George Perez era:
Issue 1
Phil Jimenez era:
Issues 164-165
Issues 166-167
Issues 168-169 Amazon Civil War
Walter Simonson era:
Issues 189-190
Issues 191-192
Issues 193-194
Greg Rucka era:
Allan Heinberg
With great fanfare, DC introduced Volume 3 of the Wonder Woman title without telling us why it needed to be reset at zero and given a soft pseudo-reboot that didn't really correct anything or reset much. Of course they didn't warn us that Amazons Attack was on the horizon either...
Alan Heinberg was in TV, notably (well, notably to me) a writer and producer of Gilmore Girls. He'd written the popular Young Avengers over at Marvel, and his Wiki entry says he co-wrote JLA for a few issues with Geoff Johns.
So he landed the job with Wondie, though apparently he'd forgotten to tell anyone that he already had a full schedule that would keep him from his duties with her. The books came out very late. By the time DC announced that WW was now on a bimonthly schedule, it was actually coming out quarterly. Fans screamed to high heaven. Heck, it got so bad even NON-Wondie fans shouted for DC to do something.
Other titles were also running late, but none to the extent that Wonder Woman was. DC hired a person to correct the situation company-wide (aren't such called "editors"?) and eventually things did get better. But we fans and later others began to demand that DC hire a writer who COULD produce in a timely manner, and have Heinberg finish his story (if needed) outside the WW book. What they finally did was just that. Heinberg's last, long chapter that finalized the setup to Volume 3, appeared in the 2007 WW Annual, quite some time after the book had gone on to other things.
Who Is Wonder Woman?: issues #1-4, WW (2007) Annual #1
Jodi Picoult
The Nadir of Wonder Woman
Will Pfeifer
For a (video) review of Amazons Attack! more thorough than I could ever hope to supply, go here for issues 1 & 2, here for issues 3 & 4, and here for issues 5 & 6, all from the brilliant blog "Atop the Fourth Wall."
J. Torres
Called upon to finish AA in the WW book, Torres also wrote a bridge or AA Aftermath, and then a fill-in issue which set up things for his Wonder Girl miniseries.
Gail SimoneThe rumors of Gail Simone coming to WW took fandom by storm, and the official confirmation made us crazy with celebration. When she arrived, she did so with an explosion of creative energy. We were treated to stories with poetry and humor, deep emotion, awesome action, and Amazon honor. Diana fought in the modern world, on extraterrestrial planets, in S&S venues. She worked side-by-side with super-gorillas, aliens, humans and gods. For a while it seemed like this would be the best WW era ever!
Gail was obviously targeting her stories to showcase Diana as a "kick-ass," no-nonsense kinda gal who was a master of battle strategy. Now when Wondie made appearances across the rest of the DCU, she began to be treated with respect and even awe.
The roller coaster ride didn't last long enough. Do they ever? Pacing slowed and uncovered large plot holes raising questions that brought at least this reader out of the story far too much and too often. Some stories seemed merely to introduce new characters that had little to do with Diana and more to do with how they could be used elsewhere. Amazons Attack was reiterated as having a firm place in WW continuity, though an awkward story was written (in Secret Six and not WW!) to place the blame on a handful of Banas when what we'd actually seen was thousands of Amazons doing their own dirty work under the command of Hippolyta herself. (If it was okay to revise AA so dramatically, why not eliminate it altogether?) Many of the individual Amazons we now saw were fraught with all kinds of mental illnesses and weakness of spirit. These were the people who formed the foundation for Diana?
If Gail peppered her stories with situations that made the reader stop and ask, "Huh?", and if she layered sixty-nine subplots into a single story arc, leaving sixty-five of them never to be resolved... If her stories started going in one direction with a specific goal in mind and then suddenly that goal/direction were completely changed... Well, that just kept us wishing that Gail's editor du jour would keep her on track, though on the message boards Gail often cited editorial/TPTB interference with keeping her from doing the job she wanted to do on the book.
It didn't hurt at all that Gail got some superb artists to work with! For the most part, Diana never looked better. Imho artist Aaron Lopresti was one of the top WW artists of all time. His work was gorgeous!
The Circle: issues 14-17
Expatriate: issues 18-19
Ends of the Earth: issues 20-23
All the then-current Titans got solo issues. This was Donna's: Feb, 2010.
Wondie fans get an advance look at how JMS might treat her one month before his Bold New WW Direction hits: June, 2010. WW teams up with Zatanna and Batgirl (Barbara Gordon).
Thanks to a postcard campaign and DC's 75th Anniversary, Wonder Woman found herself returned to her original numbering, more or less. (I still think #600 should have been issue #44. ::shrug::)
DC took the occasion of this special issue to wrap up the Gail Simone era as well as the George Pérez overarching era, to present some teamup stories, plug in a lot of pinup shots, and kick off the new JMS era by pulling a PR stunt that got the entire world talking and gave us world peace. Well, it got everyone talking, at least.
J. Michael Straczynski
Placeholder copy until we see what the heck's going on.
Wonder Woman et al are all trademarked and/or copyrighted by DC Comics, Inc. Buy their comics!