Women have played an integral part in history and in honor of the new release of the movie Wonder Woman 1984 – I wanted to share a part of comic book history and preview the outstanding Wonder Women of History series that was released in the original comic series.
Wonder Women of History is a feature that ran in Wonder Woman comics and Sensation Comics from 1942 to 1954. Ranging from one to five pages, each entry tells the story of real women who made a mark on history.
The concept was created by Alice Marble, the book’s associate editor, who wrote them until at least issue #17 when she stopped receiving credit. They are told in comic panel form from Wonder Woman’s perspective (signed at the end by Diana Prince). At least 71 entries were produced under the Wonder Women of History title.
The final original entry appeared in issue #66, after which time it was replaced by features centered around beauty tips or advice on how to get married, such as “Curious Courtships” and “Marriage à la Mode”. On occasion, the material strayed from the superficial replacement and took a focus once again on the achievements of women for columns such as “Women in the Air” and “Women of Distinction”. These back-ups disappeared entirely by the early 1960s.
With few exceptions, virtually none of the collected editions of Wonder Woman comics included reprints of Wonder Women of History. As such, they have not been commercially available since their first publication. I found some of the pages online and I tried to make them readable for your review. I have made Wonder Woman 1 through 17 available in honor of Alice Marble who wrote the first editions and created this great series. You can read them below in a flipbook with all the covers and art from the excerpts.