Essential Reading: Wonder Woman

With the recent hubbub over the casting of Gal Gadot in the forthcoming Superman/Batman movie, superhero fans may be wondering what there might be to find in terms of Wonder Woman material.  Since she has been one of DC's icons, equally important for comic books in general as a strong female, Wonder Woman has long held a position of prominence.

The problem has always been how to present her at the same level as Batman or Superman, and so creators have been struggling over that for decades, and the resulting material can sometimes be hard to penetrate.  Batman is a human with vengeance and redemption writ large beneath his shadow.  Superman is the ultimate immigrant.  What role does Wonder Woman play?  That's always been the problem.  She's hard to identify, much less identify with.  She comes from a more or less Greek tradition, although her Amazons and the Amazons the ancient Greeks mythologized are pretty much polar opposites (as far as artists love to depict any woman in comics), and as such a lot of her background material comes from a culture readers may know far better than Thor's Asgard, which makes Wonder Woman's adventures at once easily comprehensible and hard to interpret solely on her merits.  Unlike Thor, Wonder Woman is a new creation, and she inhabits a landscape that tries to be contemporary while also depicting its own society.

From my own experiences, here are some stories that may help define Wonder Woman's legacy a little better:

"The Contest," Wonder Woman 0, 90-93 (1994)

As close as any iconic presentation of her classic origin story goes (because this is another area where creators have not been as keen to explore in comparison to the scores provided Batman and Superman), this is actually the reverse, with Wonder Woman returning to Themyscira, home of the Amazons, to discover that the world she left behind no longer welcomes her.  Mom Hippolyta (famous from Hercules mythology as the prototypical Amazon; she's actually filled in as Wonder Woman on a few occasions) deems Princess Diana no longer worthy of holding the role as champion of their people, their ambassador to Man's World.  Enter Artemis, who wins the role and temporarily replaces her.  This is a lot like the event stories Superman and Batman and everyone else experienced in the 90s, but it has everything to say very directly about Wonder Woman herself.  Diana did, for the record, continue adventuring, in one of a few instances where she adopted a new costume (like every other instance of this that decade, it looks very 90s), and even remained a member of the Justice League, the only member of the Big Three at that point to hold the distinction.  And then she got the role back, of course.

Greg Rucka, Wonder Woman 195-226 (2003-2006)

To my mind the single greatest and most significant creator run in the character's history, and certainly one of the most involved, Greg Rucka embraces Wonder Woman's role as an ambassador and tosses her into some of her most dramatic adventures.  At one point she's even temporarily blinded.  This is also the period of Infinite Crisis, where she murders Maxwell Lord, perhaps the most daring superhero act of the new millennium, with the fictional effect that Superman's similar act in Man of Steel had on moviegoers this past summer.

Amazons Attack!, 1-6 (2007)

One of the effects of Wonder Woman murdering Max Lord was placing her at odds with the public, which led to all Amazons coming under siege.  Rarely has she been at the center of her own event, and while this was a minor one it is still a noteworthy story, which ably demonstrates all the potential that the character and her world has always held.

Allan Heinberg and Jodi Picoult, Wonder Woman 1-10 (2006-2007)

Simultaneously lifting her presence and also helping to sabotage it was Wonder Woman's receiving a relaunch under the successive early arcs of Allan Heinberg and author Jodi Picoult.  Both of them were reactions to and continuations of the Greg Rucka run, centering heavily on Diana as she struggles to find her way forward, with one of her signature villains, Circe (essentially Wonder Woman's Loki) providing plenty of problems along the way.  To have both Heinberg and Picoult was fantastic, but they combined for ten issues, and although the continuity was there they were both gone in an instant, and so the momentum dissipated in a heartbeat.  Great for anyone coming late to the party, however.

"The Circle," Wonder Woman 14-17 (2008)

I don't generally like Gail Simone, but this story is a wild exception.  It's another look at Wonder Woman's origin, but in a way that adds to it, which is generally hard to do.  Diana was famously created from clay, which makes perhaps sense by way of Greek mythology.  The Amazons not named Hippolyta kind of had a problem with this, the daughter of privilege who ended up inheriting everything that Wonder Woman essentially is, so they formed a conspiracy that tried to thwart her.  Kind of an Occupy Wall Street story before there was an Occupy Wall Street.  A key story in broadening the scope of the character.

The Blue Amazon (2003)

Another thing Wonder Woman rarely gets are her own standalone graphic novels, much less stories that dare feature art that doesn't completely glamorize her.  This is that, plus a way of exploring the archetypes involved in her relationships with Batman and Superman, which is another thing DC loves to do every now and then.

Ben Caldwell, Wednesday Comics 1-12 (2009)

One of the more interesting comic book experiments of the recent past was Wednesday Comics, which presents superhero adventures in serialized cartoon strip form.  The best of these strips was Ben Caldwell's visually impressive take on Wonder Woman's origin, which plays like a classic Disney animated feature.  Arguably the best Wonder Woman story in this lot.

Brian Azzarello, Wonder Woman (2011-present)

Azzarello has been creating a new standard for Wonder Woman comics, ably blending the mythological elements that others can sometimes misinterpret into her overall story, so that you have an indy comic featuring a mainstream character.  This may yet prove to be the best of all the stories.

Geoff Johns, Justice League (2011-present)

While this series is very much about the Justice League, Johns spent a good deal of the early issues exploring the Wonder Woman: Secret Origin story, at least as far as her introduction to Man's World goes, with all the classic elements like Steve Trevor involved.  I keep mentioning this, so I might as well do it again here.

(All cover images via Comic Book Database.)