As the book comes to a close, we meet Hippolyta and the fateful decision she makes that will eventually lead her path to cross with theirs. These first Amazons aren’t “warrior women”-they are warriors. Each goddess, except Hera, calls forth a tribe of five. Their names can be found in both books of myths and comics: Penthesilea, Io, Pythia and Antiope. The first Amazons are as unique as the goddesses who create them. As these powerful women create the Amazons from the souls of those lost to violence and massacre, their gifts are stunning in their generosity and power. In the depths of Hades, at the Well of the Lost, the goddesses put their own plan into motion-one that will ultimately rock the very heavens themselves. Zeus and the gods dismiss them with condescension. The other goddesses stand at her side as she says plainly, “We have had enough of men.” Hera takes the grievances of thousands of women and the injustices of thousands of years to her husband and the gods of Olympus. After witnessing the unending pain inflicted on woman after woman at the hands of men, the wife of Zeus burns with a fury brighter than any sun.

The Goddess of Women, gifted with foresight, sees all and knows all.

Hera isn’t merely a jealous wife, as some of the stories of old would have you believe. Their names are familiar and comforting, but you’ve never seen these mythological figures like this. Spanning thousands of years, the book begins with the righteous rage of the goddesses and the passion of its pages never lets up from there. Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons is a three-book DC Black Label series that shows us the first days of the Amazons like nothing before it. This is a stunning retelling of the Amazons’ origins for the ages. (If you’ve experienced their incredible work before, you know you can stop reading right now and just pick up the book immediately.) To be clear, this isn’t a story of sunshine and carefree days on Paradise Island. Want to know the rest, like I did? That’s where the celebrated creative team of Kelly Sue DeConnick and Phil Jimenez come in with DC Black Label’s Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons #1. But that’s just the beginning of the story. I thought I knew everything there was to know about the Amazons of Themyscira-they were women slain by violent men in their first lives and reborn as magnificent fighters by the will of goddesses.

Wonder woman historia amazons