Who the Hell is Wonder Woman? pt. 2

Okay.

Now that anybody who actually read my last entry is a Wonder-history-buff, it’s time to look at 2006’s Wonder Woman #1.

It's all fun and games until all your eagle pals are sucked into a jet engine.

The issue was released in June of 2006, four months after the final issue of Wondy’s previous series.

Superman doing what he does best: crushing women and American soldiers with a tank.

The issue was written by Allan Heinberg, who you might recognize as a writer on shows like Sex and the City and Grey’s Anatomy. Prior to working on Wondy, he created and wrote Young Avengers over at Marvel, which is basically a super-gay ripoff of DC’s Young Justice.

They add a couple chicks to their team a few issues later. They're not happy about it.

Art chores were handled by Terry and Rachel Dodson, a husband-and-wife team of cartoonists well known for their cheesecake art. They became popular for their work on Harley Quinn (the clown girl from the Batman cartoons) and some Spider-Man/Black Cat miniseries that I’ve never read but I think was written by Kevin Smith and which we can probably assume was awful. They turned out some spectacular work on Wonder Woman, and made some slight adjustments to Wondy's outfit.

Boobs: The Series

It’s important to understand how high fan expectations were with this issue. Wondy had gone months without a series of her own, and the series that had just wrapped up had been mired in dreary politics and self-doubt. The last issue of her series wasn’t even really about her; it was about Superman. Fans were hungry for material.

In addition, you had DC’s blowhard editor-in-chief, Dan Didio, hyping up Diana’s new series at every opportunity. Here are some choice quotes to keep in mind for later:

“So, what I’m hoping is that one arc leads to the next leads to the next. We might give him breaks in between, but Allan is a guy who wants to be involved in Wonder Woman’s history for a good period of time, and we’re happy to let him play as long as he wants.”

From Heinberg:

"She's arguably as strong as Superman and as cunning as Batman, but she's not the archetypal Boy Scout or Dark Knight. She's been a princess, a goddess, a politician, an author, and a superhero. She's a pacifist, yet she's arguably the DCU's fiercest warrior. She has one of the most complex histories and supporting casts in comics history. But with Wonder Woman #1 we have an opportunity to peel back the layers a bit and simply ask, ‘Who is this woman? What does she want? And what's she going to do about it?’”

Sounds exciting, right? Lots of people thought so. It had been quite a while since someone who actually liked Wonder Woman and was familiar with her earlier comics history had written the book, and after years of Greg Rucka’s heavy-handed political and mythological stories, the promise of a fun, kinetic super-hero comic was very attractive.

This anticipation definitely showed, sales-wise. Wonder Woman #1 sold 132,600 copies the month of its release, and was the second-highest-selling DC title that month (only behind the $1, 80-page Brave New World special). That’s a huge number for Wondy, whose previous title used to move around 30,000 copies per month, and whose book currently pushes around 40,000. A really ugly variant cover courtesy of Adam Kubert boosted these sales.

Diana tries out her new superpower: an enormous fucking hand.

So how was the issue? Not that bad, actually.

In it, we find out that Wonder Woman’s sister Donna Troy took over for Diana during her year off. To her credit, she put together an outfit that didn’t primarily function to showcase her ass. So that’s something, even if it does look like she watched Spartacus too many times before getting dressed in the morning.

Donna makes a typically subtle entrance in a gorgeous two-page spread by Terry and Rachel Dodson.

Donna herself is an… interesting character. She’s sort of like DC’s low-rent answer to Marvel’s Jean Grey in that she has number of code names and occasionally gains god-like powers and goes insane. She also has the most fucked-up origin in comics, being a mirror-twin magical clone of Wonder Woman who was tortured for 1,000 lifetimes before being raised by the Amazons and eventually beginning a career as Wonder Girl.

Donna debuts a new costume in 1969's Teen Titans #33 on the right, and flies toward us in the first issue of what turned out to be an utterly irrelevant miniseries with gorgeous art by Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez.

Over the course of the issue, we also find out that she’s totally incompetent. Three of Wondy’s regular villains – Cheetah, Giganta, and Dr. Psycho – team up in an attempt to bring Diana out of exile. Donna engages them, is immediately incapacitated, and spends most of the next four issues being worn as a necklace by Giganta, a character who’s code-name is only slightly less subtle than if she were named “Huge-ella.”

There were some wonky aspects of the issue. Donna’s incompetence is one; at one point the Cheetah just sort of waltzes up to her and grabs the golden lasso from her. Donna has her shit totally wrecked by the powerful telepath Dr. Psycho a few pages later, when he forces her to hallucinate being attacked by a crazed, murderous Diana.

Defeated by her one weakness: phallic imagery.

The big reveal at the end of the first issue is… Diana! Fresh off her year of self-discovery and dressed to impress in a skin-tight white cat-suit, hot pink-tinted glasses, and those weird moon boots that the Dodsons insist on putting everyone in. She is introduced as Diana Prince, a name not used regularly by Wondy since the mid-80’s.

So what exactly is going on? What has Di decided to do with her life? Will Donna prove to be anything other than useful? And just what is the horrible truth of this story’s release schedule? We’ll find out next time.

Diana, still unaccustomed to wearing an outfit that doesn't leave her boobs hanging out all over the place.