Absolute Wonder Woman: Season of the Witch (Comics) | Review Oct 27, 2026

Chaos does not usually erupt inside a packed museum without some sort of formal warning, yet that is how Absolute Wonder Woman unleashes its latest chapter. Magic, deception, fire and a besieged friend collide almost instantly as each opening scene strains to settle into any rhythm.

Writer Kelly Thompson (Captain Marvel: Re-Entry, Hawkeye: Go West) steers this stretch of the series as Zatanna flips from a hired gun to a reluctant partner, Cheetah dies before her loyalty is ever tested and saving Diana costs Persephone a month trapped in Hell. Her control over pacing keeps tension high through splintering alliances.

Artist Hayden Sherman (Batman: Dark Patterns, Old Man Logan: End of the World) handles the bulk of these issues with a sketchy line favoring raw motion over polished detail. Colorist Jordie Bellaire and letterer Becca Carey round out a creative team built for mayhem rather than calm.

What follows is the main story, plus a standalone tale placed far outside of Gateway City and its familiar conflicts. Readers wishing for a swift rescue should brace for captured heroes, tangled pairings, punishing showdowns and a lingering cliffhanger that still refuses to close out cleanly.

Diana emerges from the grueling Area 41 maze determined to focus on the surface mission she is originally assigned to complete while setting aside old personal grudges. A mysterious blazing mark on her forearm stirs abrupt, unwanted notice in Gotham, pulling her toward Batman and away from Gateway City to investigate murders.

She is felled by a vivid remembrance of Aphrodite and awakens only moments before a violent ambush. Zatanna Zatara appears in person to face her at long last, no longer a dream or vision, prepared for war with a deadly scheme engineered strictly around eliminating Wonder Woman.

Veronica Cale has quietly forged her own ruthless Suicide Squad from prisoners held inside Area 41, each one bound through a small parasite instead of nano-explosives in their necks. Cheetah, Doctor Poison and Giganta flesh out the new Task Force X roster within the Absolute Universe.

Zatanna binds herself tightly to Diana amid the sudden chaos, severing Diana instantly from her strength and turning that stolen magic savagely against the very woman she is sent to destroy. The confrontation itself reads less like villainy and more like something reluctantly done to her against convictions she can barely stand behind.

Once Zatanna frees herself and quickly vanishes from sight, Diana regains control of her power then faces the remaining recruits head on with renewed resolve. She grows to match Giganta's enormous size, trading brutal blows in a brawl that favors flashy spectacle over careful strategy.

A scorched skeletal specter also known as the Eternal Flame arrives without warning, merciless, striking down Priscilla Rich and robbing her of any chance to clash with Diana directly. He melts part of Diana's arm in the process, forcing a desperate, painful flight to her home at the Hieron.

Zatanna rushes into the Hieron to undo the burns scarring Diana's body and bluntly admits her real motive once the tension gives way as her guard drops. She wants to save her father from a curse born of guilt, one that has steadily hollowed him out over years and calls for Diana's help before grief poisons the man she loved and lost.

What starts as an evil counterpart designed specifically to defeat Wonder Woman evolves into an unlikely partnership by the arc's midpoint. Diana chooses to aid Giovanni Zatara in shedding decades of anguish disguised as cruelty, even after everything his flames already took from her.

A mechanical adversary, the Iron Maiden, proves substantially more threatening than anything Cale has previously deployed. It crushes Diana in an unforgiving duel the heroine cannot escape unscathed. Capture follows swiftly, dragging Diana into Area 41.X for sinister experimentation.

Persephone manages to snatch Diana from Area 41.X seconds shy of the predicament becoming permanently dire for her. That dauntless rescue comes at a steep price, trapping Persephone in Hell for a full month, powerless to intervene or send any messages back while Barbara Minerva remains behind as a vulnerable prisoner of Cale.

A self-contained interlude guides Diana on a legendary errand among restless gods and ancient monsters far beyond Gateway City. It reads less like connective tissue than a welcome breather that gives readers room to recover between two darker chapters soaked in wonder and sorrow.

Hayden Sherman's loose, sketchy illustration style simply does not work for a story chasing this many big emotional upheavals and clean magical fireworks. Faces often blur into shorthand and action beats lose clarity exactly when precision matters most for a punishing fight this weighty.

Colors by Jordie Bellaire shoulder the heavy lifting throughout, lending mood and rising heat to scenes that the linework otherwise struggles to support on its own shaky footing. Panel layouts occasionally get inventive during the grandest battles, though that rarely rescues visibly weaker personal stretches concealed deeper elsewhere.

Mattia De Iulis returns for the Annual with painterly, richly textured art that instantly outclasses the main series by a comfortable margin on craft alone. Every page feels composed, patient and refined instead of rushed, a reminder that a slower tempo suits this material noticeably better.

Kelly Thompson's scripting stays natural on dialogue and character voice even when the visuals fall short of her vision across these installments. Her finest moments appear in quiet exchanges between Diana and Zatanna rather than the louder, flashier showpieces that demand attention.

Season of the Witch lands as an uneven middle section, one that barters away sharper focus for scattered, minor sub-plots and jumbled, muddled, disorienting allegiances. Strong ideas surface repeatedly, yet execution plainly wavers just enough to block this bold, honest effort from ever realizing its fullest, deserved narrative potential.

Barbara Minerva sits in captivity as an open question worth watching closely while this universe slowly develops, given how deliberately the writing revisits Cheetah's legacy. Nothing confirms where her path leads from here but the setup practically begs for a second Cheetah to emerge.

That Gotham detour from the opening chapter stops seeming incidental by the finale because it bleeds directly into the crossover with Absolute Batman through the Devil's Workshop storyline looming ahead. Fans following Diana's journey should view that connection as required reading.

As a collected volume, these six issues and one standalone tale deliver a satisfying, if imperfect, package for everybody jumping headfirst into this sprawling, ambitious run. Series regulars are rewarded with major status-quo shifts, while newcomers still get a functional, if slightly bumpy, read after going back through the previous arcs.

Absolute Wonder Woman Vol. 3: Season of the Witch arc collects issue #15-20 and 2026 Annual #1 from the ongoing series. It is available now in both hardcover and trade paperback edition. The book and individual issues are also available digitally through DC Universe Infinite website.