I suppose this really is the best place to start if you want to begin reading Wonder Woman. Quite possibly the greatest run on the character ever, so much of what we have today started here.
Story: There are several volumes collected here. I really enjoyed Gods and Mortals. It starts off with the origin of the Amazons which is beautiful and glorious! We see Diana's creation and briefly her years growing up as the only child on the island that the rest of the Amazons raise to adulthood. We also get a look into the workings of Olympus and the politics of the gods. Ares is more than a suitable villain for Wonder Woman and I really enjoyed getting to know Ares through his plotting and scheming. I thought the climax with Diana and Ares was not only appropriate, but clever. I love endings like that where the villain is not necessarily defeated just because the hero beat them up. Challenge of the Gods was really neat as Diana sets out to find herself and discover her purpose. We get to see the inner workings of Themyscira and beneath the island behind Doom's Doorway. Diana basically goes on a sort of Labyrinthian quest, a comic book dungeon crawl through the most dangerous part of Paradise Island and fights many fantastical and mythical creatures. I was blown away at the end when Diana discovered the meaning of her namesake and the story behind it. It really offers a new insight into not only Diana, but her supporting cast as well! I loved seeing Diana fight Cheetah for the first time and I was glad to see that Barbara Minerva was more than a match for Diana. All of a sudden I found Olympus destroyed and the gods talking about the "cosmic migration" and rebuilding Olympus elsewhere after the destruction of Darkseid. This takes place, I believe, in Action Comics #600, which is not included in this omnibus, so I sort of had to put two and two together with context clues. Initially, that threw me off but it didn't really take away from the experience. I enjoyed seeing Diana encounter Circe for the first time in Post Crisis continuity, but I didn't really care for the climax of the story. It makes sense by the end of the omnibus, but initially I felt it was sort of a deux ex machina. I really enjoyed the story, "Who Killed Myndi Mayer?". In a sea of godly tales and quests, this story really grounds Diana and her supporting cast as they find themselves basically in a murder mystery. It was quite good, very sad, but also hopeful in the end. Probably one of the better stories in the whole omnibus. I was once again pleasantly surprised by the revelations surrounding Julia and her past. That was a real headspin! The last story was neat as Hermes attempts to win over humanity, but through bribery, which Diana protests. We see Hermes unleash the world's first murderer who is a giant monster, and Wonder Woman and Hermes battle the behemoth amidst the chaos caused by two Greek legends. In the end, we also learn that even gods can be all too human. This omnibus has some great stories that are epic in scale, majesty, beauty, and action! There are so many interesting characters in these stories, it's hard to keep track of all of them, but it's great to get to know them!
Art: George Perez is one of the greatest artists in comics history with a phenomenal run on New Teen Titans, of coarse. He also drew Crisis on Infinite Earths, and his art here is wonderful and really brings out the scope and scale of the Greek pantheon, the beauty and majesty of Paradise Island and its denizens, and the glory and courage of Wonder Woman. For me, George Perez's design of Wonder Woman is my quintessential look for her. How she appears on the cover of the omnibus is how I imagine her in my mind. This series came out in the late 80s so there aren't as much splash pages as there are now and the art mostly falls into outlined boxes. It took me a while to get through this because it is dated writing and art, and I'm much more accustomed to modern comics which are quite different than comics from this era. Thankfully, it wasn't campy, but of coarse the 80's was the decade where comics grew up. Anyway, Perez's pencils here are still a masterwork and his art is iconic!
Overall: This was a great place to start reading Wonder Woman comics. I did read Morrison's Earth One book before this and one thing I found rather interesting and funny is that the origin given to Diana by Morrison in 2016 was completely shot down and described as a crime by Perez in 1987. Basically, Morrison's origin for Diana in Earth One might seem appropriate for modern times, and while it was written well, reading this omnibus made me realize how people might perceive it as being ugly and a perversion of Wonder Woman's deep mythology. I would like to point out that I still enjoyed Morrison's book. This omnibus is a tour de force of pure beauty, scope, scale, and yes, wonder that is rarely seen in comics today. Sometimes I felt as though I wasn't even reading a superhero comic but rather a comic about the Greek pantheon and their champion living among men and trying to bring about new teachings of equality, justice, trust, and love. It's so nice to see Wonder Woman come into her own in DC's history considering she was once relegated to being the JLA's secretary. This phenomenal run allowed her to finally get out of the shadow of Superman and Batman and join them as part of DC's Trinity! If you are interested in checking out Wonder Woman comics for the first time then this is the obvious place to start. I've heard that so many writers have taken elements presented by Perez and used them as part of their runs on this character, including Azzerello for The New 52, which I'm anxious to read. This omnibus has some fantastic stories, a slew of interesting characters, and a decent amount of action for an 80's comic. Frankly, it's the benchmark by which all other Wonder Woman comics are measured.
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Reviews with images
A must have book
600 plus pages of Wonder Woman Story and Adventure, Im in heaven :) will soon get Vol 2 and 3..
