My first five-star review of 2025.
Well, you hire Kelly Sue DeConnick, one of the best modern female writers in the business, for a start.
Then gather the best artists working in the comics industry, to create one of the most visually stunning, awe-inspiring, magnificent, diverse, intricately detailed comic books ever blessed to be printed and sold.
'Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons' is akin to a sacred, holy text; a rich, raw tapestry, about Greek mythology, and women. It is that good.
It is like a gift from the goddesses.
It is a fresh, epic take on the origin of the Amazons. A whole story, a tragedy, set before Wonder Woman's birth. I won't dare spoil any specific details for the uninitiated, but know that 'Historia' is as grand, empowering, and human as they come, for a Greek tragedy. That somehow manages to remain hopeful by the brutal end.
I will add that I love this version of Artemis, introduced thusly, "The huntress. She is the moon, and the wilderness, and the restless heart. Artemis knows you for the wild creature you truly are." It is one of the best interpretations of her that I have ever seen. She quite literally is a wild child, full of spark and confidence, and is fearless, feisty, and passionate to the core (and care); never faltering in her help and support of the Amazons. Now this is the Artemis I idolise. She is cool, badass, and complex, like all the women here.
In fact, all the goddesses of the Olympian pantheon who created the Amazons - such as Hecate, Hestia, Demeter, Aphrodite, and even the understandably absent outlier Hera, the goddess of women - are great. Including Athena, who I never really cared about in any other version of her I've seen. Standing equal with the other goddesses, Athena manages to be a likeable, sensible (she is supposed to be the goddess of wisdom and cunning), and worshipful character worth rooting for, and I didn't think that was possible before. Her design is very unique, too. Every design for each of the goddesses is diverse AF.
Their pantheon is a supportive, fierce sisterhood. A triumph of the power of women working together to counteract patriarchal BS, that relies on the suffering and subjugation of women in order to function and thrive. It is a stubborn, hubristic, poisonous system of death and destruction that keeps on turning, refusing to cease, refusing to give up or share control...
Another significant element: I love the origin of the name of the Amazonian princess - Diana. How she received it will forever warm my heart.
'Historia' is justified in its label of epic. It is a beautiful, poignant, introspective, heartbreaking treasure, a master--no, mistresspiece. I only wish it could have been a bit longer, and brought more focus back to women's issues - women's damn rights - and the dangers that women all over the world continue to face, even today, which is the biggest tragedy of them all. I wish we could have had closure on that hope.
In terms of LBGTQ+ rep, it is extremely slight and in the background. Disappointing for a current times DC Amazons comic.
But with literally everything else it has going for it - and wow, look at its art, it is art, comics are art - I would be remiss to give it less than all the brightest stars in the cosmos. It has earned the stars, and the moon in the lunar eclipse, and the praise of every Greek goddess, and every other goddess there is.
'Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons' deserves to be ranked alongside other graphic novels of critical acclaim, and historical and cultural significance - the classics, starring, and made by and for, men, such as 'Watchmen', 'Batman: The Dark Knight Returns', Batman: The Killing Joke', 'V for Vendetta', 'Sin City', 'The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen', and 'Maus'. I'm serious. It can even be compared to 'Persepolis', as well.
Stories and legends are powerful. They are powerful tools for humanity to use to enact real change in the world when it is most needed. They exist to teach us. To inspire us. To lift us up. To give us hope.
Never give up the fire, the flames, of hope. For humans - for women - keep cycling, repeating, but always try to do and be better, one way or another. They persist, for the nigh-impossible and unreachable goal of peace, harmony and equality for everyone on earth.
Like Wonder Woman.
She would never give up, and neither would the goddesses who made her. And the Amazons before her, who raised her, who taught her.
'Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons', scripted by Kelly Sue DeConnick and worked on by a team of artists and colourists, and published under the DC Black Label, is one of the greatest DC Amazons stories in history.
Read also my review of a separate, recent DC Amazons book, 'Amazons Attack', to see the fight for women's right to simply exist and be heard and be free in the patriarchy's stranglehold struggle on.
While I'm at it, here are these: 'The Legend of Wonder Woman', 'Wonder Woman: The True Amazon', 'Wonder Woman, Vol. 2: Year One', 'Wonder Woman by Greg Rucka, Vol. 1', 'Wonder Woman, Vol. 3: The Circle', 'Wonder Woman, Vol. 1: Gods and Mortals', 'Wonder Woman Tempest Tossed', 'Diana and the Hero's Journey', and 'Wonderful Women of the World'.
I remain proud to call myself an Amazon. And possibly a geek goddess. No, actually, I don't want that kind of unfathomable power and responsibility. Maybe a sorceress will do.
Artemis Crescent, of the wild and the moon. And of women and magic.
Final Score: 4.5/5
But with literally everything else it has going for it - and wow, look at its art, it is art, comics are art - I would be remiss to give it less than all the brightest stars in the cosmos. It has earned the stars, and the moon in the lunar eclipse, and the praise of every Greek goddess, and every other goddess there is.
'Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons' deserves to be ranked alongside other graphic novels of critical acclaim, and historical and cultural significance - the classics, starring, and made by and for, men, such as 'Watchmen', 'Batman: The Dark Knight Returns', Batman: The Killing Joke', 'V for Vendetta', 'Sin City', 'The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen', and 'Maus'. I'm serious. It can even be compared to 'Persepolis', as well.
Stories and legends are powerful. They are powerful tools for humanity to use to enact real change in the world when it is most needed. They exist to teach us. To inspire us. To lift us up. To give us hope.
Never give up the fire, the flames, of hope. For humans - for women - keep cycling, repeating, but always try to do and be better, one way or another. They persist, for the nigh-impossible and unreachable goal of peace, harmony and equality for everyone on earth.
Like Wonder Woman.
She would never give up, and neither would the goddesses who made her. And the Amazons before her, who raised her, who taught her.
'Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons', scripted by Kelly Sue DeConnick and worked on by a team of artists and colourists, and published under the DC Black Label, is one of the greatest DC Amazons stories in history.
Read also my review of a separate, recent DC Amazons book, 'Amazons Attack', to see the fight for women's right to simply exist and be heard and be free in the patriarchy's stranglehold struggle on.
While I'm at it, here are these: 'The Legend of Wonder Woman', 'Wonder Woman: The True Amazon', 'Wonder Woman, Vol. 2: Year One', 'Wonder Woman by Greg Rucka, Vol. 1', 'Wonder Woman, Vol. 3: The Circle', 'Wonder Woman, Vol. 1: Gods and Mortals', 'Wonder Woman Tempest Tossed', 'Diana and the Hero's Journey', and 'Wonderful Women of the World'.
I remain proud to call myself an Amazon. And possibly a geek goddess. No, actually, I don't want that kind of unfathomable power and responsibility. Maybe a sorceress will do.
Artemis Crescent, of the wild and the moon. And of women and magic.
Final Score: 4.5/5
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