Wonder Woman: The Life and Times of the Amazon Princess

She is STRONG. She is INVINCIBLE. She is WONDER WOMANâ the most popular super heroine of all time. Les Daniels honors her superhuman strength, her peace-seeking mission, and her fabulous outfits throughout the years. The unconventional Dr. William Moulton Marston originally created her as "psychological propaganda for the new type of woman who should rule the world." And Wonder Womanâ known to her friends as Dianaâ has triumphed for sixty years, whether battling evil fascists or ensnaring villains with her magic lasso. Filled with a fascinating array of archival comic book art, photographs, and paraphernalia, and designed by Chip Kidd, Wonder Woman follows on the heels of the successful Batman and Superman histories to complete this popular super hero series. Not only a sure hit with collectors and fans, this celebration of Wonder Woman's independent spirit will also appeal to the larger girl-power audience of today. Colorful, complete, and captivating, Wonder Woman: The Complete History is a true tribute to this splendid super hero.

There can't be many people who haven't heard of Wonder Woman, arguably the first female superhero and one of the "big three" (the others being Batman and Superman). She was created by Dr. William Moulton Marston, who also invented the lie detector, as an antidote to masculine comic book adventures, drenched in violent testosterone-fueled imagery and portraying women as helpless weaklings who had to rely on the men to untie them from the train tracks in the nick of time. Wonder Woman was certainly no weakling. Dressed in stars and stripes, armed with bullet-deflecting bracelets and a magical lasso, and flying around in an invisible jet, she had no qualms about saving her boyfriend Steve Trevor from certain doom each issue while dealing a swift blow to the odd Nazi soldier as well. However, most people who aren't die-hard comic fans will have only memories of the camp and kitschy 1970s TV show, starring the leggy and beautiful Lynda Carter (who also contributes the book's foreword). As compelling and faithful as this small-screen adaptation was, there is so much more to the WW mythology than that, as Les Daniels admirably proves in this gorgeous hardback volume. It features lots of covers and extracted scenes from the comic books, from her earliest appearance to her latest 1990s image changes, and plenty of photographs of the plethora of WW merchandise created over the years. And for those of you old enough to remember the TV show, the lyrics of the infamous theme song are also here in all their star-spangled glory. This is a wonderful, nostalgic journey through the life and times of the first lady of superheroes and a real appreciation of WW's staying power and campy cult status. Beautifully packaged, absorbingly written, and wonderfully illustrated, this is a must-have for comic fans. --Jonathan Weir, Amazon.co.uk