Wonder Woman

Lucy McGough wrote:No internet either

 
No internet. No DVDs of old shows to watch, no VHS either (unless you were rich), healthcare was worse, you had to go home to make calls. You couldn't order books, comics and magazines as easily as you do now, or sometimes find things at all.
I have in my pocket (most of the time) a small computer which can take photos, make calls, play music and videos, check my bank account, the weather, send texts, read books or magazines, play videos I can't find anywhere else (Youtube in particular), listen to podcasts, store notes and plenty of health apps.
My car has more to it, in that I can listen to MP3s in the car, satellite radio (if I wanted), better gas mileage and cleaner emissions.
And that's just off the top of my head. PLENTY more.
 
There were some definite things I think were better in the 1970s (for example, and I think this is a leftover from the 1960s, there was a definite attempt at dealing with races and cultures intelligently that I think in the post-Reagan era is gone) but mostly I think now is measurably better. Or, at least not worse.

I agree.

tony ingram wrote:

Lucy McGough wrote:Those comics look pretty fun. I'd read them.

My favourite Wonder Woman era.   

Aaaaaand, a few Wonder Woman covers from back then which we missed:

The introduction (and death) of somebody called "The Bouncer".




The issue that returned the focus of the book back to (then) present-day Earth-1 Wonder Woman.

I realy wish they'd release a trade of these stories.

tony ingram wrote:I realy wish they'd release a trade of these stories.

And also include her feature stories from World's Finest Comics back then:


from World's Finest Comics #244 (cover-dated April-May 1977)


from World's Finest Comics #245 (cover-dated June-July 1977)


from World's Finest Comics #246 (cover-dated August-September 1977)


from World's Finest Comics #247 (cover-dated August-September 1977)

We'll add a few more next time . . .

tony ingram wrote:I realy wish they'd release a trade of these stories.

I am unsure of the financials of doing things like that any more. I mean, trades of things I wouldn't have expected seem to be coming out all the time, but the move to digital makes it cheaper to put almost anything in that format. So I never know what is coming out until I see it.

Mbast1 wrote:

tony ingram wrote:I realy wish they'd release a trade of these stories.

I am unsure of the financials of doing things like that any more. I mean, trades of things I wouldn't have expected seem to be coming out all the time, but the move to digital makes it cheaper to put almost anything in that format. So I never know what is coming out until I see it.

And there may also be a question of if/how much compensation may be owed to all the parties involved in terms of royalties for reprinting those stories.

continuing with stories from World's Finest Comics:



from World's Finest Comics #248 (cover-dated December 1977-January 1978)



from World's Finest Comics #249 (cover-dated February-March 1978)

Next time we'll get to issue #250 . . .

I don't think I was ever aware of a protracted run of WWII Wondy stories in World's Finest. How long did this go on for?

tony ingram wrote:I don't think I was ever aware of a protracted run of WWII Wondy stories in World's Finest. How long did this go on for?

Issue #250 was the last one. The timing pretty much synched up with when the regular Wonder Woman title was featuring Earth-2's Wonder Woman back in the days of WWII.

I shall have to look out for them!

Now for World's Finest Comics #250:


The story begins in the "present day" (1978 back then) with Earth-1's Batman and Superman each facing problems that appear to be from WWII.

Upon further investigation, the two heroes discover that, apparently, awareness of these attacks isn't all that well-known, and even stranger, no other members of the JLA seem to exist as superheroes. When they travel to Paradise Island to investigate what's happened to Wonder Woman, they learn that Princess Diana is still there (but has never been Wonder Woman?) and that another Diana who is Wonder Woman is present on this Earth.


And as if that isn't complicated enough, Green Arrow and Black Canary will make things even more confusing!
(In other words, to be continued . . .)

I really need to read this stuff...

MajorHoy wrote: . . . And as if that isn't complicated enough, Green Arrow and Black Canary will make things even more confusing!
(In other words, to be continued . . .)

Ollie & Dinah's chapter starts with them fighting (how unusual).


What also should be remembered was that, back in the late 1970s, there was still just the one Black Canary, not a mother and a daughter with the same codename.


After Dinah decides she needs to go back and visit the Earth she originally came from (Earth-2), she and Ollie head up to the JLA satellite to try and arrange a trip between Earths. However, that doesn't exactly work out as planned.



And things get even more tangled as a result of Ollie's actions!  

I'm conflicted by the revised Black Canary origin. On the one hand, by the early eighties it was clearly ridiculous that a woman who'd been fighting crime in the late forties still looked about 25 and it needed addressing, but on the other, the whole mother and daughter thing was spectacularly badly handled. A no-win situation, really.

tony ingram wrote:I'm conflicted by the revised Black Canary origin. On the one hand, by the early eighties it was clearly ridiculous that a woman who'd been fighting crime in the late forties still looked about 25 and it needed addressing, but on the other, the whole mother and daughter thing was spectacularly badly handled. A no-win situation, really.

It would have been tough to come up with a better solution back then as to why we just had 14 years of stories where Black Canary was saying/remembering she was originally from Earth-2.  (If only they had been able to wait a couple more years to just use CoIE to deal with it!)

MajorHoy wrote:

tony ingram wrote:I'm conflicted by the revised Black Canary origin. On the one hand, by the early eighties it was clearly ridiculous that a woman who'd been fighting crime in the late forties still looked about 25 and it needed addressing, but on the other, the whole mother and daughter thing was spectacularly badly handled. A no-win situation, really.

It would have been tough to come up with a better solution back then as to why we just had 14 years of stories where Black Canary was saying/remembering she was originally from Earth-2.  (If only they had been able to wait a couple more years to just use CoIE to deal with it!)

They should have just continued to use the idea that Earth Two was about twenty years behind Earth One.

Revisiting this topic for the heck of it, there was also DC Special Series #9, a.k.a "Wonder Woman Spectacular", with a 1978 cover-date.




There were multiple parts of that story, including sections with the Gods illustrated by Steve Ditko.
The villain for the Earth-bound WWII-era story portion was called the "Bombardier".

I am astounded that the Bombardier has not yet been resurrected as a major villain.

Since October will mark the 79th anniversary of Wonder Woman (she first appeared in a back-up feature in All-Star Comics #8 which went on sale October 21st, 1941), guess we might as well include the 1940s-variant cover to Wonder Woman #750 here:


And for that first appearance,

Beautiful cover. The issue itself was full of surprises, too, with Diana now the first Golden Age hero!

And while we're at it, there's the original cover to Sensation Comics #1 (January 1942)


And about 68 years later, there was the Adam Hughes variant cover for Wonder Woman #600 (August 2010):

The Golden Age / Earth-2 Wonder Woman entry from Who's Who -- The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe Vol. XXVI (April 1987):

Dc Comics has just annonced a big (1328 pages!) Who's Who Omnibus containing the original Who's Who series (published at the time also in Italian with the loose-leaf format and the binder, incredible!) the updates and also material from Action Comics Annual #2 (1987), Batman Annual #13, Blackhawk Annual #1 (1989), Detective Comics Annual #2 (1988), Dr. Fate Annual #1 (1989), Green Arrow Annual #2, Justice League Annual #3 (1987), Secret Origins Annual #3, Swamp Thing Annual #5, The Flash Annual #3 (1987 series), The New Titans Annual #5 (1995), The Question Annual #2 (1988)   , and Wonder Woman Annual #2 (1988). The Omnibus is to be released on April 13, 2021.

Whoah! I want!!!!!

tony ingram wrote:Whoah! I want!!!!!

Me too, but $150 for the 1,328-page hardcover lists is sure a lot; in happier times (like with Amazon in the past) it would be have been available at various places for 35%-40% less but now? Even bookdepository.co.uk (now .com) is not that convenient anymore these days, any alternatives?

Barry_Allen wrote:Dc Comics has just annonced a big (1328 pages!) Who's Who Omnibus containing the original Who's Who series (published at the time also in Italian with the loose-leaf format and the binder, incredible!) . . .

I still have all the of the original 26 volume run of Who's Who from back in 1985-1987 as well as the 1987 and 1988 updates. (Even have the seven-issue Who's Who in the Legion of Super-Heroes series from 1988.)

It wasn't until the 1990 Who's Who in the DC Universe series that DC went with the loose-leaf / binder format (and page sizes that were much larger than standard comic book size and larger than Marvel's loose leaf Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe version) here in the U.S.


Who's Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe Vol. XXVI (April 1987)


Who's Who in the DC Universe #4 (November 1990)

Of course you're right Major, I confused the first Who's Who series (contained in the Omnibus with all the material listed above) with the Who's Who in the DC Universe series who had the loose-leaf with binder format, which was really the one which had the full Italian edition!

I still have the complete original series and updates, including the loose leaf editions in binders. Gorgeous art on some of them.

And then there was the time when John Byrne had Hippolyta travel back to the 1940s and become the "Golden Age" version of Wonder Woman . . .




from JSA Secret Files #1 (August 1999)

Old John at the time hardly ever missed a shot ....

tony ingram wrote:Whoah! I want!!!!!

Yeah, so do I. It has a LOT of stuff in it, although the price is really high. Meaning, I think, few copies and an almost immediate aftermarket rise in price.

MajorHoy wrote:And then there was the time when John Byrne had Hippolyta travel back to the 1940s and become the "Golden Age" version of Wonder Woman . . .




from JSA Secret Files #1 (August 1999)

I actually wasn't very keen on that idea, it seemed likeone retcon too many, and seemed to me to diminish both the original Wonder Woman and Hippolyta. I preferred Roy Thomas's solution of having Miss America and Fury stand in for her.

tony ingram wrote:

MajorHoy wrote:And then there was the time when John Byrne had Hippolyta travel back to the 1940s and become the "Golden Age" version of Wonder Woman . . .

I actually wasn't very keen on that idea, it seemed likeone retcon too many, and seemed to me to diminish both the original Wonder Woman and Hippolyta. I preferred Roy Thomas's solution of having Miss America and Fury stand in for her.

Yeah, there were a lot of bizarre twists involved with Hippolyta going back in time to become the "Golden Age" Wonder Woman. (Which came first: Diana or Hippolyta if Hippolyta was Wonder Woman in the years before Diana first became Wonder Woman?)
On the other hand, did anybody besides Roy Thomas ever make use of Miss America (or even the Helena Kosmatos version of "Fury") as Wonder Woman's replacement in WWII? Heck, the only time I remember Fury linked to the JSA was in a single panel in an issue of Infinity Inc. showing a poster for a never-made JSA movie.


from Infinity Inc. #35 (February 1987)

At least Byrne's retcon gave us a good JSA in WWII story back when most people weren't really using them. (Those Wonder Woman issues first came out in early 1998. The All Star Comics 2-issue run and the JSA series didn't start until the following year, and both of them made use of Byrne's Hippolyta retcon.)

from All-Star Squadron Annual #1 (1982):

MajorHoy wrote:Since October will mark the 79th anniversary of Wonder Woman (she first appeared in a back-up feature in All-Star Comics #8 which went on sale October 21st, 1941), guess we might as well include the 1940s-variant cover to Wonder Woman #750 here:

tony ingram wrote:Beautiful cover. The issue itself was full of surprises, too, with Diana now the first Golden Age hero!

Found a site where I could read that story ("A Brave New World") online for free.
(I wasn't about to pay $10.00 for an issue where I didn't expect to care about most of the content.)

Now the question is whether DC will ever publish that Generation One: Age of Mysteries issue since that whole "5G" direction seems to be going nowhere at present, and what all that might mean (if anything) for this story.