By Michael Jelenic, Adam P. Knave, Alex De Campi, Amy Chu, James Tynion IV, Heather Nuhfer, Lauren Beukes, Cecil Castelucci, Sara Ryan, Aaron Lopresti, Drew Johnson, Matthew Dow Smith, Ray Snyder, Neil Googe, Bernard Chang, Noelle Stevenson, Ryan Benjamin, Mike Maihack, Chris Sprouse & Karl Story, Christian Duce & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-5862-7 (TPB/Digital edition)
Time to start planning for a Big Comics Anniversary later this year…
The Princess of Paradise Island originally debuted as a special feature in All Star Comics #8, cover-dated December 1941, but actually on sale from October 21st of that year). She was officially conceived by psychologist/polygraph pioneer William Moulton Marston and illustrated by Harry G. Peter, in a calculated attempt to offer girls a positive and forceful role model and, on forward-thinking Editor M.C. Gaines’ part, to sell more funnybooks to girls. Later research has since disclosed much of her genesis was due to Moulton’s wife – attorney turned psychologist Sarah Elizabeth Marston (née Holloway) who had worked with him to create the systolic lie detector process – and their live-in partner Olive Byrne.
Despite all the complexities and confusion surrounding her genesis, Wonder Woman was an instant hit and catapulted from the try-out into her own series as the cover-feature character of new anthology title Sensation Comics one month later. The Amazing Amazon then won her own eponymous supplemental title a few months after that, cover-dated summer 1942…
You already know the story: Once upon a time on a hidden island of immortal super-women, American aviator Steve Trevor of US Army Intelligence crashed to Earth. Near death, he was nursed back to health by young, impressionable Princess Diana. Fearful of her besotted child’s growing obsession with the creature from a long-forgotten and madly violent world, Diana’s mother Queen Hippolyte revealed the hidden history of the Amazons: how they were seduced and betrayed by men but rescued by the goddess Aphrodite on condition they forever isolate themselves from the mortal world and devote their eternal lives to becoming ideal, perfect creatures.
However, with the planet in crisis, goddesses Aphrodite and her sister Athena instructed Hippolyte to send an Amazon back with the American to fight for global freedom and liberty. Although forbidden to compete, closeted, cosseted Diana clandestinely overcame all other candidates to become their emissary: Wonder Woman.
On arriving in the Land of the Free she purchased the identity and credentials of lovelorn Army nurse Diana Prince, which elegantly allowed the unregistered immigrant to stay close to Steve whilst enabling the heartsick care-worker to join her own fiancé in South America.
The new Diana soon gained a position with Army Intelligence as secretary to General Darnell, further ensuring she would always be able to watch over her beloved. She little suspected that, although the painfully shallow Steve only had eyes for the dazzling Amazon superwoman, the General had fallen for the mousy but supremely competent Lt. Prince…
That set up enabled the Star-Spangled Sentinel to weather the notoriously transient comic book marketplace, surviving the end of costumed heroes’ Golden Age beside Superman, Batman and a few lucky hangers-on who inhabited the backs of their titles. She soldiered on well into the Silver Age revival under the auspices of Robert Kanigher, Ross Andru & Mike Esposito, but by 1968 superhero comics were in decline again and publishers sought new ways to keep audiences interested as tastes – and American society – changed.
Back then, as her sales withered during the mid-1960’s, the entire industry depended on newsstand sales and if you weren’t popular, you died. Jack Miller, Denny O’Neill & Mike Sekowsky stepped up with a radical depowering and made comic book history with the only female superhero to still have her own title in that marketplace. Eventually, however, merely mortal trouble-shooter gave way to a reinvigorated Amazing Amazon who battled declining sales (thanks to a TV-inspired boost) until DC’s groundbreaking Crisis on Infinite Earths after which she was once again fundamentally reimagined.
Minor tweaks in her continuity accommodated different creators’ tenures until 2011 when DC rebooted their entire comics line again and Wonder Woman once more underwent a drastic, fan-infuriating root-and-branch refit. Possibly to mitigate the fallout the publishers okayed a number of fall-back options such as this intriguing package…
Sensation Comics Featuring Wonder Woman began as a “digital first” series online before collecting chapters into a new standard comic book. Crafted by a fluctuating roster of artists and writers, the contents highlighted every previous era and incarnation of the character – and even a few wildly innovative alternative visions – offering a wide variety of thrilling, engaging and sincerely fun-filled moments to remember. The physical iteration was enough to warrant a series of trade paperback compilations which – in the fullness of time and nature of circularity – gained their own digital avatars as eBooks too.
This second of three full-colour treasuries gathered Sensation Comics Featuring Wonder Woman #6-10 (March-July 2015) and offered another legion of talent and multitude of different visions, beginning with ‘Generations’ by Michael Jelenic & Drew Johnson, wherein an annual odyssey for the perfect gift for Amazon Queen – and rather forbidding mother – Hippolyta leads Diana into battle with mythical monsters, an old enemy and her own obsessive drive to overachieve…
Adam P. Knave & Matthew Dow Smith’s ‘Not Included’ pairs the potent Paradise Islander with Apokolyptian New God Big Barda against evil super-science and robotic hordes of The Brain and M’sieu Mallah, after which a decidedly different take by Alex De Campi & Neil Googe has Wonder Woman coming to the rescue of a commercial space station above the Second Rock from the Sun in ‘Venus Rising’. Amy Chu & Bernard Chang then go out-world to celebrate the core concept of Wonder Woman in ‘Rescue Angel’, as soldiers pinned down in Afghanistan are saved by Lt. Angel Santiago. The wounded warrior claims her outstanding actions under fire are the result of a vision from her beloved, long-cherished comic books…
Spectacular action and sinister skulduggery inform Heather Nuhfer & Ryan Benjamin’s clash between the Amazing Amazon and Lex Luthor, who triggers ‘Sabotage is in the Stars’ when the Indian government’s space program starts impacting Lexcorp’s projected profits. James Tynion IV & Noelle Stevenson introduce feisty teen Riley as guide to a culture-shocked young Diana in ‘Wonder World’ next, but as they bond over stupid boys and cheesy beachside entertainments, the girls are blithely unaware the foreign newcomer’s Amazon bodyguards are frantically searching for their AWOL charge…
‘The Problem with Cats’ by Lauren Beukes & Mike Maihack takes a light-hearted look at sisterhood and the rivalry between Wonder Woman and The Cheetah – or is it all in the over-active imagination of frustrated. grounded little African girl Zozo? Possibly the best yarn this go-round comes as frosty, testy and possibly hostile Daily Planet journalist Lois Lane is ordered to interview Wonder Woman.
The ice is only broken after an monster invasion leads to a splendid ‘Girl’s Day Out’, courtesy of Cecil Castelucci, Chris Sprouse & Karl Story before Sara Ryan & Christian Duce reveal a timely intervention that saves the life and emotional stability of ‘VIP’ pop star Esperanza, before Aaron Lopresti wraps up this parade of pulse-pounding peril and imago of insightful episodes with a brutal dragonslaying clash as ‘Casualties of War’ shows Diana’s abiding reluctance to engage in battle, but how sometimes there is just no other choice…
Augmented by a spectacular covers-&-variants gallery from Paul Davey, Shane Davis, Michelle & Alex Sinclair, Ben Caldwell & Francesco Francavilla, this is a scintillating snapshot of the astounding variety of visions Wonder Woman has inspired in her decades of existence, and one to delight fans old and new alike.
© 2015 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.
Today in 1928 DC star artist/inker Joe Giella (Hopalong Cassidy, Flash, Adam Strange, Justice League of America, DC Comics Presents, Flash Gordon, The Phantom, Mary Worth) was born, with creator Dan Jurgens (Booster Gold, Superman, Captain America, Thor) arriving in 1959 and Jackson Guice (Micronauts, Action Comics, The Flash, Ruse) and Canadian cartoonist Bernie Mireault (Grendel, The Jam, Dr. Robot, McKenzie Queen) sharing a 1961 birthday.
In 20005, Atsushi Suzumi’s manga Venus Versus Virus began, as did Seinen anthology magazine Monthly Comic Alive one year later. In 2001 Tove Jansson died, predeceasing co-founder of The School of Visual Arts (AKA the Cartoonists and Illustrators School, NYC) Silas Rhodes in 2007, and Belgian creator, comics historian and Spirou editor Thierry Martens/Yves Varende.