Today's A Madman Turns 40 doubles as a review.
Wonder Woman '77 pays loving tribute to the live-action show from the 1970s. Astute readers will note that the TV series version of Wonder Woman starring Lynda Carter starred off in 1976 on ABC and was a live-action TV-movie featuring Cathy Lee Crosby in the title role in 1974. But after season one, ABC was ready to cancel the show- not because it wasn't a hit but because it's World War II setting just wasn't cost effective.
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| Title card for the series. |
The same thing happened to the 1966 Batman series when it was cancelled in 1968. But unlike that series, the Wonder Woman series was saved from cancellation limbo by CBS. As a result, the show was bumped to the modern day of 1977, and Wonder Woman/ Diana Prince was set as a member of a CIA-type agency called the Inter-Agency Defense Command (IADC).
Instead of battling Nazis, Wonder Woman and her partner Steve Trevor Jr, played by the suave Lyle Waggoner (the actor had played his father Trevor Sr. in the show's first season), the pair fought mad scientists, burglars, and the occasional extraterrestrial.
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| Promotion still from the pilot episode. |
Volume one of these series reprints the first two specials published by DC Comics in 2014 and 2015. I'd had been wanting to buy these books first hand but I wasn't willing to spend $8 an issue for them either. But it has my favorite year on the cover and I kept this on radar and wish list until I could get it for a good deal. Recently, one of my favorite comic book shops was having a going out of business sale and I was able to snag this book up for pennies on the dollar.
So how was this volume? Was it worth the wait? And does it capture the spirit of the TV or fall flat?
It was very much worth the wait. There's a Volume 2 out and I hope to one day get my hands on it one day. I thought the artwork was outstanding; not only capturing the likenesses of star Carter and Waggoner but it's fill with great cameos of celebs who might have starred on the show during it's heyday.
Wonder Woman is captured as a symbol of hope and freedom for not only the US but the world here. There's an added element of Diana being a feminist icon which wasn't so much a theme on the show, but over the past 40 years, Wonder Woman has definitely morphed into such.
One thing different from the series and these specials are the use of Wonder Woman's Rogue's Gallery. If I'm not mistaken, none of them appeared on the show, except maybe Giganta. Here, characters such as Cheetah, Solomon Grundy, and Doctor Psycho factor into some very entertaining adventures. Plus some of the villains that only grace the live-action series such as the evil Skrill make appearances. And there's some great surprises that make this a read full of cheesy 70s fun! And oh, the memories of watching Wonder Woman reruns as a kid...
Plus, don't miss Andy Mangels' essay on the historical impact of the 70s series and a awesome gallery of sketches and unused work.
Worth Consuming
Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.
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