Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons | Book Discussion | Spoilers Ahead!

So I just picked this up at my local comic shop as I was tired of waiting for it to show up on DCUI (and I’m not sure if it ever will since they still don’t have the aforementioned Dead Earth or quite a few other such titles). I thought the entire issue was stunning. I love the density of the artwork and I had to force myself to slow down my normal fast reading pace to really appreciate it. Gorgeous and somewhat surreal, which to me lends a lot more weight to the story.

As mentioned above, there is a definite link to Perez, but I love the addition of each Goddess creating five specific Amazons, as well as seeing so many familiar names: Phillipus, Penthesilea, Antiope, Niobe, Philomela, Pythia, Mnemosyne, Penelope, Iphthime, and Io! (Yeah, I read too many WW comics).

Hera’s powers and role are particularly intriguing. The interactions between the Gods and Goddesses always interest me. I think that is why I love WW so much is my love of classical mythology, and combining ancient myth and modern myth makes this exactly the sort of story I love to read.

Just realized that issue 2 doesn’t come out until April 5th. Well, this will give me a couple of weeks to mull it over, and I have time to watch the videos listed above. When I find a story I really love, I enjoy spending time deep diving about it.

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I finally read this! It was very good. Dark as hell, but good. There are a lot of uncomfortable questions Diana has to face for herself and her own people. Some of it was very painful to witness. But I am absolutely glad I read it. (The way Cheetah and Pegasus were incorporated was outstanding.)

I also finally read through Phil Jimenez’s run! This was less recent, maybe a couple of months ago (as opposed to Dead Earth, which I literally just read this week). But I definitely enjoyed it and was glad I checked it out!

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Huzzah, and a Themysciran double high five to you! :raised_hands:t2:

Now that you’ve got Jimenez’s run down, what’s next on your Wonder Woman reading list?

SN: His run on Superwoman is pretty good. Not WW I know, but a good tenure on a book starring a badass lady (two in fact, as the series begins), all the same. :superman:

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I’m finishing up Grant Morrison’s Earth One trilogy right now! :open_book:

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Good stuff, and that reminds me that I still need to finish Earth One V3. I’m about halfway through, ATM.

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With book two on the horizon it will be interesting to see where this goes. Im hoping this does well enough that the writers plans for turning this from a three book to a nine book series comes to fruition.

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This is such a beautiful book!!

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@nuuninuunani Hello, and welcome! A thread for the new Issue will be published tonight! :purple_heart: See you there!

https://community.dcuniverseinfinite.com/t/wonder-woman-historia-the-amazons-2-4-5-22-spoilers-ahead/3201995?u=razzzcat

@Stebs Welcome to you as well! And 100% agree :star_struck: :00_wonder_woman_gold: Really looking forward to the next book!

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Thank you for the warm welcome :slight_smile:

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You’re very welcome! :purple_heart: Don’t be a stranger! :blush:

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Just arrived today!

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:00_wonder_woman_gold: BOOK TWO

The second installment of the jaw-droppingly ambitious history of the Amazons finds their future queen, Hippolyta, cutting a swath through the world of men, desperate to be reunited with the astonishing women who saved her life…but unfortunately for her, they’re hard folk to find. Perhaps it is the will of the Goddesses that they cross paths again…but before that moment, Hippolyta will gather to herself a tribe of her very own—and find that the hearts of all women do not necessarily burn with a flame as righteous as her own…


:open_book: If you’ve read it (or plan to) and wish to discuss, drop your thoughts below when you’re ready!

You can join or learn more about :wondersquadron2: The Wonder Squad HERE. or :that_black_label_life: ThatBlackLabelLife HERE.

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In the :dc: library:

(Variant B) And a link to our Book 1 Discussion, for any newcomers:

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I would say this Wonder-woman series would have made a perfect companion piece to Brian Azzarello Wonder-woman series. Wonder-woman books would have been the most criticality acclaimed era in DC comics.

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Another fantastic issue!

Issue one was Phil Jimenez’s magnum opus, essentially, and while it was beautiful, it was also very overwhelming at times, especially at the beginning when it was all the greek gods – or the gods and the “mothers,” as this issue tells us. Of course, this issue was done by Gene Ha and while I don’t think his art will be as gawked at as JImenez’s, it’s equally something to behold and almost works better as comic book sequentials.

The story was also great – it was cool to see this version of Hippolyta who feels very different from previous iterations in terms of backstory, but still keeps to her core. The idea of her creating the seventh tribe of human Amazons and becoming their queen is very compelling. But the story is not without it’s tragedy – what the one little boy does and what the Amazons do for and against him will reign heavily on what’s to come with this book.

Looking forward to seeing what happens next, both in terms of the story and with how Nicola Scott will similarly up her ante in terms of her already gorgeous art.

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This issue was just as fascinating and beautiful as the first one. I love this version of how Hippolyta becomes queen. My favorite page:

Such a good payoff for Hippolyta finally finding and joining the Amazons. Great messaging in the narrative. And Hera and Artemis watching in the trees! The art is captivating.

My only complaint…we now have to wait until Fall for the next one.

Edit: Forgot to mention this heartfelt dedication to George Perez at the end:

image

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I adore that conversation between Artemis and Hippolyta. I mean geez, that was some wild artist flexing going on there!

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Normally, I read comics pretty fast. This is one of the few titles that I take my time, enjoy the ride as I escape to another world. I do wonder when it was decided that Hippolyta would have somewhat of a larger nose than other characters. I noticed this in Paradise Lost, which I read last night. I will say she is completely recognizable across different artists and eras.

Enough of my weird ponderings, the story is being told at a perfect pace. Everything is well-planned. There is a definite cause and effect, I am almost willing to say this is a theme of the story. Ranging from the way the Gods treat the Goddesses to the event that unfolds near the end of the book.

I was happy to see Io! As mentioned in the The Wonder Squadron club room, she is becoming one of my favorite Amazons.

I know this is a DC Black title but I am curious on if this series will be seen as the gold standard for Amazon origins in the main DC line of Wonder books.

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Something I didn’t realize I knew until you pointed it out! She does have a look, and it seems to me to be something of a actual ancient Greek look. I think they might even be basing her look on Queen Penthesilea who fought in the Trojan War:

If you look at the writing behind her shield on the right on the wine jar, you will see the same Greek characters on the third page of Historia written on the side of the tomb. (I once spent a year trying to learn ancient Greek and my main benefit is I am able to occasionally puzzle out Greek writing, usually when I run into it in comics). I can’t figure out the rest of the inscription, except of course for “Amazon”.

One thing about Ancient Greek and Latin inscriptions: to save time and energy on chiseling letters into rock, they often abbreviated, which makes tombs very hard to read unless you are very familiar with the languages. I am not, so I am not surprised I cannot figure this out. Side note: Greek used no punctuation and no spaces between letters. soundsprettyannoyingtomenandkindofmakesitdifficulttoreadquickly

Well, as long as I’m on the subject I’ll add my other translations to this post. Please keep in mind I only spent a year learning this stuff 20 years ago. If someone else can figure it out please chime in :slightly_smiling_face:

The circle around Artemis on page 12 says “Artemis, Hegemon, Thereon, Krateousa, Genethles, which I think means something like: “Artemis, Leader, Wild Beast, Powerful, Born/Giver of Birth”.

The circle around Hippolyta on page 20 says “Hippos e Lelumeue”. I think it says “The horse set free.” My verb endings are extremely rusty but this looks like a form of the verb “to loose” or “to set free.” Little story about this verb: it was the first one I learned in my Greek book. Funny how life brings around these little connections now and again.

The map says “Hanna resnik doidos periklutos” on the sea. I can only make out the last word: “enclosed.” They are using all capital letters here, possibly because it is a map. The tomb was all capitals, but the circles around heads had some words with capital letters and some without. It was kinda confusing, actually. This is not uncommon in comics where a writer or artist is using a language they are unfamiliar with.

There are often errors when a writer/artist uses either characters that look similar but are not (such as with the letter “s” in Greek sometimes looking like “e” in English), or they do what is know as transliteration. This is when they write a word in one language using the characters of another language. (I did this at work as a secret code by writing French words in Greek characters. I have no idea why I did this, but I am certain no one broke my code. :grin:).

Anyway, it was enjoyable rambling about things based on @D4RK5TARZ comment on Hippolyta’s nose. Maybe at some point I’ll write about the comic but this post is already long enough.

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Holy schnikes! My random rambling turned into a lesson that is much appreciated. Now that you mention the possibility of the basis for Hippolyta, it makes so much sense. So now, I will have to go back and look at pre-Crisis Wonder Woman comics to see if that nose was always there or if this is something that happened under the ever-watchful George Perez in post-Crisis.

Furthermore, those translations are outstanding. I wouldn’t even know where to start in deciphering those, nor did I think to.

I know this is in reference to Artemis, the diety, but it could also be directed to Artemis the Amazon, minus maybe the last one “Born/Giver of Birth”. Although, she did come back to life which could be seen as being reborn.

Have I mentioned how much I love this series? The insight seen by other readers has really helped expand on my enjoyment.

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