Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons Review

For non-comic nerds, DC comics is the one with Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman, sometimes known as the Big Three heroes. Each has their own in-universe and real-life history, including some weird inexplicably weird storylines, see Batman’s Zebra Print outfit, Superman threatening to burn Batman at the stake for witchcraft, and Wonder Woman working at a restaurant called Taco Whiz.

But one of the big challenges for new comic fans is that Batman and Superman have very famous short, digestible comics collections that can be enjoyed without much other context. If you’re getting started with Batman, you’ll probably read Batman: Year One or The Long Halloween. For Superman, there’s All-Star Superman, Superman Birthright, or A Superman for All Seasons.

Wonder Woman’s had some newer graphic novels/collections trying to fill that niche (Wonder Woman Earth One and Wonder Woman: Dead Earth, for example), but nothing that’s broken into comics lore the same way.

I suspect the double Eisner award-winning Wonder Woman History: The Amazons is likely to change that, even though it’s not technically a Wonder Woman story. Instead, the book paints itself as the Greek Amazon society’s secret history, the one they share only with one another. It has elements of Greek tragedy and Homeric epic, with plenty of focus on the Greek gods and goddesses’ effects on mortal life.

And it’s phenomenal. Written by Kelly Sue DeConnick and co-created with artists Nicola Scott, Phil Jimenez, and Gene Ha, the book presents a legendary, cosmic backdrop to a story of a community of women attempting to survive the violence and misogyny of Ancient Greece. It’s a comic that feels like a real collaboration: not a writer’s vision of a story duly printed out by an artist, more of an oral history being depicted by artists capturing larger than life ideas and tiny, human moments.

One of the first images of the story is the most haunting: an endless array of Greek historical vases depicting women’s place in history and mythology, with blood smeared over the women’s form. That description doesn’t do it justice. If you’re interested in nothing else in this write-up, go find a nice, his resolution copy of that image and bask in it for a while. It’ll put you in the right headspace for this kind of story.

According to DeConnick, she has ideas ready for two more Historias in this vein, and I really hope she gets them. Until then, this one’s getting a place of honor on my bookshelf, and 5 legendary labors out of 5.