Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons Vol 1 by Kelly Sue DeConnick, Phil Jimenez, Gene Ha & Nicola Scott

OKAY, I am still inordinately pissed at the absurd, regressive, anti-feminist retcon that DC Comics gave Wonder Woman’s origins with the New 52. I know that people say that comic book back stories are like changeable weather: if you don’t like it, wait a short period of time and it’ll change again. But between the increasingly more ridiculous attempts at codifying Emma Frost’s back story over at Marvel, and the fact that the Kuberts’ boring ass mini series is STILL the accepted origin story for Wolverine, I had no hope of the Distinguished Competition returning one of my favorite comic book characters to her sui generis roots.

But then I read this volume and holy shit, y’all! HOLY SHIT! Idk if this is canon but this is 100% a step back in the correct direction, a return to George Perez’ excellent interpretation. In fact, Wonder Woman Historia gives one of the best comic book characters of all time the kind of 21st century update that would never have passed the restrictions of the Comics Code era in which Mr Perez worked. Honestly, I hope this book would make him proud. It certainly made my heart beat faster, and my soul sing with both recognition and glee.

Wonder Woman herself only shows up in the very last pages of this book, but to a very large extent, learning about the origins of the Amazons is very much an important part of learning about the heroic character. Insofar as Diana is the manifestation of a long chain of mythology brought into the modern world, it seems only right that the women who birthed (after a fashion) and parented her should also have their stories told.

This storytelling team — and I deliberately use that term here for reasons I’ll explain later in this review — begins with a tale of the goddesses of Olympus rebelling against their male counterparts, demanding satisfaction for the myriad ways in which their female and not-male worshippers are being continually abused by the male. Zeus, unsurprisingly, laughs off their concerns. The six goddesses, minus watchful Hera, decide to take matters into their own hands, and create a line of women who will avenge the wrongs done against the innocent by cruel, selfish men who are secure in their privilege from any prosecution, worldly or divine.

Into the midst of these Amazons comes Hippolyta, the mortal woman who will become their queen. Undone by an act that society has assured her is no crime, she’s abandoned nearly everything about her old life, and lies dying when they first encounter her. They save her life, and she vows to become one of them. But the Amazons’ acts of vengeance and valor can only go unnoticed for so long. When the time comes for a reckoning, what will the Amazons and their allies do to survive?

Readers, I cried. In the final pages, when Hippolyta thinks she’s ruined everything, only for Hera to bestow the gift she’s been patiently nurturing for the right time: I read those and I sobbed like a baby.

And it isn’t just Kelly Sue DeConnick’s meticulous, effortless-seeming writing that evoked that reaction. Pencillers Phil Jimenez (who himself wrote and illustrated Wonder Woman for several years in the early 2000s,) Gene Ha and Nicola Scott — with their respective AMAZING colorists: HiFi, Arif Prianto & Romulo Fajardo Jr; Wesley Wong, and Annette Kwok — pour a completely insane amount of work and detail into each page. You don’t have to read the wonderful back matter to know exactly how much, as it’s entirely self-evident, but I highly recommend that you do. In addition to learning about Ms Scott’s manual drawing processes and the absolutely mind-blowing amount of thought Mr Jimenez put into designing each of the original 18 Amazons, you discover a very important note amidst Mr Ha’s essay on his extremely intelligent approach to drawing. Mr Ha includes a letter from Ms DeConnick which makes it very clear that the story here is not something she is writing that the pencillers are merely drawing at her direction. Instead, they are very much collaborating to tell a story with both words and pictures, to entirely devastating effect.

I have had the privilege of reading a lot of wonderful graphic novels over the years but this book is damn near peerless. There were a few questions I would have liked answered but overall this is the best book on Wonder Woman’s Amazons, and the best book about Amazons that doesn’t explicitly star Wonder Woman ever written.

I have two more nominees in the Hugo Awards 2024 category for Best Graphic Story to get through but they’re going to have to be really special to beat this one.

Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons Vol 1 by Kelly Sue DeConnick, Phil Jimenez, Gene Ha & Nicola Scott was published June 6 2023 by DC Comics and is available from all good booksellers, including