On the road to Wonder Woman: Bitter Rivals

I’ve been re-reading Phil Jimenez’s Wonder Woman trade paperbacks leading up to reading the new Wonder Woman: Bitter Rivals, and it strikes me how much more cohesive the Wonder Woman story is than, say, Superman’s, especially. There’s a text page in the back of Wonder Woman: Paradise Found, and even though it glosses over a good chunk of John Byrne and Eric Luke’s runs, and, quite frankly, some of George Perez and William Messner-Loebs’, one can still look at the Wonder Woman issues from Perez through to Rucka and see a somewhat straightforward storyline, at least in terms of where Diana lives, what her place is in the world, what her relationship is to the other Amazons and to her mother, etc. With Superman, there are some ties, but how much does Superman: Exile really have to do with today’s Superman titles? Or Krisis of the Krimson Kryptonite? Maybe it comes from a greater ability to play with the Wonder Woman status quo, since the finite details of her mythos aren’t one-hundred percent engraved in the public’s mind. Something to think about.

Meanwhile, reading Wonder Woman: The Hiketeia, and then Down to Earth and finally Bitter Rivals.