WONDER WOMAN MASTERPIECE EDITION

By: Arnold T. Blumberg
Date: Friday, November 16, 2001

She's the symbol of feminine strength and independence, an Amazon who came to the world of Men and forged a legend. She is sometimes known as Diana Prince, but usually referred to simply as Wonder Woman. A superheroine without peer, a member of the Justice League of America (or the Justice Society if you're talking about her mother and...but let's not let continuity trip us up on this occasion), and one of the top triumvirate of DC heroes alongside Superman and Batman, Wonder Woman is one of the most important fictional figures in comics. She is even more significant as a role model for girls in a medium (and world) where men frequently take center stage. Wonder Woman offers hope, beauty and power in one amazing package, and she does it all with grace and a finely tuned sense of moral responsibility. That and the lasso that makes people tell the truth.

This new MASTERPIECE EDITION, one in a series from Chronicle Books, features a fully researched hardcover book detailing the events that led to the creation and early appearances of Wonder Woman as written by William Moulton Marston. Author Les Daniels invites us into the life of a truly demented individual who believed that he was making a statement about the inner psyche of women with his work but basically only revealed that he was a hopeless bondage freak. That such a celebrated icon of female intellect and power should emerge from the fevered imaginings of this lunatic is truly remarkable.

The perplexing part of this otherwise fascinating exploration of Wonder Woman's creation is how neutral author Les Daniels manages to remain in the face of Marston's astonishing insanity. Is Daniels deliberately trying not to provide editorial comment despite the truth, or does he believe the facts speak for themselves? They certainly prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Marston was a borderline psychotic let's drop the borderline with a eccentric family life and some very twisted theories about women and children (wouldn't Wertham have loved this book - on the other hand, who knows what he was up to at home), but it would be nice to have the author step out of the role of objective observer just once and say, "Hey, get a load of this nut!"

As with their past MASTERPIECE EDITION volumes on Superman and Batman, Chronicle Books is offering the Wonder Woman Edition in two formats, both of which include the hardcover book by Daniels and an eight and a half inch figure of the Golden Age Wonder Woman, an exclusive collectible not available anywhere else. The $40 set is the bargain version, while the $70 set also includes a reproduction of the first-ever Wonder Woman comic book. The production values, as you might expect from the folks at Chronicle, are very high. This is without a doubt another in a series of handsome volumes that simply must be owned by anyone with an interest in comic book and superhero history.


As a record of Wonder Woman's formative years, this book does the job well, offering a detailed look at the man behind her legend and illustrating the tale with some beautiful examples of Golden Age artwork. But as an exposé of Marston's bizarre views of female submission and his paradoxical belief that bondage equaled emotional and spiritual freedom, it falls short of taking a definitive stand.

WONDER WOMAN MASTERPIECE EDITION

Grade: A

Author(s): Les Daniels

Publisher: Chronicle Books

Price: $40/$70