Confessions of a Comic Book Guy is a weekly column by Steve Bennett of Super-Fly Comics and Games in Yellow Springs, Ohio. This week, Bennett considers the many versions of Wonder Woman, and weighs in on current animated series developments.

In spite of the fact that her movie opens on Friday, I really hadn’t planned to write about Wonder Woman this week.  That is, until the internet pointed out that this Saturday was going to be “Wonder Woman Day.”

Hopefully you’ll have copies of both Wonder Woman Day Special Edition #1 (which reprints the recent Wonder Woman #1) and DC Super Hero Girls Wonder Woman Special #1 (which features a chapter of the upcoming graphic novel, DC Super Hero Girls Vol. 3 Summer Olympus) to give out to your customers. Any of them who are interested in reading more comics with Princess Diana should be pointed in the direction of two other comics out this week, Wonder Woman Annual #1 and Trinity Annual #1.

Here's a confession: although I've repeatedly written about the DC Super Hero Girls line,  so far the closest I’ve ever actually gotten to the brand is passing displays of the Mattel dolls at Kroger’s.  Recognizing this was an oversight on my part that needed to be corrected, when I got the opportunity, I read the DC Super Hero Girls Wonder Woman Special by Shea Fontana and Yancey Labat.

It opens with Super Hero High on summer break and the teenage versions of Wonder Woman and Bumblebee visiting Mt. Olympus.  There we discover that instead of being the psychotic bag of bastards they usually are in DC Comics, the Greco-Roman Pantheon is a relatively happy multi-ethnic family.  All of whom are teens, except of course for Zeus, who here is a standard slightly goofy sitcom father, who tells terrible “Dad jokes” and uses his godlike powers to perform cheap magic tricks*.

Meanwhile, on presumably the Kent Farm in Smallville, Supergirl, Big Barda and Lady Shiva (?!) are doing chores.  While I was aware DC Universe antagonists like Star Sapphire, Frost (who's been downgraded from Killer Frost) and The Cheetah all attended Super Hero High, I was caught entirely off guard seeing the usually deadly and ice cold Lady Shiva playing nicely with the other girls. That is, when she wasn’t threatening a chicken to produce an egg -- or else.

Having seen a lot of superhero movies over the last couple of years, I wasn’t exactly anxious to see Wonder Woman anytime soon.  But I have spent some time thinking about it, and in particular, I’ve been wondering what was behind the decision to change the setting of it from the expected WWII to WWI. While it doesn’t explain the reason for the change (at least to my satisfaction) the Entertainment Weekly piece,“Wonder Woman filmmakers explain why they changed the heroine’s origin story”, offers up some possibilities.  Like, screenwriter Allan Heinberg suggests comparing today’s world to the one of that era,“We are in a very WWI world today with nationalism and how it would take very little to start a global conflict.”

Director Patty Jenkins said she was initially “dubious” about changing the era of Wonder Woman’s origin, but says she was intrigued by the periods “questions about women’s rights” and “mechanized war.”

In animated news, I’ve never been the biggest fan of Disney’s Avengers Assemble.  I was put off by all of the silly squabbling and goofy humor.  But I was very pleased when I saw the piece on Nerdist “Marvel’s Avengers: Secret Wars Coming To Disney XD This Summer (Exclusive)”.  Certainly not because the Secret Wars subtitle has been given the fourth season. Thankfully, it’s neither a direct adaptation of either the original 1984 miniseries, or the most recent revision with the same name.  What’s so pleasing to me about this is the series will feature some of my favorite Avengers, like The Vision, The Wasp and (especially) Ms. Marvel.  Seeing as how the cartoon is essentially a mechanism for marketing and merchandising the Marvel brand, it is certainly of interest they’ve put Ms. Marvel (a character some pundits are absolutely certain “nobody wants”) up front and center in the promotional art.  That has to mean something.

Finally, IndieWire reported that “’Animaniacs’ Reboot Being Developed By Steven Spielberg, Amblin TV and Warner Bros,” including the news that Stephen Spielberg himself will be involved in its development.  The significant thing about this is industry types are suggesting this revival was primarily sparked by the number of people streaming the original series on Netflix.  Which also goes to show you that people continue to have an insatiable desire for 90’s nostalgia.

*In the comic, instead of pulling the expected quarter from behind Wonder Woman's ear, Zeus produces a series of gold coins.  Maybe I’m just reading something into this, but I’m going to just go ahead and assume writer Shea Fontana was fully aware that in Greco-Roman mythology Zeus would occasionally come to earth and, um, “visit” human women in the form of a “shower of gold.”

The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.