Things are looking good for Warner Bros’ Amazonian Warrior, Wonder Woman, as her premiere film drops in theaters this week!. Gal Gadot and Chris Pine will bring Diana of Themyscira and Steve Trevor to life from their comic book origins as Gadot makes a return from her initial outing in last year’s Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice. Wonder Woman has existed in the pages of comics books for over 75 years, originally created by William Marston who also invented the lie detector test (hence the Lasso of Truth), with DC Comics so it’s fantastic to see her finally star in her own feature film. Luckily, positive reviews of the movie are seemingly unanimously pouring in, including from our own Matt Goldberg, so what better way to become acquainted with Diana Prince than reading up on some of the best comics with her name on it to date?
Wonder Woman: George Perez Omnibus
For those who don’t know comic book lingo, an omnibus is basically a giant collection of single issue comic books bound into one big volume. With the Wonder Woman: George Perez Omnibus, you receive arguably the most iconic run of the amazonian princess to date. Following the big crossover event, Crisis on Infinite Earths, in the 1980s, DC Comics rebooted their entire superhero line. Giving each character to a creator to retell their origin story for a new generation, comic book legend George Perez was granted the opportunity to recreate Wonder Woman from the ground floor up. While numerous parts of Wonder Woman’s original origin, such as her creation from clay, her origin city of Themyscira, and her lasso of truth, were kept in the mix, Perez took the opportunity to delve much deeper into her early life and how the society of Themyscira operated.
What Perez truly strengthened were Diana’s connections to the Greek Pantheon. Zeus, Ares, Olympus and many other stalwarts of Greek myth were included into Diana’s origins here, really establishing her new identity and how she fit into the DC Universe at large, adding mysticism and epic grandeur to her character. What these stories also did was show how the character of Wonder Woman really stood up as an agent for peace, a hero that was more against the idea of violence and war than most that had come before her. While this would sometimes change depending on the writer, and how they saw Diana, this interpretation of Wonder Woman really attempted to act as someone that saw violence as a last resort, hoping to better the “world of man” with her presence. Who we know as Wonder Woman today is heavily influenced by George Perez’s original run following Crisis, and it is a must buy for anyone that wants a strong understanding of who Diana Prince is as a character.
Infinite Crisis
You’ll have to pardon me on this choice as it’s more of a personal choice than anything, but I’ll go into detail as to why I chose Infinite Crisis as an epitome of Wonder Woman stories. Infinite Crisis, written by Geoff Johns with art by Phil Jiminez, was a fairly epic storyline that essentially pitted the heroes of today against the heroes of DC’s past “Silver Age”. Alternate versions of Superman, Lex Luthor, and Superboy found themselves attempting to create a new reality by combating the current incarnations of themselves. So where does Wonder Woman fit into this massive event? Well Infinite Crisis had each hero of the DC Universe take an introspective look at themselves, with Wonder Woman having recently needed to commit murder in order to save the lives of Superman and countless others thanks to the former hero turned villain, Maxwell Lord.
What Infinite Crisis managed to do is show the stark difference between Diana and her two partners, Batman and Superman, within DC’s “Trinity”. While Wonder Woman may be an advocate of peace, she’s also a warrior and would take necessary steps to end a threat, murder being one of them. This doesn’t tarnish her character in a way that it would with Batman and Superman because it plays to the strengths of her origins and her character overall. She had no slain parents to avenge or lost planet to mourn, simply a pledge to make the world a better place and if she had to get her hands dirty in order to do so, it was a cross she was willing to bear. Wonder Woman isn’t a squeaky clean hero in the same way that Batman and Superman are, or many other mainstays of the DC Universe, and it makes her a more interesting character because of it. She’s a warrior born and Infinite Crisis exemplifies that idea.
Wonder Woman: Hiketeia
Pound for pound, if you’re looking for the best modern writer of Wonder Woman and her adventures, you’d be hard pressed to choose someone better than Greg Rucka. Rucka has been writing Diana for several years now, even rebooting her somewhat once again with DC Comics’ recent “Rebirth” storyline. However, while his current comics featuring Wonder Woman are fantastic, it was his initial offering that continues to be the story that defines his work. Hiketeia sees Wonder Woman bound to an oath, as part of an ancient ritual, to protect a young girl who had murdered the murderers of her sister. Protecting the girl, Diana is now faced with confronting justice for the girl’s crimes in the form of none other than Batman, looking to have Diana’s ward prosecuted for her crimes.
Hiketeia itself works on a number of different levels, the first being the difference between the world of Diana’s past and her present. The two clash in such a way that it exemplifies how different the two are, not just in the fact that he origin lies in a world of Gods and mystical islands, but that the two locales hold two different parts of Diana’s soul in place. Choosing to fight Batman, Diana holds true to her past in a battle that she could not truly win regardless of the outcome. It makes for some great reading and puts the readers into a quandary themselves, attempting to figure out exactly what the right play is for the character of Wonder Woman and if things can ever be the same again for her moving forward.
Wonder Woman: Blood, Guts, Iron
Encompassing the first collections of the “New 52’s” storyline that introduces us to the new Wonder Woman, Diana’s origin has once again changed to reflect modern times. From writer Brian Azzarello and artist Cliff Chang, this new incarnation introduces us to a hero that is no longer simply an amazon made of clay, but the daughter of Zeus himself. Diving head first into the bizarre nature of Diana’s beginnings, this new interpretation presents the Amazons as almost bloodthirsty with origins showing their various murdering of men who dared to broach their lands. Where this eventually led was Wonder Woman becoming the God of War herself and placing her as arguably the most powerful superhero in the DC Universe, as it’s revealed her bracelets are actually a dampener to contain her additional powers. Azzarello’s run is a trip to be sure, taking pre-established Greek characters and turning them on their heads (just look at his example of what Hades looks like to get a better sense of what I mean), making the story all the better for it.
The writing itself presents Diana in a fresh new light while also giving us some absolutely breathtaking artwork from Cliff Chang. It’s hard to think of a time when Diana was portrayed better than in the brushstrokes of Chang here. Azzarello’s story introduced us to a story of Wonder Woman that took place, practically, through the eyes of a third party, a woman who was carrying the child of Zeus. It makes an interesting dynamic, much like Hiketeia did, in that we have someone to relate to in this fantastical new world while also making it for a much more self-contained epic. If you want your feet on the ground for what the most recent incarnation of Wonder Woman is, this is the story to pick up.