A Golden Thread

If you're going to pick a superhero character to do a critical history of, Wonder Woman has to be about the best choice. She's been going more or less constantly since the 1940s, is reasonably well known to the general public, and yet has never had the huge amount of material that, say, Batman and Superman have had - for much of her history, she has had just one monthly comic title focussed specifically on her. And, while this book was written before the 2017 movie was even announced, you do get to add a '70s TV series and some more modern cartoons into the mix.

And, of course, she's a prominent female character in a male-dominated medium, which allows us to see how she has interacted with things like the history of feminism.

Not all eras of the character's history get the same level of detail, and that's entirely fair. The original Wonder Woman, of the '40s, was quite radically different to all the conceptualisations that followed, and takes a up a full quarter of the book. While, on the other hand, not a lot happened in the '50s and early '60s, when the comic was largely treading water with no interest in being more, so that that (longer) era gets just a single chapter.

The author's love of the character comes across, as does his disappointment when, as happened regularly over the decades, a new writer comes along and mucks everything up. There's an emphasis on Wonder Woman's politically progressive nature (as portrayed by the better writers, anyway) and some good literary analysis of the nature of the stories and the accompanying artwork, as well as how DC and its predecessors marketed the character. And, of course, there are chapters on the TV series, likely WW's widest exposure to the general public.

Some might find the writing a little dry and academic, but I found it all very interesting, a good, in-depth look a one specific corner of comic-book history. So far as I can tell, it's all well-researched, and I enjoyed reading it.