Home Columns Classic Comic Compendium Classic Comic Compendium: WONDER WOMAN HISTORIA – THE AMAZONS

Classic Comic Compendium: WONDER WOMAN HISTORIA – THE AMAZONS

A fable that works as a compelling, beautiful origin story for the warrior women of DC.

08/05/2024 11:00 am

Greek Gods. Feminism. Larger than life immortal beings.

No, you have not somehow stumbled into another commentary on this year’s opening ceremonies for the Olympic Games, although this does include a giant blue guy. And archery, kind of. Human trafficking. Slavery. Child abandonment. Petty sibling rivalry. Overbearing patriarchs. Social injustice. Sisterhood.

All of the things that get woven together in a lyrical, mythical form to craft one of this year’s winners for the Eisner Awards, earning it Best Graphic Album – Reprint, Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons. A work that also previously won awards for Best Single Issue (for Book One) and Best Penciller/Inker (Phil Jimenez) in 2022.

“History, young one, is written by the victors. In the bitter battle between the Amazons and the Gods of Man…”

Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons by Kelly Sue DeConnick, Phil Jimenez, Gene Ha, Nicola Scott, Hi-Fi, Arif Prianto, Romulo Fajardo Jr., Walden Wong, Annette Kwok, and Clayton Cowles is a fable telling the tale of the origin of the Amazons, from being crafted by the gods to how they wound up on Themyscira.

Broken down into three books, each kind of serves as a movement through different spheres as the story plays out. Starting in the realm of gods, working through mortal workings, and then concluding with a conflict between the two. Kelly Sue DeConnick frames it in a sort of fairy tale fashion, making good use of myth-telling and subtle variations on theatrical forms in the story structure and content. Allowing Clayton Cowls the opportunity to give us some interesting narration boxes and special balloons for god speech.

The artwork is exquisite. The book is practically worth it alone just to marvel at the detail and beauty that goes into the visuals. Phil Jimenez, Hi-Fi, Arif Prianto, and Romulo Fajardo Jr. set a ridiculously high bar with the first part. Seriously the intricacy of design, storytelling flow, page layouts, and character design, coupled with colour and effects are off the scale. Just the drill down alone of man’s inhumanity towards woman, as represented by art on pottery, is incredible. And that’s only within the first few pages, it gets even more magical as the story unfolds across the stage of Olympus and Tartarus as the original Amazons are created by six of the Greek goddesses.

It’s a hard act to follow, but Gene Ha & Walden Wong and Nicola Scott & Annette Kwok do in the second and third books respectively. Ha & Wong give a more ethereal tone to their part, dealing with some of the spiritual and emotional development of the seventh tribe of the Amazons, the found sisterhood of mortals led by Hippolyta. An interesting adherence to the motif of the Golden Ratio worked into the pages. While Scott & Kwok bring the story to a head with the forces of the angry male gods trying to bring wrath and a bizarre sense of justice against the Amazons.

“…and remember that we are blessed.”

Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons by DeConnick, Jimenez, Ha, Scott, Hi-Fi, Prianto, Fajardo, Wong, Kwok, and Cowles is a marvelous modern myth. A fable that works as a compelling, beautiful origin story for the warrior women of DC that serve as the family of Wonder Woman, but also as an allegory and commentary on injustice that still persists in society. And a call to women on how coming together, pooling their differences and their strengths, can make something powerful.