Around the Store in 31 Days: Day Ten

OK, how about a superhero comic, since I've gone nine days without one...

This one is from our DC rack, and represents one of the best re-imaginings of a classic character that I think has ever been done.

The late 80s were a weird period for DC comics, still reeling from the impact of CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS. As I understand it, one of the various plans was that the entire "universe" was to be "rebooted", and started from scratch. This pretty much didn't happen in a satisfying fashion, with some books starting over, while others didn't. MAN OF STEEL revamped Superman, but Batman kept on being the "same old" BATMAN (barring, of course, BATMAN: YEAR ONE), and the less said about what was done with characters like Hawkman, the probably the better.

And then it was Wonder Woman's turn.

George Perez was the artist on Wonder Woman, and his first seven issues are collected as WONDER WOMAN: GODS AND MORTALS.

This is a nice retelling of the Wonder Woman origin, with a modern spin, as well as tying it deeply to Olympian myths.

What I like about Perez's WW is that she's a wide-eyed innocent, trained to fight, and savagely at that, but always looking for another way to solve the problem; that's really rare in super-hero comics. And there's a joy in seeing the world through her naive eyes -- one of my favorite sequences is the "Bullets & Bracelets" number, where a gun is fired at her for the first time, and its these four wonderful panels of her expression, all, "O! M! F! G!!!!"

Perez also gives WW a pretty strong supporting cast, stronger than she'd had in decades, and gave her real and tangible reasons to be around and to be what she is; ah, if only all revamps were as thoughtful as this one!

Great great stuff, and it is both exciting AND fun.

-B