The Return of Wonder Woman

On April 12th, a new Wonder Woman book is coming out by Grant Morrison, entitled Wonder Woman: Earth 1.  In many ways, this could be the return of Wonder Woman after a long absence.  What I mean by that, is that she's gone through many mutations since she was first created, which is both expected and somewhat desired (I mean you don't want a character to be stagnant).  In the fifties she became a lot more dreamy and romance focused.  In the seventies she became more secret agent than super hero and even lost her costume.  In the 2000's she added a sword and shield and became just another "woman kicking ass".  All this is fine, as I said.  But the Wonder Woman I love is the way she was originally envisioned by Charles Marsdon, and the way she was portrayed in the tv show, as a force for peace.  She was better than men, knew more than they did, didn't adopt their violent ways.  This new book is returning to those roots.

There are some changes, of course.  The media is focusing on her fluid sexuality (after all she's been living in a society devoid of men for thousands of years) and that Steve Trevor is black.  I'm kind of excited by both of these changes, as well as the new visions of her Amazon home, which is being imagined as more of an alien society who's culture and technology has developed from the Greeks, but in a way much different from us.  What else is exciting to me?  No fucking sword.  Morrison doesn't think she needs them, because the tools she had were already pretty great.  And, you won't find much violence in this new book, as Wonder Woman is pretty amazing at getting things done without resorting to it.  All of these things, plus the return of her sidekick, Etta Candy...

are why I'm more excited about this release, than that of her first film appearance in Superman V Batman.  Grant did a pretty in-depth interview recently for IGN, and I really recommend checking it out, and purchasing the book on the 12th (though the interview incorrectly states that it was released on the 6th)