Wonder Woman has been getting more buzz than she has in years, partly thanks to Tom King and Daniel Sampere’s run on Wonder Woman. Their run has concentrated on the battle between Wonder Woman and the Sovereign, the secret king of America, and it came to a head in Wonder Woman #14. Over more than a year, Wonder Woman and the Sovereign clashed in many ways, and Steve Trevor was always by Wonder Woman’s side. Trevor was always working in the background, using his position in the US military to get information that Diana’s more overt methods couldn’t. However, this led to his doom.
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Steve’s zeal for helping the woman he loved saw him taking an offer from the Sovereign to work with him. Wonder Woman and Trevor both knew it was a trap, but Steve insisted on going. The Sovereign shoots and kills him, which sets Wonder Woman on a new path – revenge. Wonder Woman #15 showcased the beginnings of her plan, as she used information that Trevor had gotten before his death to hit the Sovereign where it hurt – his wallet. Donna Troy, Cassie Sandsmark, Yara Flor, and Cheetah were enlisted in this enterprise, leading Flor to go on a bank robbery spree of epic proportions.
Yara Flor Decided To Break The Bank – Multiple Times
The Sovereign’s family had built up a staggering amount of wealth in their tenure as monarch of the United States. Much of it was placed on an automated battleship that Cassie Sandsmark crashed a plane into, sinking it. Cheetah went after the man behind the Sovereign’s investment portfolio, getting the authorization passwords and stealing the money. Donna Troy went after the Washington Diamond, a 67-carat diamond that the Sovereign had enlisted Solomon Grundy to safeguard, the monster swallowing it. Yara Flor was tasked with getting the crown jewels of America, hidden away in the safety deposit boxes of seventeen banks in nine states.
Flor was the perfect Wonder Girl for this caper, her trademark wit and nonchalance on display while handling the caper. The two-page sequence shows one of the robberies, where she tells the bank manager what she’s about to do, and catches a bullet fired at her by a guard, before asking them to open the vault unless they want her to kick it down. Flor was able to take down all seventeen banks in one day, each one under the protection of more state and federal authorities as the day progressed, a circumstance that the Sovereign called noble but futile.
Now, obviously, keeping the crown jewels of America in multiple banks across the country isn’t exactly the best way to safeguard them. The Sovereign counted on the fact that bank robbery was illegal to keep the jewels safe, as those bound by law would be unlikely to cross that line. However, the Sovereign had pulled strings and gotten Amazons outlawed from even entering the United States. Before that, even if Diana would have known about the Sovereign, the chances that she would decide to rob banks to get back at him, or send Yara to do it, were nil. With her very existence in her adopted homeland illegal, the gloves were off. The Sovereign’s own machinations set Wonder Woman and her friends on the path to bankrupting him personally, allowing Flor to become a prolific bank robber like few others.
Yara Flor Is DC’s World Champion Of Bank Robbery
Bank robbery was a pretty common crime in the DC Universe back in the Silver Age. Every hero had to deal with them on what seemed like a monthly basis. The supervillains of the day were interested in big scores, and the biggest score was a bank. Heroes like Batman and the Flash were gold medal contenders for stopping bank robberies and even Wonder Woman had to deal with her share. Superheroes stopping bank robberies was a well-worn trope. Yara Flor’s bank robbery spree isn’t the first time a superhero has robbed a bank, but it’s definitely the most prolific spree in a long time.
Flor is a very powerful Amazon and could have robbed the banks by brute forcing her way into the vaults. A supervillain with comparable power to her would have done that. However, Flor robbed the banks just like a superhero would – she walked in, told them her intentions, and then gave them the choice of how the whole thing would shake out. She only meted out violence if she was met with it – something Wonder Woman would have been proud of. Flor pulled off a staggering number of robberies in one day, almost certainly more than any other DC villain in recent memory. If there was an Olympic event for bank robbery, Flor would have easily taken the gold medal. She’s the best bank robber in the DC Multiverse right now.
Wonder Woman #15 is on sale from DC Comics.