Wonder Woman – In My Not So Humble Opinion

A look back at the first year of All-Star Squadron

I discussed writer & editor Roy Thomas’ great fondness for the Golden Age of comic books when I took a look at The Invaders miniseries published by Marvel Comics in 1993. That four-issue series brought back the World War II era team of superheroes whose adventures Thomas had previously chronicled in the mid to late 1970s.

Penciled by Rick Buckler, inked by Dick Giordano, lettered by Gasper Saladino and colored by Tatjana Wood

As much as Thomas liked the original Timely / Marvel superheroes from the 1940s, he has an even greater fondness for the Justice Society of America, the original superhero team, who were published by DC Comics in the pages of All-Star Comics from 1940 to 1950. In fact, Thomas was born on November 22, 1940, the very same day that All-Star Comics #3, the debut of the JSA, went on sale. Perhaps he was destined to become one of the JSA’s biggest fans. Whatever the case, some of the earliest comic books Thomas read were the All-Star Comics issues featuring the JSA which were published in the second half of the 1940s, and they made a huge impression on him.

It had long been Thomas’ ambition to write the JSA, but working at Marvel for the first decade and a half of his career he never had the opportunity. A dispute with Marvel editor-in-chief Jim Shooter led Thomas to seek work with DC and beginning in 1981 he wrote & edited several titles for them. Among these was All-Star Squadron, a series set on the parallel reality of Earth-Two during World War II that featured not just the JSA but nearly every single costumed crime fighter from that era.

By the late 1980s Thomas was back at Marvel. I didn’t begin following comic books regularly until that time, and so I unfortunately missed all of the books Thomas did for DC, instead becoming a fan of his via his new work for Marvel. I also spent most of the 1990s searching through the back issue bins at comic shops and comic cons to assemble a complete run of The Invaders.

Written by Roy Thomas, penciled by Rich Buckler, inked by Jerry Ordway, lettered by John Costanza and colored by Carl Gafford

I’m surprised it took me this long to seek out Thomas’ work on All-Star Squadron and its two spin-offs, Infinity Inc. and Young All-Stars. There’s a thrift store in my neighborhood that regularly has comic books for sale for a dollar each, and I’ve discovered some great stuff there. Well last November I came across a few issues of All-Star Squadron at that store. I really enjoyed them, and that really whetted my appetite for the series. Since then I’ve been working on assembling a complete run of the series. I acquired the early issues on eBay, but for the later ones I’m trying to see how many I can find the old-fashioned way. It’s a fun challenge.

The series actually made its debut in a special 16-page insert included in Justice League of America #193, cover-dated August 1981, which led directly into the first issue of All-Star Squadron a month later.

I commute to work on the subway, and my trip is usually about 45 minutes each way. After I acquired the first few issues of All-Star Squadron, I brought them with me to read, and I just barely managed to finish the first issue in the time it took to get from Queens to Midtown Manhattan. Thomas wrote very dense, verbose scripts for this series! Look at all that text!

Seriously, I really lament the trend of decompressed storytelling at both DC and Marvel, especially as individual issues continue to have increasingly-higher cover prices. I definitely miss comic books like this where you more than got your money’s worth. I don’t think I’d mind comics costing so much nowadays if we still got this sort of value.

The initial All-Star Squadron storyline takes place on December 7, 1941, with Imperial Japan’s attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor serving as the backdrop. Per Degaton, the time traveling fascist, intends to utilize the chaos of that “day of infamy” in order to alter history and conquer the world.

I have to admit, I found it an odd decision for Thomas to launch the series with this story. Due to the JSA not encountering Degaton for the “first” time until 1947, all of the characters end up forgetting almost everything that takes place in the first three issues. That’s such a weird way to kick off your series!

Thomas endeavored to have the history of Earth-Two remain as close as possible to our own real world. As such, he detailed why, following Pearl Harbor, the JSA and the rest of the newly-formed Squadron didn’t simply use their fantastic abilities to quickly win the war. Certainly when you have a series set in a world where Superman, Wonder Woman, the Spectre and Doctor Fate exist, you’re going to need to address that!

The explanation Thomas devised was that Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan acquired the Spear of Destiny and the Holy Grail, respectively, and the mystical energies of those two artifacts prevented the All-Stars from entering any territory occupied by the Axis powers. That meant they were forced to operate in the Western hemisphere and other unconquered countries, where they would only be able to prevent the Axis from advancing any further. Obviously still a formidable task, especially as the Naxis are revealed to have their own super-powered agents, but one that meant that, just as in actual history, the war in Europe and Asia would have to be won by ordinary men & women on the battlefield.

Issues five and six see a contingent of the All-Stars travel to Mexico to prevent a Nazi-backed coup that would install a fascist puppet government controlled by the Third Reich. This is then followed by a three issue arc in which the armored Baron Blitzkreig infiltrates the United States to stage an assassination attempt on President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill during a summit meeting in Washington DC. This later story enables Thomas to utilize a number of pages of artwork from the unpublished sixth issue of Steel, the World War II series created by writer Gerry Conway that was abruptly canceled four years earlier during the infamous DC Implosion.

Written by Gerry Conway & Roy Thomas, penciled by Don Heck, inked by Jerry Ordway, lettered by John Costanza and colored by Carl Gafford

All-Star Squadron #10-12 (June to August 1982) are, with the benefit of time, quite interesting. A group of well-intentioned scientists fakes an alien invasion in an attempt to bring an end to World War II and unite the world. Yes, it’s the same basic concept that Alan Moore would famously utilize five years later in Watchmen. It’s also the plot to The Outer Limits episode “The Architects of Fear” broadcast in September 1963, as well as “The Last War on Earth” in Weird Science #5 published by EC Comics in January 1951. And I’m sure there are few other examples of the trope out there. In Thomas’ version for All-Star Squadron, though, the scheme is subverted by Hawkman’s immortal arch enemy Hath-Set, who wants to rule the world himself.

Thomas ties a bow on the first year of All-Star Squadron with issue #13. “One Day, During War…” is set a month after Pearl Harbor, in mid-January 1942. The various All-Stars are afforded a brief pause in the ongoing hostilities of the war to take stock of all that has happened to them recently. It’s a very well-done character piece. When I met Thomas at Big Apple Comic Con a few months ago this was one of the issues I got autographed by him.

Thomas also utilizes this story to address the virulent anti-Japanese sentiment that erupted following Pearl Harbor, which led to the shameful interment of over one hundred thousand American citizens of Japanese ancestry. That is one of the qualities of All-Star Squadron that I appreciated, namely that while Thomas does utilize somewhat idealized depictions of real-life figures such as FDR and Churchill, he also did not shy away from the morally complex areas of the era.

Although various members of the JSA appear throughout the run of All-Star Squadron, Thomas very quickly placed the focus on much lesser-known Golden Age superheroes such as Johnny Quick, Liberty Belle, Hawkgirl, Robotman and the Shining Knight. He also soon incorporated Conway’s character Commander Steel into the cast, as well as introducing Danette Reilly, a female version of the ultra-obscure 1940s costumed crime fighter Firebrand. With her red hair and that first name, Firebrand was undoubtedly based on Thomas’ wife & writing partner Dann (formerly Danette) Thomas.

Thomas sought to place his own All-Star Squadron stories as smoothly as possible in-between the original JSA adventures. All-Star Comics had been published on a quarterly schedule for much of the 1940s, and that gave Thomas plenty of space in which to insert his new stories. Nevertheless, having the primary focus on Johnny Quick, Shining Knight, Robotman et al enabled Thomas to really develop those characters, and to plot out their story arcs, in a way that was not possible for the JSA members who had well-established histories to take into account. I also get the feeling that Thomas very much enjoyed developing the relationship between Johnny Quick and Liberty Belle, playing them off one another and giving them a real sexual tension.

One other note on these stories: While reading through the early issues of All-Star Squadron it suddenly occurred to me that those comic books are now as old as some of the issues of All-Star Comics were at the time when Roy Thomas was referencing them in his stories. Yeah, it sort of blows my mind that we are now as far away from the 1980s and the 1980s were from the 1940s.

Forty years ago is a long time ago, right? Right?!?

The initial art team on All-Star Squadron was penciler Rich Bucker, inker / embellisher Jerry Ordway, letterer John Costanza and colorist Carl Gafford. Buckler had already been working regularly for a decade at this point, having established himself at Marvel both on the flagship series Fantastic Four and his own creation the cyborg anti-hero Deathlok in Astonishing Tales. Buckler was definitely an artistic chameleon. His penciling on All-Star Squadron is very much reminiscent of Neal Adams’ style.

Ordway, in contrast to Buckler, was very new to comics, and All-Star Squadron was his first ongoing assignment. It’s interesting to look at the evolution of Ordway’s style. His inks on the JLA #193 preview and the first issue of All-Star Squadron are very muted (part of that is probably due to several of Buckler’s penciled pages from the first issue getting lost in the mail, requiring Ordway to ink photocopies of them on vellum).

By the second issue, though, you can really see Ordway’s characteristic style & flourishes beginning to appear. Ordway was often required to bring Buckler’s pencils “on model” by making certain the clothing, vehicles, buildings, historical figures and other real-world elements were all accurate for the early 1940s.

Written by Roy Thomas, penciled by Adrian Gonzales, inked by Jerry Ordway, lettered by Ben Oda and colored by Carl Gafford

Adrian Gonzales becomes the new regular penciler with issue #6, and Ordway remained on as inker. The two made a very effective art team. Initially I wasn’t sure how I would feel about Buckler departing the series so early in its run, especially as offhand I was unfamiliar with Gonzales’ work. But I found myself appreciating the collaboration of Gonzales & Ordway even more than I had the issues by Buckler & Ordway.

The unpublished Steel #6 had been penciled by the very underrated Don Heck and inked by Frank Chiaramonte. To be honest, I’ve never been overly fond of Chiaramonte’s work, and as such I’m glad the Heck pages were re-inked by Ordway when they were incorporated into All-Star Squadron #8-9. The combination of Heck’s solid, effective storytelling and Odway’s very polished, slick inking worked very well indeed.

Mike DeCarlo guest inked All-Star Squadron #13 over Gonzales’ pencils. The result is finished art rather different than when Ordway provided inks. But it suited the quieter, character-driven nature of that particular issue.

Written by Roy Thomas, penciled by Adrian Gonzales, inked by Mike DeCarlo, lettered by Ben Oda and colored by Carl Gafford

Finally, looking at the covers, a few of them were penciled by Buckler and inked by Dick Gordano, another solid collaboration. Veteran artist Joe Kubert illustrated the covers for #2 and #7-13. Some of Kubert’s earliest work was drawing the Seven Soldiers of Victory, a team that included the Shining Knight, in the early 1940s. A few years later he regularly worked on the Hawkman chapters of the JSA stories in All-Star Comics. Given Kubert’s historic connections to those two Golden Age heroes, Thomas was undoubtedly happy to have him contribute to this series.

Kubert’s covers with their raw, shadowy inking definitely stand in contrast to the slick finishes Ordway was providing on the interior art, but I nevertheless liked them. He contributed several striking images.

As I continue in my quest to put together a complete run of All-Star Squadron — 67 monthly issues and 3 annuals, for those who are counting — perhaps I’ll take other looks back at this great series.

Comic book reviews: Dark Crisis: The Dark Army / War Zone / Big Bang

I didn’t get the recent Dark Crisis miniseries from DC Comics because, seriously, ANOTHER cosmic mega-crossover with the fate of all existence at stake? However, I did end up picking up a few of the specials that tied in with Dark Crisis because I liked several of the creators who worked on them.

Dark Crisis: The Dark Army is written by Mark Waid, Delilah S. Dawson & Dennis Culver, drawn by Freddie E. Williams II & Jack Herbert, colored by Adriano Lucas, lettered by Troy Peteri and edited by Chris Rosa. I got the variant cover by Werther Dell’Edera.

A massive battle is taking place between Earth’s heroes and the supervillain army under the domination of Pariah. Damian Wayne / Robin devises a desperate plan to sever Pariah’s control of the Dark Army. Unfortunately he can only afford to take a few heroes away from the battle, choosing Sideways, Power Girl and Dr. Light, with newcomer Red Canary tagging along, much to Robin’s annoyance. The quintet begin a jaunt across the multiverse via Sideways’ dimensional portals.

I thought The Dark Army did a fair job with the characters. Robin is arrogant, bossy, headstrong & condescending, just like his father Batman, but we get glimpses that Damian does admire the other heroes for their convictions, and that he does genuinely value his friendship with Jon Kent / Superboy. Probably the highlight of The Dark Army is the back & forth snark between Robin and the equally headstrong, much more experienced Power Girl, who you just know is not going to have much patience for Damian’s know-it-all attitude.

It was also cool to have Dr. Light play a significant role in the story’s resolution. I’ve always though she was an underutilized character. And given that she was first introduced in Crisis on Infinite Earths, it makes sense to have her as a central figure in a story with several callbacks to that classic miniseries.

During the grand tour of the multiverse, it was nice to see, however briefly, versions of Captain Carrot and Mary Marvel… or Mary Shazam, or whatever DC is calling her nowadays. I appreciated that Mary was wearing the white uniform Jerry Ordway gave her in The Power of Shazam, since I feel that always helped give her an identity somewhat distinct from her brother.

I’m not too enthusiastic about DC continuing to use Dino-Cop, though. The character is obviously intended as a cute nod to Erik Larsen’s Savage Dragon, but I feel he’s just too similar to Larsen’s creation to be showing up on a regular basis.

Freddie E. Williams II and Jack Herbert both do very solid work on The Dark Army. I’m a fan of Williams, so it’s always good to see his work. He draws a few really dynamic double-page spreads for this story. I’m unfamiliar with Herbert, but he has both a nice, slick polish to his work and a sort of atmospheric inking reminiscent of Mike Deodato.

The two artists have extremely different styles, but it’s not especially jarring going from Williams to Herbert and then back to Williams. The only exception to that is Herbert draws Robin as much taller & older-looking than Williams, to the point where Williams’ Damian almost feels like a different character from Herbert’s version.

The next special was Dark Crisis: War Zone. As with The Dark Army, it was a very character-driven issue, featuring several short vignettes spotlighting different heroes amidst the ginormous battle with Pariah’s army. Rafael Sarmento turns in a very striking cover.

“On Time” co-stars Iris West and Linda Park, and it was definitely a stroke of genius by Jeremy Adams to team up the wives of the second and third Flashes. The artwork by penciler Fernando Pasarin and inker Matt Ryan was solid. I would have enjoyed this one a lot more if it was longer than eight pages, though.

And that’s the weakness in all the segments in War Zone: none of them are really long enough to really give more than a cursory glimpse of the characters. There are five stories in this special, each of them eight pages, and I feel it would have benefited the book greatly to have cut out one of them and given two extra pages to each of the other four features.

The Green Lantern Corps story written by Matthew Rosenberg was another highlight. The interaction between gruff Corps veteran Guy Gardner and newcomer Sojourner “Jo” Mullein was well done. Rosenberg writes one of the better versions of Guy Gardner I’ve ever seen. Yeah, Guy is a gruff, arrogant hothead, but he also has the guts & conviction to back up his attitude, and when he sees that Jo can pull her own weight in a crisis he acknowledges that she has what it takes. Oh, yeah… leave it to Guy to use his ring to conjure up a chainsaw!

The offbeat artwork by George Kambadais and colors by Matt Herms was enjoyable. And I especially liked the distinctive, organic lettering by Troy Peteri.

“Birds of a Feather” follows on from Red Canary’s appearance in The Dark Army. Returning to the massive super-brawl on Earth, Red Canary meets her inspiration, Dinah Lance aka Black Canary. Delilah S. Dawson’s script gets some mileage out of the ever-revolving door of life & death in superhero comic books. Red Canary adopted her identity as a tribute to Black Canary after the later died… and here’s Dinah returned to life already, offering the following pithy explanation:

“Superhero stuff. Long story. But I can assure you it’s me, I’m not an evil twin, and I’m not secretly a zombie.”

Tom Derenick illustrates this meeting of the Canaries. I really enjoy Derenick’s work; he was the primary reason why I bought War Zone. He definitely does a good job on this story. I believe Derenick’s most recent ongoing assignment was the recently-cancelled Teen Titans Academy, and I hope DC gives him another series to draw soon. “Birds of a Feather” was another story that I really wish had been longer.

Rounding out my Dark Crisis purchases is Big Bang, which was far and away my favorite of the three specials. Big Bang is the epilogue to the whole event, establishing that the multiverse has at long last been restored to an infinite number of alternate realities for the first time since the first Crisis series back in 1986.

Well, honestly, I thought the whole “Hypertime” thing already did that in the late 199s, but that never seemed to stick, and for the last decade or so DC’s had the whole “52 alternate Earths” going. So it’s nice for them to (again) remove that limit and give us a literally unlimited number of parallel Earths. Let’s just hope this time they keep it that way and don’t flush it down the toilet again two or three crossovers down the road!

Anyway, Big Bang opens with Barry Allen, the Flash of the Silver Age, declaring “I’m looking for the man who murdered me.” With the multiverse restored, Barry is concerned that the cosmic menace known as the Anti-Monitor, the entity who caused his death back during Crisis on Infinite Earths, is out there, somewhere amidst the myriad alternate realities. Accompanied by Wallace West, the new Kid Flash, Barry begins exploring the multiverse, searching for any sign of the Anti-Monitor.

I got into DC Comics in the early 1990s, so for me Wally West is MY Flash. I didn’t see the point of bringing back Barry because writers such as Mark Waid did a fantastic job establishing Wally as a worthy hero who at long last stepped out from his predecessor’s shadow. Having said that, I feel Waid did a good job on Big Bang writing Barry. I guess no matter who the Flash happens to be, Waid has a really affinity for writing the Fastest Man Alive.

I got Big Bang because it was penciled by Dan Jurgens, whose work I have really enjoyed since he was one of the primary creative forces on the Superman books in the early 1990s. Waid’s story, with Flash and Kid Flash exploring the multiverse, provides Jurgens with the opportunity to draw numerous alternate Earths and their superpowered occupants. That includes Earth-27, with its dinosaur Jurassic League.

Barry and Wallace eventually do locate the Anti-Monitor, who unfortunately attacks them before they can retreat. Barry is left in a desperate struggle to keep off-balance the awesomely-powered being who once took his life. Wallace uses the opportunity to recruit some of the multiverse’s greatest heroes against the Anti-Monitor. Of course Jurgens does a fantastic job illustrating this epic struggle.

It was cool to see the Victorian-era Wonder Woman from the Elseworlds graphic novel Amazonia and the future Superman from the Batman Beyond reality among this gathering of heroes. And even though I’m not especially thrilled with DC continuing the America’s Best Comics characters without Alan Moore, I still liked the cameo by Tesla Strong.

What I really liked about Big Bang is that it demonstrated you can have this sort of monumental cosmic conflict without padding it out across innumerable issues. Waid’s story is one-and-done and is therefore much the stronger for it.

Jurgens is inked on Big Bang by Norm Rapmund. I would have preferred Brett Breeding, Jurgens’ old inking partner from Superman, but Rapmund still does a fair job. (At least we got to see Jurgens and Breeding reunited on the recent The Death of Superman 30th Anniversary Special.) Coloring is by Federico Blee, lettering by Troy Peteri, and editing is by Paul Kaminski, Brittany Holzherr & Dave Wielgosz.

Big Bang ends with a two-page text listing of many of the Earths in the restored multiverse. Waid is an absolute master of continuity, so if anyone was going to be able to put this one together it would be him. I had a fun time perusing it, and I was glad to see the Atomic Knights returned to continuity on Earth-17.

The one thing that I did not like about Dark Crisis: Big Bang was the cover. As with every DC release nowadays, Big Bang had several covers. The main one is by Mikel Janín showing Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman from Earth-118 getting smooshed together, or something. You have a story featuring the multiverse’s greatest heroes in an epic battle against the Anti-Monitor and THAT is the cover you come up with? Three editors on this book and none of them thought to have Jurgens, or any artist who specializes in big superhero action scenes, draw the story’s big set piece for the cover?

I feel that’s one of the drawbacks of EVERY issue having variant covers. There’s such a focus on coming up with all the different covers that there isn’t that effort to create that one single dramatic image that’s going to sell the book.

I ended up instead getting the Big Bang variant cover by Ariel Colon. It’s still not all that dramatic, but with the characters from various different realities being featured on it at least it brings across the whole “restored multiverse” theme of the story. Plus it has Dinosaur batman on it. How can you say “no” to Dinosaur Batman?

There was at least another Dark Crisis tie-in, The Deadly Green, that I missed, which I’ll probably try to find, since it features some Justice Society related characters.

For the most part I enjoyed these three specials. Yes, there was room for improvement on each of them, but for tie-ins to a big, overblown crossover they were certainly enjoyable. I just hope that some of the new heroes and alternate realities seen in them get the spotlight in the future.

The Agony and the Ecstasy of Wonder Woman #204

Yesterday I bought a copy of the Wonder Woman #204 Facsimile Edition from DC Comics. “The Second Life of the Original Wonder Woman” was written & edited by Robert Kanigher and drawn by Don Heck, with possible inking by Dick Giordano. It was originally released 50 years ago this month, on November 7, 1972.

I had previously seen excerpts of Wonder Woman #204 online and read some commentary about it. I featured a couple of panels from it in my review of the recent Nubia: Queen of the Amazons miniseries. But this was the first time I’ve had the opportunity to read this story in it’s entirety. And I have to say, this is one of the most insane comic books I have ever read.

I wish Alan Stewart had bought this issue when it had come out, because it would have made one heck of an installment of his blog Attack of the 50 Year Old Comic Books! (Alan did do a write-up on Wonder Woman #202 a few months ago, so you can read that.) Therefore I figured I might as well offer up my own commentary here on this blog.

Wonder Woman #204 sees the title character reacquire her iconic costume & superpowers after the four year “Diana Prince” direction overseen by Denny O’Neil & Mike Sekowsky that had begun back in issue #178, cover-dated Sept-Oct 1968. And, as changes in creative directions can go, “The Second Life of the Original Wonder Woman” is about as sudden & drastic as you can possibly get.

Robert Kanigher is a creator who has simultaneously been praised and reviled. His work on DC’s war titles is frequently lauded as classic, as is his collaboration with the incredible Joe Kubert on the Ragman character. In contrast, Kanigher’s two decade long run writing & editing Wonder Woman from 1947 to 1967 is often regarded as at best mediocre, at worst downright awful. Kanigher himself apparently was not a pleasant individual to know.

The opening sequence to Wonder Woman #204 really demonstrates Kanigher at his most cruel & petty, as he has a very thinly veiled stand-in for fellow DC editor Dorothy Woolfolk murdered as part of a horrific shooting spree by a deranged sniper. This bloodbath also results in the sudden, brutal death Diana’s mentor I Ching and causes her to suffer complete amnesia, resulting in the erstwhile Amazon instinctively returning to Paradise Island, thereby managing to completely sweep aside the status quo from the previous four years in just a few short pages.

Around this time journalist and feminist Gloria Steinem had been advocating DC to restore Wonder Woman’s costume & powers. It’s been suggested that DC editorial & management regarded Steinem as a convenient excuse to hit the reset button as they were apparently becoming apprehensive with the increasingly political direction of the series, with the new writer, acclaimed science fiction novelist Samuel R. Delaney, planning to address the abortion controversy in an upcoming story. Whatever the actual case, Delaney only got to write two issues of Wonder Woman, #202 and #203, before Kanigher returned to the series.

Mind you, even if Delaney had been able to remain on Wonder Woman and take the book in the direction he wanted, for all we know the actual results might have been cringeworthy. One need only look at #203 with its “Special! Women’s Lib Issue” blurb splashed atop a cover drawn by Dick Giordano of a bound & gagged young woman with her breasts thrust out provocatively to realize that even the more progressive voices at DC in the early 1970s could still be horrifically tone deaf.

That said, bringing Kanigher back to Wonder Woman after a four year absence is a head-scratcher. I really have to puzzle at what resulted in him becoming writer & editor again. The entire reason why the whole non-powered, white jumpsuit Diana Prince direction had come about in the first place was to try to save the series from cancellation after 20 years of increasingly mediocre stories by Kanigher.

I myself read a number of the Silver Age Wonder Woman stories Kanigher did with the art team of Ross Andru & Mike Esposito when they were reprinted in the first Showcase Presents: Wonder Woman collection published in 2007, and I found them to be very bland & instantly forgettable. (Say what you will about utterly dysfunctional Superman stories edited by Mort Weisinger during the same two-decade period, at least those were memorably bizarre.) So why give the book back to the guy who nearly tanked it in the first place?

Reportedly Dorothy Woolfolk, one of the very few female professionals working in mainstream comic books half a century ago, was supposed to be the new, permanent editor of the Wonder Woman series, a decision that would have undoubtedly pleased Steinem. But whatever happened at DC resulted in Woolfolk only editing issues #197 and #198. Which makes the opening page of #204 even more egregious, as it really comes across like a huge middle finger by Kanigher to Woolfolk at his having snatched away her job.

Okay, Kanigher had been previously been harshly mocked in the pages of Wonder Woman #188 as the cross-dressing pickpocket “Creepy Caniguh” but that was all on Mike Seknowsky, who wrote, penciled & edited that issue. So it feels like Kanigher was taking out his ire on the only woman in the room when he had “Dottie Cottonman” murdered in #204.

Of course, all these decades later, with nearly everyone involved having subsequently passed on, there’s no way to know what actually occurred behind the scenes.

Thankfully Kanigher’s second stint as writer & editor on Wonder Woman was much shorter than his first, coming to an end after a mere eight issues with #211.

Putting all of this aside, the reason for the publication of this Facsimile Edition is that it’s the first appearance of Diana’s long lost sister Nubia. But despite her appearance on the cover she almost feels like an afterthought in Kanigher’s brutal deck-clearing exercise. Nubia did feature more prominently in the next two issues, though, so I guess it was a decent set-up for the character’s story.

On the plus side, artist Don Heck did very solid work on this story. Heck is, without a doubt, an incredibly underrated artist. Superheroes really were not his forte, and so the more that genre dominated the medium the more he unfortunately found himself having to work on material that did not suit his artistic strengths.

Having said that, Wonder Woman was probably a better fit for Heck than almost any other ongoing series published by either DC or Marvel in the 1970s. Heck always did draw very attractive women (he did incredible work on romance comics) so Wonder Woman was definitely a good book to assign to him.

Heck’s cover for issue is #204 is very dramatic. He especially outdid himself in Diana’s underwater battle with the shark, the flashback sequence in this story featuring the origins of the Amazons and Diana, and with the brief duel between Diana and Nubia. All the classical Greek and mythological material was such a great fit for his artwork.

Heck’s art was the main reason why I purchased this Facsimile Edition. His work on this issue almost sort of manages to redeem the story, because no matter how tacky Kanigher’s writing gets, Heck consistently delivers a professional job.

Heck had already drawn Wonder Woman #199 a few months earlier, and he then drew the next two issues after this one. He did the occasional fill-in issue for the series during the late 1970s and early 1980s before becoming the regular Wonder Woman penciler from 1983 to 1985, paired with writer Dan Mishkin. During that three year period Heck produced, if not especially dynamic art, then at least good, solid work that effectively told the story. The work by Mishkin & Heck immediately before the justly acclaimed post-Crisis revamp of Wonder Woman by George Perez is, I think, underrated, and I hope one of these days it gets reprinted.

I find the circumstances in which Wonder Woman #204 was produced to be far more intriguing than the actual issue. It’s certainly a good reminder that the American comic book industry has often been beset by clashing egos, unprofessional behavior and contradictory agendas. I love the medium of comic books, but the business of it can be cutthroat as all hell!

Comic book reviews: Nubia Queen of the Amazons

In my blog post yesterday I mentioned the recent Nubia: Queen of the Amazons four issue miniseries from DC Comics. I really wanted to take a closer look at it.

Nubia: Queen of the Amazons is written by Stephanie Williams, penciled by Alitha Martinez, inked by Mark Morales, John Livesay & Martinez, colored by Alex Guimarães and lettered by Becca Carey, with cover artwork penciled & inked by Khary Randolph and colored by Emilio Lopez.

It’s been a while since I’ve followed the Wonder Woman series regularly. I decided to get Nubia: Queen of the Amazons because it was penciled by Alitha Martinez, an artist whose work I really enjoy. Martinez has been working in comic books for over 20 years, and I really think she’s tremendously talented.

This is actually the second Nubia series Martinez has worked on with writer Stephanie Williams. The six issue Nubia & the Amazons came out last year… and I managed to completely miss it. Hopefully I’ll be able to find the collected edition soon.

Nubia is a character who has been around for nearly half a century, having been created by writer & editor Robert Kanigher and artist Don Heck in Wonder Woman #204, which was released in late 1972. In pre-Crisis continuity Nubia was Princess Diana’s long-lost fraternal twin sister. Kanigher’s writing is not what anyone would ever consider to be subtle & nuanced, to say the least. I mean, issue #204 infamously opened with Kanigher killing off a very thinly-disguised stand-in for his editorial predecessor Dorothy Woolfolk. But his introduction of Nubia did set up the idea of there being Amazons of other ethnicities. I guess that helped lay the groundwork for George Perez to introduce characters such as Philippus during his groundbreaking post-Crisis revamp of the Wonder Woman series.

Nubia only appeared a handful of times during the Bronze Age. The character was reintroduced to the DC Universe only a short time ago. In the current continuity she is the reincarnation of a warrior princess from the African island of Madagascar. While no longer Diana’s twin, the two women are close friends, and following the death of Diana’s mother Hippolyta, Nubia assumed the throne of Themyscira.

Williams does a good job with her writing, balancing the fact that her script features a large cast of characters & alludes to numerous past events while still making it accessible to readers such as myself who have not picked up the past installments.

The newly-crowned head of Themyscira travels to Brazil with her entourage to show support for environmental activists who are fighting against the destruction of the rainforests. Unfortunately this places Nubia squarely into the sights of a mysterious figure who wants her dead. At first I thought this woman, clad in armor & wearing a full metal mask, was going to turn out to be a new incarnation of old Wonder Woman adversary Doctor Cyber. But, no, this woman is actually Neser, a new character who is revealed to have ties to Nubia.

One of the distinctive aspects of Nubia: Queen of the Amazons is not only are nearly all the characters women, but the majority of them are non-white. Even longtime Justice Society member Hawkgirl is now shown to be Latina. I really appreciated that the cast was so diverse, as well as incredibly well-written. Williams does a fine job developing their different personalities.

Definitely the stand-out aspect of this miniseries was the incredible penciling by Martinez. Her layouts & storytelling on the various action sequences are genuinely animated & dynamic. She also does a very good job rendering the quieter, character-driven moments and dialogue scenes. Martinez’s depiction of Nubia is stunningly beautiful & regal.

Martinez’s line art works very well with Alex Guimarães’ rich, vivid coloring. The final page of issue #3 seen below is especially striking.

I also enjoyed Khary Randolph’s work on the covers for this miniseries. Randolph is another artist whose work I’ve enjoyed in the past. Several years ago I purchased a copy of his hardcover The Black Book which featured some very beautiful, sexy, hyper-detailed pin-up illustrations by him. I really appreciated how he was able to render women with different shapes & sizes. It definitely spoke to his versatility that, unlike some other artists, he enjoyed rendering women outside of the standard “tall, thin & big-boobed” body type you typically see in mainstream superhero comic books.

As with quite a few other DC Comics miniseries, the events of Nubia: Queen of the Amazons lead into another storyline. Unlike some other recent instances where the “endings” of various miniseries were literal cliffhangers — I’m looking at you, Justice League Incarnate #5 — here Williams manages to make Nubia: Queen of the Amazons relatively self-contained. Yes, the final issue sets the stage for upcoming events, but it still feels like a complete enough whole, as well. That was another quality of her writing I really appreciated, and it actually makes me more likely to get upcoming issues of Wonder Woman to find out what happens next.

George Perez: 1954 to 2022

I was very sorry to hear about the passing of legendary comic book creator George Perez on May 6th. Perez had announced back in December that he was suffering from with inoperable pancreatic cancer, and that he had approximately six months to a year left to live. We all knew this day was coming soon, but it doesn’t make it any less sad.

Perez had an incredibly lengthy, diverse career. As I did a week ago to mark the passing of fellow legend Neal Adams, I am going to refrain from even trying to put together any sort of comprehensive retrospective of Perez’s career, and instead just focus on my own impressions of his work as a fan.

Batman #439 cover drawn by George Perez and collored by Anthony Tollin, published by DC Comics in Sept 1989

I first started following comic books regularly in 1989 when I was 13 years old, so I missed Perez’s early work on Fantastic Four and Avengers for Marvel Comics in the late 1970s, as well as his wildly popular collaboration with writer Marv Wolfman on The New Teen Titans at DC Comics beginning in the early 1980s.

While I can’t be 100% certain, I think the first work by Perez that I ever saw were his covers for the “Batman: Year Three” and “A Lonely Place of Dying” story arcs that ran through Batman #436-442 in the summer and fall of 1989. I was immediately struck by Perez’s intricately detailed work and his complex compositions. His cover to #439 featuring Nightwing hanging on for dear life from the bell tower of a church in the midst of a fierce rainstorm, highlighted by the Bat-signal, especially stood out in my mind. Perez and colorist Anthony Tollin did absolutely stunning work in rendering that atmospheric image.

Within a couple of years I was following quite a few DC titles. War of the Gods was a major crossover that DC published in the summer & fall of 1991, and it tied in with Perez’s run on Wonder Woman. So I picked up Wonder Woman #58 which was written & cover-illustrated by Perez and the four issue War of the Gods miniseries for which Perez was writing, doing interior pencil layouts and drawing full covers. As I’ve mentioned before, this was an absolutely insane time for me to try to dive into Wonder Woman, because this was the culmination of a number of plotlines & character arcs that Perez had been developing over the past five years.

War of the Gods #4 cover drawn by George Perez, published by DC Comics in Dec 1991

Three decades later I only remember three things about War of the Gods: 1) the evil sorceress Circe was the main villain, 2) I didn’t understand even half of what was going on, and 3) DC promoted the fact that for the cover of the final issue of the miniseries Perez set out to draw a cover featuring ONE HUNDRED different characters. That must have been my first exposure to Perez’s fondness for drawing literal armies.

At the exact same time Perez was also penciling another crossover, this time at Marvel. The Infinity Gauntlet was another “cast of thousands” cosmic extravaganza that ran for six double-sized issues. Truthfully, I wasn’t especially into writer Jim Starlin’s story for The Infinity Gauntlet, either, since it very predictably followed the arc of Thanos becoming a god and wiping the floor with everyone else in the Marvel Universe for half a dozen issues before finally losing the titular Infinity Gauntlet.

Nevertheless, Perez, paired with inker Josef Rubinstein, did a fantastic job drawing the cosmic spectacle… at least until working on two mega-crossovers simultaneously became too much for even someone of Perez’s talent & speed, and he had to bow out partway through issue #4, with Ron Lim taking up penciling duties for the remainder of the miniseries. To show support for Lim stepping into this high-profile assignment and having the unenviable job of following in his footsteps, Perez inked Lim’s pencils on the covers for the final two issues of The Infinity Gauntlet.

The Infinity Gauntlet #1 cover drawn by George Perez and colored by John Stracuzzi, published by Marvel Comics in July 1991

So, while I haven’t revisited The Infinity Gauntlet in the last 30 years, either, I definitely was impressed by the work Perez did on the first half of the miniseries. Certainly his intricate cover for the first issue, colored by John Stracuzzi, is one of the all-time greatest depictions of Thanos in the character’s half-century history. Heck, even Jim Starlin, the writer / artist who created Thanos, has used Perez’s cover artwork for The Infinity Gauntlet #1 for his own convention banner. Now that is respect.

Anyway, throughout the 1990s, when I was in high school & college, I went to a lot of comic book conventions, and bought a lot of back issues from the 1970s and 80s. Amongst these were several books that Perez worked on: Avengers, Justice League of America, The New Teen Titans, Marvel Fanfare, Crisis on Infinite Earths and Action Comics. I also had the opportunity to pick up a lot more issues of Perez’s epic, groundbreaking five year run on Wonder Woman, at last getting in on the earlier parts of his incredible, highly influential revamp of Princess Diana of Themyscira.

Straight from the back issue bin… Crisis on Infinite Earths #10, written by Marv Wolfman, penciled by George Perez, inked by Jerry Ordway, lettered by John Costanza and colored by Anthony Tollin, published by DC Comics in january 1986

In the mid 1990s Perez penciled the first six issues of Isaac Asimov’s I-BOTS, written by Steven Grant, published by Tekno Comics / Big Entertainment. I took a look at Perez’s work on that series a few months ago as part of the most recent round of Super Blog Team-Up, in which the various contributors examined different parts of Perez’s amazing career.

In 1998 Perez had another opportunity to pencil Avengers, this time paired with writer Kurt Busiek. Perez remained on the series for three years. After the meandering, confusing events of “The Crossing” and the controversial Heroes Reborn that saw Rob Liefeld take over the book, Busiek & Perez’s run was warmly received by long-time Avengers readers.

Now here’s another one of those occasions when I am going to go against conventional fan wisdom. The truth is I wasn’t especially enthusiastic about Busiek’s writing on Avengers; I feel Busiek is an amazing writer on smaller, intimate, character-driven stories set against the epic backdrops of superhero universes, something he’s demonstrated again and again with his incredible work on Astro City. Same thing for Thunderbolts from Marvel, which was a very character-centric series. In contract, Avengers was the epic superhero event book, and I just didn’t feel that Busiek quite had the faculty to pull off those sorts of stories. (Just my personal opinion, so feel free to disagree.)

The Scarlet Witch tears up the dance floor! Avengers vol 3 #19 written by Kurt Busiek, penciled by George Perez, inked by Al Very, colored by Tom Smith and lettered by Richard Starkings, published by Marvel Comics in August 1999

That said, Busiek did really solid work on the character-driven subplots in Avengers involving the Scarlet Witch, the Vision, Wonder Man, and Carol Danvers / Warbird, as well as his own creations Silverclaw and Triathalon. And of course Perez did an incredible job illustrating Busiek’s stories, both the action scenes and the quieter character moments. I certainly appreciated the stunning costume Perez designed for the Scarlet Witch. And that bellydance sequence featuring Wanda from Avengers vol 3 #19 (Aug 1999) seen above was absolutely gorgeous, a superb example of Perez’s storytelling abilities.

In the early 2000s Perez signed an exclusive contract with startup publisher CrossGen Comics. Perez penciled the quarterly double-sized CrossGen Chronicles, followed by the monthly series Solus. I only read a handful of the CrossGen titles, but I picked up a couple of issues of CrossGen Chronicles specifically for Perez’s artwork.

One of the things I appreciated about the CrossGen books was that it was not a superhero-centric universe. CrossGen enabled Perez to stretch his boundaries and work in the genres of fantasy and sci-fi / space opera. He did some incredible work for them. Regrettably CrossGen only lasted a few years, going bankrupt in 2003.

CrossGen Chronicles #4, written by Mark Waid, penciled by George Perez, inked by Mike Perkins & Rick Magyar, colored by Laura DePuy, Chris Garcia & Mike Garcia, and lettered by Dave Lanphear & Troy Peteri, published by CrossGen Comics in Sept 2001

Back in 1981 Perez had begun penciling a Justice League / Avengers crossover, but the project was left uncompleted due to editorial conflicts between DC and Marvel Comics. Two decades later, in 2002, the Big Two at last came to an agreement to work together and publish a crossover between their two superstar teams. Even though Perez was signed to CrossGen, he’d included a clause in his contract with them that if Justice League / Avengers ever happened he would be allowed to draw it. And so he was reunited with Kurt Busiek and colorist Tom Smith to produce the long-awaited meeting of the Justice League and Avengers in four double-sized bookshelf issues.

JLA / Avengers once again gave Perez the opportunity to draw his casts of thousands. The absolute highlight of the event was the wraparound cover to the third issue, on which Perez depicted every single member of both teams up to that point in time. Tom Smith recently recounted that it took him two whole weeks just to color that cover.

Where’s Waldo?!? JLA/Avengers #3 cover drawn by George Perez and colored by Tom Smith, published by DC and Marvel Comics in December 2003

It seems like everyone has a George Perez story, so here’s mine: I met writer Marv Wolfman at a comic con in White Plains NY in June 2000 and had him autograph my copy of Crisis on Infinite Earths #8, the historic (and at the time absolutely permanent) death of Barry Allen, the Silver Age Flash. A few months later, at a store signing in Connecticut, I met artist Jerry Ordway, who had inked that issue,and I had him autograph it, too. He smiled and said “I’d better leave room for George Perez to sign it.” I responded that he didn’t have to do that, since I didn’t expect to ever meet Perez (and, really, I didn’t think I’d have the opportunity, because he was such an incredibly popular artist). Ordway just smiled again and autographed the book, leaving several inches space between his and Wolfman’s signatures.

Fast forward a few years, and low & behold none other than George Perez was a guest at a comic con in Manhattan. Of course I brought along my copy of Crisis on Infinite Earths #8, and Perez autographed it in between Wolfman & Ordway’s signatures. So, a big “thank you” to Jerry Ordway for his foresight.

Crisis on Infinite Earths #8 signed by Marv Wolfman, George Perez and Jerry Ordway!

I wish I could regale you with some fascinating anecdotes about my meeting George Perez. The simple fact is, in the couple of minutes I spoke with him he came across as a good person, and that’s it. From everything I’ve heard Perez was always like that; he always made an effort to be friendly to all of his fans, to greet them with a warm smile.

About a decade later Michele and I were at New York Comic Con. We ran into Perez when he was between panel discussions or something; I don’t recall the specifics. I just remember that Michele had had a copy of Wonder Woman vol 2 #19 with her, and she went up to Perez and asked him to sign it. I think he was talking with someone, or maybe he was on his way out of the room, but whatever it was he was doing he paused, turned to Michele, smiled, pulled out a sharpie, and autographed her comic. That’s the type of person Perez was, always making time for his fans.

George Perez was an incredible artist and a genuinely decent person. He will definitely be missed. I wish to offer my condolences to his family, friends and colleagues for their loss.

Nehemiah Persoff: 1919 to 2022

On April 5th prolific character actor Nehemiah Persoff passed away at the age of 102. Given his lengthy career and his long life, I wanted to share a few highlights about the man and his work.

Persoff, who was Jewish, was born on August 2, 1919 in Jerusalem, in what was then known as the British Mandate of Palestine. When he was 10 years old Persoff immigrated to the United States with the rest of his family.

Persoff initially trained as an electrician at the Hebrew Technical Institute in New York City, from which he graduated in 1937. However he was possessed of a love of acting, and when drafted into the United States Army during World War II he was part of an acting company that entertained soldiers overseas. In 1947 Persoff was accepted into the Actors Studio in Manhattan, and a year later he began his professional career.

Nehemiah Persoff in The Twilight Zone episode “Judgment Night” (1959)

As with many foreign-born actors in the American movie and television industry in the mid 20th Century, Persoff was cast as a wide variety of ethnicities & nationalities, and frequently portrayed villainous roles. Most notably, between 1959 and 1962 Persoff guest starred in six episodes of the Prohibition era crime drama The Untouchables, three of those featuring him as Jake “Greasy Thumb” Guzik, financial advisor and bagman to Chicago mob boss Al Capone.

Another of Persoff’s memorable television appearances was The Twilight Zone episode “Judgment Night” written by Rod Serling and broadcast in December 1959. He played Carl Lanser, a ruthless Nazi U-boat captain who is now doomed to spend all of eternity trapped on the British cargo liner he ordered destroyed in 1942.

Among the other genre roles Persoff was cast in were brilliant South American scientist Professor Moreno in the Wonder Woman episode “Formula 407” (1977), the supreme leader of the totalitarian Eastern Alliance in the Battlestar Galactica episode “Experiment in Terra” (1979) and Palor Toff, a very odd-looking alien merchant & collector of rare items in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “The Most Toys” (1990).

Nehemiah Persoff in the Wonder Woman episode “Formula 407” (1977)

As he grew older, Persoff was afforded more opportunities to portray sympathetic roles, and was often cast as characters who shared his own real-life Jewish heritage, something that was of great personal importance to him. He played a Jewish refugee fleeing from Nazi oppression in the 1976 historical drama Voyage of the Damned and portrayed Rebbe Mendel, the father to Barbara Streisand’s character in the 1983 musical Yentl. Persoff later gave voice to another Jewish patriarch, Papa Mousekewitz, in the 1986 animated movie An American Tail and its three sequels.

Persoff’s acting career lasted thru 1999. After suffering from a stroke he retired, but he then took up watercolor painting, on which he spent the next two decades. He also wrote an autobiography, The Many Faces of Nehemiah, which was published in 2021.

Persoff met his future wife Thia during a visit to Israel in 1951. They married later that year and remained together until her own passing in 2021.

Interviewed in 2008 by James Rosin for Films of the Golden Age, Persoff reflected on his lengthy acting career and his continued creative endeavors as a painter:

“It was a wonderful sixty years, but at this time in my life, I love solving problems on the canvas; trying to find the beauty and essence of a subject. It’s a fascinating, challenging, yet calming and most fulfilling process, finding colors that like each other, not only the basic colors, but the infiinite variations, starting with a fresh canvas and suddenly seeing it come alive. That gives one a tremendous feeling of satisfaction. I feel very fortunate in being able to continue my creative life; but this time without the tension, frustration and conflicts of an acting career.”

George Perez’s Wonder Woman

As with many, many other comic book fans, I was deeply saddened by the announcement this week that longtime artist & writer George Perez has been diagnosed with cancer, and has been given an estimated life expectancy of six months to one year. Perez is one of the all-time great creators to have worked in American comic books over the last four and a half decades.

While I have mentioned Perez on this blog in passing, regrettably I’ve never taken any sort of in-depth look at his art or writing before. I really want to rectify that now, while Perez is still among the living. And so I am going to showcase several examples of his work on one of the characters with whom he is most identified: Wonder Woman.

People like to throw around the word “definitive” but that is exactly the term I would use to describe George Perez’s iconic run on the Wonder Woman series from 1987 to 1992. In my mind, he wrote and drew one of the definitive versions of the character.

I had one heck of a time narrowing it down to just 10 examples!

Let’s start at the beginning. Here is George Perez’s beautiful cover for the first issue of Wonder Woman volume two (Feb 1987). Perez’s intricately detailed work superbly depicts Princess Diana, Queen Hippolyta, the Amazons, the Greek gods, and the island of Themyscira.

I really believe that Perez’s post-Crisis On Infinite Earths reboot / revamp of the Wonder Woman mythos is one of the primary reasons why the character of Princess Diana has subsequently become such a major character. Or, as acclaimed comic book writer Gail Simone put it:

“The hottest artist of the day, with a string of hits behind him, decided to cast his ridiculous talents on Wonder Woman. And it changed EVERYTHING.”

I don’t know if Perez deliberately set out to top the first issue’s cover when he illustrated the fold-out cover to Wonder Woman #10 (Nov 1987), the first chapter of “Challenge of the Gods,” but he definitely succeeded.

The introduction of the post-Crisis version of the villainous Silver Swan was heralded by Perez’s incredibly striking cover for Wonder Woman #15 (April 1988). Perez’s utilization of highly detailed work, an unsettling layout and negative space all combine to really make this one stand out. I wish I knew who did the coloring on this, because it certainly complements Perez’s work.

I would be absolutely remiss if I did not showcase an example of Perez’s interior work. “Who Killed Myndi Mayer?” in issue #20 (Sept 1988) finds Diana investigating the brutal murder of Myndi Mayer, her vivacious yet troubled publicist. On the final page of this story Diana at long last learns the tragic truth behind Myndi’s passing. Perez’s storytelling & dialogue combine to deliver a shocking, somber emotional moment.

“Who Killed Myndi Mayer?” was written & laid out by Perez, from an idea by Carol Flynn (Perez’s wife), with finishes by Bob McLeod, letters by John Costanza and colors by Carl Gafford. It was justifiably chosen for inclusion in the collection Wonder Woman: The Greatest Stories Ever Told published in 2007.

Another hyper-detailed Perez cover graces Wonder Woman Annual #1 (Nov 1988), in which Diana takes her good friend Julia Kapatelis and her teenage daughter Vanessa to visit the Amazons on Themyscira. John Stracuzzi’s vibrant colors enhance Perez’s work. Lettering is by Todd Klein.

A talented line-up of artists drew the different chapters of Perez’s story for Wonder Woman Annual #1. One of the more interesting artistic teams on the Annual was Silver Age Wonder Woman penciler Ross Andru inked by Perez himself. Andru is an underrated artist, and his storytelling on this chapter is solid, beautifully enhanced by both Perez’s inking and Carl Gafford’s coloring.

Kudos to Todd Klein for effectively lettering Perez’s script for this Annual. That was one of the great aspects about Perez’s Wonder Woman stories; they were very dense & intelligently written, the exact opposite of decompressed storytelling.

When I started reading DC Comics in the early 1990s, the 16 issue loose-leaf edition of Who’s Who in the DC Universe edited by Michael Eury was an absolutely invaluable resource. Eury recruited an all-star line-up of artists to create the profile images for the DC heroes and villains. Of course he asked George Perez to draw Wonder Woman, who was cover-featured in Who’s Who #4 (Nov 1990). Coloring is by Tom McCraw.

As I previously touched upon in my post on the 80th birthday of Wonder Woman, my first exposure to the series was during the “War of the Gods” crossover… which was probably the absolute worst time to start reading it! I was completely lost as to who these characters were and what was going on with these various different plotlines.

Nevertheless, Perez’s stunning covers, as well as the beautiful interior art by penciler Jill Thompson & inker Romeo Tanghal, caught my attention enough that when several months later DC Comics presented a jumping-on point for new readers with incoming writer William Messner-Loebs, I dove in. Soon after I started to read the earlier Perez stories via back issues and collected editions.

In any case, here’s Perez’s atmospheric cover for Wonder Woman #59 (Oct 1991) featuring guest appearances by Batman and Robin.

George Perez’s epic run on Wonder Woman came to an end with issue #61 (Feb 1992). Nevertheless, he has subsequently drawn Princess Diana on several occasions since then, and his return to the character has always been welcome. Here is one of those, the gorgeous pin-up Perez drew for the Wonder Woman Gallery special (Sept 1996). Coloring is by Tatjana Wood. I scanned this from my copy of the book, which I got autographed by Perez at a comic con in the early 2000s. I’m glad I got to meet him.

A few years ago on Twitter writer Gail Simone shared the first page of Wonder Woman #600 (Aug 2010) with the following explanation:

“When George Perez specifically requests you to write his farewell story to Wonder Woman and this is just the first page.”

Perez has an absolute penchant for drawing literal armies of characters, and that is definitely on display here! Diana leads some of DC Comics’ greatest female heroes into battle on this dynamic opening page. “Valedictorian” was written by Gail Simone, penciled by George Perez, inked by Scott Koblish, colored by Hi-Fi and lettered by Travis Lanham.

During an astonishing career that stretched from 1974 to 2019, Perez drew literally thousands of comic book characters. Nevertheless, his work on Wonder Woman will always be one of the absolute highlights.

Happy 80th birthday Wonder Woman

Today is the 80th birthday of Wonder Woman, who was created by writer William Moulton Marston & artist H.G. Peter . The character made her debut on October 21, 1941 in the pages of All-Star Comics #8, published by DC Comics with a Dec 1941 / Jan 1942 cover date. The next month Sensation Comics #1 was published with Wonder Woman as the starring cover feature. Six months later, in the summer of 1942, Wonder Woman gained her own solo comic book series.

I imagine that, as with many who were born in the mid 1970s, my first exposure to the character of Wonder Woman was the Super Friends animated series and the live action Wonder Woman television series starring Lynda Carter that originally aired from 1975 to 1979.

To this day I agree with the sentiment that Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman / Diana Prince remains one of the most brilliant casting decisions in any live action adaptation of a comic book property. About a decade ago I bought the entire series on DVD, and it definitely still holds up, in large part due to Carter’s warm, empathetic, strong performance.

The first time I ever read the actual Wonder Woman comic book series was in 1991, towards the tail end of George Perez’s groundbreaking run. In retrospect this was probably not an ideal time to get into the series, as this was right at the start of the convoluted War of the Gods crossover. However, several months later, in early 1992, there came a perfect jumping-on point, when William Messner-Loebs took over as writer on Wonder Woman. I know some fans feel there was a decline in quality under Loebs. Nevertheless, it was the ideal entry for a brand-new reader such as myself who was unfamiliar with the character. Plus the stunningly beautiful cover artwork by Brian Bolland made Wonder Woman a must-buy each month.

In the early 1990s I did pick up a number of the earlier Perez issues at comic conventions, and I agree that they were extremely good. To this day Perez’s work on the character remains among the strongest in her 80 year history.

I followed the Wonder Woman series for the next seven years, for the entirety of Loebs’ run, and then for writer-artist John Byrne’s stint on the series. Although I stopped picking up the book regularly in late 1998, in the years since I’ve periodically returned to Wonder Woman on several different occasions.

I especially enjoyed the short six issue run by Walter Simonson & Jerry Ordway in 2003, the New 52 Wonder Woman by writer Brian Azzarello & artist Cliff Chiang that began in 2011, and the 17 issue revival of Sensation Comics featuring a variety of creative teams bringing their different approaches to the character that ran from 2014 to 2016. Most recently I’ve been enjoying the Sensational Wonder Woman series, which also features different creative line-ups each issue.

Without a doubt I can say that Princess Diana of Themyscira remains one of my favorite comic book characters.

William Moulton Marston was an outspoken feminist, and he created Wonder Woman to be a symbol of female strength & empowerment. Over the last eight decades the character has certainly served as a source of inspiration to many female readers, and to female audiences who have seen her adapted to television, animation and motion pictures.

The Art of Steve Lightle

Yesterday I wrote a short retrospective on comic book creator Steve Lightle, who passed away at 61 years old on January 8th. Lightle was a very talented artist who worked on numerous series during a career that lasted three and a half decades. I am going to spotlight some more examples of his artwork. Here are ten of my favorite Steve Lightle covers and pin-ups.

1) Bolt Special (Spring 1984) – Steve Lightle’s earliest published work was for Bill Black and AC Comics. He drew several covers for AC, including this one. In addition to the title character, this features Tara the Jungle Girl, who would soon co-star in AC’s flagship title Femforce. This cover really shows that Steve hit the ground running.

2) Tales of the Legion of Super-Heroes #342 (Dec 1986) – This is definitely a fantastic showcase of Lightle’s work on the Legion, fitting the entire mid-1980s lineup onto a single cover. He really captured the individual personalities of the various characters. The coloring is by Anthony Tollin.

3) Who’s Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe #23 (Jan 1987) – Lightle co-created Legion member Tellus with writer Paul Levitz. Lightle revealed in interviews that in designing Tellus he wanted to come up with a completely alien, non-humanoid being, and he put a lot of thought into developing the character. This pin-up really illustrates what a unique character Tellus is.

4) Who’s Who in the Legion of Super-Heroes #1 (Apr 1988) – Lightle contributed wrap-around covers to the first two issues of this seven part spin-off from the main Who’s Who project. On this first one Lightle draws several members of the then-current line-up alongside a flashback to the team’s first tragic battle with Computo, a story originally recounted during the Silver Age.

5) Classic X-Men #36 (Aug 1989) – Lightle drew a number of incredible covers during his three year run as cover artist on Classic X-Men. The assignment gave him the opportunity to revisit, and reexamine, many of the already-iconic moments from the classic Claremont & Byrne run. Lightle seemed to be especially inspired on his covers for the reprints of “The Darth Phoenix Saga,” with this image of the X-Men and Phoenix being especially stunning.

6) Who’s Who in the DC Universe #14 (Nov 1991) – Lady Quark is a somewhat atypical female superhero, possessing a more athletic physique, harder features and short cropped hair (apparently her look was based on Scottish singer Annie Lennox). Lightle does a fine job illustrating Lady Quark in this profile pic, showcasing her as a powerful, formidable being. The coloring is by Tom McCraw.

7) Marvel Comics Presents #127 (Apr 1993) – This cover with Ghost Rider and Typhoid Mary works well to visualize the duality of the later character, with the Spirit of Vengeance caught between her two personalities . The coloring on this is also very effective, and is probably by Steve himself or his wife Marianne.

8) Wonder Woman Gallery (Sept 1996) – Lightle certainly did a very beautiful pin-up of Princess Diana for this special. It’s unfortunate that he did not have too many opportunities to draw Wonder Woman. The coloring is by Tom McCraw.

9) The Flash #161 (June 2000) – Lightle drew a lot of great pieces during his three year run as cover artist on The Flash, but many people (myself included) nevertheless consider this to be one of the best. This issue features a flashback to the honeymoon of the first Flash, Jay Garrick, and his wife Joan in Las Vegas in 1947, with Jay’s teammates in the Justice Society crashing the party. Lightle successfully evokes the feel of the Golden Age art styles from the original JSA stories. The lettering is by Todd Klein.

10) The Mighty Titan #3 (October 2014) – When writer Joe Martino was running the Kickstarter campaigns to fund The Mighty Titan he asked several established artists to contribute covers. Among them was Lightle, who drew the cover for issue #3. Lightle was a good person, and it was just like him to help an up-and-coming creator. I think it was Lightle posting this cover on social media that made me aware of The Mighty Titan in the first place, which led me to back the Kickstarter. The coloring is by Ross Hughes.

This list could easily have been twice as long. Steve Lightle drew so many amazing pieces of artwork during his lifetime. He will certainly be missed.

The Daily Comic Book Coffee, Part 12

Welcome to the 12th edition of Comic Book Coffee. I posted these daily in the Comic Book Historians group on Facebook. The challenge was to see how many different pencilers I could find artwork by featuring coffee.

56) Judit Tondora

Wonder Woman ’77 Meets The Bionic Woman #2, drawn by Judit Tondora, written by Andy Mangels, lettered by Tom Orzechowski & Lois Buhalis, and colored by Roland Pilcz, published by Dynamite Entertainment and DC Comics in January 2017.

This was a fun miniseries co-starring television’s top two heroines from the late 1970s. Andy Mangels is probably the foremost expert on Wonder Woman, and he must have had a real blast writing a team-up of Princess Diana and Jamie Sommers.

Hungarian artist Judit Tondora did a great job rendering both the television version of Wonder Woman and the Bionic Woman, along with both their supporting casts and their small screen rogues galleries. Likenesses can be very tricky, but I feel that Tondora really captured most of them pretty accurately. Her depictions of Diana and Jaime were certainly beautiful. Tondora’s art for this miniseries was very lively. I hope we see more of her work appearing in comic books in the near future.

In this scene Diana Price and Steve Trevor of the IADC are meeting with Jaime Sommers and Oscar Goldman of the OSI. Over coffee the four agents are discussing the ongoing investigation into the terrorist cabal Castra, an alliance of the IADC and OSI’s deadliest adversaries that has hijacked a shipment of experimental nuclear missiles.

Wonder Woman ’77 Meets The Bionic Woman was a really enjoyable read. I definitely recommend it.

57) Brad Gorby & Mark Heike

Femforce #93, written & penciled by Brad Gorby, inked by Mark Heike, and lettered by Christie Churms, published by AC Comics in May 1996.

While Femforce is basically a serious title, it also has a sense of humor about itself. The main storyline running though these issues involves Jennifer Burke, the daughter of the original Ms. Victory. Due to the manipulations of the military and a series of personal tragedies Jen’s life has completely fallen apart. Going rogue, Jen adopts the identity of Rad which her mother previously assumed. The government, realizing that Rad possesses a wealth of top secret information from her time leading Femforce, dispatches a group of genetically engineered assassins to eliminate her.

While this very intense plotline is taking place, writer / penciler Brad Gorby takes a brief detour to a more lighthearted setting. It is morning and the ladies of Femforce are having breakfast. Ms. Victory is once again drinking coffee, obviously a favorite of hers. The incredibly-powerful yet often-absentminded Synn is trying to find out who ate all her sprinkle donuts and pop tarts, prompting the sorceress Nightveil to conjure up some for her.

I enjoy these types of “downtime” scenes in Femforce that explore the personal lives of the characters, and which allow for somewhat more goofball sequences.

Gorby did a good job penciling this scene, giving each of the characters their own personalities, making them stand out from one another. The inking is by Mark Heike. Gorby and Heike are both longtime AC Comics contributors, as well as very talented artists. Grey tones are by Christie Churms, who also lettered this issue.

58) José Beá

“Recurrence” was drawn by José Beá and written by Steve Skeates. It appeared in Vampirella #34, released by Warren Publishing in June 1974.

The beautiful young protagonist of “Recurrence” thought she had it made. She had pushed her husband into an elevator shaft, collecting $10,000 from the insurance company for his “accidental” death. But then came the dreams, night after night, of being pushed off a cliff and falling endlessly. Was it a guilty conscience… or a premonition? Now she drinks coffee in the middle of the night desperate not to fall asleep again.

Spanish artist José Beá illustrated a number of stories for Warren between 1971 and 1976. These were published in Warren’s three main comic book magazine series, Creepy, Eerie and Vampirella. Following his time at Warren, Beá did a great deal of work in the European comic book field. Among these were a number of erotic stories, some of which at the time unfortunately garnered a great deal of controversy. Beá also wrote several science fiction novels for young adults.

59) Peter Krause & Dick Giordano

The Power of Shazam #36, penciled by Peter Krause, inked by Dick Giordano, written by Jerry Ordway, lettered by John Costanza and colored by Glenn Whitmore, published by DC Comics in March 1998.

During a crossover with the Starman series, Billy and Mary Batson have to work with Jack Knight to help clear the name of World War II hero Jim Barr, aka Bulletman, who has been framed for treason by neo-Nazis. In his Captain Marvel identity Billy initially clashes with Jack, until the more level-headed Mary Marvel convinces him to calm down. The trio heads to the home of Nick & Nora Bromfield, who have adopted the orphaned Mary and Billy. There they find the Bromfields having coffee with Jack’s father Ted, the original Starman, as well as Jim Barr himself, with everyone attempting to figure out what their next step should be.

The Power of Shazam was such an amazing, fun, underrated series. I came into it a bit late, in the second year, but I immediately became hooked, and I soon got caught up on the Jerry Ordway graphic novel and back issues. Ordway wrote some great stories. He successfully achieving the very tricky feat of simultaneously updating Billy, Mary and the rest of the Marvel Family cast for the 1990s while retaining a great deal of the charm from the original Golden Age stories.

Peter Krause did really good work penciling the series. Due to the prevailing styles in super-hero comic books at the time, I think his work here was unfortunately overlooked by many. Krause deftly balanced the serious and cartoony elements of the characters. On the later issues of the series Krause was inked by the legendary Dick Giordano.

60) Amy Reeder

Rocket Girl #2, drawn & colored by Amy Reeder and written by Brandon Montclare, published by Image Comics in November 2013.

DaYoung Johansson, a fifteen year old police officer from the high tech future year of 2013, has traveled back in time to 1986. DaYoung is convinced that her miraculous world should not exist, that it was created when the monolithic corporate juggernaut Quintum Mechanics sent its own technology back in time 27 years to its founders to give them a vast advantage. DaYoung, armed with her jetpack and her teenage zeal, is determined to thwart this crime against time, even if it means erasing the very future from which she came.

Montclare & Reeder’s ten issue Rocket Girl series is a wibbly wobbly, timey wimey tale of temporal paradoxes, corporate intrigue and youthful idealism. I previously reviewed the first five issues. The ending to Montclare’s story ultimately left me feeling ambivalent, for a few different reasons.

What I was not ambivalent about was Reeder’s stunning artwork. She did a superb job drawing both the sci-fi New York City of 2013 and the historically accurate Big Apple of 1986. Her layouts for Rocket Girl were incredibly dynamic, and the amount of detail she put into her pages was astonishing.

As Reeder recounts in the text feature from issue #7…

“In Rocket Girl I am responsible for making two worlds; an 80s vision of the future, and actual 1980s New York. At first I expected the futuristic world would give me the worst trouble — I thought coming up with a city out of thin air would be a bit overwhelming. But I should have known better: I get carried away with accuracy, and the 1980s New York is heavily documented, often talked about, and well remembered by many. So bar none — 80’s NYC is the harder of the two worlds to draw. I just HAVE to get it right. And, honestly, it’s pretty fun to get it right. (Or close!)”

On this page from issue #2, the recently arrived DaYoung is bunking with Annie Mendez and Ryder Storm, two graduate students who work for Quintum Mechanics in 1986. Annie and Ryder awaken to find the hyperactive DaYoung has whipped up a huge stack of pancakes and brewed a pot of coffee, all the while pondering how to change the course of history.