DC Comics Super Heroines: 100 Greatest Moments

"The World Needs Heroines"

In this beautiful hardbound book, Robert Greenberger has collected the 100 Greatest Moments in DC Heroine history. He includes a brief introduction, and then organizes the moments alphabetically by heroine.  All the major characters you would surely recognize are here: Wonder Woman, Meara, and Bat Woman, but also many minor characters who played important roles themselves (for example, Elasti-girl and Jesse Quick). From the super-heroines who took on super-villains, to the women who took on social issues like "Don't ask, Don't tell," gay marriage, and living with HIV. And many who were depicted as having historically "male" jobs, and were leaders of industry. It was also interesting to see how the characters fit into the greater allegiances within the DC world: The Suicide Squad, The Justice League, or in their own partnerships, Birds of Prey and the Gotham City Sirens.

The collection features a good array of heroines dating from the earliest DC comics and artists to editions that were published within the year. It would have been easy to pack the collection with later examples because there just are more the modern era, but Greenberger provides a good cross section of the different ages.

My only criticism is that although there is a good plot summary connected to each "moment," I felt like a little more analysis would have helped to located each selection within the social and cultural history outside of the comic frames. It might have been interesting to organize the book chronologically for this reason.

I enjoyed the the changing art styles, outfits (capes and cowls), weapons and special powers. But what I really liked was the developing and progressive roles each character played and continues to play in DC's long history.

DC Comics Heroines works like a who's who compendium of notable female figures in the DC universe. Each character is explored with full text and images. The result is attractive and thoughtful -- the perfect resource for a comic book fan.

I would gladly share this book with students in a graphic novels or gender course, as well as anyone who wants to read quality work about comics.

The title for this book is somewhat self-explanatory. It’s a collection of 100 of the best moments for female DC characters. This particular list was generated by Robert Greenberger, and he did a decent job of explaining his reasoning for each of his picks.
Collecting the 100 greatest moments for DC heroines is no small feat. To be honest, I wouldn’t envy the person that would have to sit there and come up with the list, let alone the person that’d have to pull all the appropriate pages and panels.
I’ll admit I was a little surprised by some of the moments that made the list…and some of the characters as well. I certainly would never have guessed, in a million years, that Waller would be in this book. Though I’ll admit that the description never once said that those greatest moments had to be moments where the character was doing good…and thus the character never actually had to be one of the ‘good guys.’ In that case, I can’t think of a better character than Waller for making that point.
This was a really fun read, on the whole. I enjoyed reading about all these different events, some of which were my own favorites, some I had forgotten about, and some I’d never heard of. Seeing the changing art styles over time was great too. I’m glad that they actually pulled from all over DC history, instead of sticking to just one period.
The best part about this list was that it got me to add a few more plots to my ‘to be read’ list, which I’m more than okay with. I’m always looking for moments exactly like these to read, so having a nice consolidated list was very useful.

This is definitely a collection book. I loved the idea. There are some bigger female characters but you can find a lot of minor ones too. I really enjoyed reading their backround and their characters. I will definitely buy the book for myself and my collection.

This is a fairly nice collection of the DC heroines. Each heroine gets a small overview to their character, backstory, appearances and acquaintances within the DC Universe.

There were some I already knew, loved and read. Others that I have never heard of and probably never would have if it weren't for this book (unless they would randomly appear in DC movies/shows/newer comics and make me question if I should know them already).
But most of the heroines listed I've actually heard of before and thought I knew what they were about, but had to realize now that I never really knew their full story.

So that was interesting to read through and would also be cool to have on your shelf to look up if they suddenly appear in new DC media.

I also liked that so many pges from the actual comics were printed with their entires, which is always cool to see, even tho I don't think you can really understand what makes some of those chosen 'greatest momenta' that great with only 1-2 pages from the hinted at situation.

Comic books have always had heroes who also happen to be women. Young girls could see brave women helping to keep their communities safe and dream of one day becoming a super hero, just like the boys did. This second edition of DC Comics salute to the women in their stories follows the heroes and events as they teach the villains a lesson they will not forget. If you read these stories when you were young, why not share them with the next generation of super heroes?

"DC Comics Super Heroines: 100 Greatest Moments" by Robert Greenberger is a big compilation of DC characters who are women and on the side of good (for the most part).

Starting with Amanda Waller and going through Zatanna, this book gives entries for lots of characters, po‌inting out some key moments in their history, then gives a page or so of the key comics that they were in. Characters like Batgirl and Wonder Woman have bigger entries. Characters that started bad and are now good (Harley Quinn), and vice versa (Terra) are included.

I had a great time learning about characters I wasn't familiar with and remembering ones I'd forgotten. The whole book is in full color, and I liked the snippets of comic issues. Writer and ‎illustrator credits are given.

I received a review copy of this ebook from Quarto Publishing Group-Chartwell Books, and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this ebook.

My thanks to NetGalley for a Kindle ARC of DC Comics Heroines: 100 Greatest Moments.

As you can see from my profile pic, my DC heroine of all time has always been the illustrious Wonder Woman, whose page I read first, obviously.

This is an incredible CliffsNotes compilation of the most popular, well known, and not well known heroines of the DC Universe.

I only know the popular heroines like Batgirl and Supergirl, and I know of Zatanna and Black Canary but I don't know anything about them. This collection of kick-ass heroic ladies gives you a brief overview of their origins, their biggest moments and scene stealers in comic history and their current standing in the DC Universe.

I really enjoyed learning about characters I did not know anything or very little about and revisiting my favorites (okay, just Wonder Woman). This is not just a good refresher course; it allows you to also marvel at the talents of comic artists and illustrators who are able to create such fascinating backgrounds for each women and make them distinctly unique and trailblazing originals.

There are great photographs and cool snippets of comic book covers. I love the old timey ones.

I highly recommend this to comic book fans of all ages and genders and would make a great addition to your bookshelf.

To say these are "moments" is pushing it, but this book isn't too bad. In full-colour format it briefly summarises the careers and histories of most of the DC comics women (and girls – and those in between). It's only when there's a numbered caption do you realise there's a whole "moment" to be defined in a wholly yucky "woke" (bleurgh) style – elsewhen it's a reasonable, straightforward narrative. With appropriate artwork, and reproductions of typical covers and relevant pages, it's pretty decent – sexist, yes, but pretty decent. It doesn't have the detail of the DC character profiles of trades of old, so it might teach you the square of nothing, but it does cover details of the Rebirth and New 52 failures that had completely passed me by. You could argue for it being more scientific – in skimming the images for the words you might miss captions crediting unheard-of characters as being rare Alan Moore creations, for instance. Dates and provenance etc could have been more prominent, then – but on the whole I think the balance is about right. As for the balance between Powergirl and Supergirl – well, that's a different matter, and Zatanna is woefully underused as a finale. It's a little generous to give it four stars, but that's what I've done.

Cool and Boring and Cool and Boring and Cool and...

This book devotes a few pages to each one of a hundred DC Comics heroines. Each one, (they are introduced alphabetically by hero name or street first name, so we start with Amanda Waller, which is sort of odd), gets a few pages. The profile includes some origin story, some character history, and then shout outs to major story arcs in which they were featured.

That's all pretty neat, for a while. But to paraphrase the author's description of Hawkwoman, these characters have been "reintroduced, retconned, relaunched, and revived" so many times, and the DC Universe has been rebooted and birthed and rebirthed so often, the whole project teeters at times on being a convoluted mess. That's not the author's fault. He does a thorough and earnest job of trying to keep it all coherent; it's mostly the consequence of eighty years of sometimes pretty haphazard and idiosyncratic DC Universe and DC Heroine evolution.

I started this by reading every word, but soon realized that I don't know nearly enough about the DC Universe, or about the complete entirety of DC Comics from the beginning of time. It was around Barbara Gordon/ Batgirl/ Oracle/ Cassandra Cain/ Batgirl again/ Batgirl New 52/ Batwoman, that I realized I was in over my head. Ideally, this would be a great companion volume to a thorough DC Universe history that did set out all of the developments, (Earth 2, the New 52, Rebirth, Crisis on Infinite Earths, and so on).

So, it seems to me that there are two ways to go here. First, if you are a real DC-head this is a goldmine, and you can fill in gaps in your knowledge and/or argue the fine points of various characters' histories. (Enjoy throwaway observations like the fact that many rebooted heroines keep their powers but just get newer and more modern backstories and alter-egos.) And you can just mind-gorge on the more obscure heroine's histories. Second, if you are a more casual fan you can browse. And there is a lot to be gained from browsing. You'll find some forgotten heroines from your reading past. You can skim in and out of histories of favorite characters. You can get up to speed on the pasts of characters whose rebirth you like, (for example, Wonder Woman).

Or, you can just look at the pictures. And I don't mean that in a wiseguy way. There are very generous examples of the work done with each character, (often reproductions of full comic book pages), and the book, maybe unintentionally, is a survey of eighty or more years of full color comic art. It's very interesting to see how the same character, (say, Harley Quinn, or even better, Lois Lane or Wonder Woman), has been interpreted and portrayed over the years by a wide variety of artists. (The artist for each page or panel or splash is identified with the artwork, so it's easy to tell who drew what. The samples are also dated, which is very useful and interesting.)

So, this ended up being a rich, frustrating, rewarding book that was both cool and boring. Then again, after every time I set it down, (metaphorically speaking), I picked it back up again. That tells me something.

(Please note that I received a free advance will-self-destruct-in-x-days Adobe Digital copy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)

I have always been a DC fan over Marvel (sorry, Marvel fans)
And I grew up that way because of Batgirl and Wonder Woman. Those two women have always been the iconic picture for me when it comes to women superheros. But what makes this collection even better is that it explores EVERY woman in the DC universe. Going through so many of these moments just made me more proud of DC and I fell in love with these fictional comic-based women even more. I adored this little collection and think it was a great way to learn some good ol' DC heroine history.

Thank netgally, the author for an Advanced Copy of this book. I really enjoyed this book. It's well worth reading

It's great that these books are starting to come out and show that there have always been strong women in Comics and that it isn't just a male-dominated arena. This was a wonderful book, explaining some of the best origins and the best moments of female heroines. Not just superheroines but also some 'side' characters.
Definitely one to add to your collection.

This is a good collection of moments from DC's female heroes. Unfortunately, the download didn't work well and most of the images didn't come through, just the text. Still, it was a good read and will likely encourage some people to look for the comics and read more of the characters.