Hugo Awards 2026: Wonder Woman: The Last Amazon by Kelly Thompson, Hayden Sherman, Mattia De Iulis, et al.

Absolute Wonder Woman, Vol. 1: The Last Amazon

Collection published: 2026
Contents published: 2024-25
Acquired: April 2026
Read: July 2026

Writer: Kelly Thompson
Artists: Hayden Sherman, Mattia De Iulis, Dustin Nguyen
Colorist: Jordie Bellaire
Letterer: Becca Carey

This is my first experience with DC's confusingly named "Absolute Universe" (can't wait until we get the Absolute Editions, so this book will be republished as Absolute Absolute Wonder Woman), which is a sort of modern reboot of key DC characters. In this version, Diana is the last of Amazons, who were massacred by the gods; she is sent to the underworld to be raised by the sorcerer Circe. The gods keep sending creatures to kill her, so she is raised in violence—but also in hope. This is particularly emphasized when Steve Trevor washes up in the underworld, and she must help him get home; eventually, she follows him to the mortal world in order to defend it.

The first story here, written by Kelly Thompson and illustrated by Hayden Sherman, alternates between Diana's youth in the underworld and the present day, where she's fighting monsters and re-meeting Steve Trevor. I had read some rapturous reviews of this series going into it, so I think I was set up to be somewhat disappointed. This is strong, solid superhero fare... but it's not the best the genre has to offer. I mean, I think it does what this kind of story should do, and it does it very well. The art and writing work together excellently; Sherman is totally simpatico with what Thompson is doing on writing. Both depict Diana as someone feminine and hopeful but still powerful and determined. There are some clever superheroics here; the threat isn't just defeated through Diana punching or slicing up a monster, but by her using magic and thinking about the powers the monster possesses. But was I wowed by it? No, not really. You've see similar stories—compare the last Wonder Woman comic to be a Hugo finalist, which was up to more interesting things.

from Absolute Wonder Woman #1 (art by Hayden Sherman)

I also thought this was let down a bit by the second story, illustrated by Mattia De Iulis. De Iulis is not as good an artist as Sherman, with a generic, glossy superhero style, and in particular, was not capable of the subtle character work Thompson's tale required.

from Absolute Wonder Woman #7 (art by Mattia De Iulis)

Still, it's good stuff, and I would read more of it. I can see how the solid setup here could evolve into greatness given time (there's an interesting supporting cast, for example); hopefully DC gives Thompson that time, and hopefully Sherman returns as artist for future arcs.

Hugos 2024: Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons by Kelly Sue DeConnick, Phil Jimenez, Gene Ha, and Nicola Scott

Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons

Collection published: 2023
Contents originally published: 2022-23
Acquired and read: April 2024

Writer: Kelly Sue DeConnick

Artists: Phil Jimenez, Gene Ha, Nicola Scott

Colorists: Arif Prianto, Romulo Fajardo Jr., Wesley Wong, Annette Kwok

Letterer: Clayton Cowles

This is a finalist for the Hugo Award for Best Graphic Story—my first, and indeed, my first Hugo finalist this year full stop. (I usually start with a Best Novel finalist, but none made it into my first batch of arrivals.)

It's branded as a Wonder Woman comic, but Wonder Woman does not appear here. It goes back to the origins of the Amazons, exploring how the tribe of warrior women that ultimately gave birth to Wonder Woman came into existence. Skimming a timeline of DC history, I can see this ties together and dramatizes some preexisting material, but it totally stands on its own, and doesn't feel like a continuity patch or origin story. Indeed, the greatest thing you can say about it (and I speak this as someone who reads a lot of tie-in and franchise fiction) is that it transcends its origins as a tie-in comic. I would feel comfortable handing this to someone who doesn't enjoy superhero comics but does like graphic novels and wants to read a bold, dynamic take on Greek mythology, because that's what this is. It's not a rewriting of George Pérez (or whomever), it's a new myth designed to take its place among old ones.

The story starts with the Greek goddesses, who reach their breaking point with the ways men treat women, but find the gods unwilling to do anything about it, and so take things into their own hands. It then follows the doings of the gods, especially Hera, who refuses to overtly move against her husband's will, in parallel with the rise of the Amazon tribes, and a would-be human midwife who ends up encountering the Amazons as they travel across the world slaughtering men who hurt women, and then into a war where the gods attempt to eliminate the Amazons. It's an epic story, but the presence of Hippolyta, the midwife, keeps it grounded; I enjoyed her trajectory very much.

More importantly, though, writer Kelly Sue DeConnick has three top-notch artistic collaborators here. Phil Jimenez's work I honestly don't know that well (aside from event comics like Infinite Crisis and Dark Cybertron, which rarely showcase an artist at their best), but he had a well-regarded run as a writer and artist on Wonder Woman; here, he turns in some brilliant and beautiful two-page spreads, one of jars(!), but in particular, a few depicting Hippolyta's desperate pursuit of a lost infant. Gorgeous, heartbreaking stuff. Gene Ha I've liked since his Top Ten days, but this is probably career best work for him, his attention to character really capturing the struggle and emotions of Hippolyta as she seeks to become an Amazon. And Nicola Scott I've thought a solid artist since her debut on Birds of Prey; here, she knocks it out of the park with the war between the Amazons and the gods. For all three artists, the art is beautifully colored, and the deluxe hardcover collection really shows it off to its utmost; I don't always buy Hugo finalists outside of the category of Best Novel, but I am so glad I'm not reading this comic on my Kindle Fire.

If I had a complaint, it would be that I found the parameters of Hippolyta's key choice in the last issue kind of confusing and rushed, but I'm sure on a reread (this is a tough book to read, but not in a bad way; sometimes it's just nice to read a comic that makes you work a little harder than normal) it would hold up fine. The backmatter tease two more sets of three chapters, but even if we don't get a trilogy of trilogies for Wonder Woman Historia, this will hold up as a tremendous work about what men do to women, and what women do to get away from it.

Wonder Woman: Past Imperfect by John Byrne et al.

The Crisis on Infinite Earths removed a number of Golden Age heroes from the Golden Age: without an Earth-Two, Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman no longer had Earth-Two counterparts who could have been around during World War II. But as I have read my way through this project, I have read a number of stories drawing on a retcon that Wonder Woman's mother, Queen Hippolyta, travelled back in time and assumed the mantle of Wonder Woman during World War II: All-Star Comics 80-Page Giant, The Justice Society Returns!, Wonder Woman: The 18th Letter, JSA: Strange Adventures, and JSA: Ragnarok have all been stories to show a time-travelling Hippolyta as part of the Justice Society.

It dawned on me while reading Strange Adventures that I had never actually read the story that established this retcon! So I did some research and discovered it happened during an arc in John Byrne's Wonder Woman run, in issues #130 to 133, with a prologue in Speed Force #1 and an epilogue in Adventure Comics 80-Page Giant #1, and then Phil Jimenez had returned to the idea during his run on Wonder Woman. All these issues are on DC Universe Infinite, so I added them to my JSA marathon... which will clearly never end. (Except that the Adventure Comics issue isn't on the service, and I didn't realize that soon enough to get hold of a hard copy, so I'll have to read that sometime later.)

from Speed Force #1

The story begins with a prelude in Speed Force, where the Golden Age Flash, Jay Garrick, narrates a story of how in 1942 he was once saved by a mysterious man who looked like his father, accompanied by a woman. This sets up the main story, where Jay sees footage of Queen Hippolyta as Wonder Woman and realizes that she was the woman—and therefore the man must be him from 1998, having traveled back in time to 1942. So Hippolyta and Jay travel back in time (as you do) and save his younger self to keep the timeline consistent... but then they accidentally become embroiled in a JSA adventure when Johnny Thunder is captured by Nazis looking to make off with his Thunderbolt. Soon they've revealed who they are, and are traveling with the JSA to Nazi-occupied Europe to rescue Johnny and his T-bolt.

John Byrne is one of the greats of comic bookdom, which makes this storyline's utter flatness all the more frustrating. Most of it is narrated retrospectively; Jay and Hippolyta leave in issue #130, and Jay comes back alone in the same issue, and then fills in everything that happened retrospectively in issues #131-33. There is just so much dialogue and narration that it feels like you are not actually experiencing the story in question but having someone summarize it for you. The dialogue is all people explaining things to each other, not actual conversations. Within Jay's flashback there are even further flashbacks with even more narration! When the story's not about Hippolyta and Jay, it cuts to what the dead Diana is doing with the Greek gods, which is all people explaining things to each other about godhood; there's a back-up strip about Artemis and Wonder Girl which is all explanations about Etrigan and Merlin. So much exposition! Byrne's art is good of course, but he smothers it.

from Wonder Woman vol. 2 #133

(The time travel is both a predestination paradox and changes the past. Jay and Hippolyta have to save the Flash so that history remains on track, but then everything else they do in the past changes it, so that when Jay returns to the present, he remembers knowing Wonder Woman when he was young even though he didn't remember this before he left.)

It feels to me like the thing that matters about this story isn't actually in it. Because it focuses on a pretty pedestrian JSA adventure, and because it's all told by Jay, the thing we don't get that we really should is Hippolyta! What does she feel about being in this time? Why does she decide to stay? Who knows! Byrne isn't interested in her as a character, he's interested in her only as a source of retroactive continuity. Mollmann's Law of Retcons, often quoted around here, is that the new version must be at least equal in interest to the previous version, if not moreso, but perhaps there should be a second one: the retcon should lead to a story, not be a continuity change for the sake of continuity. Byrne wanted to bring back the Golden Age Wonder Woman, but he forgot to tell a story to go along with it. It's four issues of nothing.

Thankfully, Phil Jimenez came back to it four years later and did tell a story. In his story, Diana is back to being Wonder Woman and on a time travel adventure when she is accidentally diverted to 1943. She bumps into her mother, but to preserve the timeline, disguises herself as the Golden Age hero Miss America. The two must work together to stop some Nazis from obtaining occult artifacts.

Unlike Byrne's story, Jimenez's actually focuses on Hippolyta as a person. Through this adventure, Diana gets to see a different side of her mother, where she's relaxed, part of a community... and friends with benefits with Wildcat! (I guess if anyone punches above his weight, it will be a championship boxer.) The ending in particular, where mother and daughter each talks about how they feel about their family, ties it all together in way that totally justifies the retcon in terms of story and that Byrne's actual story totally failed to do.

(As always, a continuity note: in All-Star Squadron, The Young All-Stars and Secret Origins, Roy Thomas established that in the post-Crisis history, what had been Wonder Woman's role in the JSA was taken by Miss America. I don't think a single writer after Roy Thomas, however, actually used this idea: she's not in The Demise of Justice, for example. Then Byrne made his retcon of the retcon, and Miss America was doomed, because anyone wanting to use Wonder Woman in a WWII-era JSA story could just use her. Diana calls her obscure in this storyline: so much for being a key member of the JSA!)

"A Stranger with My Face" originally appeared in issue #1 of Speed Force (Nov. 1997). The story was written and illustrated by John Byrne, colored by Noelle Giddings, and edited by Jason Hernandez-Rosenblatt.

Past Imperfect originally appeared in issues #130-33 of Wonder Woman vol. 2 (Feb.-May 1998). The story was written, pencilled, inked, and lettered by John Byrne; colored by Patricia Mulvihill; and edited by Paul Kupperberg.

"U-Boats & Dinosaurs" and "Her Daughter's Mother" originally appeared in issues #184-85 of Wonder Woman vol. 2 (Oct.-Nov. 2002). The story was written and pencilled by Phil Jimenez, inked by Andy Lanning (#184-85) and Larry Stucker (#185), colored by Trish Mulvihill, and edited by Eddie Berganza.

This post is forty-second in an ever-expanding series about the Justice Society and Earth-Two. The next installment covers Batman/Wildcat. Previous installments are listed below:

Wonder Woman: The 18th Letter: A Love Story by Christopher Priest, Karl Waller, Mark McKenna, et al.

I read this Wonder Woman story because it was the first appearance of the "original" "Golden Age" Fury, Helena Kosmatos, since The Young All-Stars, as well as her first-ever appearance in the present-day of the DC universe. It's a sort of complicated story: Wonder Woman is trying to put an end to a civil war in the Mediterranean(?) nation of New Vladonia, when she's attacked by Fury and given a proposal by Michael Lysander, leader of the East Vladonian Resistance.

Lysander turns out to be an ancient Greek demigod named Alcmaeon, who wants Wonder Woman to fall in love with him; if she'll sleep with him, he'll end the fighting. Much of the story alternates between Dinah going on dates with him, and Dinah wondering if this is the right way to bring peace to "man's world." For some reason, Superman turns up, as Clark is full of opinions on what Dinah can do with her body. It's like, dude, I think you are married to someone else! I found a lot of this hard to follow, actually, particularly bits that seemed to assume I knew more about Alcmaeon than I did. What actually was the 18th letter?

The Fury stuff isn't very well integrated into the rest. Partially this is because its stakes are kind of murky, as a lot of what is going on depends on backstory... backstory we have never actually seen, because since The Young All-Stars, the continuity terrain has shifted a lot. Roy Thomas created the original Fury to (partially) replace the Golden Age Wonder Woman's role in the post-Crisis DC universe. But later, John Byrne established that the Golden Age Wonder Woman's role in the Justice Society was actually taken by Diana's mother, Queen Hippolyta, travelling back in time and adopting the role of Wonder Woman. This comic establishes that while living in the 1940s, Hippolyta adopted a maternal role toward Helena, enough that Helena is jealous of Diana, Hippolyta's "real" daughter.

from Legends of the DC Universe #32
(art by Pablo Raimondi & Karl Waller and Mark McKenna)

Like, the emotional throughline of this story is all dependent on two retcons that I don't think were ever really intended to go together! We never saw the Helena/Hippolyta relationship, and I found it difficult to care about. Also, where has Helena been since World War II? Why did she give her daughter Lyta up for adoption? (For some reason, Helena says to Diana, "You've taken everything from me--my mother, my child..." Like, she's just living in LA, lady; go look her up in the phonebook.) Anyway, I think there's an attempt at some thematic overlap with the main story when it comes to love, violence, and redemption, but there's too much going on in this story's three issues, and so it's just not enough.

Both Helena and Lyta now exist in the present-day DC universe, but as far as I know, no writer ever connected the two Furies in any way; after this, Helena seems to have only appeared in some Themysciran crowd scenes in Wonder Woman.

Wonder Woman: The 18th Letter: A Love Story originally appeared in issues #30-32 of Legends of the DC Universe (July-Sept. 2000). The story was written by Christopher Priest, pencilled by Karl Waller (#30-32) and Pablo Raimondi (#32), inked by Mark McKenna (#30-32) and Jason Baumgartner (#31), lettered by John Costanza, colored by Tom McCraw, and edited by Maureen McTigue.

 

This post is thirtieth in a series about the Justice Society and Earth-Two. The next installment covers Two Thousand. Previous installments are listed below:

1. All Star Comics: Only Legends Live Forever (1976-79)
2. The Huntress: Origins (1977-82)
3. All-Star Squadron (1981-87)
4. Infinity, Inc.: The Generations Saga, Volume One (1983-84)
5. Infinity, Inc.: The Generations Saga, Volume Two (1984-85)
6. Showcase Presents... Power Girl (1978)
7. America vs. the Justice Society (1985)
8. Jonni Thunder, a.k.a. Thunderbolt (1985)
9. Crisis on Multiple Earths, Volume 7 (1983-85)
10. Infinity, Inc. #11-53 (1985-88) [reading order]
11. Last Days of the Justice Society of America (1986-88)
12. All-Star Comics 80-Page Giant (1999)
13. Steel, the Indestructible Man (1978)
14. Superman vs. Wonder Woman: An Untold Epic of World War Two (1977)
• Wonder Woman: Earth-Two (1977-78)
15. Secret Origins of the Golden Age (1986-89)
16. The Young All-Stars (1987-89)
17. Gladiator (1930) ["Man-God!" (1976)]
    
18. The Crimson Avenger: The Dark Cross Conspiracy (1981-88)
19. The Immortal Doctor Fate (1940-82)
20. Justice Society of America: The Demise of Justice (1951-91)
21. Armageddon: Inferno (1992)
22. Justice Society of America vol. 2 (1992-93)
23. The Adventures of Alan Scott--Green Lantern (1992-93)
24. Damage (1994-96)
25. The Justice Society Returns! (1999-2001)
26. Chase (1998-2002)
27. Stargirl by Geoff Johns (1999-2003)
28. The Sandman Presents: The Furies (2002)
29. JSA by Geoff Johns, Book One (1999-2000)
    

Wonder Woman: Earth-Two

There's one last 1970s Earth-Two comic set retroactively during World War II that I didn't discover until reading All-Star Squadron, following Steel and Superman vs. Wonder Woman. In November 1975, the tv movie The New Original Wonder Woman aired on ABC, adapting the Golden Age comic book by setting Wonder Woman's adventures in World War II; this lead to a tv show from April 1976 to February 1977, similarly set during World War II.* These days, comics readers often complain when comics contort to be more like their television or film counterparts, but it's nothing unique to this moment: the Wonder Woman comic switched to a World War II setting to tie in to the tv show.

I don't know how they might have handled it without the multiple Earths set-up, but DC already had a method of depicting WWII-set adventures of Wonder Woman. In Wonder Woman vol. 1 #228 (cover-dated Feb. 1977, but actually released Nov. 1976), the Earth-One Wonder Woman encounters a villain who has traveled across time and dimensions from Earth-Two in 1943. She fights him, and ends up pulled back to his home dimension and time, and teams up with her Earth-Two counterpart to defeat him. Wonder Woman returns to 1970s Earth-One at the end of the issue-- but from that point onwards, Wonder Woman vol. 1 continues to follow the 1940s adventures of the Earth-Two Wonder Woman, not following its star back home.

The Earth-Two Wonder Woman would star in Wonder Woman for the next year in a series of adventures by a variety of writers and artists, and often guest-starring various members of the Justice Society; many were written by the ubiquitous Gerry Conway. My understanding is that these stories often owed more to the tv show than to the Golden Age comics they were supposedly set between; I think in the original Golden Age comics, Diana Prince was a nurse, but in these stories, she's in Army Intelligence, for example. Roy Thomas would of course pick up some details of these comics for All-Star Squadron, pitting some of the original Axis villains devised by Conway against the Squadron.

During this time, the Earth-Two Wonder Woman also had a feature in World's Finest vol. 1 that ran from issue #244 (Apr./May 1977) to #249 (Feb./Mar. 1978), and she played a role in "The Reality War!", a celebratory story in issue #250 (Apr./May 1978) that featured a whole mess of DC characters; she also had an epic 64-page story in DC Special vol. 2 #9 (1978).

But as you can tell if you pay attention to the dates, DC's tie-in had been a bit belated, and thus it didn't last long. In issue #243 of Wonder Woman vol. 1 (May 1978), released over six months after the tv Wonder Woman had switched to a contemporary setting, the Earth-One Wonder Woman was again pulled through time by a villain to Earth-Two (this time to 1945). The two Wonder Women teamed up again, and before returning to the future, the Earth-One Wonder Woman erased the Earth-Two Wonder Woman's memory of her, thus neatly explaining why the Earth-Two Wonder Woman hadn't known of Earth-One in any of the set-later-but-published-earlier JLA/JSA team-ups! Then, from #244 onwards, Wonder Woman vol. 1 again focused on the adventures of the Earth-One Wonder Woman.

So, are they any good? I don't know. I had intended to read all of these stories and review them... but I couldn't! Most go for silly money on the secondary market, if they're available at all, and few have even been digitized, so you can't read them on comiXology or DC Universe Infinite. My write-up here is just based on what I've read about these comics, not actually reading them myself. 

DC has done some good collections of older Wonder Woman comics the past few years, including collecting the "Diana Prince, Secret Agent" era (1968-73), and the "Twelve Labors" storyline (1974-76). It would be nice to see those continue into a reprint of this material; Wonder Woman #228-43, DC Special #9, and the Wonder Woman stories from World's Finest #244-50 would make a great, if a little chunky, collected edition. Maybe DC could toss in Superman vs. Wonder Woman and/or Wonder Woman vol. 1 #300 if they were feeling generous. The former I've already covered; the latter is a 1983 story where the Earth-One Wonder Woman visits her Earth-Two counterpart in the present, and establishes that Diana Prince married Steve Trevor and has a daughter, Lyta (later, of course, Fury of Infinity, Inc. fame). I would buy it! Below I'll list what chronologically such a collection would include, and what its credits would be. (Thanks to the Grand Comics database for the covers used in this essay and for credits information.)

---

Wonder Woman: Earth-Two

Writers: Gerry Conway, Martin Pasko, Jack C. Harris, Alan Brennert, Denny O'Neil, Roy & Dann Thomas
Pencillers: Jose Delbo, Don Heck, Mike Vosburg, Bob Brown, Jim Sherman, Mike Nasser, Jose Luis Garcia Lopez, Russ Heath, Steve Ditko, Dick Ayres, Joe Staton, George Tuska, Ross Andru

Inkers: Vince Colletta, Joe Giella, Dick Giordano, Bob Wiacek, Bob Smith, Dan Adkins, Steve Ditko, Frank Chiaramonte

Colorists: Liz Berube, Jerry Serpe, Adrienne Roy, Carl Gafford, D. R. Martin
Letterers: Milt Snapinn, Joe Letterese, John Workman, Ben Oda, Bill Morse, Gaspar Saladino, Clem Robins, John Constanza

• Wonder Woman vol. 1 #228-29
• World's Finest vol. 1 #244
• Wonder Woman vol. 1 #230-31
• World's Finest vol. 1 #245
• Wonder Woman vol. 1 #232-33
• World's Finest vol. 1 #246
• Wonder Woman vol. 1 #234-35
• World's Finest vol. 1 #247
• Wonder Woman vol. 1 #236-37
• World's Finest vol. 1 #248
• Wonder Woman vol. 1 #238-39
• World's Finest vol. 1 #249
• Wonder Woman vol. 1 #240
• All-New Collectors' Edition #C-54
• DC Special vol. 2 #9
• Wonder Woman vol. 1 #241
• World's Finest vol. 1 #250
• Wonder Woman vol. 1 #242-43, 300
  

* The show continued after that, but switched to a contemporary setting for seasons 2 through 4.

This post is a supplement in a series about the Justice Society and Earth-Two. The next installment covers Secret Origins of the Golden Age. Previous installments are listed below:

1. All Star Comics: Only Legends Live Forever (1976-79)
2. The Huntress: Origins (1977-82)
3. All-Star Squadron (1981-87)
4. Infinity, Inc.: The Generations Saga, Volume One (1983-84)
5. Infinity, Inc.: The Generations Saga, Volume Two (1984-85)
6. Showcase Presents... Power Girl (1978)
7. America vs. the Justice Society (1985)
8. Jonni Thunder, a.k.a. Thunderbolt (1985)
9. Crisis on Multiple Earths, Volume 7 (1983-85)
10. Infinity, Inc. #11-53 (1985-88) [reading order]
11. Last Days of the Justice Society of America (1986-88)
12. All-Star Comics 80-Page Giant (1999)
13. Steel, the Indestructible Man (1978)
14. Superman vs. Wonder Woman: An Untold Epic of World War Two (1977)
    

Review: Superman vs. Wonder Woman by Gerry Conway, José Luis García-López, and Dan Adkins

Collection published: 2020
Contents originally published: 1977
Acquired and read: December 2020

Superman vs. Wonder Woman: An Untold Epic of World War Two

​

Writer: Gerry Conway

Artists: Jose Luis Garcia Lopez and Dan Adkins

Letterer: Gaspar Saladino

Colorist: Jerry Serpe

 

My journey through the comics of Earth-Two is always revealing things I missed and have to go back for; when looking up the history of Baron Blitzkrieg while reading All-Star Squadron, I discovered that he was the villain of issue #C-54 of All-New Collectors' Edition in 1977, a giant "tabloid-size" comic set during World War Two. I decided I would go back and read it before returning to WWII in The Young All-Stars, but quickly realized that doing so would be prohibitively expensive: the original issue goes for $50+ on-line, and while it was reprinted in Adventures of Superman: José Luis García-López, Volume 1, that collection is out of print and goes for $200! But in a total coincidence, right at the moment I had given up reading the story, DC announced a facsimile-sized reprint, and in another coincidence, that reprint was released the month I was due to start reading The Young All-Stars!

 

That dude is my favorite.

 

The story is set in June 1942, and involves Superman and Wonder Woman independently discovering the existence of the Manhattan Project, as well as an effort by the Axis powers to steal its secrets. Though both don't want the bomb in Nazi hands, Wonder Woman doesn't want it in any human hands, while Superman has greater faith in America to do the right thing, and in the end, the two come to blows over it all-- though of course, they set their differences aside to punch some Nazis.

 

Wonder Woman!

The story, to be honest, is not the point. The point of this is to see Superman and Wonder Woman battling rendered in the beautiful art of José Luis García-López at an enormous size. In this regard, the book utterly delivers. Superman fights robot planes; Wonder Woman throws cars at Nazis; Diana Prince sneaks into military file rooms; Superman and Wonder Woman fight each other in Chicago and then on the moon. It all looks great.

 

You might notice a bias toward cool Wonder Woman moments in my scans-- that's because the story itself seems to be biased toward Wonder Woman over Superman, perhaps because Conway was at the time a regular writer of Wonder Woman?

Perhaps for this reason, the book fudges some Earth-Two details. Superman and Wonder Woman are drawn how their Earth-One versions looked in the 1970s, not how their Earth-Two versions looked in the 1940s. But given García-López created the style guide all DC merchandise was beholden to in the 1980s, why would you have him draw anything other than these characters' most iconic forms? The book also has things like Clark Kent working for Perry White at the Daily Planet, not-- as would be the case on Earth-Two-- him working for George Taylor at the Daily Star. On the other hand, it features Earth-Two villain Baron Blitzkrieg, and even includes a footnote referencing the Earth-Two-set World's Finest vol. 1 #246 for those who want to know his origin. So I think writer Gerry Conway is trying to have his Earth-Two cake and eat it too; use the iconic Earth-One versions of the characters because this is a story with broad appeal, but slip in some Earth-Two references for the dedicated comics nerds who worry about how such a story can exist in continuity. (Conway was at the time the writer of the adventures of the Earth-Two Wonder Woman in her self-titled comic and in World's Finest.) As far as weird continuity details go, we also learn that the moon of Earth-Two is home to the ruins of an extinct civilization, one that destroyed itself with the atomic bomb. Did any other comics writers pick up that weird nugget?

Roy Thomas would also go on to use Sumo in the Commander Steel storyline in All-Star Squadron.

While the story doesn't need to be very good, it actually has some nice touches that elevate it. It's framed as a series of declassified reports, the moral conflict is a good one, the appearance by Albert Einstein is fun, the way Diana Prince infiltrates military records is a great sequences, and the ending has a sharp piece of irony with President Roosevelt declaring to both superheroes, "As long as I am president... America will never use the bomb to kill. Never." Ouch. I understand that Roy Thomas depicted a post-Crisis version of these events in the Young All-Stars storyline Atom and Evil (as of this writing, I am on YA-S #14, and Atom and Evil begins in issue #21), but I would have liked to have seen him weave the pre-Crisis version of All-Star Squadron into these events, which I'm sure was his long-term plan.

 

The idea that Conway and his artists are reconstructing a story from declassified documents doesn't make a ton of sense, but it is cute.

Anyway, if you are at all interested in this story, this oversized reprint is a gorgeous way to experience it, and I highly recommend it. (Unfortunately, my scans here can't do justice to the best of its art, because its full-page panels are too big for my scanner!)

This post is the fourteenth in a series about the Justice Society and Earth-Two. The next installment is a supplement discussing the Earth-Two Wonder Woman comics. Previous installments are listed below:

1. All Star Comics: Only Legends Live Forever (1976-79)
2. The Huntress: Origins (1977-82)
3. All-Star Squadron (1981-87)
4. Infinity, Inc.: The Generations Saga, Volume One (1983-84)
5. Infinity, Inc.: The Generations Saga, Volume Two (1984-85)
6. Showcase Presents... Power Girl (1978)
7. America vs. the Justice Society (1985)
8. Jonni Thunder, a.k.a. Thunderbolt (1985)
9. Crisis on Multiple Earths, Volume 7 (1983-85)
10. Infinity, Inc. #11-53 (1985-88) [reading order]
11. Last Days of the Justice Society of America (1986-88)
12. All-Star Comics 80-Page Giant (1999)
13. Steel, the Indestructible Man (1978)
    

Faster than a DC Bullet: Project Crisis!, Part LV: The World of Flashpoint featuring Wonder Woman

My three days of Doctor Who reviews comes to an end with the best Fourth Doctor Adventure so far this series, Gallery of Ghouls.

Comic trade paperback, n.pag.
Published 2012 (contents: 2011)
Borrowed from the library
Read July 2016

The World of Flashpoint featuring Wonder Woman

Writers: Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning, Tony Bedard, James Robinson

Pencillers: Agustin Padilla, Scott Clark, Vicente Cifuentes, Ardian Syaf, Eddie Nunez, Gianluca Gugliotta, Christian Duce, Javi Fernandez
Inkers: Jose Aviles, Dave Beaty, Vicente Cifuentes, Diana Egea, Don Ho, Gianluca Gugliotta, Walden Wong, Javi Fernandez

Colorists: Nei Ruffino, Val Staples, Andrew Dalhouse, Kyle Ritter, The Hories
Letterers: Travis Lanham, Jared K. Fletcher, Dave Sharpe, John J. Hill

I'm not sure where I got my reading order for the Flashpoint collections from, but so far, it seems to make sense to read the Wonder Woman World of Flashpoint collection first. The first two stories in here, "Wonder Woman and the Furies" and "Emperor Aquaman," lay out the status quo of this new timeline we're suddenly in, from different perspectives. The Wonder Woman tale spans the history of the Flashpoint universe, showing us Princess Diana first encounter with Man's World, which results in an engagement to Aquaman. Reactionary elements in both the Amazon and Atlantean societies think merging the cultures is a Very Bad Idea, and manipulate events to kick off a war that wrecks much of the Earth, with Great Britain becoming an Amazon fortress and much of Europe devastated by an Atlantean geo-weapon.

That's Angela Merkel, right? It always amuses me when actual heads of state turn up in superhero comics. Though, in one of the stories in The World of Flashpoint featuring Superman, Germany is represented by an actual Nazi, so how does that track with this?
from Flashpoint: Emperor Aquaman #1 (script by Tony Bedard, art by Ardian Syaf & Vicente Cifuentes)

As a story, to be honest, the Wonder Woman one doesn't have a whole lot to recommend it, from either a writing or artistic perspective; the writing moves too quickly for us to get attached to this version of Diana, and the art is weird, either plasticky under one illustrator, or kind of flat under another. But the story's real purpose seems to be exposition: read this, and you'll know the background for every subsequent World of Flashpoint tale. As a result, "Emperor Aquaman" seems to have more room to breathe, giving more personal focus to Arthur Curry in this mad world, showing his youth (he spent much less time on the surface world than his Prime equivalent, to his morality's detriment) and how the attacks detailed in the Wonder Woman tale affected him on a personal level. It's not particularly amazing, but it works.

I'm not sure what I like less, plastic-face on the left, or giant-eye on the right.
from Flashpoint: Wonder Woman and the Furies #1 (script by Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning, art by Scott Clark & Dave Beaty) and #2 (script by Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning, art by Agustin Padilla & Jose Aviles)

If there's anything to like about these tales so far, it's how they all interlock to create a larger tapestry. "Lois Lane and the Resistance" shows us the backstory of some key events of "Wonder Woman and the Furies": like, we learn how come Lois is broadcasting a distress signal to the world from Great Britain, and how Diana figures out that her aunt has set her up. Other than that and some once again goofy art (the outfits Eddie Nunez puts Lois into are ridiculous, though I thought the issue illustrated by Christian Duce showed some real design sense) and a team up between Etrigan the Demon and Grifter, there's not much going on here.

At first I was gonna scan some of the art I didn't like, but then I was like, 'c'mon, self, accentuate the positive.' Looking at it again, I think it's the inking that really makes it work: Walden Wong is pretty reliable.
from Flashpoint: Lois Lane and the Resistance #3 (script by Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning, art by Christian Duce & Walden Wong)

The book closes out with "The Outsider," about an asshole criminal from India. This story isn't very strongly linked to the other three and probably could have gone in a different volume. James Robinson has written some good magnificent bastards before, but the Outsider isn't one of them: there's little to care about here, and fewer familiar characters and concepts from the DC universe appear, either. I found this one sort of joyless and grim in an uninvolving way.

Next Week: Okay, but what about Superman? Time to find out what happened to the Man of Steel in The World of Flashpoint!

Faster than a DC Bullet: Project Gotham, Part XI: Batman/Superman/Wonder Woman: Trinity

Comic hardcover, 198 pages
Published 2004 (contents: 2003)
Borrowed from the library
Read December 2014

Batman/Superman/Wonder Woman: Trinity

Writer & Artist: Matt Wagner
Colorist: Dave Stewart

Letterer: Sean Konot

Not in Continuity*
This is my third all-Matt Wagner comic in the course of this readthrough... and I want to like every one of them more than I do. Wagner's art is great, it's expressive, and he really captures the characters' personalities. I like the contrasts between Metropolis and Gotham and Paradise Island. I like how he mixes and matches villains between the three heroes here.

But his stories always seem to fail to coalesce. I think it's because they're maybe too ambitious. If this was just a superhero punch-up, it would be fine. But it wants to be something more, it wants to be first meeting between the three most important heroes of the DC universe, and it wants to say something about them as people, and about their ideals. What that statement is, however, gets lost in the muddle that is the plot, and I'm left dissastisfied, having glimpsed from a distance an excellent story that I haven't been allowed to read. This is good, but it's hard to shake the feeling that it ought to have been great.

* This readthrough of Batman stories is supposed to be of in-continuity (continuity being that of the 1985-2011 iteration of the DC universe) ones, but I didn't realize that Trinity didn't fit into continuity until I read it. There's no point in time where Superman and Batman would have met each other, but not Wonder Woman, and Batman has already been joined by Robin, as Robin's debut comes after the formation of the Justice League. I think.

Next Week: It gets a little cold outside, as Batman faces Mr. Freeze for the first time. Plus: his first attempt at a "Bat-Family" in Snow!