts, but is an annoying, unreliable narrator.

Her opponent, like almost everyone in this comic, is arrogant and contemptuous of Diana's bloody mouth and thinks of her as "young one." Steve watches the battle through binoculars and tells Steel that his attack is not what he expected. Wonder Woman is above a tank cannon, takes hold of it, and in a medium shot is about to toss it! Steel tries to add that it is “we” putting culpability on Steve. Another similar panel of Steve looking through the binoculars. 

Then, in an epic splash page Wonder Woman brings down the tank on another one! Her tactics seem to take on the grunts, but not the command structure. Steve Trevor really isn’t helping there. We switch from the tournment sword fight to Wonder Woman bashing the military. The Sovereign notes that Wonder Woman’s origin and role depends on the person telling the story. We see Diana’s sword at the Amazon’s chin and then her tiara severing a tank’s cannon! Then, the two swordswomen face each other. 

As the battles continue, the Sovereign narrates that it is Wonder Woman’s qualities that had them monitoring her “throughout our reign”, it must not just be the elderly villain, but all of the mysterious Sovereigns. He is still “off stage”, a plotting, arrogant mastermind. The Sovereign seems commonalities with her as a myth. Wonder Woman does a flying kick into a tank. Closeups of the Amazon who wants Diana’s name. In The Contest, Diana was keeping her identity a secret, and refuses to say her name. 

The Amazon leaps forward and then in a black and red panel, runs her sword through Diana! Steel impotently screams for infantry and Steve agrees to the order. The soldier advance firing their M-16 rifles next to a burning truck. Then, we get an awesome panel of Wonder Woman deflecting the gunfire! The sound effects are “plink” which is a soft sound like water, but it is great to see the blur of her bracelets! Wonder Woman has to drive off countless soldiers much to the glee of Steel who calls her a “girl” and also run through by a sword, but her opponents don’t know her warrior’s resolve! 

There is a teaser for the Amazons Attack event, “The Prophecy” by Josie Campbell and Vasco Georgiev. In Canada, “five minutes ago” for some reason, news of the “Pool Hall Massacre” is on the television of a gas station. A woman is refueling her car and then her eys glow at the mention of Queen Nubia. A hint of the possession by the villain. She walks into the gas station to take a lighter and locks the door. Eyes still glowing, she drops the lighter onto leaking gas! In a splash page of the explosion, there is a small panel where the woman cries out, “Asylum!” 

This suddenly causes Anahi is the oracle of the Esquecidas, the Amazons of Brazil, to wake screaming. She made her  debut in Nubia and the Amazons #6 (2022). This is at the Esqucida city, Akahim, hidden in the rainforest. It was introduced in Wonder Girl #5 (2022). Guards check on her, but Anahi goes to find Yara Flor, and she sees the “destruction.” Wonder Girl, Yara Flor, first appeared in Infinite Frontier #0 (2021). Anahi tells Yara Flor that she has to stop the threat to the Amazons started at the pool hall. 

In a two page spread we see an apocalyptic scene; Amazons dying around Wonder Girl, Queen Nubia and Artemis, with glowing red eyes, as there is fierce, glowing eyes above them! Anahi warns about her vision, “All the Amazons will die!” She speaks a prophecy to “Unite the Three”; “The Doubting Queen. The Shadow Blade. The Lightning-Hearted” before collapsing! This leads to Amazons Attack #1! Wonder Woman #2 brings parallel stories of Wonder Woman’s fight against Steel’s army and her battle with an unknown Amazon!

Four Lassos of Truth out of Five! 

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