Wonder Woman: Amazonia (-) #1

If you can only read one Wonder Woman story...

From the first two pages of exhilarating, feminist prose, which I set to memory--"The first time I saw the Wonder Woman, she was laughing; true, she was fighting lions, but she was laughing"--William Messner-Loeb's masterpiece "Amazonia" captures everything a comic book reader could hope for in a Wonder Woman story. In this glorious Elseworlds tale, set in Victorian England, we cheer as Diana Trevor casts off the oppression of her colonialist husband and inspires women throughout the United Kingdom with not just her circus-like feats of bravery but inciting the spark of a protest movement culminating in a history-making revolution. Phil Winslade, the artist who made the Garth Ennis Vertigo series miniseries Goddess imprint into our visual memories, paints with painstaking detail a haunting narrative of feminist rebellion featuring an all-too familiar superheroine trapped in unfamiliar roles: enforced marriage to someone she does not love and motherhood. However, have no fear. This is not Buffy Season Six. We do not have to wait for another graphic novel, a "season seven," for Diana to inspire an ending that is both triumphantly unique and nostalgically reminiscent of our own recent history. Amazonia's payoff is just as satisfying as its opening two pages.