Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons (2021-) #1

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The main draw to Historia is the art. This book looks different from most other titles on the shelves today. Phil Jimenez’s art is intricate, striking and at times feels ethereal. The art is perfect for this format and worth the cover price alone. This is one of the best issues of a comic I have read all year, if not the best. And even if you dont agree with that assessment, after having read this you'll see that its creators have made quite a hearty stake for that claim. Every aspect of the artistic direction in this is inspired, refined, executed near flawlessly. Every goddess design, is something inventive, creative, unique.... this is almost a character design class in and of itself. Even simplistic designs like Aphrodite bear clearly untold hours of intent and though put into it. And as an aside, yes, she is portrayed as rather "plump" here. Some may complain about that. But keep in mind... a goddess has no need for human nutritional health. Much like I wouldn't scoff at Thor being shown as a potbelly viking of immense strength(which we have also seen multiple times) I would not expect any gods to kowtow, to be restricted or burdened to human standards of beauty, form, health or anything else. Personally though, I'd say my favorite design of this is Athena. Its truly an inventive look to see in both concept and execution. Its phenomenal work. Oh my goddess! I never even imagined that I could impressed by the wonderful, amazing characterization of Hera. It’s easy, in other words, to write a story in which Zeus and Hera are pieces of plot furniture. Much harder to bring these hoary old geezers to life again. But that murder at the end of the second chapter is a real showstopper. We all know enough about these myths to understand that you’re not supposed to kill anyone in the temple of a patron god. Killing someone in the temple of Apollo, while in the act of praying to Apollo - well! You’re flinching along with me because we know how that’s going to play out. We feel it in our bones.

Ok, so first of all, the art from Jimenez here is just gorgeous, he really outdid himself big time. He did some great work on Batman too, but this is next level stuff. I like the fact that DC gave this book to an artist, regardless of his sex, and they reaped the rewards in spades. Good job there!What also is breathtaking about this comic is the glorious artwork. Yep, I called it glorious. It must be some of if not THE best artwork I've EVER seen in a comic / graphic novel: So I came in a good ways through William Messner-Loeb’s run (1992-95). He’s one of our more underrated writers, someone who focused on the human element of his stories at all turns. I was buying as much for the Brian Bolland covers as anything else, truth be told, but you probably could have guessed that. And I bought it through the Mike Deodato period at the tail end of Messner-Loeb, because I generally had and have no problem with Deodato’s art. Very dynamic, even then. And then he passed the torch to John Byrne (1995-98) - and I’m not going to lie to you, I enjoyed that run very much. At least the first half. The second half had a surprisingly strong Roy Thomas vibe. Lots of continuity work that not a lot of people ever wanted to deal with. But the first half was a dedicated fight book, where Byrne tried to prove a point: that Wonder Woman is really damn strong and should maybe have a big fistfight once in a while. Hippolyta is put into a rough position and choice that many women have to face daily and is nearly lost before the Goddesses intervene. I won’t spoil the book but the last third of the comic was genuinely powerful and leads to what I believe will be the birth of Diana.

As for the story, well, its deceptively simple. But for a book so visually dense, it was the right decision. This is a very well put together piece, both in its writing, art, and thought is given to how Greek gods interacted with themselves and humans. The role multiple goddesses and eventually Hippolyta play in forging the society meanders a little, but is the creation of any society truly a straight line journey? As I said, it’s about the gods, and it gives us an image of these very familiar deities unlike anything we’ve seen in comics to date. For decades, the Greek pantheon were represented across comics such that most people would recognize a century’s worth of depiction in film and television. You can practically hear the crisp BBC Received Pronunciation transmitting through the paper in the Pérez run, for instance. Something of the frightful nature of the divine is unquestionably lost when all the gods look like handsome British character actors in togas. One of the most interesting aspects of Chiang’s time on the book was his endlessly fascinating redesigns of that pantheon. Just because they’re some of our very oldest literary characters doesn’t mean they don’t need some spit and polish now and again. It may seem improbable that such a thing could be - an artist might just sit down and draw something so unspeakably beautiful as all that. Surely not! I have in the past accused modern artists of cowardice for neglecting the ink wash, and must hereby exonerate Scott from any such critique. Nicola Scott doesn’t take any shortcuts. She’s the closest we’ve got to Russ Heath. We should probably put her in a box somewhere so she doesn’t get hurt.

I don’t think the visuals of this book could ever be adapted faithfully, given how perfectly Historia uses the comic medium. However, I think it could be the inspiration for the creatives behind Paradise Lost to develop their own visually-stunning style that is tailor-made for live-action. I would especially like to see the character designs of the Gods and Goddesses carry over. That would be a sufficient response to reading a book like this as I have just done. But it certainly isn't sufficient to my tastes. Well hoss, since you’ve called my bluff, it behooves me to lay my cards on the table: I’m just not a big Wonder Woman person. Restrain your anger, please.

The tribe of demigoddesses created at the conclusion of the previous chapter live at night, well accustomed to hiding themselves, but eventually they attract a following, and soon that following becomes difficult to hide. This leads, with sure and certain inevitability, to the eventual reveal. This comes in the form of a murder in the temple of Apollo. The art is really fantastic. Different artists are used for each of the three issues, but all of them elevate the legendary quality of the story in many ways and there is still consistency across the stories even when another artist is at the helm.

Customer reviews

Pérez’s reimagining is so iconic that it has influenced almost every iteration of Wonder Woman’s world for the past 35 years. However, with nine prestige-sized volumes and a modern woman’s perspective, the story style of Historia is very different from any previous versions fans have seen before. In our Wonder Woman Historia review, we explore why Wonder Woman’s new origin story feels like the story that should have been told all along. The art might seem overwhelming, but do not be deterred: Wonder W oman Historia is an essential, enjoyable, and eternal masterpiece. Historia has completely redefined the Wonder Woman mythos not just for comics, but at a visual and conceptual level itself. I’m thrilled to see the impact this series will have on Wonder Woman’s future stories across mediums.