mike sekowsky

March is Women’s History Month, and we’re looking at the history of Wonder Woman. As we all know, her first theatrical film is due out later this year. But what if it wasn’t her first? What if there had been as many onscreen Wonder Women as Batmen? So far we've done a Golden Age Wonder Woman movie and a Silver Age Wonder Girl movie; this week we march on into the early 1970s, for another movie featuring stars of the era.

In the late 1950s, science fiction was a big deal, so it made sense when DC editorial director Irwin Donenfeld asked two of his editors, Jack Schiff and Julius Schwartz, to each create a new sci-fi hero: one from the present and one from the future. Schiff chose the future hero and created Space Ranger, who was a fun Silver Age concept, but ultimately not that big a deal. But Schwartz, along with artist Murphy Anderson and writer Gardner Fox, created Adam Strange, an interstellar hero who endures to this day.

I have to be honest with you, folks: As much as I like the Justice League of America, and as much as I love Silver Age DC Comics in general, I find those classic JLA stories from the early days to be pretty hard to get through. Maybe it's the function of having a larger cast to deal with, or maybe it's that the kind of big, world-threatening baddies that require a whole team of superheroes have a different kind of charm than the weirdness that you get from an issue of Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen, but even at their most ridiculously bizarre, they are not really my thing. But with DC recently putting out the first year of Justice League stories as part of its line of Golden and Silver Age hardcovers, I decided to give it another shot, and this time, I finally got to Justice League of America #7 and "The Cosmic Fun-House." And when I talk about the JLA "at their most ridiculously bizarre," this is exactly what I'm talking about.

Comic covers are meant to get their message across in a single striking image, with the implication of movement provided only by the reader's imagination. We see the single frozen moment; our brain tells the story. Yet some talented digital artists have discovered that there's some fun to be had in animating these images and providing just a little more movement to the moment. We've collected some of our favorite examples of animated comic covers from the past few years, from an endlessly recursive Batman to a lolling Hobbes; from a struggling Spider-Man to a spinning Justice League.

Since her 1941 debut, Wonder Woman has been one of the cornerstones of DC Comics, and of superhero comics in general. In her 74-year-history, scores of artists have put their spin on the character, from subtle changes to her classic red, white, blue and gold costume to the "new" Wonder Woman of the late 1960s to some far more maligned interpretations that featured jackets and long pants. We've compiled a gallery of some of the most iconic Wonder Woman artists of the past seven decades, along with some positively stunning modern designs.

Many of comics’ most popular heroes have been around for decades, and in the case of the big names from the publisher now known as DC Comics, some have been around for a sizable chunk of a century. As these characters passed through the different historical eras known in comics as the Golden Age (the late 1930s through the early 1950s), the Silver Age (the mid 1950s through the late 1960s), the Bronze Age (the early 1970s through the mid 1980s) and on into modern times, they have experienced considerable changes in tone and portrayal that reflect the zeitgeist of the time. With this feature we’ll help you navigate the very best stories of DC Comics’ most beloved characters decade by decade. This week, we’re taking a look at Wonder Woman.