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At last, Gail Simone finally makes her debut on “Wonder Woman”. The level of anticipation and expectation resting on her shoulders must have felt immense, as she takes over the title following one of the worst handled re launches of a major comic book character in years. Wonder Woman’s readership had dropped off alarmingly over the previous few months as even loyal fans began abandoning the book in numbers, following DC’s misjudged appointment of Heinberg, the subsequent erratic publishing schedule, Jodi Picoult’s obvious unfamiliarity with her source material during her own run and the almost unanimous derision heaped upon the “Amazons Attack!” cross over event. The suits at DC realised that drastic action was required before all hope of recovering the book was lost and decided that Gail Simone was the right person for the job. Simone was already a respected writer in the industry and had gone on the record in expressing her admiration and affection for the character of “Wonder Woman”. Many fans too felt that she was the perfect writer to handle such an iconic female role model.

And so, once the industry reviews and fan forum opinions had been collated following the publishing of issue 14, it became clear that the overwhelming consensus was that Simone’s debut issue was a resounding success. Using her trademark style of incorporating humour, intrigue and action, Simone managed to at last give Diana a voice, a sense of purpose and a clear direction. She even had the courage to hint at a minor ret con relating to Diana’s origin story – something that fans would normally have been up in arms about had it been tried by any other writer.

Simone, who also had writing duties on the “All New Atom” title, took the wise decision to include the Amazon Princess in that title for a few issues too, allowing other readers that would otherwise never pick up the “Wonder Woman” book a chance to experience her take on Diana.

However, only time would tell whether this period of acceptance would merely prove to be a honeymoon period, before the notoriously demanding Wonder Woman fan base began to take issues with her interpretation of their beloved character! For now though, many fans were daring to hope that with this issue, a new golden era for “Wonder Woman” was about to commence – something not experienced since George Perez’s acclaimed run in the mid eighties.