2018.043 Wonder Woman: Forgotten Legends

Wonder Woman: Forgotten Legends
Written by: Kurt Busiek, Lee Marrs, George Perez
Illustrated by: Trina Robbins, Irv Novick, Rick Magyar, Ramona Fradon
DC Comics

176 Wonder Woman Vol 4: Godwatch

One of the better books being published today.  Solid, consistent and a joy to read.

Wonder Woman Vol 4: Godwatch
Writer: Greg Rucka
Artist: Bilquis Evely, Mirka Andolfo, Nicola Scott, Scott Hanna, Mark Morales, Andrew Hennessy, Raul Fernandez
DC Comics

156 Wonder Woman '77 Meets The Bionic Woman

I was really looking forward to this.  This is an epic crossover I could only ever dream about happening.  Two of the strongest genre characters on tv in the 70s meeting each other.  And for the most part, it accomplished what it set out to conquer.  The story makes sense, for the most part.  I could see this as happening on 70s tv (with budget restrictions paring some of it down.)  It was a decent read.  However.....

It wasn't perfect.  While the story was enjoyable, it read no better than competent fan fiction.  You could tell it was written by a fanboy who tried to cram every single character and reference from both shows into the story.  And by doing that, it really did bring it down to fanfic level.  There are too many things going on.  The plot is way too dense.  There are waaaaaaaay too many characters.  Clearly the editor on this book had no power to say PARE THIS MESS DOWN.  Okay, maybe mess is the wrong word, because it was decent enough, but it was not nearly as good as it could have been.

I love this whole series of books DC has been doing by itself and with other publishers.  It's fun fluff to read.  Lord knows we can all use an escape.

Wonder Woman '77 Meets The Bionic Woman

Writer: Andy Mangels

Artist: Judit Tondora

DC Comics/Dynamite

131 Batman '66 Meets Wonder Woman '77

You want a fun book?  This is a fun book.  I swear to God.  It's like a big wad of cotton candy in a hardcover book.  

I had no idea how the story would transpire.  I figured that it was going to have a time travel element, but I was wrong.  Marc Andreyko and Jeff Parker were given the pieces to a puzzle and they put them together to make them work flawlessly.

This is kind of three stories in one.  The first chapter is a flashback to when Bruce Wayne was a boy and Wonder Woman (from season 1 of her show) ended up at Wayne Manor to battle Nazis.  The second chapter takes place during the Batman '66 run.  Diana is on Paradise Island and that's where the action moves to.  The last chapter takes place in 1977 when Diana is back in America, Batman is retired, Robin has become Nightwing and Batgirl is now Police Commissioner AND Batwoman.

Bravo to all involved making this book work so wonderfully.  Every once in a while you just need something that is pure sugar.  This is that book.

Batman '66 Meets Wonder Woman '77

Writer: Marc Andreyko, Jeff Parker

Artist: David Hahn, Karl Kesel, Bill Williams

DC Comics

127 Wonder Woman Vol 3: The Truth

This still remains one of my favorite of the Rebirth books.  While I hate that we are yet again reinventing Wonder Woman (that is getting so fucking old), I feel like this is the version that is going to stick.  I like that this is the proper opportunity to tie in aspects of the movie to the comic.  While they aren't going to be on the exact same page, there are a lot of similarities that people who saw the movie will recognize.

This is the Wonder Woman that the New 52 WW should have been.  I enjoyed that run, but it felt like a giant Elseworlds story to me rather than canon.  I like that it's been addressed and we're moving forward.  

I like how the whole Doctor Poison thing is worked into this book.  Logical and sensible to me.  

The art seemed a little off to me, though.  I don't know why.  I ate up the art in the first volume.  This one it seems slightly rushed or something.  I can't place my finger on it. 

All in all, one of DC's best books. (for now)

Wonder Woman Vol 3: The Truth

Writer: Greg Rucka

Artist: Liam Sharp, Renato Guedes, Bilquis Evely

DC Comics

107 Wonder Woman Vol. 2: Year One

Wonder Woman is published twice monthly with issues alternating storylines.  The odd numbered issues tell a story set today.  The even numbered issues tell her backstory.  I thought it was an interesting concept.  I appreciate that each story is collected separately.  But after finishing this volume, I realize that doing it this way makes you miss a certain layer of storytelling.  The modern day story and this flashback story feature Barbara Minerva.  I think you'd get more out of the stories by reading them in the order that they're published.  Not to say that you can't read them as stand alone stories.  You absolutely can and they're both wonderful.  In fact, I'm willing to say that my enjoyment of this series is higher than it's been in YEARS.  Greg Rucka is hitting it out of the ballpark with this book.  It's a shame he's already leaving the series.  I feel like he's got a lot more Wonder Woman in him that I need to read.  Also already off the book is Nicola Scott, who is giving some of her best work ever to this project.  This book couldn't make me happier.  We're stripping away the New 52 version of the character, we're pulling elements of the awesome Wonder Woman movie into the book.  It's just fabulous.  You're missing out if you aren't reading Wonder Woman.  For real.

Wonder Woman Vol. 2: Year One

Writer: Greg Rucka

Artist: Nicola Scott, Bilquis Evely

DC Comics

082 Wonder Woman By John Byrne Vol 1

I'm really looking forward to re-reading John Byrne's run on Wonder Woman.  It's kind of like Velveeta.  It has absolutely no nutritional value, but that doesn't stop you from reading and kind of enjoying it.

I don't remember how long he was on the book, but I do remember he had a few big arcs.  It's been so long that I didn't really remember too much of what's reprinted here.  I'm waiting for his Hippolyta arc and his (kind of awful) Donna Troy arc.  I have very fond memories of both of those.

What he did here is take Diana, drop her in a new city, set up a new supporting cast and introduce the seeds for the new Wonder Girl.  At this stage in her fictional life, Wonder Girl is kind of a horrible idea.  Thankfully later on she gets fleshed out much better, only to be turned into something even worse than what we have here in the New 52.

Lots of guest stars in this book.  I like guest stars.  Sue me.  

The only thing that really pissed me off about this book is Byrne did what everyone else likes to do when they have no idea what they're doing with Wonder Woman.  They stage something big and tragic on Themyscria and slaughter half the Amazons.  That's so overdone and such bullshit.  Future writers, don't even think about it!!

Wonder Woman By John Byrne Vol 1

Writer: John Byrne

Artist: John Byrne

DC Comics

047 Wonder Woman Vol 1: The Lies

Where to begin?  Wonder Woman has been fucked up for longer than I care to remember.  Gail Simone wrote a glorious run on the book a number of years ago.  It was fantastic.  And then DC decided, fuck it, let's wreck Wonder Woman.  They handed the book over to J. Michael Strczynski, who threw everything that came before away and we started with a new Wonder Woman.  His run was awful, though the thing people hated most about it was putting her in pants.  That's the one thing I liked.  But I digress.  Wonder Woman's direction after that seemed to be based on this awful misstep.  When the New 52 started, it felt like the Strczynski influence could be felt.  But this is where things get really confusing.  The main Wonder Woman title definitely through away EVERYTHING that came before it and radically revamped her origin.  And while the story itself was kind of fun to read, I wish they called it an Elseworlds or something like that, because it just wasn't Wonder Woman to me.  Nor was the other version of the character that was appearing outside the main title.  The Wonder Woman in Justice League was not the Wonder Woman in Wonder Woman.  They had different personalities, they had different back stories.  There was no consistency.   When Meredith Finch took over the book, it felt like she was given the unenviable task of taking the character from Wonder Woman and turn her into the character from the rest of the DC Universe titles.  Her run was panned, but I didn't find it as bad as the rest of fandom.

Now we come to the Rebirth Wonder Woman.  She is neither the pre-New 52 Wonder Woman, the Azzarello Wonder Woman, the Finch Wonder Woman nor the rest of the DCU Wonder Woman.  It feels like a whole different take on the character again, but it feels more honest.  And the running theme of this book is Wonder Woman's whole past has been a lie.  And she's out to find out what the truth is and what's going on.  I was a little scared when I heard Greg Rucka was going to be writing this book.  He's a great writer, but I wasn't a huge fan of his previous run on Wonder Woman.  He more than made up for it with this volume.  I couldn't put it down.  I want more.  Now.  I love where this story is going (so far) and want to see how it unfolds.  The next volume of this book will not pick up where this story left off.  It should be a flashback tale drawn by the amazing Nicola Scott.  I can't wait for that, either!

Wonder Woman Vol 1: The Lies

Writer: Greg Rucka

Artist: Liam Sharp, Matthew Clark, Sean Parsons

DC Comics

014 Wonder Woman: Her Greatest Battles

I've said before that I do love a good compilation.  This is one of those things that sounds so good in my head, but in reality kind of falls short.  The problems, for me, are (1) there are so many stories you could pick, but such limited space that something good is going to miss out and (2) there are rarely any done-in-one stories anymore that anything you put in a book like this is going to be one part of a multi part story.  So odds are you're going to be lost or not really care what's going on.

It's an interesting choice of stories here.  The oldest is from the beginning of George Perez's run and the most recent is from the Azzarello/Chiang run.  I'm bummed out that nothing from Phil Jimenez's run on the book made the cut.  Or from Allan Heinberg's run.  But space limitations and such.

The book does work well giving you a lot of fighting.  Wonder Woman battles Ares, Max Lord, Cheetah, Power Girl.  You get a nice variety.  There's an issue of Geoff Johns' New 52 Justice League in here that really doesn't fit.  At all.  I wish that was sacrificed in favor of something else.

All in all, it's a good, mindless romp through Wonder Woman's recent history.

Wonder Woman: Her Greatest Battles

Writer: George Perez, John Byrne, Greg Rucka, Gail Simone, Geoff Johns, Brian Azzarello

Artist: George Perez, John Byrne, Drew Johnson, Rags Morales, David Lopez, Tom Derenick, Georges Jeanty, Karl Kerschl, Chris Battista, Fernando Dagnino, Jim Lee, Cliff Chiang

DC Comics