By William Messner-Loebs & Phil Winslade with Patricia Mulvihill (DC Comics)
ISBN: 1-56389-301-0
This slim oversized all-original tale was produced under DC’s Elseworlds imprint wherein characters are freed from their regular continuity’s shackles for adventures that test the limits of credibility and imagination.
Amazonia posits a world where a tragic fire destroys the entire British Royal Family in the 1890s and a very distant cousin becomes ruler of Victoria’s Empire. Under this aggressively male sovereign the Empire goes from strength to strength and the rights of women wither and die. Once more and forever they are playthings and possessions, to the point of having to wear chains in public.
Enter Steven Trevor, late of His Majesty’s Air-Marines, and trying to make a living as a music-hall impresario. His actress-wife is a foreign beauty, dark, tall, statuesque, able to jump huge distances and strong enough to wrestle lions. When she saves the royal heir from an assassin it begins an inexorable and bloody series of events that will liberate half the Empire and end half a century of cruelty, abuse and atrocity.
This is a powerful and challenging fable of sexual equality, blending the Wonder Woman mythology with Steam-punk fantasy and the legend of Jack the Ripper with cracking effect. William Messner-Loebs writes with convincing authenticity and Phil Winslade’s Victoriana-style artwork, beautifully reminiscent of both penny-dreadful engravings and the lovely sweeping line of Charles Dana Gibson is utterly captivating.
Often the Elseworlds variations come off as ill-conceived or poorly executed, but when it all comes together as it does in Wonder Woman: Amazonia the result is pure gold.
© 1997 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.