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Wonder Woman Archives #4
Wonder Woman Archives, Vol. 4
Collects comic books following the development of Wonder Woman's powers and philosophy as she battles villains including Dr. Psycho and the Cheetah.
204 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2004
91 people want to read
About the author
William Moulton Marston
134 books51 followersDr. William Moulton Marston (May 9, 1893 – May 2, 1947), also known by the pen names Charles Moulton and William Marston, was an American psychologist, feminist theorist, inventor, and comic book writer who created the character Wonder Woman. Two women, his wife Elizabeth Holloway Marston and Olive Byrne (who lived with the couple in a polyamorous relationship), served as exemplars for the character and greatly influenced her creation.
He was inducted into the Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2006.
He was inducted into the Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2006.
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
April 9, 2012
More class Wonder Woman. Can be fun to read, even if it is cheesy by modern standards.
April 26, 2024
Another charming, loveable addition to the Wonder Woman Archives line. This one is paltry, clocking in at 197 pages. Marston's writing is as superb as ever, ditto Harry G. Peter's artwork. His brilliance shines, even with the occasionally washed out linework in this book.
The bondage, S&M, dominant/submissive, and slave references are everywhere. It doesn't even phase me anymore, whereas it made me laugh hysterically when I first read these Golden Age Wonder Woman comic books. It's still funny to think that this was scooped by children by the boatload, with sales near two and a half million copies every month*. I wonder if people were unaware of these references or bought them because of them.
*Source: The Comics, by Colton Waugh, published in 1947.
The color palette is nearly 100% faithful to the original issues. I should know, I did some digging and found scans of the original issues online and did side by side comparisons. I was horrified at how much of the fine linework was buried by the computer recoloring, though. It's a damn shame that DC uses the “airbrush” method to re-color rather than doing it by “hand” on computer, which better replicates the original brushstrokes and helps to maintain the integrity of the linework of the original issues. You would not notice this unless you did some side-by-side comparisons. I skew on the uber-anal-retentive side on the OCD scale, though.
Another problem with letting the computer determine which shapes to fill in is that the shadings look fuzzy at times, almost airbrushed, instead of the soft fades found in old comic books. I wish that DC did what Marvel does, and remaster their material when advances in technology allow for a better overall product. Marvel has let Cory Sedelmeier raise the bar on the Marvel Masterworks. DC should also preserve their history better than this Archive does.
The paper is wonderful. It is a dull matte finish coated stock. The book also has sewn binding, and will likely outlast me on this planet.
The bondage, S&M, dominant/submissive, and slave references are everywhere. It doesn't even phase me anymore, whereas it made me laugh hysterically when I first read these Golden Age Wonder Woman comic books. It's still funny to think that this was scooped by children by the boatload, with sales near two and a half million copies every month*. I wonder if people were unaware of these references or bought them because of them.
*Source: The Comics, by Colton Waugh, published in 1947.
The color palette is nearly 100% faithful to the original issues. I should know, I did some digging and found scans of the original issues online and did side by side comparisons. I was horrified at how much of the fine linework was buried by the computer recoloring, though. It's a damn shame that DC uses the “airbrush” method to re-color rather than doing it by “hand” on computer, which better replicates the original brushstrokes and helps to maintain the integrity of the linework of the original issues. You would not notice this unless you did some side-by-side comparisons. I skew on the uber-anal-retentive side on the OCD scale, though.
Another problem with letting the computer determine which shapes to fill in is that the shadings look fuzzy at times, almost airbrushed, instead of the soft fades found in old comic books. I wish that DC did what Marvel does, and remaster their material when advances in technology allow for a better overall product. Marvel has let Cory Sedelmeier raise the bar on the Marvel Masterworks. DC should also preserve their history better than this Archive does.
The paper is wonderful. It is a dull matte finish coated stock. The book also has sewn binding, and will likely outlast me on this planet.
December 26, 2017
It's amusing me to no end that my intellectual reaction to this particular collection is to rank it low because of the crudity of art and clunkiness of story, but my more visceral reaction is much brighter -- the dafter this got, and the more primitive and stylized Harry Peter's art got, the more I liked it. Good lord, though, the of-the-time racism is painful...a point that costs the compilation a star.
June 25, 2016
This book collects Golden Age Wonder Woman stories from January-August 1944 and includes Issues 25-32 of Sensation Comics and Wonder Woman #8 and #9.
The stories are not quite as epic as previous volumes but are still fairly enjoyable in their own right. The single shot stories in Sensation Comics are solid. The most interesting thing is that Wonder Woman decided lack of recreational activities was a problem so she decided to raise $1 billion to establish a National Recreation fund, and then promptly the next issue used to purchase a war bond because nothing says "fun" like a war bond. Actually the way its written, it seems like the idea of giving a war bond wasn't what Marston had in mind but that there were complaints about raising a billion dollars for recreation while there was a war going on-even if it's in a fictional world.
Issue 8 sees Wonder Woman encountering a female-dominated Atlantian society with evil queens and having to battle them. Issue 9 has a scientist who turns back Evolution and turns everyone into Caveman and then people getting to the machine to extend human development and the state of the world forward. It's an okay story.
Overall, Wonder Woman remains fun and well-written with as always a caution for some of the messages that went over the kid audiences head. It's not as good as the earlier volumes, but still a fairly solid installment.
The stories are not quite as epic as previous volumes but are still fairly enjoyable in their own right. The single shot stories in Sensation Comics are solid. The most interesting thing is that Wonder Woman decided lack of recreational activities was a problem so she decided to raise $1 billion to establish a National Recreation fund, and then promptly the next issue used to purchase a war bond because nothing says "fun" like a war bond. Actually the way its written, it seems like the idea of giving a war bond wasn't what Marston had in mind but that there were complaints about raising a billion dollars for recreation while there was a war going on-even if it's in a fictional world.
Issue 8 sees Wonder Woman encountering a female-dominated Atlantian society with evil queens and having to battle them. Issue 9 has a scientist who turns back Evolution and turns everyone into Caveman and then people getting to the machine to extend human development and the state of the world forward. It's an okay story.
Overall, Wonder Woman remains fun and well-written with as always a caution for some of the messages that went over the kid audiences head. It's not as good as the earlier volumes, but still a fairly solid installment.
May 25, 2012
This one has the origin story of Giganta. Which is that she was a gorilla who was hit with an evolution ray. So great.
March 8, 2016
These reprints of some of Wonder Woman's earliest comics were cheesy, of course, but fun! I appreciated this as an introduction to the character and am glad my library had it.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews