Reviewed by Matt Singer

Here’s an odd little ditty from the DC Millennium books. A rather fat comic, with a huge lead story, a back-up story and a text story, all for an affordable four bucks. The problem is it's being reprinted because of the teeny tiny back-up story, while the lead story is tedious (and certainly not a milestone).

ALL STAR #8 merits inclusion in the Millennium books because the back-up story happens to be the origin and first appearance of Wonder Woman - an important figure in both DC Comics and American superhero comics in general. Clearly, her first appearance should be recognized and preserved. Fine, I have no problem with that.

But DC’s Millennium Jamboree reprints the books as originally seen (minus ads), warts and all. At once it’s admirable and dangerous. Here you wind up with something that is important and noteworthy, buried behind one of the most formulaic stories of the Golden Age. I want to evaluate this book on the basis of the important stuff, but when the overwhelming majority of content in a book is something else, well, you can’t disregard it in a review.

ALL STAR was the home of the Golden Age Justice Society, where DC crammed as many of their popular characters into one book and had them act as a team, sorta. You see, the book was formatted with the team together in the beginning, then each member going off on their own to find a small clue needed to solve the case. Finally, the team would reunite to fight evil and Communism and what not.

The plot of this adventure involves a bizarre drug that turns people into statues until they're given an antidote. Each member of the Justice Society (there are about 40 of them) have their own turn at bat to find another piece of this puzzle. While it’s a classic concept that could have value as an adventure piece (and maybe even some camp) this issue doesn’t feel like a strong effort. Several characters crucial to the story look identical and have similar names (part of the "big" surprise at the end, ho ho), and I found myself lost numerous times while reading. And I’m still chuckling over all the references to past Justice Society members - Superman, Batman, Green Lantern and Flash - deemed "honorary members." All are mentioned throughout but never appear. How often do comics name drop? "Well, I know Superman!" Give me a break.

When you finally get to the Wonder Woman origin story, you’ll probably be way too tired to keep reading. When you do read it, you’ll find a story that’s more akin with something out of PRINCE VALIANT than SUPERMAN. A primarily text-with-pictures piece, we learn how Wonder Woman came to the United States. Of course, if you know this story, there's little new to see here. And if you don’t know the story, why pay four dollars to read eight interesting pages?

I understand DC's intentions here, but I don’t much care for the final product. They would have been better off making perhaps a large compilation comic, or trade, where they collected all the first appearances of characters that were included as parts of larger stories or relegated to the back pages of lesser comic books. That way, these important stories get to be seen, and without all the clutter.

Matt Singer is a writer for PopImage’s From The Wire. He also does weddings and bar mitzvahs. But not sweet 16’s, there was an incident.

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