Tom King is not any stranger to, shall we embrace, controversial comedian ebook runs. His mini- and maxiseries are likely to garner near-endless reward, however every time he’s given free rein to inform a narrative throughout greater than fifteen points, it tends to pad itself. Rather a lot. That’s one of many greatest criticisms of his latest run on Surprise Lady (2023), particularly with the introduction of his final villain, the Matriarch. From what we’ve seen of her up to now, she’s a fierce, unstoppable warrior who’s the daughter of each an Amazon and the Sovereign, and her objective is to take over your complete world. Frankly, that’s all she’s been.
The Matriarch has suffered from the most important failing of all: a padded showcase. As an alternative of attending to know her, all we’ve seen of her, and we’ve seen an terrible lot of her, has targeted on promoting simply how impossibly sturdy and funky and highly effective she is. Certain, watching her kill Superman and Batman on the identical time makes her look highly effective, however when that’s all we see of her, we don’t know who she is, solely what she does. Fortunately, after practically a 12 months of simply watching her rip by the DC Universe, Surprise Lady 2026 Annual: Surprise Conflict – The Matriarch Particular #1 has lastly given us a glance inside her head. For the primary time, the Matriarch is a genuinely attention-grabbing character as a result of, for the primary time, she feels human.
Ranking: 3.5 out of 5
| Execs | Cons |
| Deep dive into who the Matriarch is and what she desires | Lizzie’s dialogue feels unnatural |
| Makes implausible use of all of her previous appearances | A lot of give attention to how the Matriarch was Lizzie’s shadow with out displaying us a lot of this relationship |
The Matriarch Who Selected to Be a Pawn
The Matriarch has haunted Surprise Lady’s comics for a while now, however by no means as something greater than a shadow we had been purported to worry. She had all of the traditional King-isms, being a personality who skyrockets to unimaginable energy and has no character exterior of that, however this concern lastly gave us a look into why she acts like that. Steve and Trinity fled into the previous to avert the long run the place she dominated, and the Matriarch adopted, crusing on the river of the lifeless. There, she confronted the folks she slayed over time, all whereas her personal internal voice taunted her, difficult her notion. The Matriarch asserted that she was free, performing because the Fates’ warrior, however her internal ideas stated that she was just too afraid to know methods to do anything.
This was a whole concern spent solely in her perspective, tackling her ideas, fears, and reasoning, and it did wonders for letting the reader join together with her. Up till now, feeling something concerning the Matriarch took effort on the reader’s half, however this annual allow us to discover the solutions to questions we’ve been asking because the begin. Her battle with feeling worthy was particularly poignant, utilizing the Inexperienced Lantern ring she’s so keen on to nice impact. As an alternative of utilizing it to indicate how cool she (or Surprise Lady) is, it used it as a bodily image of her want for validation. She might solely take it by being the strongest, and he or she needs to be the strongest. It’s what she’s outlined herself as.
It additionally ends in such a manner that makes it clear why she is the villain of this story, provided that she realizes her errors however lacks the internal energy to repair them. As for negatives, the weakest a part of this story is certainly the dialogue from Lizzie. The connection between the Matriarch and Trinity is supposed to be one among her defining options, however we hardly see it. With so little panel time, each line out of Lizzie’s mouth needs to be impactful, however that simply makes them really feel compelled. The Matriarch’s path to energy can be glossed over, and I discover it laborious to imagine the Amazons would simply let all of this occur, however that’s a broader story concern. This annual might solely tackle a lot, and what it did, it did effectively.
Countless Expression and Enjoyable Motion
Belén Ortega, Eduardo Pansica, and Júlio Ferreira had been the artists for this journey, and so they introduced a wide selection of expressions to the desk, which is strictly what this story wanted. The Matriarch has at all times been a really stoic character, however we noticed that break down utterly throughout her journey down the river. At first, she maintained her clean, offended expression, however with each problem to her sense of self, we noticed shock and worry creep in. By the point she broke, her terror and desperation had been palpable. The lower between her sobbing on the bottom earlier than Nubia and her animalistic fury and want to win was good visible storytelling. There’s an entire lot of refined moments that convey out the perfect within the Matriarch and the others round her, however the principle villain actually shines probably the most.
As for a way these expressive characters work together with the world, their movement is simply as fluid as their faces. The Matriarch torpedo headbutting Aquaman’s torso is a spotlight that I beloved. As an alternative of specializing in making everybody look cool, the fight lets us breathe within the awkward, blood-pumping strangeness that fights like these generate, to nice impact. In fact, we even have to offer props to the colorists, Romulo Fajardo Jr. and TrÃona Farrell, who managed to make nice use of an atmosphere that was largely black and purple. The river did change persistently from blood to orange Gatorade a bit an excessive amount of for my liking, however they had been implausible at making the Matriarch pop.
General, the crew engaged on this annual made a boring villain come alive, and I’d like to see extra of Leah Williams and Stephanie Williams as a writing duo sooner or later. What do you consider the Matriarch? Tell us within the feedback beneath!
Surprise Lady 2026 Annual: Surprise Conflict – The Matriarch Particular #1 is on sale now!