DC Comics just announced a very cool trade reprint coming out this Independence Day. It will represent Wonder Woman's revival, the comics in which the Emma Peel-version of Wonder Woman disappeared and the classic star-spangled version re-emerged and sought to rejoin the Justice League of America. Here's the solicitation.
WONDER WOMAN: THE TWELVE LABORS TP
LEN WEIN, CARY BATES, ELIOT S. MAGGIN and MARTIN PASKO
Art by CURT SWAN, IRV NOVICK, DICK DILLIN, KURT SCHAFFENBERGER and others
Cover by BOB OKSNER On sale JULY 4 • 232 pg, FC, $14.99 US
• Collects WONDER WOMAN #212-222.
• In these 1970s tales, Diana Prince is back as Wonder Woman – but she must prove her worthiness by undertaking twelve tasks – each monitored by one of her former Justice League teammates!
I only collected a few issues of this sequence when it was hitting the stands, but I've always hankered to read the whole thing, but lots of other shiny objects make me forget. This is a great chance to do so. Wonder Woman seems to feel the need to prove herself for some reason and so they concoct a means by which each of the League members will observe her as she goes about her heroic deeds, and then they will deem whether she is worthy to rejoin their ranks.
It's pretty shabby treatment really for a founding member (depending on which decade you read the origin story) and one wonders why she felt that way, but that was the nature of women in comics in the Silver and Bronze Ages. The days when she was the presumed "secretary" were not that far gone. Written and drawn by a who's who of Bronze Age DC male talent, these are some stories right out of the heart of the era.
Here are the covers, with the very neat motif of a different League member making a cameo and breaking the Fourth Wall to announce the story.
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Actually, the "classic" Wonder Woman had returned months earlier in #204, in a story that restored her powers and costume, killed off I-Ching, and introduced Nubia!
ReplyDeleteThe #204-#211 stretch included some nice interior work by Don Heck and Ric Estrada as well as covers by Nick Cardy!
And #207-#211 were re-written versions of Golden Age WW stories, though they are implied to be the Earth-One Wonder Woman, not the Earth-Two version portrayed in the original tales!
True that! Thanks.
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Regarding the Starhawk profile (I responded to that blog a month ago, but didn't hear back, so I'm trying on a newer post):
ReplyDeleteThis is great! I'm Jeff Christiansen, the head writer of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, and I also run the Unofficial Appendix to the OhotMU website, where we've got a profile on this Starhawk...but none of us knew about this publication. Would you be OK if I scan copy/download your images and post a few select panels to my profile?
http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix3/starhawkmsh.htm
I'll credit you, of course, and provide a link to your blog for anyone who wants to read the story.
Thanks!
Feel free to e-mail me directly at jchristiansen2@cfl.rr.com