Who is Wonder Woman?

I think a politician was the one who said that, unless it gets my attention, it doesn’t get my vote. Now, our favorite Amazon Princess has always gotten my attention and my vote but I felt that it was just a vote that was naturally given. I mean, how could you not?

She is a compelling figure to look that. She is fierce, fearless, gorgeous and as per Batman, never fails to inspire and that puts her above the rest of all other superheroes. But for this compilation, the life of Wonder Woman that we all view as almost perfect as her form and figure is less than ideal. This compilation comes after the startling events in Infinite Crisis and follows the death of former Justice League member turned murderer, Maxwell Lord who saw his own demise at the hands of our Amazon as a result of mentally manipulating Superman to kill her. The world saw her then as a murderer and Diana had to retreat and go into self-imposed exile and let Donna Troy, then Wonder Girl take over for her as Wonder Woman.

In this compilation, Donna does the best that she can to fill in for Diana but finds herself up against former British archeologist, Dr. Barbara Minverva, aka, Cheetah; Dr. Doris Zeul, aka. Giganta; and the most power telepath, Dr. Psycho. Together they ganged up on Donna and almost left her for dead, although not quite while our own Diana, having been stripped of her title, goes undercover to work for the US Department of MetaHuman Affairs as Agent Diana Prince.  With this new assignment she adds the “title” of double agent to her superhero resume and had to work with Agent Tresser, aka. Nemesis, the Master of Disguises in search of the missing Wonder Woman who has not been seen since.

This search soon finds herself being allied with Hercules and facing the witch Circe who for a time being in this compilation relegated herself to being the new Wonder Woman; vengeful and unrelenting, after stripping Diana of her powers and capturing both Donna Troy and the new Wonder Girl, Cassandra Sandsmark. While being human has not dampened our Amazon’s spirit, it in a way has been the catalyst for her to move forward and be resourceful in unraveling a conspiracy between Hercules and Circe and later managed to get her powers back and once more become the Wonder Woman that we all love.

This was the Wonder Woman that I knew and this was the compilation that won me over once more. With brilliant and beautiful art drawn by Terry and Rachel Dodson and creative and paced writing by Allan Heinberg, this compilation attempted to answer the question we all asked ourselves. Who is Wonder Woman? To paraphrase the foreword by writer, Brian K. Vaughan, the iconic and elusive Amazonian was never that easy to understand, much less write about for she was full of contradictions? Diana Prince was a warrior at heart and yet loved peace. She also was a champion for women’s dignity and yet runs around wearing star-studded blue underpants while in spite of being a goddess possessing the gift of flight, still rides an invisible plane to get around. Truly a woman herself is already hard to understand and to add these contradicting elements into the mix, no wonder readers have yet to still scratch the surface about this iconic lady.

And given her icon status, layers upon layers have yet to be peeled off to understand her. And thus gives rise to the opportunity to always spin a new take on her story as it revolves around the people closest to her. From members of the Justice league, to her constituents as Ambassador of peace of Themyscara, to her fellow Amazonians, Donna and Cassie, her desire to be human and to explore this side of hers continues on promisingly after this compilation. This, for me, is human and goddess drama at its best. Next episode please.