Amazon.com: There can't be many people who haven't heard of Wonder Woman, arguably the first female superhero and one of the "big three" (the others being Batman and Superman). She was created by Dr. William Moulton Marston, who also invented the lie detector, as an antidote to masculine comic book adventures, drenched in violent testosterone-fueled imagery and portraying women as helpless weaklings who had to rely on the men to untie them from the train tracks in the nick of time. Wonder Woman was certainly no weakling. Dressed in stars and stripes, armed with bullet-deflecting bracelets and a magical lasso, and flying around in an invisible jet, she had no qualms about saving her boyfriend Steve Trevor from certain doom each issue while dealing a swift blow to the odd Nazi soldier as well. However, most people who aren't die-hard comic fans will have only memories of the camp and kitschy 1970s TV show, starring the leggy and beautiful Lynda Carter (who also contributes the book's foreword). As compelling and faithful as this small-screen adaptation was, there is so much more to the WW mythology than that, as Les Daniels admirably proves in this gorgeous hardback volume. It features lots of covers and extracted scenes from the comic books, from her earliest appearance to her latest 1990s image changes, and plenty of photographs of the plethora of WW merchandise created over the years. And for those of you old enough to remember the TV show, the lyrics of the infamous theme song are also here in all their star-spangled glory. This is a wonderful, nostalgic journey through the life and times of the first lady of superheroes and a real appreciation of WW's staying power and campy cult status. Beautifully packaged, absorbingly written, and wonderfully illustrated, this is a must-have for comic fans. --Jonathan Weir, Amazon.co.uk
Product Description: As beautiful as Aphrodite, strong as Hercules, wise as Athena, and swift as Mercury, the much-adored Wonder Woman is celebrated in this long-awaited Masterpiece Edition. This incredible collection pays tribute to the Golden Age of Wonder Woman in two ingenious formats: a compact, inexpensive, trade edition, and a larger, more deluxe collector's edition. Both contain an exclusive 8-1/2-inch action figure of Wonder Woman, circa 1941, and a lavishly illustrated hardcover book chronicling the origins and early history of the Amazon Princess. The Wonder Woman figure is available only in these editions, and it authentically replicates the heroine as she appeared in her earliest days--complete with star-spangled cloth skirt, golden bracelets, and detachable magic lasso (the one that can make a man forget everything). The larger collector's edition also contains a faithful color reproduction of the very first Wonder Woman comic book. Both editions will be treasured by fans of the woman who wants to "change your mind--and change the world!"
Les Daniels is no fan of Wonder Woman I have always enjoyed Les Daniels and his carefully researched books of comics history, but everyone has a blind spot. Wonder Woman is obviously his. This book, beautifully designed as it is, fails to capture what has made Wonder Woman such an enduring character and icon. It's clear on almost every page, Daniels is unimpressed by her. It's fine if he doesn't like her -- no one character can be everyone's favorite -- but it does make for a frustrating read at times when one wishes to celebrate Wonder Woman's unique place in comics history. His fascination with her creator is evident to the point that it seems clear Daniels would much rather write about Marston than Diana. His heavy emphasis on the bondage subtext of the Golden Age incarnation undercuts the more postive surface elements of those stories. Indeed, he sneers at Gloria Steinem's endorsement of those early years, casting great disbelief that there could be anything of substance taken from them.
Also, as another reviewer points out, Daniels gives short shrift to George Perez's post-Crisis revamp. Widely acknowledged by fans as the high point of her modern career, it's strange to see Daniels blandly note the support Perez got from female collegues in overhauling Wonder Woman's character and deride it by calling the later issues akin to ADVENTURES OF MENOPAUSAL MOM (I'm paraphrasing but only slightly). Daniels here suffers from the same fanboy syndrome that infuses the industry these days -- the idea that if HE doesn't appreciate it, it must be terrible. Meanwhile, Mike Deodato's art is viewed favorably, despite that being universely considered a lower point in the post-Crisis stories.
At the end of the book, it really seems as if Daniels only reluctantly churned it out because of a contractual obligation. His Superman and Batman books are excellent and filled with total respect for the characters and their appeal. If only he could've retained enough objectivity for the Wonder Woman assignment. Despite it all, it is a beautiful book and the history is thorough and still fascinating if somewhat subjective. Good for historical nuts, not so good for WW fans.
Mostly Wonderful Les Daniels' Wonder Woman: The Complete History is the third book in a 3-volume series (the first two addressed Superman and Batman). While not without its flaws, it's overall a well-researched and enjoyable treatment of the character.
Wonder Woman first appeared in 1941, the brainchild of Dr. William Moulton Marston (writing under the pen name Charles Moulton), by any standard a bit of a weirdo who's remembered today for two things: (1) he invented the polygraph, (2) Wonder Woman, of course.
I could pick a few nits with Daniels' text. In places he does reveal an ignorance on certain topics. For instance, when speaking of Marston's World War I U.S. Army service, he states Marston "rose to the rank of second lieutenant." False. No officer (and I can't imagine someone of Marston's high educational level ever being an enlisted man) "rises" to Second Lieutenant because that's the absolute lowest officer rank.
Daniels is extremely opinionated. How much space is allocated to any of Wonder Woman's creative teams over the decades is very much controlled by how much Daniels likes their work. Obviously the Marston stories, with artwork by Harry G. Peters, are his favorites thus receive the most attention, though he devotes surprising time and positive comment to the generally despised stories written by Robert Kanigher. This is fine. Half the fun of a book like this is getting the writer's likes and dislikes on the character and her creators. Where I part company with Daniels is his low opinion of the George Perez stories of the mid-1980s thru early '90s. Daniels devotes an entire chapter to Kanigher's creation of such fascinating (hah!) characters as Glop (a "shapeless mass of grinning goo from outer space [which] absorbed everything in its path including 100 rock 'n' roll records"), Wonder Tot ("Mommy be proud to see me now!"), and Egg Fu (a Chinese Communist agent inexplicably shaped like an egg the size of a house, who used his mustaches as weapons and had a Charlie Chan speech pattern). After that, it was more than a little disappointing to have the Perez stories, considered by many Wonder Woman fans including myself the character's finest hour (especially the stories on which Perez did the artwork in addition to scripting) dealt with in a mere seven text pages, much of that explaining how they weren't really all that hot.
The only truly major flaw in this book involves its layout. These days, book publishers are terrified of the Internet. And well they should be. However, instead of focusing their efforts on what books do better that the 'net - provide one, continuous, uninterrupted stream of information - publishers' response has been to make their book pages look as much as possible like web pages. Lots of bright colors, lots of sidebars. I hate sidebars. I don't appreciate having to flip back and forth between pages, sometimes reading blocks of text in four or five different locations, to get all the info. More to the point in this particular book, choice of color on some of the sidebars is extremely poor, so much so it's difficult to read the text. Black lettering against a dark blue or dark red background just doesn't make it.
With those few negatives out of the way, this book is a delight. It's all here: a biography of Marston, on to the creation of Wonder Woman, all the creative teams of note and their storylines up til this book's publication date (2000), the Cathy Lee Crosby made-for-television movie, the Lynda Carter TV show, Wonder Woman merchandise, her appearance on the cover of Ms. magazine's first issue, etc. This book is a must-have for fans of one of the 20th/21st Century's most fascinating fictional creations.
Fun book but a couple mistakes... First off, loved the book. It was nice to read the comments from Lynda Carter and see the multitude of changes that WW has gone through. But I did notice two things, the actress that played Wonder Woman's mother in that tiny demo in the 60's was named Maudie Pricket and the photo of Ms. Carter's costume says it is from the first season and it's not, it's from the CBS years as are the bracelets and tiara on the following page. I know Ms. Carter preferred the CBS years updated costume but the original on worn while fighting Nazis in the more humorous years will always be my absolute favorite! Thanx...
Excellent and enlightening Wonder Woman: The Complete History is a delightful book for fans of the character, even if you only know her from the old TV show. The background of her creation by a clinical psychologist was very enlightening.
The illustrations throughout are excellent and all in all, it's terrific book, exceptionally well written by Les Daniels.
Book AND Figurine!!! Heaven! Not only do you get hte nostalgic book with the history of this heroine, you get the figurine that you can display and become the envy of all your friends! The statue is of classic Wonder Woman, the one from the 50's. She's still wearing the skirt.
This is truly rare. It's fantastic for all collectors and a MUST-HAVE for all die-hard fans!
Anything Goes Trivia
Trevor
Megaton Man
