Wonder Woman #29: A Necessary Reprieve

Not unlike his time on Batman, Tom King has drawn near-universal controversy with his latest ongoing work on Wonder Woman. Unlike his Batman material—which I enjoyed immensely—his time with Diana has done little to impress me. If anything, it’s allowed me to fully abandon the character in her core continuity for a moment and instead fall in love with her Absolute counterpart. Still, when I caught wind of Stephanie Williams picking up the title for a short fill-in, I decided to jump back on the train, if only briefly.

Now, there’s no getting around it: Wonder Woman #29 isn’t divorced enough from King’s run to act as a full reprieve from the established status quo. As a result, the creative team isn’t able to push the boundaries of their potential quite as much as I’d hoped. With Diana taking a well-earned rest, Lizzie is left in the care of Nubia and the Wonder Girl trio, only for the child’s safety to be immediately thrown into question by the influence of nefarious forces that have somehow infiltrated Thymiscera unnoticed.

Rather than leaning into a promised slice-of-life approach and spending meaningful time developing the relationship between the Amazons and infant Elizabeth, the issue instead feels compelled to fast-track a rather silly “hero vs. hero” conflict. That conflict is further squandered by mundane paneling and decompressed pacing that leaves no room for a more layered plot to emerge. That said, what is here remains genuinely fun. There’s undeniable spectacle in watching familiar faces clash with the intent to inflict real harm, and Williams continues to write Nubia with such intimate precision that her strength of characterization extends naturally to the wider Wonder Woman cast.

Whether or not you’ve enjoyed Tom King’s tenure on Wonder Woman shouldn’t deter you from giving the title a chance when it opens itself up to other authors capable of bringing broader tonal depth to this era of the character. Stephanie Williams does exactly that here, allowing character-driven interaction and a more traditional genre framework to give readers a moment to breathe—and to attach themselves to Lizzie and the Wonder Girls without plot gimmicks or nihilism clouding the experience. This isn’t the deepest story ever told, and it admittedly lacks the pacing and narrative depth needed to fully realize its concept. Still, for readers looking for a different kind of Wonder Woman story right now, it’s worth tossing a couple of bucks toward this book in the meantime.