Wonder Woman #31 Review

 

Written by: Tom King

Art by: Daniel Sampere

Colors by: Tomeu Morey

Letters by: Clayton Cowles

Cover price: $4.99

Release date: March 18, 2026

To say I haven't been a fan of Tom King's run on Wonder Woman is an understatement.  I've pretty much hated every issue he's written in this run and pray nightly that he leaves the book for someone who knows and actually likes Diana. But like most things, I never quite get what I want.  However, I still held out hope that this Wonder War story might be the start of better things from King.  I'll repeat myself - I never quite get what I want.  Let's jump into this start of the Wonder War...

One of the things that has me worried going into the Wonder War is that we really don't know anything about the main villain, the Matriarch.  Sure, we know that in the future she seemingly has single-handedly killed all the big heroes, but that was more lip service than actual character work.  You could argue that King couldn't set much up since Lyssa was only a baby in the current time run, but he set it up that way, so I will blame him.  Now, he tries to make things right by showing Lyssa growing up with Lizzie, but instead of making me care, it just felt forced.  And forced to seemingly show that the Matriarch's main motivation is pure, simple jealousy.  You know, the most basic bitch motivation there is.

The story takes place in the near future, with Damian and Jon continuing to aid and protect Trinity from harm, and that inevitably leads to bad times for the former Super Sons.  Shit goes down, but again, it fell flat for me.  There are scenes that 100% King is gunning for those heartstrings, but he 100% misses the target.  Every character in the book feels devoid of any emotion, as if they are disgruntled actors trying to flub their lines on purpose.  Tom King writes Jon and Damian as if the only thing that keeps them together is their mutual love of Trinity.  They just don't seem to like each other much. Is it that he doesn't quite get the character, or just his hack writing?  I'm going with a little column A and a little column B.

Speaking of hack writing, what the hell is Lex Luthor doing here?  We will see if this is a weird diabolical plan, but here, Lex bends the knee to Lyssa.  Again, without any proper setup, it just feels like King's attempt to convince us how badass the Matriarch is... and it is just lazy writing!  Tom King often falls into the trap of trying to make a character feel big by making a bigger character feel smaller, and it happens here with Lex.  By the way, what does Lex think about the Matriarch killing Superman?  Who the hell knows, since it's never even mentioned.

I said earlier that there are some big moments in the issue, but they end up feeling small.  I'll expand on that: the biggest moment not only feels small, but by the end of the issue, it also feels ridiculously out-of-character and even disgusting. Yet, I barely had a reaction to it.  Why? Well, this is a Tom King book, and almost everything he writes gets ignored by the greater universe and eventually deemed out of continuity, even when the book is supposed to be 100% in continuity.  That feels doubly so when you are jumping to the future to tell the story and you do things like killing the biggest heroes of the DCU.

Daniel Sampere's art is great when there is something for him to do, but that isn't always the case in this issue.  Even so, great art couldn't save this issue.

Bits and Pieces:

I was hoping Tom King had a big story to tell here, but the lack of any real setup makes everything fall flat.  It felt more like a lecture than a story, and while the art was great, there wasn't much for Daniel Sampere to do.  The biggest sin, though, is that the issue was kinda boring.  I didn't care about what was going on, which made the whole thing feel boring and inconsequential throughout.  The first shots have been fired in the Wonder War, but I just keep wondering why Tom King is still writing Diana.  Her fans deserve better!

2.5/10