Wonder Woman: All the Anniversaries

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Last week, Superman hit #700; this week, it’s Wonder Woman‘s turn to reach a double-zero landmark, with #600. Here’s a quick history of the amazing Amazon’s anniversaries.

November 1950: Sensation Comics, which was effectively to Wonder Woman what Action was to Superman or Detective was to Batman, hits its 100th issue. “Wonder Woman, Hollywood Star” is a twelve-pager by Robert Kanigher and Harry G. Peter. Sensation was an anthology title, though, and other ongoing features in the issue include “Dr. Pat” (a spunky, mystery-solving woman M.D.), “Astra” (a girl reporter of the future) and “Romance, Inc.” (which predated Mystery, Inc. by several decades). Sensation wasn’t long for the world, though: originally a monthly, it had gone bimonthly in late 1949, subsequently ditched Wonder Woman to become a horror comic with #107, and ended with #109. On the radio: Nat King Cole’s “Mona Lisa.”

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August 1958: The issue number of Wonder Woman #100 seems like a bit of an afterthought from its cover. But it does include a brief story called “Wonder Woman’s 100th Anniversary,” by Kanigher, Ross Andru and Mike Esposito, in which the Amazons are hoping to put the 100th issue of her comic book in a time capsule, but don’t manage to get clear documentation of various adventures she has until she grabs Paradise Island with her lasso and hauls the entire island up into the air so a tidal wave that conveniently turns up on the next-to-last page will miss it. It took sixteen years to hit this point: Launched in 1942 and quarterly for most of its first few years, Wonder Woman went bimonthly in 1946 and started appearing eight times a year in 1954. On the radio: the Everly Brothers’ “Claudette.”

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May 1972: Wonder Woman had slipped back to bimonthly publication in mid-1967, and had traded in her costume for a white outfit a year or so later. It seems to have skipped everyone’s mind that #200, by Denny O’Neil and Dick Giordano, was going to be a big anniversary issue–roughly her 30-year anniversary of publication, for that matter. Creepy Jeffrey Jones bondage cover, too. Although arguably not quite as creepy as the cover that had run two issues earlier. On the radio: Loretta Lynn’s “One’s on the Way.”

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May 1982: As a 40th-anniversary celebration, Wonder Woman #291-293 are devoted to a three-part story, written by Paul Levitz and Roy Thomas, drawn by Gene Colan with various inkers, guest-starring most of DC’s superheroines, and saddled with titles like “Comes the Adjudicator!” The series had finally gone monthly in 1977; three months before this issue appeared, it’d gotten a soft relaunch with this hilarious cover. On the radio: J. Geils Band’s “Centerfold.”

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February 1983: Wonder Woman #300 is a crowded, oversized special issue centered on Diana’s dream life, written by Roy and Dannette Thomas and Dan Mishkin, and drawn by Colan with a handful of guest artists, some previously associated with Wonder Woman (like Ross Andru and Dick Giordano). The original Wonder Woman series continues through February, 1986’s #329, when it ends with a Crisis on Infinite Earths tie-in. On the radio: Evelyn “Champagne” King’s “Love Come Down.”

January 1991: A new Wonder Woman series, initially scripted by Greg Potter and co-plotted and drawn by George Pérez, had launched a year after the end of the old one. (In between the two ongoing series, there was a low-profile four-issue miniseries, The Legend of Wonder Woman; at that time, apparently, DC was contractually obligated to publish at least four comics a year with Wonder Woman as their lead feature, or the rights to the character would revert to William Moulton Marston’s estate.) The new series’ first fancy anniversary issue is #50, by which point Pérez is writing it by himself and Jill Thompson is the regular penciller. It’s pretty impressive how many of the guest artists who contributed one-page pin-ups to this issue–including Chris Bachalo, Adam Hughes and P. Craig Russell–are still big names in comics.  On the radio: Pebbles’ “Giving You the Benefit.”

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August 1995: William Messner-Loebs and Mike Deodato wrap up their “Artemis takes over for Diana as Wonder Woman” storyline in Wonder Woman #100, the month before John Byrne takes over writing and drawing the series for the next three years. Foil-enhanced covers were very popular in those days. On the radio: Method Man and Mary J. Blige’s “I’ll Be There For You/You’re All I Need to Get By.”

(More on Techland: Superman: All the Anniversaries)

April 1997: Perhaps eager to make up for the low anniversary-issue quotient of the character’s early years, Wonder Woman #120 is an “extra-sized 10th anniversary issue”–although the second series actually began in February, 1987. (It missed a few months of publication after Pérez left.) This one’s got a lead story by Byrne and a backup by Ruth Morrison and returning artist Jill Thompson. On the radio: Toni Braxton’s “Un-Break My Heart.”

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March 2004: The lead feature of Wonder Woman #200, the conclusion of Greg Rucka and Drew Johnson’s “Down to Earth” storyline, is augmented by a bunch of pin-ups and short stories–Robert Rodi and Rick Burchett contribute a tribute to Golden Age Wonder Woman stories, and Nunzio DiFillipis, Christina Weir and Ty Templeton’s “Amazon Women on the Moon” is a Silver Age homage. Rucka continues writing the series until it ends with April, 2006’s #226, in the middle of Infinite Crisis. On the radio: Alicia Keys’ “You Don’t Know My Name.”

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This week: Wonder Woman #600 features the beginning of J. Michael Straczynski’s run as a writer (and the end of Gail Simone’s). So how did Wonder Woman get to #600? 329 issues of the first series, 226 issues of the second series (that series also included issues numbered #0 and #1,000,000, but apparently those don’t count toward the total), and 45 issues of the series launched with a #1 cover-dated August, 2006.

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