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Wonder Woman (2023) - TV Tropes

  • ️Wed Sep 20 2023

Wonder Woman (2023) (Comic Book)

All the word is waiting for you...

Wonder Woman is a 2023 DC Comics ongoing comic book series, written by Tom King and illustrated by Daniel Sampere, launched as part of the Dawn of DC initiative. Taking over from the previous team, the run starts with a short preview in Wonder Woman #800 in June 2023 before launching in September 2023 with a new issue #1.

After a mysterious Amazon is accused of mass murder, the Amazon Safety Act is passed, barring all Amazons from American soil. In her search for the truth, Wonder Woman finds herself an outlaw. Meanwhile, at some point in the future, Lizzie Prince, the daughter of Diana, is regaled tales of her mother's exploits.

Alongside the run is Amazons Attack vol 2 depicting the reactions of the rest of the Amazons (and Mary Marvel) finding themselves hated pariahs now.

Wonder Woman (2023) provides examples of:

  • Adaptational Backstory Change: In previous iterations of the DCU, General Glory was a man empowered by Lady Liberty herself. He fought forces overseas threatening the United States and its allies, and then was drugged into amnesia by his own government. Here, General Glory is a man enhanced by the government several times over in a successful effort to create their "own" totally obedient super hero.
  • Adaptational Relationship Overhaul: Sargent Steel had been one of Diana, Donna and Cassie's most consistent allies since his integration into the DCU. This iteration of the DCU does not continue that trend.
  • Almighty Janitor: This storyline demonstrates that Sarge Steel holds far more power than a mere sergeant ever could. He is assigned leadership over the government agency A.X.E., and is placed in command over an entire US Army battalion operating under the direct orders of the President in Issue #2
    • Subverted by the fact that "Sarge" isn't his rank, but his name, short for "Sargent.". His actual rank was Captain.
  • Army of Lawyers: Wonder Woman organizes an army of not just lawyers, but activists, common citizens and even elected officials to argue why the "Amazon Safety Act" in its current form was not legal. The Sovereign laughed.
  • Big Bad Ensemble: The main villain of this run is Sovereign, a mysterious man said to be the secret king of the United States with a Lasso of Lies. He's the one behind the whole anti-Amazon campaign which has swept America and is trying to turn public opinion against Diana. However, issue #2 reveals there is legitimate violence being done in the name of the three amazon tribes by another malevolent figure, who gets more coverage in Amazons Attack Volume 2. Both the Sovereign and this other party have independent grudges against amazons, and their actions overlapping is a happy coincidence for them. Anahi all but calls both The Sovereign and Emelie small fries compared to this third wheel they merely cleared a path for. All the same Emelie has her own agenda independent of The Sovereign and The Asylum campaign, who are just capitalizing on her actions to enact their own plans faster.
  • Breather Episode: Issue #7, where it's just Diana and Superman spending a day at the largest shopping mall in the universe to look for a birthday present for Batman.
  • Brutal Brawl:
    • Diana and Grail's fight in Issue #6 consists almost entirely of them staying grounded and laying into each other with fists, feet, elbows, and knees. Grail does gain an edge by blasting Diana with Eye Beams, however.
    • Diana's days-long battle against Cheetah in Issue #10 is also entirely unarmed.
  • The Brute: Grail basically functions as one for Sovereign. She doesn't seem to be the leader of his anti-Wonder Woman team nor does she have any close involvement in his plans outside of wanting to kill Diana for personal reasons. Her role is that of the muscle, being the most powerful supervillain that Sovereign has recruited and presenting the greatest physical threat to Diana out of her entire recruited rogues gallery in Issue #6.
  • Bullying a Dragon: In Issue #1, Sarge Steel (an unpowered human with a simple prosthetic hand) gets the bright idea in his head to throw a punch at Diana's face while calling her a c-word. This is after he just witnessed Diana effortlessly take out his entire squad of state-sanctioned death troopers without breaking a sweat. No surprise Diana easily catches his prosthetic fist in her bare hand and crushes it after talking down to him like a child.
  • Call-Back: Diana is shown keeping a picture of Jack from issue #4 in her apartment in subsequent issues.
  • Casual Danger Dialogue: Wonder Woman and Superman merely continue their conversation about what to get Batman for his birthday while being attacked by an alien trying to kill Superman with Kryptonite.
  • The Coats Are Off: When Grail steps up to fight Diana in Issue #6 after Diana has fought the rest of her rogues gallery, she is wearing a blue shawl which she whips off with one hand.
  • Conspiracy Theorist: It is made clear on several news stations that the fact the United States is being run by a king who does not respect democracy is a mere "conspiracy theory" while at least two news stations are giving air to two actual conspiracy theorists about a secret war on men.(Amazons Attack volume 2 shows there is a secret campaign against men, but it's not a "war", all but one or two amazons involved in it are not acting under their own free will and said king is playing right into it)
  • Cool and Unusual Punishment: The Unbound Spectre makes Circe suffer three hundred years worth of sin she inflicted on other people without cause within less than a month's time! Formal interrogation
  • Curbstomp Battle
    • Be it sleep deprivation or sheer boredom, issue #3 no longer tries to pretend that the security forces of Sargent Steel in A.X.E. secret headquarters, hidden within Southhide Defense Industries, are any issue for Wonder Woman, who stretches, yawns and rubs her eyes as she makes where way through, armed agents and guards trying to shoot her.
    • The Unbound Spectre versus Circe with naught but her standard spells and magic levels. It's not a fight, it's an extended torture session, and that's only because that's the nicest thing Unbound Spectre's allies, who need Circe's testimony, can get him to do.
  • Depleted Phlebotinum Shells: A.X.E. agents are armed with guns that fire "froufrou bullets" which are shown easily penetrating Amazon steel like a hot knife through butter, which enables them to kill a ton of unprepared Amazons who were residing in the US when the Amazon Safety Act was passed. However, it's still not enough against Diana's Bracelets of Submission.
  • Dirt Force Field: The invisible jet passively repels dust and sediment, bends light, obscures its radar signature, even confounds most spell casters.
  • Don't Create a Martyr: As Sovereign explains to Lizzie in Issue #6's narration boxes, the purpose behind the Legion of Doom he formed wasn't to kill Wonder Woman because "the dead can overthrow an empire the living could hardly touch." Instead their goal was destroy the public's image of Diana as an Invincible Hero by having her beaten down by her rogues gallery in the US capital for the entire nation to see.
  • The Dragon: Tom King's run sees Sarge Steel take on this role to the Sovereign. He serves as Sovereign's primary enforcer in this storyline, is depicted as The Face for A.X.E., and is the field commander of the anti-Wonder Woman team Sovereign assembles.
  • The Dreaded: As the daughter of Darkseid and a Justice League-level threat in her own right, Grail is feared by heroes and villains alike. She's the only one out of Diana's rogues gallery that Sovereign personally recruits for his anti-Wonder Woman team rather than have Sarge Steel act as an intermediary. Sovereign also carefully chose to approach her as an inferior begging for her assistance rather than as an equal or superior like he did with his other supervillain recruits. When Sovereign sends his Legion of Doom to attack Diana in Issue #6, he deliberately withholds Grail as a Godzilla Threshold contingency and only sends her in when all other options are seemingly exhausted. Grail is the only supervillain out of the entire anti-Wonder Woman team whose appearance elicits a genuine Oh, Crap! from Diana.
  • Dressed Like a Dominatrix: Grail's general design, as expected. She's even introduced being waited on by male slaves.
  • Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: When Diana arrives at the river Styx in the Underworld, she finds Steve waiting for her in the boat normally operated by Charon. Steve revealing he punched out Charon so he'd be there when Diana comes to visit him.
  • The End Is Nigh: Akahim seer Anahi screams for an audience with Yara Flor, proclaiming the imminent deaths of all amazons as she is bombarded by images of women with yellow Glowing Eyes of Doom and an obscured figure flying above them. Ahani's eyes also turn yellow, but they don't glow.
  • Enlightenment Superpower: Issue #5 retcons the Angle Man into deriving his powers from having discovered a singular geometric element of the Anti-Life Equation, deluding himself into believing he needs a powerless triangle to access his power. The knowledge has damaged his sanity and made him obsessed with triangles. This raises questions regarding his rival Anglette gaining the same powers after stealing that triangle.
  • Evil Counterpart: How Grail is juxtaposed to Diana by both the narration and art. Both being daughters of divine heritage but Grail sees herself as her father's daughter while Diana places importance on the being the daughter of her mother, Hippolyta (in addition, Diana's clay heritage is alluded to heavily in their dialogue).
  • Fair-Play Villain: When it’s Grail’s turn to fight Diana after she’s Run the Gauntlet in Issue #6, Grail actually tosses away her scythe to fight Diana hand-to-hand after learning that Diana doesn’t have her sword with her.
  • Faux Affably Evil: The Sovereign's diction makes it seem like he's politely offering suggestions to his underlings, like the President of the United States, but when he's actually resisted he makes clear that this is simply the etiquette of his upbringing and that all of his advice is actually orders.
  • Flashback B-Plot: Issue #2 is constantly switching between the present where Wonder Woman is facing off against the massive US military unit under Sarge Steel's command, and the past where a disguised Diana is dueling Emilie as part of the tournament held by Hippolyta to determine which Amazon would leave Themyscira with Steve Trevor and act as the Amazons' ambassador to Man's World.
  • Forced to Watch: Anahi is being bombarded with waking visions of the death and burning of all amazons, nearly going mad as she is unable to stop the images from coming.
  • Forced Transformation: When Sarge Steel goes to recruit Circe against Wonder Woman in issue five, he spends an unspecified amount of time transformed into a pig by her, complete with bionic hoof.
  • Framing Device: King's run begins with a short story, in Wonder Woman #800, set some 20 years in the future with Diana's daughter, Lizzie, traveling with Jon Kent and Damian Wayne to a prison on Themyscira containing someone Diana fought against in the past.
  • Fun with Acronyms: The government agency entrusted with carrying out the policy of removing Amazons from American soil is the Amazon Extradition Entity, or "A.X.E."
  • Gendered Insult: It is heavily implied that Sarge Steel calls Diana the C-word during their confrontation in a snowy graveyard. She sternly warms him not to call her that again, while breaking his steel fist.
  • Glowing Eyes of Doom: At least some of the women committing murders in the name of the amazon tribes display glowing yellow eyes and highly uncharacteristic behavior, clearly showing they are not in their right minds and someone deliberately trying to Divide and Conquer the amazons from their allies in man's world. Sovereign simply sees this as a chance to advance his own anti-amazon agenda, and is more interested in catching/breaking/killing Wonder Woman than whoever/whatever is actually behind the murders.
  • Godzilla Threshold: Sovereign and Sarge Steel consider Grail to be one since she's the daughter of Darkseid. Unlike the rest of Diana's rogues gallery who were commanded through a combination of bribery, blackmail, and threats, Grail is acknowledged to be the only supervillain that A.X.E. has absolutely no control over because she's just that dangerously powerful. When Sovereign deploys his Legion of Doom to ambush Wonder Woman in Washington D.C., he explicitly holds Grail back as part of "Plan G", only sending her in after Diana has already beaten everyone else. And even then, Sarge Steel suggested giving up and trying again another day instead of relying on Grail, only changing his mind at Sovereign's insistence. Notably, Grail is the only supervillain in the anti-Wonder Woman team whose appearance garners a true Oh, Crap! reaction from Diana.
  • Hollywood Magnetism: In issue #8, The Sovereign's guards electrocute Wonder Woman after she escapes her restraints, with visible arcs of electricity around her body, whiles she's grabbing The Sovereign...who for an unexplained reason isn't also electrocuted.
  • Immigrant Patriotism: Wonder Woman, as usual, has some issues with The United States, more than usual in fact. The Sovereign's campaign has not diminished her love for the country, however, it's just given her more problems to address.
  • Improbable Aiming Skills: Yara's challenge to Diana is to fire increasing numbers of arrows at each other, first to hit the other wins. For three consecutive turns, their arrows only hit each other.
  • Informed Species: Cheetah is shown next to an actual cheetah in issue #4, to highlight that she doesn't look like the animal she is named after. To be fair, Cheetah did originally look more like a cheetah, prior to joining Checkmate, but she's more leopard now and has always had some sharply non cheetah features going back to the Pre Flashpoint volume 2 version.
  • Internal Homage: The cover of the first issue is one to issue #22◊ from George Perez's run.
  • Ironic Echo: During Trial of the Amazons Nubia finds herself thinking of William Shakespeare's words and hates that a man so accurately described her recurring feelings as a ruler. In issue #3 The Sovereign openly quotes the same writer and mocks him for not understanding what it means to be a ruler.
  • Just One Man: From issue #2 when Sarge Steel sends his men at Diana. Of course, this being Diana, they soon find themselves greatly outclassed.

    Remember! It's all of us and only one of her.

  • Karmic Butt-Monkey: In this storyline, Sarge Steel is portrayed as a sexist, arrogant, and smug sociopath who uses his government mandate as an excuse to openly behave like a trigger-happy thug with a predilection for excessive force. Naturally, he finds himself being the Butt-Monkey a lot. Diana easily foils his initial attempt to capture/kill her in Issue #1 and crushes his prosthetic hand. In Issue #2, she drives him into a rage by defeating the entire US Army battalion he sent after her. She again humiliates him in Issue #3 by casually strolling into his office while dispatching all his A.X.E. agents and escaping with just as much ease. When he goes to recruit Wonder Woman villains in Issue #5, it's made clear none of them fear, or even respect, him. Circe makes him spend an unspecified amount of time as a pig, Psycho breaks into his office and invites himself to joining Sovereign's Legion of Doom, and Silver Swan drops him repeatedly from high up in the sky. And in Issue #6, he is seemingly captured by one of the Wonder Girls while observing Diana's battle with Grail from afar.
  • Legion of Doom: Issue #5 sees the Sovereign and Sarge Steel forming a team of Diana's villains to take her down. This team consists of Circe, Grail, Angle Man, Dr. Psycho, Giganta and Silver Swan.
  • Lets Fight Like Ladies: After taking out the rest of the Legion of Doom, Grail is the only one remaining. Once she sees that Diana has given up her sword for the sake of her current investigation, Grail tosses away her scythe, and they fight unarmed.
  • Let Us Never Speak of This Again: Sovereign's narration states that neither Diana nor Grail ever spoke of their battle in D.C. after it ended.
  • Love Makes You Crazy: The characterization of the new version of the Vanessa Silver Swan.
  • Madness Mantra: Some of the women committing murders, supposedly in the names of the three known amazon tribes, are actually chanting "Asylum". Diana is unable to investigate this due to constant harassment from the forces of The Sovereign, so Queens Nubia and Faruka II look into it.
  • Magical Native American: "The Lasso Of Lies" originates from a tribe in Virginia The Sovereign's ancestor had murdered to the last woman and child when he first came to North America.
  • Magnetic Hero: Diana is this to such an extent that even her attempts to push the Wonder Girls away fails and they insist on helping her anyway.
  • Miracle Food: Ambrosia is now treated as a drink amazons use to heal minor injuries rather than one reserved for the gods that grants immortality, as it had been during "Infinite Frontier", but it's still miraculous.
  • Monumental Battle: Issue #6 is an entire issue of Diana battling her rogues gallery at the base of the Washington Monument. Giganta even rips up the obelisk and uses it to bludgeon Diana when she's distracted.
  • Mythology Gag:
    • Trinity's full name is Elizabeth Marston Prince.
    • The bar where the massacre that sets off the events of the book is called "Kanigher's Cues". Bob Kanighher was the long running writer of Wonder Woman during the Silver Age.
    • The desk clerk in #3 is doing a crossword puzzle which features the surnames of a few Wonder Woman createors such as Phil Jiminez, Adam Hughes and George Perez.
    • "Ft. Simone" is made reference to in a few issues.
    • When Giganta is recruited for Sovereign's Legion of Doom, his narration states they have contradictory info about her origin. Some reports saying she was gorilla who became a human (her Golden Age origin) and others saying she was a human who became a gorilla and then a human again (her Post-Crisis origin)
    • In issue #5, Donna's wears a t-shirt with the Teen Titans Go! logo on it.
    • In the same issue as the entry above, Donna challenges Diana to a contest via a DC-themed fighting video game. A clear pastiche of Injustice. Diana plays as Superman, Donna as Batman.
    • Issue #9, taking place mostly in Diana's head, features a number of gags and illusions to Wonder Woman history.
      • In one scene, she imagines snapping Sovereign's neck in a way similar to how she did Max Lord in Infinite Crisis. The scene even copying the panel layouts.
      • In one portion she's shown fighting Cheetah and both are drawn looking like how George Pérez drew them in the 80s, complete with Diana's curly hair
      • Later on she's sparring with Steve in white martial arts getup, a call-back to the "Mod era" of Wonder Woman comics in the late-60s/early-70s.
      • Diana makes reference to Steve that Themyscira was not as isolated as one would traditionally think, and that as a little girl the Amazons had ways of viewing Man's World, in her case watching Western movies. While the Post Crisis, New 52 and Rebirth iterations of the Wonder Woman story all start Diana off as a Fish out of Water in modern stories, in the Golden Age the Amazons had ways of observing the outside world and Diana herself spouted off many pop cultural references.
    • As with some of the previous villains, Cheetah's various origins are alluded to in the narration during issue #10. Referencing both Priscilla Rich (the first Cheetah) and Debbie Domaine (the second), with it vague on whether they actually existed or were merely just different personalities of Barbara.
    • #12 parodies the story from Wonder Woman volume 1 #3, where Wonder Woman taught Mala and Baroness Paula von Gunther that love is more powerful than fear, with Diana trying and failing to teach the same lesson to a contrary Damian Wayne.
    • The backup in #16 shows Circe's mugshot where her name listed is "D. Milton". Donna Milton being one of Circe's aliases back in the 90s in Post-Crisis Wonder Woman
  • Nemesis Weapon: Sovereign has a "Lasso of Lies" that as it's name suggests, is a counterpart to the Lasso of Truth. In this case, it can make anyone believe whatever lies the user wants.
  • Nice Mean And In Between: Of the Wonder Girls, Cassie Sandsmark is the nicest, only being "mean" when she feels she has to deliver a hard truth or save those she has sworn to protect from aggressors. Yara Flor is the meanest, quick to insult Cassie and Diana to their faces and behind their backs, happy to cause harm and unconcerned with the deaths of her enemies. Donna Troy tries to be nice, merciful and charitable because they're the right things to do, but finds humor in chicanery and teasing.
  • No-Sell: Issue #1(801) opens with a woman dressed like Wonder Woman who is unflinching and undamaged in the face of attacks from men, like Wonder Woman, who proceeds to murder every man in the Pool Hall regardless because some of them touched her, quite unlike Wonder Woman.
  • Non-Action Big Bad: The Sovereign, the main antagonist of Tom King's run, is the secret king of America who wields unchecked authority over seemingly the entire the US government and military. However, he's also a wrinkled, geriatric old man who seemingly possesses no fighting abilities or superpowers of his own aside from his Lasso of Lies. Hence why he doesn't directly confront Diana himself and instead relies on underlings like Sarge Steel and his recruited Wonder Woman villains to do the heavy lifting, while he acts as an unseen puppet master controlling everything from the shadows.
  • Noodle Incident: A six foot four social worker dressed like Wonder Woman snapping and murdering nineteen men but sparing two women present is enough to apparently turn at least the USA news media and federal government against all amazons, even though no amazon claims this woman, due to an attack by amazons on the country "some years prior". This prior attack is not explained, nor has any such attack been important to any stories told in the Rebirth or Infinite Frontier comic books.
  • Not So Stoic: The Sovereign, who up until this moment has been characterized as unflappable regarding the conflict with Wonder Woman, crushes his glass and yells "Damn it all!" when he is forced to deploy Grail against the Amazon heroine.
  • The Oath-Breaker: Wonder Woman runs a gauntlet against the three Wonder Girls, in contests of their own choosing and makes each swear an oath, as amazons to, leave her alone until her investigation is over. After she's gone they decide they're just going to find another way. It helps that Wonder Girl Cassie Sandsmark is an honorary amazon.
  • Oh, Crap!: Grail gets this reaction from Diana when she enters the fight against Diana in issue six.
  • One-Track-Minded Hunger: Invoked in Issue #10. Sovereign captured Cheetah some time prior to the issue, keeping her imprisoned on an island with no real food. By the time he sent Diana to the island, Cheetah was starved enough to be driven into a violent frenzy at the sight of Diana.
  • One-Woman Army: Issue #2 has Sarge Steel sending a heavily-armed unit of 20,000 soldier with tanks, helicopters and jets against Diana. This being Diana, she smashes past them with almost contemptible ease.
  • Politically Incorrect Villain:
    • Sarge Steel has no problem being openly sexist to Wonder Woman.
    • In Issue #3, Sovereign spells it out in the narration boxes that his whole motivation behind his nationwide anti-Amazon crusade was because he viewed the Amazons' very existence and way of life as an affront to his patriarchal belief system.
  • Poor Communication Kills: Silver Swan tries to warn Diana about Sovereign's plans in Issue #6 by physically attacking Diana in the middle of her battle with Giganta, violently pinning her to the Washington Monument while talking like a Yandere, cussing Diana out while ignoring her Tranquil Fury-filled demands to be released, and finally screaming that Diana doest't understand what's coming (presumably referring to Grail). Of course Diana doesn't heed the crazed Vanessa's warnings and punches her unconscious.
  • Post-Victory Collapse:
    • In Issue #6, Wonder Woman has to Run the Gauntlet against the Legion of Doom team assembled by Sarge Steel in Washington D.C., culminating in a physically exhausted Diana punching out Grail before succumbing to her injuries and collapsing to the ground, allowing A.X.E. to move in and capture her.
    • In Issue #10, Cheetah collapses from exhaustion next to Diana after choking her unconscious following a days-long fight.
  • P.O.V. Cam: Issue #15 has a backup story entitled "Elysium" showing Steve Trevor's life in the Elysium Fields where he greatly misses Diana.
  • Precision-Guided Boomerang: Wonder Woman uses her tiara as a thrown weapon again, and to great effect. Issue 3 has a scene where she throws it into a room of armed soldiers, with panels focused on her waiting as she listens to them react to it flying around taking them all out.
  • Psychic-Assisted Suicide: The Sovereign meets with one of the soldiers that fought Wonder Woman and uses the Lasso of Lies to make him believe he felt so emasculated by defeat at her hands that he was Driven to Suicide, writing a suicide note directly saying as much.
  • Reckless Pacifist: Subverted: Wonder Woman looks pretty reckless shaking and cutting apart armored vehicles, but she knows exactly what she's doing, not killing a single man and only scaring soldiers enough to retreat, not traumatize, and they're all in good enough shape to retreat under their own power. Still, it's easy for The Sovereign, with his lasso of lies and some Manipulative Editing, to make it look like Wonder Woman is traumatizing soldiers into committing suicide.
  • Retcon
    • This volume changes the angler from a sufficiently advanced space warping tool anyone with the know how can use to a completely useless triangle Angleman only thinks he needs, which in turn makes Anglette's existence nonsense.
    • Vanessa Kapatelis was previously characterized as a friend of Diana's whose designs for Wonder Woman were mostly professional, desiring for Wonder Woman star in ballet she was creating before the homicidal nano machines overwrote Vanessa's personality with a villain from it, and proceeded to play the part by murdering people Wonder Woman saved. The romantic angle this volume takes comes out of left field, and is stated to have been there before the machines got in Vanessa's nervous system.
  • Royal "We": How Sovereign speaks.
  • Run the Gauntlet: Issue #6 pits Wonder Woman against Sarge Steel's newly-formed anti-Amazon team consisting of several of Diana's rogues gallery. First she fights Giganta and Silver Swan, who were able to ambush Diana thanks to Circe's magic. At the same time, Diana is experiencing a psychic assault from Dr. Psycho who is having Angle Man use his triangle to amplify his powers. When Diana prevails over all that, Grail is then sent in to fight a worn down Diana in single combat. While Diana ultimately triumphs over Grail, the battle leaves her so wounded and exhausted that she has a Post-Victory Collapse on the spot.
  • Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Each of the Wonder Girls challenges Diana to a contest of a particular skill, with the condition that they will not help her in her war against the US government if they lose. Despite Diana besting them all and all three swearing an oath as Amazons to leave her alone, they still decide to help her anyway.
  • Serial Escalation: How the first arc of the run, ''Outlaw" works with the threats Diana faces. The first issue has Diana facing off against a squad of highly trained government hitmen, then taking on the U.S. Army in issue #2, and then by issue #6 facing off against many of the heavy hitters from her rogues gallery.
  • Series Continuity Error: It's a DC book, a post Flashpoint one at that, but this one can be especially loose with continuity. Among those that don't count as retcons
    • One of the first lines of dialog from the hand off in issue #800 is praise for Hera, despite #799 and its corresponding event being about Hera's attempt to torture Wonder Woman with the slow, methodical annihilation of the amazons and enslavement of humanity, starting with giving Diana the "gift" of enhanced Super-Senses so she couldn't block out the sights and sounds of their torment as Diana hung impotently bound. Hera furthermore promised to get revenge on everyone who thwarted her designs for torture, subjugation and annihilation. This can't be written off as a far future occurrence, or just a quirk of this particular amazon, as #801 continues with amazons not too far removed from this attempt at their extermination with Hera's praise on their lips. Running alongside this comic book, Amazons Attack volume 2 states Hippolyta's primary mission in the God Sphere is keeping Hera from causing more trouble on Earth.
    • No attempt is made to explain why Vanessa Kapatelis is Silver Swan again after she was last seen voluntarily surrendering, going to prison, having the nano machines purged from her system and undergoing physical therapy that would ensure she'd no longer need them to walk.
    • The Sovereign is stated to have stripped Wonder Woman of her tiara, bracelets and lasso, and placed her into a prison that acts as a Power Nullifier, to make his attempts to break her more effective. Despite this she is frequently drawn with her rope and accessories, as well as stated and shown to continue performing super human feats. The later could just be excused as her just not being quite as powerful as usual but not fully depowered. The comic doesn't clarify, however.
    • In issue #9 Yara Flor and Cassie Sandsmark forget if Donna Troy can fly or not, despite Donna having gained the ability to back during Rebirth, keeping it throughout all of Infinite Frontier and them having seen Donna fly multiple times.
    • Donna Troy and Yara Flor mock Cassie Sandsmark for being so afraid of heights she can only levitate ten feet off the ground. This is supposed to be taking place after Amazons Attack volume 2, where Cassie flew towards the stratosphere to avoid A.X.E. and Asylum. The way that turned out could explain Cassie's sudden acrophobia, but again, an explanation isn't on the page.
    • In issue #13, Wonder Woman defiantly tells two prison guards trying to kill her that her name is Diana Prince, but Post Rebirth it was already established "Diana Prince" was just a temporary alias. In every "main" continuity, Diana Prince has always been an alias at most, usually one taken from a woman whose name actually was Diana Prince, who allowed Wonder Woman to impersonate her, less commonly, a disguise created for her by Proteus.
  • Shadow Dictator: The story arc establishes that the United States isn't a true democracy, and probably never was, since a man got a hold of the Lasso of Lies and set his line up as the true Sovereign behind the government.
  • Shoot the Bullet: Issue #5 has the Wonder Girls each challenging Diana to a contest of their choosing. Yara faces off against Diana in a contest of archery where they shoot arrows at each other, with the number of arrows increasing by one with each turn. Each round they shoot at each other clashes until they reach four and both of their fourth shots miss. Diana dodges in time, while Yara gets struck.
  • Shrouded in Myth
    • The Sovereign is only known by the most fringe conspiracy theorists in the United States, and only really known because his paranoia leads him to discredit anyone who dare hint of a king or dictator secretly ruling USA, even if none of these theorists have gotten any specific details on him correct.
    • In issue #2 The Sovereign discusses Wonder Woman's birth by clay and birth from a fling between Hippolyta and Zeus, concluding she is just as shrouded in myth as he is despite being a public figure, and therefor is a rival that must die.
    • The Sovereign's knowledge of Cheetah and Giganta pulls from several different continuities, thus it is full of contradictions.
  • Sidekick: In issue #5 it is stated Diana never had a sidekick...which just isn't true, by both Diana and Yara, even though Yara basically was acting as Diana's sidekick in the very last arc. That arc is a good reason why Diana probably wouldn't want Yara tagging along again, however.
  • Spock Speak
    • The Sovereign can be prone to formal and excessively long form speech with unnecessarily Big Words
    • Tom King writes the most long form spoken Wonder Woman to date. DC Super Hero Girls Wonder Woman, whose dialog was a parody of writers' tendencies to do this to Wonder Woman, is less verbose. Cassie Sandsmark mockingly translates it behind her back.
    • Detective Chimp is highly loquacious and formal. Even more so when he is trying to lie, or is being deliberately annoying.
  • Staredown Faceoff: Diana and Grail have a close faceoff right before their fight.
  • Stepford Suburbia: While in the capture of the Sovereign, Diana is placed in false reality by the Lasso of Lies where she's a 1950s-style housewife with an abusive husband version of Steve.
  • Stripperiffic: As usual, Wonder Woman wears a strapless top while engaging in physically strenuous activities. Several amazons leaving Themyscira in particular wear imitations of her top as they look to follow her example and try to improve the world of men. Lizzie Prince also envisions Jon Kent wearing less than protective armor in a black mercy induced fantasy, though in this case it is for the purpose of humiliating a great warrior from the realms of men.
  • Super-Toughness: Wonder Woman can carve stone and concrete with her nails. She doesn't require heavy duty alien equipment for a pedicure the way Superman does, however.
  • Threat Backfire: When Diana arrives at the White House in Issue #18, Sarge Steel is on the lawn telling her that he has ten Amazon prisoners in ten different holding centers, each with a gun to her head and "you take one step, a trigger is pulled." As Diana marches forward, Steel mocks her on how she's just killed two Amazons...at which point Diana dryly reminds Steel "you know I have super-friends?" Batman had figured out Steel's plan long ago and the Flash rescued all the women before Diana arrived. By this point, she's standing in front of Steel who wears a priceless Oh, Crap! face.
  • Token Good Teammate:
    • Steve Trevor finds himself acting as one for the US government in this storyline after Sovereign's machinations see the country turn against the Amazons. He's portrayed as a Noble Top Enforcer under Sovereign and Sarge Steel, usually trying to deescalate things and it's clear he personally doesn't approve of what A.X.E. is doing.
    • Out of all the recruited villains on Sovereign's anti-Wonder Woman team, Silver Swan is the only one who has no real intentions of harming Diana, having only agreed to join so she could later try to warn Diana about Sovereign's plans. Unfortunately, Sovereign predicted this and instead uses Vanessa as an unwitting distraction during Diana's big battle with her rogues gallery in Issue #6, allowing a magically-enhanced Giganta to sucker punch the two while Diana's guard was temporarily down.
  • Tomboy with a Girly Streak: Cassie says meeting Diana gave her an appreciation for traditionally feminine interests.
  • To Be Lawful or Good: The law of every amazon tribe is no men in their borders, and Themyscira is the second strictest about this law. Traditionally, the amazons of Themyscira would make exceptions, based on circumstances, but with the United States rattling its sabers they have no interest in lettinh Princess Diana bring a boy to their shore, even if he does have a terminal disease. Acting queen of the island Philippus chooses to be pragmatic. The effort needed to stop Diana wouldn't be worth it when the island has to also prepare for potential attacks.
  • Took a Level in Badass: "Unity" with Themyscira has allowed Bana-Mighdall to vastly improve its espionage network. The one saving grace for Themyscira and Akahim is that the hostility being drummed up against amazons in The World of Man has minimized the amount of time The Bana-Mighdall have spent spying on the other tribes.
  • Toothy Bird: In issue #4 Diana shows Jack what appears to be a nine foot tall eagle with teeth sticking out of the sides of its beak, which could easily fit Wonder Woman's entire head in its mouth. She feeds the bird with her bare hands.
  • Transformation Sequence: Diana does the classic Lynda Carter "Wonder Spin" in issue #6 before going to battle with Giganta.
  • Underestimating Badassery: Sarge Steel seems to be prone to this a lot in this storyline.
    • In Issue #1, Sarge Steel and his A.X.E. death squad think that just because they managed to catch hundreds of regular Amazons residing on American soil off guard with their Depleted Phlebotinum Shells, this means that they can assassinate Wonder Woman herself with no problem. Diana quickly disabuses them of that notion and non-lethally dispatches every A.X.E. agent sent after her with zero effort.
    • In Issue #2, both Steve Trevor and Sgt. Steel are under the delusion that normal artillery, tanks, and infantry will be enough to defeat Wonder Woman. You know, the same Wonder Woman who happens to be a millennia-old Flying Brick demigoddess with powers comparable to Superman? Not to mention Diana has fought literal Physical Gods like Ares and Darkseid, both of whom could (no, would) effortlessly annihilate whatever the US military could possibly throw at them. And no, this wasn't part of some distraction or greater strategy, Sgt. Steel seriously thought that Diana would instantly fold at the mere sight of military grunts armed with conventional guns and vehicles. This is especially egregious coming from Steve, given how long he's known Diana and seen what she can already do. Just to emphasize just how horribly outmatched the US Army was here, there is a Flashback B-Plot showing a younger, more inexperienced Diana who struggles far more to defeat a single Amazon in a tournament duel than the present-day Diana does against any of the US military forces.
    • In Issue #3, we're shown that the US military task force entrusted with killing Superman should he go rogue (alongside the entire Justice League as Sarge Steel boasts) consists of a bunch of regular soldiers and some tanks whose strategy seems to be "throw wave after wave of our men against the target until they fall". For comparison, the army battalion that Diana singlehandedly defeated in Issue #2 was bigger and better armed than this. Obviously, Diana is not the least bit threatened by this and makes Sgt. Steel back down by threatening him with her Invisible Jet.
  • Unwitting Pawn: Private Rafael Delgado is just an energetic patriot interested in learning more about United States history and excited to meet a real life king. He has no idea The Sovereign is a dictator secretly controlling the United States, much less that The Sovereign is not only angry that Delgado's forces failed to kill Wonder Woman, but that she managed to make them retreat with killing a single one of them. Thus Rafael grabs the Lasso of Lies without hesitation and is soon Driven to Suicide so The Sovereign can use his death to paint Wonder Woman as a Horrifying Hero who does more harm than good.
  • Victorious Roar: After spending days fighting each other, Cheetah gives off one of these once she manages to choke Diana unconscious.
  • Vigilante Woman: With Amazons no longer being able to operate on American soil, Diana finds herself this. She also finds herself in defiance of orders from Queen Nubia for refusing to return to Themyscira.
  • Villain Respect:
    • Grail is the only Wonder Woman rogue who Sovereign meets and recruits personally for his anti-Wonder Woman team, as Grail's status as an actual god makes her worthy of his respect, or at least feign showing respect.
    • Grail also shows a little bit of this to Diana. When Diana states she abandoned her sword, Grail tosses her scythe aside and decides to battle her fist to fist. Though when it seems Diana is beaten, Grail doesn't hesitate to use the scythe for the finishing blow.
  • Wham Episode:
    • Issue #3 changes everything the audience assumed about Trinity: she is not Diana's daughter, but the daughter of Emilie.
    • Issue #14 once more alters everything about Trinity: she actually is Diana's daughter, born of clay from her hair and Steve Trevor's hair.
  • William Telling: The three Wonder Girls torture Sarge Steel for information on Wonder Woman's location this way, with Cassie very nearly shooting an arrow into his groin.
  • Wrestler in All of Us: In issue #7, Wonder Woman defends Superman with a fireman's carry and a release German suplex. She is attacked by an apparition of Cheetah in #9, that she tosses away with with a monkey flip, only for it to reappear with a sleeper hold on her. When the real Cheetah shows up in #10, she attacks Wonder Woman with cornered shoulder trusts using trees as her ring posts. Wonder Woman in turn tries to keep her restrained with a single leg cradle pin.
  • You Are Not Alone: Diana and Clark's birthday present for Batman is a photo booth picture strip of them and a small diamond. After dropping off the diamond at a Wayne-operated orphanage, Batman silently places the strip with his two best friends on the Batmobile dashboard with a smile.

Tropes relating to the backups

  • Blissfully Horrific Backstory: Lizzie Prince is appalled at the way Talia and Ra's raised Damian. She then quickly realizes that Damian doesn't see anything wrong with how he was treated and is afraid he might treat her the same way, as her babysitter.
  • Changing Clothes Is a Free Action: Black Canary appears in four different outfits in four successive panels. Justified, as it is part of a stage performance.
  • Cheeky Mouth: Damian Wayne has one in issue #3 as he yells at Jon Kent. Jon by contrast is drawn with a naturally opening mouth as he calmly responds.
  • Expert Consultant: Damian Wayne searches out Doctor Midnite after Lizzie Prince disregard's Damian's orders and attacks Killer Croc, leaving Killer Croc severely injured. Lizzie Prince visits Zatanna after Jon Kent and Damian run afoul of Circe.
  • Nice Mean And In Between: Of "Generation S", Jon Kent is the nicest, mostly being mean in response to antagonism or irresponsibility from Lizzie Prince and especially Damian Wayne. Damian Wayne is the meanest, most arrogant and most empathy lacking of the trio. Lizzie Prince is cocky, rude and prone to losing her temper, but she has a pesky compassionate streak she just can't stamp out.
  • Oh, My Gods!: Following in her mother's footsteps, Trinity swears by Hera.
  • Pro Wrestling Episode: A lot of the back ups are advertisements for other DC books, which range from Dark Knights of Steel to Metamorpho. Some back ups are looks into Lizzie Prince's future, or at other parts of the contemporary setting Diana isn't directly involved with like Jimmy Olsen's podcast. No one was expecting one dedicated to All Elite Wrestling's then new acquisition, Will Ospreay.
  • Red Herring: Trinity is confirmed to hold The Lasso of Truth, which might lead one to assume her silver rope is The Lasso of Persuasion and that the black lariat might be The Lasso of Existential Terror that Despera wielded in DC Future State. The latter definitely is not, and is definitely worse. It looks even more like The Lasso of Lies held by The Sovereign in the past, but it's not that either.
  • Shameless Self-Promoter: Jimmy Olsen has breaking news to deliver! It's almost as important as reminding the audience that he's friends with two star reporters, has a podcast with sports columnist, and is an award winning photographer who once transformed into a terrifying turtle monster.
  • Spoiled Brat: Lizzie, not helped by her beleaguered babysitters Damian and Jon constantly indulging her various demands and antics. We're introduced to her arriving late to her own meeting to plunge into territory she's not allowed in, insulting her mother along the way while her "brothers" begrudgingly help her along.
  • Understatement: The Sovereign in issue #17. After losing his fortune and having his identity exposed he claims to be in "quite the pickle."
  • Unreliable Narrator: Issue #13 has a backup story recounting the events of Diana and Damian's team up in the previous three issues from Damian's perspective to Lizzie. As expected, Damian greatly over exaggerates his importance, which Lizzie calls him out on.