Here is some info and pages from the actual issue. It's got Gorilla Grodd!

Of course, I always tend towards villains, especially one of Wonder Woman's nemeses during the Justice League series, Aresia.

gail simone is the shit.
she is one of the best writers in the business, with witty dialogue and snappy suspenseful action sequences.
for other examples of her writing kick-ass female comic book characters, people should check out BIRDS OF PREY.

gail simone is the shit.
she is one of the best writers in the business, with witty dialogue and snappy suspenseful action sequences.
for other examples of her writing kick-ass female comic book characters, people should check out BIRDS OF PREY.

That's cool news. She's a pretty good writer.

I haven't read much of her more popular superhero stuff, but I remember "Welcome to Tranquility" being a neatr series. Worth checking out.

It's got lots of gorillas! Wee!
Simone is awesome. Wonder Woman has been... erm... bad, lately. Here's hoping she can turn it around. Best of luck to her.

I'm excited to see a talented woman writing Wonder Woman, but I'd be even more excited if the comic's publishers would drop the "she's a warrior for peace" conceit that's been the character's motivation for the last decade or so; Wonder Woman's a great character, but the current conceptualization of an ass-kicking Amazon princess who will literally beat you (maybe even kill you) until you give up violence is a pale imitation of William Moulton Marston's original strong, pacifist, feminist hero who relied on her wits (and lasso) rather than brutality to defeat the injustice of "man's world."

Still, Gail Simone is awesome (and if you haven't seen her "Women in Refrigerators" website chronicling the abuse and degradation of female characters in mainstream comic books, you really ought to)-- if anyone can make this character great again, it's surely her.

I'm not a DC fan but that's awesome. Just sad it took this long to get a regular female writer.

My comic geek husband told me about this a few months back when it was originally announced, and I was literally jumping up and down. I've loved Wonder Woman since I was a little girl, and Gail Simone RULES.

I cannot wait. (I am such a dork!)

Gail Simone is one of the best writers in the business, and I was so happy to hear of this (though it means the end of her run on Birds of Prey :( ), since I've been hoping for it since the esteemable Greg Rucka left WW.

If it means she doesn't lose her powers every time she gets tied up, I'm all for Wonder Woman being able to kick ass. You give a little, you get a little.

As for killing, Diana has done that, to my knowledge, once: when a mind-controller had taken control of Superman and sent him on a rampage. As I recall, she (and everyone else) had tried fighting him and had their asses handed to him, as Superman without any morality holding him back is pretty much unstoppable. She asked him how to break the control. The mind-controller said it would persist until he died.

*snap*

"If it means she doesn't lose her powers every time she gets tied up, I'm all for Wonder Woman being able to kick ass."

Actually, the whole "tied up =unpowered" thing was a one-off gimmick that got out of hand.

Her creator, Dr. William Moulton Marston wanted to make a feminist statement, and decided that Diana's powers required her to "not be bound by man". That's why she, for example, turned down a marriage proposal.
Anyway, a writer decided to describe what would happen if a villain found a way to exploit that rule, and literally "bound" Wonder Woman with rope.
A clever idea once...but lazy/horny writers and artists couldn't get enough of a "tied up Amazon", and found any excuse to put a rope around her every other issue.

Actually, in the fight against Superman before killing Maxwell Lord, Wonder Woman fought Superman to a stand-still. Could she have kept it up? Probably not, but in a one-off, she didn't fare badly.

The only problem with Wonder Woman is it's 30 years or so of sexist, gender-role stereotype confirming comics. Let's do turn it around.

For anyone interested in reading about the early issues of Wonder Woman I referenced in my above comment, my wife has written the first of a series of posts about the character's early issues. If you click on my name in this post's signature, you'll be taken to our blog.

I'd like to thank Bradley for pointing out something that I hadn't noticed until now, in some 30 years of being a fan: it may make for more visually appealing comics, but why does Wonder Woman need to be portrayed as a warrior, in the way that Superman or Batman are depicted? Why can she not have all her superheroic qualities to back herself up, yet not need to get physical or show off her underwear so often? Charles Xavier (X-Men) and Reed Richards (Fantastic Four) are male superheroes who can sell comics and be respected for their minds, not their physical capabilities or "manly" appearance.

I love Simone, and her first issue on the comic is fantastic. But the publicity surrounding her becoming the regular writer of the book leaves out the fact that several very influential story arcs/miniseries/graphic novels have been written by women on that comic, including the incredible Trina Robbins. For details, check out this.