ladyloveandjustice:

OKAY I’M MAKING A POST. This is my giant “where should I start with Wonder Woman comics if I like the movie” post. Or “Where I should start with Wonder Woman comics” even if you don’t like the movie really. These are good comics, basically.

In my opinion, the best starting point for Wonder Woman is the recent, excellent retelling of her origin by Greg Rucka. It’s similar to the movie in some ways, but there’s a ton that’s different about the comic book universe. For instance, Wonder Woman comes to our world during modern times rather than World War I. 

The comic is conveniently collected in one volume titled “Wonder Woman Vol 2: Year One”. You can find a link to it on Amazon here: Wonder Woman Vol 2: Year One.  Amazon also offers a way to get the comic digitally and cheaply via comixology.

Basically, Wonder Woman  Vol 2: Year One is a great read. The art is gorgeous, Diana is characterized wonderfully, there are queer women everywhere and Diana herself is pretty blatantly queer, the cast is diverse and interesting, the story is solid and it introduces you to everything slowly. Sample of the greatness:

(Steve cracks me up in that picture. He looks very Strong Male Character)

BUT IMPORTANT NOTE: DO NOT MIX THIS UP WITH WONDER WOMAN YEAR ONE BY GRANT MORRISON. IT HAS A SIMILAR NAME, BUT IT IS SUPREMELY AWFUL, FETISH-Y, BADLY WRITTEN BULLSHIT. IT IS ON THE AVOID LIST. I CAN ELABORATE IF YOU’D LIKE BUT I’LL LEAVE IT AT THAT.)

Annnyway, if you end up liking Wonder Woman Vol 2: Year 1, I’d follow up on it by getting Wonder Woman Vol 1: The Lies and Wonder Woman Vol 3: The  Truth which will be released next month. It follows up on the story presented in Year One and is pretty good overall.

(and yes, I know the numbering is confusing, there’s a reason it’s like that but it would take too long to explain. Basically, it’s fine and less confusing to read them in the order of Vol 2: Year One, then Vol 1: The Lies, then Vol 3: The Truth)

Another good starting point is The Legend of Wonder Woman by Renae DeLiz. it’s another take on Diana’s Origin, but is very different from both the movie and Rucka’s Year One since it’s set during World War II. It’s entirely a stand-alone story, so you don’t have to be familiar with any other comics to understand it. It’s mostly available digitally on comixology, though Amazon does have a hardcover version as well. It has a fantastic version of Etta Candy who’s very involved in the story and very nice art.

So, those are my recs for someone starting out who needs to experience the comic book version of her origin. Now that that’s out of the way, I’m gonna plug myself and say I wrote and article on some of the best Wonder Woman stories.

Here it is: 12 Greatest Stories for Getting to Know Wonder Woman. Please peruse this, it has links to where you can buy all the stuff too.

Great standalone stories from this list are JLA: League of One by Christopher Moeller in which Diana fights a dragon and The Hiketeia by Greg Rucka which is basically a Greek Tragedy starring Wonder Woman that has a double page spread of her punching Batman in the face (and yes, I don’t know how high the price hike was, but it’s a pretty good story if that’s your thing).

(The Hiketeia is also collected in Wonder Woman by Greg Rucka Volume One, which collects a bunch of other great comics as well, so that might be more bang for your buck)

The others on the list are mostly NOT standalone, but are the body of work of a specific Wonder Woman comic book writer.  For instance, I highly reccomend the work of George Perez and Greg Rucka, which are now conveniently collected in big, accessible Wonder Woman by George Perez and Wonder Woman by Greg Rucka books. I’ll go into that more in my writers to read and writers to avoid list under the cut.

But one last thing before I do that- please check out my friend @bluefall-returns​ “When Wondy Was Awesome” posts if you want to learn a little more about Wonder Woman before checking out these stories. The post series covers the best Wonder Woman comic book stories from the time period of roughly 1987-2007. It contains a ton of scans from these comics and detailed annotations and is a great resource in general.

Find it all here: When Wondy was Awesome.  Scroll to the bottom, click “previous 20″ and then scroll to the bottom again and you’ll find part one of the series. Go from there. 

NOW, writers to look at and writers to avoid!

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