Set Description:
Synopsis: This set is composed of 168 books with a minimum grade of 8.0. While the census frequently changes, as of this writing, 131 of our books top the census, including 70 single highest graded examples, which is the most for any title we collect. That being said, many of the books we lack are keys and both rare and expensive, so we will not be finishing this set anytime soon.
Background: Wonder Woman was created by the American psychologist and writer William Moulton Marston and artist Harry G. Peter. Marston's wife, Elizabeth, and their life partner, Olive Byrne, are credited as being his inspiration for the character's appearance, as detailed in the movie, Professor Marston and the Wonder Women.
Wonder Woman was created during World War II and was initially depicted fighting Axis forces as well as an assortment of colorful supervillains. Over time her stories came to place greater emphasis on characters, deities, and monsters from Greek mythology. Many stories depicted Wonder Woman freeing herself from bondage, in stark contrast to the "damsels in distress" that were common in comics during the 1940s.
In the decades since her debut, Wonder Woman has gained a cast of enemies bent on destroying her, including classic villains such as Ares, Cheetah, Circe, Doctor Poison, Giganta, Doctor Psycho, Maxwell Lord, along with more recent adversaries such as Veronica Cale and the First Born. Wonder Woman has also regularly appeared in comic books featuring the superhero teams Justice Society (from 1941) and Justice League (from 1960), of which she was a founding member.
She possesses an arsenal of magical items, including the Lasso of Truth, a pair of indestructible bracelets, a tiara which serves as a projectile, and, in older stories, a range of devices based on Amazon technology.
Wonder Woman first appeared in All Star Comics #8 published October 21, 1941, with her first feature in Sensation Comics #1 in January 1942. The Wonder Woman title has been published by DC Comics almost continuously ever since. In her homeland, the island nation of Themyscira, her official title is Princess Diana of Themyscira, while she adopts the identity of Diana Prince in the world outside.
Wonder Woman experienced significant changes from the late 1950s through the 1960s. Harry G. Peter was replaced by Ross Andru and Mike Esposito with Issue #98 (May 1958), which issue is often considered the first SA Wonder Woman, and the character was revamped, as were other characters in the Silver Age. In Diana's new origin story in Issue #105 (December 1958), it is revealed that her powers are gifts from the gods. Receiving the blessing of each deity in her crib, Diana is destined to become as "beautiful as Aphrodite, wise as Athena, stronger than Hercules, and swifter than Mercury". Further changes included the removal of all World War II references from Wonder Woman's origin, the changing of Hippolyta's hair color to blonde, Wonder Woman's new ability to glide on air currents, and the introduction of the rule that Paradise Island would be destroyed if a man ever set foot on it.
Several years later, when DC Comics introduced the concept of the Multiverse, the Silver Age Wonder Woman was situated as an inhabitant of Earth-One, while the Golden Age Wonder Woman was situated on Earth-Two. It was later revealed, in Wonder Woman #300, that the Earth-Two Wonder Woman had disclosed her secret identity of Diana Prince to the world and had married her Earth's Steve Trevor.
In the 1960s, regular scripter Robert Kanigher adapted several gimmicks which had been used for Superman. As with Superboy, Wonder Woman's "untold" career as the teenage Wonder Girl was chronicled. Then followed Wonder Tot, the infant Amazon princess (in her star-spangled jumper) who experienced improbable adventures with a genie she rescued from an abandoned treasure chest. In a series of "Impossible Tales", Kanigher teamed all three ages of Wonder Woman; her mother, Hippolyta, joined the adventures as "Wonder Queen".
In 1968, under the guidance of scripter Denny O'Neil and editor/plotter/artist Mike Sekowsky, Wonder Woman voluntarily surrendered her Amazon powers and status to remain in "Man's World" rather than accompany her fellow Amazons to another dimension where they could "restore their magic" (part of her motivation was also to assist Steve Trevor, who was facing criminal charges).
This new era of the comic book was influenced by the British television series The Avengers, with Wonder Woman in the role of Emma Peel. With Diana Prince running a boutique, fighting crime, and acting in concert with private detective allies Tim Trench and Jonny Double, the character resembled the Golden Age version of the Black Canary. Soon after the launch of the "new" Wonder Woman, in Issue 179, the editors severed all connections to her old life, most notably by killing off Steve Trevor.
During the 25 bi-monthly issues of the "new" Wonder Woman (Issues #179-203), the writing team changed four times. Consequently, the stories display abrupt shifts in setting, theme, and tone. The revised series attracted writers not normally associated with comic books, most notably science fiction author Samuel R. Delany, who wrote Wonder Woman Issues #202–203 (October and December 1972).
The I Ching era had an influence on the 1974 Wonder Woman TV movie featuring Cathy Lee Crosby, in which Wonder Woman was portrayed as a non-superpowered globetrotting super-spy who wore an amalgam of the Wonder Woman and Diana Prince costumes. The first two issues of Allan Heinberg's run (Wonder Woman (vol. 3) #1–2) include direct references to I Ching, and feature Diana wearing an outfit similar to that which she wore during that era.
Wonder Woman's Amazon powers and status and her traditional costume were restored in issue #204 (January–February 1973).Gloria Steinem, who grew up reading Wonder Woman comics, was a key player in the restoration. Steinem, offended that the most famous female superheroine had been de-powered, placed Wonder Woman (in costume) on the cover of the first issue of Ms. (1972) – Warner Communications, DC Comics' owner, was an investor – which also contained an appreciative essay about the character.
The return of the "original" Wonder Woman was executed by Robert Kanigher, who returned as the title's writer-editor. For the first half of the year (Wonder Woman #205-211 (March–April 1973-April–May 1974)) he relied upon rewritten and redrawn stories from the Golden Age adapted for the Bronze Age and set on Earth-One. Following that, a major two-year story arc (largely written by Martin Pasko) consisted of the heroine's attempt to gain re-admission into the Justice League of America (Diana had voluntarily quit the team after renouncing her Amazon powers and status). To prove her worthiness to rejoin the JLA, Wonder Woman voluntarily underwent 12 trials (analogous to the 12 labors of Hercules), each of which was monitored in secret and without her knowledge by a member of the JLA
In 2011, DC changed her background with the retcon that she is the biological daughter of Zeus and Hippolyta, jointly raised by her mother and her aunts Antiope and Menalippe.
Wonder Woman has been depicted in a popular television series played by Lynda Carter and in several movies played by Gal Gadot. Shannon Farnon, Susan Eisenberg, Maggie Q, Lucy Lawless, Keri Russell, Rosario Dawson, Cobie Smulders, Rachel Kimsey and Stana Katic among others, have provided the character's voice for animated adaptations. October 21 is Wonder Woman Day, commemorating the release of her first appearance in All Star Comics #8 (with the exception of 2017 which held the day on June 3 to tie in with the release of the film of the same name).
Our Collection: Quite frankly, I really have no idea as to what to even say about our Wonder Woman collection. Wonder Woman is the only Golden Age title, or at least the only GA books, that we actively collect and this set is easily the most challenging to complete in that just finding all 200 WW books spanning over 30 years is damn near impossible. To that point, while we have now hunted these books hard for several years, we have still never even seen decent copies of many of the dozens of issues we are missing in our set.
Wonder Woman is also the first title we now collect, which I did not read as a kid, although I remember Lynda Carter’s TV show. But I got somewhat interested in WW after seeing Professor Marston and the Wonder Women and, while I have never read many of these books, I have enjoyed collecting some new covers rather than constantly looking for upgrades.
Still, since I have never read most of these books, unlike many sets in our collection, I would have a difficult time saying much about the plots. And we are still struggling with deciding which books to target for our collection, as we have never completed any Golden Age sets.
Unlike most Marvels and many DCs, collecting these books is more like a scavenger’s hunt. Clearly, based on the registry, as mentioned above, no other collectors are even attempting to put together high-grade collections of all 200 books in this set, which has made us #1 pretty much by default. All I can say is that they are far smarter than us, because doing so still seems like an impossible task to us involving both immense amounts of dedication to the task and, unfortunately, lots of money when it comes to the early Golden Age books.
When we first started collecting this title, we focused on Silver Age books only. But, unlike Flash and Green Lantern, it’s not as clear with Wonder Woman where one age ends and the next begins since DC has published this title pretty much continuously dating back to the 1940s. And, unfortunately, CGC has complicated that problem by not establishing any Wonder Woman subsets for separate eras, but instead only provides this one set for SA books, which spans roughly 30 years.
While we have thus used this set to register all our own collection, quite frankly, there really is no reason I know of to have a set that runs from Issues #1-200. If I were establishing the sets, I would probably make a GA set running from Issues #1-#97, a second SA set containing Issues #98-#177, a third new WW set containing Issues #178-#203, which set already exists, and a later set starting with Issue #204.
Unfortunately, without a lot of thinking on our part, our WW collection began to span both eras and, through the years, we acquired more and more books from the early 1950s and late 40s. I quite like some of those early examples, but I find others to be downright Disneyish-not that there is anything wrong with that LOL.
Currently, as noted above, nobody seems to be trying to put together a high-grade complete set of Issues #1-#200, leaving our set number one in the registry pretty much by default. But we are miles from completing this set and the prospects of doing so seem to be virtually nil.
This is also a strange run of books to me from a standpoint of the census. Maybe the same is true with all books from the Golden Age, but sometimes there is an early 9.8 and then the next highest graded issue will be an 8.0 or 7.5. Since we generally do not buy lower grade books, it is hard to rationalize breaking the bank for an 8.0 or 7.5, even if it tops the census. To make matters worse, we generally always avoid books with names or writing or stamps on the cover. But with WW, often those defects appear on the highest graded examples.
Needless to say, this set has far more holes than any other set that we have actively collected for several years, as we have often passed on books where the covers did not interest us, at least we did so when we started collecting these books. Still, this set contains more single highest graded examples than any title we collect. And the run of books from Issues #103-#127, spanning from January 1959 thru December 1961, is pretty special, as not only are all of our books in that run highest graded examples-although we do lack any copy of Issue #105, but 20 of those books are single highest graded examples, including eight issues in a row from Issue #108 through Issue #115.
So what to do? Do we pick a point in the later 50s and sell all our earlier books, which seem to be more valuable? Do we just sell them all and acknowledge it’s not a set can can complete, or do we keep plugging away with no hope of finishing it, which has really never been our, at least my, thing?
More recently, we started collecting some Batmans, Detectives, World’s Finests and Supermans, all of which span both the GA and SA eras. However, we have been careful with each of those titles to sidestep the pitfalls we have encountered with Wonder Woman and have avoided Golden Age books-even though I really like a lot of GA Batman covers, especially those involving the Joker. Fortunately, CGC makes collecting a run of Batman or Detective Comics much easier since it establishes numerous sets covering shortened eras, generally in 100-Issue lots. If they had done the same with Wonder Woman, I doubt we would have fallen into the quagmire we now find ourselves with what to do with this set.
For now, we have basically decided not to pursue any earlier books than the ones we own currently because of cost and again, we frankly don’t love the covers (even with the later books we are not a huge fan of the Wonder Woman family covers). Currently, we are not buying any books below an 8.0, and only go that low when the book in question is at least top three in the census. We raise the bar to a 9.0 with issue #100, unless none exist, and to 9.4 for later issues. Again, I think the chances we will ever complete this set are virtually nil. In fact, from what I can tell, nobody has ever found all 200 books in any grade, as you are competing with different collectors-gold and silver age-for a run of books that are both rare and somewhat ignored.
2024 Update: This set remains our most confusing and, in many ways, frustrating projects. We did make some progress this year as we filled 7-8 empty slots. But at the same time, we lost nine single highest graded issues so that, despite our adding four single highest graded books during the year, our set total dropped from 75 to 70 books.
As was the case with Aquaman, there was a group of newly graded WWs that hit the Heritage Auction in June 2024. I thought initially that they were all the same find, but upon examination, it appears that the #66 9.4 was a solo, which was graded 10 days earlier. The other 5 books, a #95 8.0, a #103 9.2, a #107 9.0, a #109 9.6 and a #110 9.4 appear to have come from the same CGC submission. All six books topped the census, three of them displacing our previously single highest graded copies. We initially pursued them all, but let the #66 go when it hit $6,300 since we had our 9.2 and it was the first book to come up and we wanted to conserve cash. We did get the other five, which came up at the end of the auction and filled three empty slots. For this set that constitutes a big year LOL, as filling empty slots with high-grade examples has been a huge challenge.
I am not sure if the prices were too high or cheap or what? I have seen both opinions expressed online. To me, this is still the most confusing title that we collect, as sometimes books go ridiculously cheap and at other times it does not matter what you bid, you will never get them. We purposefully went harder after the later books, as if we ever decide to shorten the run, it will be the earlier books that we jettison. But I honestly still don’t know what we are doing with WW, as despite the fact that we have topped the registry for six years, we are still miles away from finishing this set. With respect to many issues, we have never even seen a high-grade copy.
The set is now over 80% complete, but it is most definitely a tale of two eras, as the SA books are over 90% complete, while our collection of GA books ranks closer to 60%. And, if any of the big GA collectors ever registered their books, they would most likely top the registry on this one currently.
My honest opinion is that this set should be broken up into a GA and SA set, as there seems to be two completely different set of collectors for each. We probably only top the census now because we have been attempting to collect both-and doing a damn poor job of it at that LOL. I have one friend who insists I should sell the GA books, as he says the SA WW is hot and the GA one looks like his grandmother. I won’t comment any further on that take, I have never seen any pics of his Granny LOL.
Currently, the books we would most definitely want if available would be first or second highest graded copies of Issues #88, #96, #98, #105, #154 and #160, which would give us an uninterrupted run of 119 books. In most cases, we have never seen a nice copy of any of those books on the market in more than five years, so I’m not holding my breath LOL. The one book on that list that I find completely vexing is Issue #154, as while there are no graded copies above a 9.4, which fact is itself somewhat of an anomaly for a 1965 book, there are 4 9.4s and 5 9.2s in the census, and yet I have not seen any of them since I started collecting these books. In point of fact, the last recorded sale of a 9.2/9.4 copy of Issue #154 was a 9.2 in 2017, which is pretty weird to say the least, as I have seen every high grade copy of some issues on the market in that timespan. Again, It is an impossible set.
By contrast, I guess I have nobody to blame but myself for our lack of a nice copy of Issue #160, as we guessed too low at the buzzer bidding on the 9.8 copy of that book when it sold at auction on CL in February 2020 for $7,100, which seems like quite a bargain today. I do have two excuses. First, that book was hot off the presses-and by that, I mean just graded by CGC-and suffered from a horrible misfold, in that there was a wide white stripe down the left front cover, which at the time I avoided like the plague. I still consider that to be a bigger drawback than PQ, although I realize the market disagrees, and have often kept a book with lesser page quality over one that has WP and is horribly misfolded. Second, I just did not fully realize at the time that the book was considered that much of a key. We similarly lost 9.0 copies of Issues #98 and #102 in 2019 CL auctions where we guessed too low at the buzzer and have had no chance to rectify either mistake. To our credit, in both cases we were the second bidder and thus drove the auction prices and we did bid what I thought was a very generous price at the time for the #98 9.0 ($16,600), losing the book by $250, but of course I have no idea what the other guy actually bid.
At any rate, none of this discussion seems appropriate for a set description since we are talking about books we do not own, but there are no other places for such comments unless you at least buy a placeholder of the issue in question.
But it does illustrate the challenges one faces trying to complete a set like this, you have to search for the books relentlessly and, when a hard book to find does hit the marketplace, you have to forget being a rational bidder and bid like it is the only time you will ever see one of those books because too often it’s true. Again, it’s just an impossible set to complete on so many levels that I sincerely doubt we will ever see it done. Collecting Marvels is in many ways a completely different hobby.
Current Stats:
168/200 Books
55 9.8s-All Highest Graded
23 9.6s-20 Highest Graded
22 9.4s-16 Highest Graded
24 9.2s-21 Highest Graded
18 9.0s-11 Highest Graded
15 8.5s-5 Highest Graded
11 8.0s-3 Highest Graded
67 WP
54 OW/W
27 OW
18 Cr/OW
70 Single Highest Graded
131 Highest Graded
27 Second Highest Graded
10 Third Highest Graded
46 Pedigrees
Our favorite Wonder Woman:
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