Shea Fontana’s DC: Women of Action is a powerful celebration of the fictional and real-life women of DC comics who motivate us, delight us and inspire us.

When I first opened up DC: Women of Action and flipped through the pages, I was in awe at the artwork.

The newly released book is gorgeously illustrated, with custom artwork created specifically for it from today’s best and brightest female and non-binary artists like Jen Bartel, Little Corvus, Stephanie Hans and Annie Wu.

Which means that having a copy of DC: Women of Action is worth it just for the art alone. The book profiles all of your favorite DC heroines and supervillains, with groundbreaking female figures from comics history like Wonder Woman and Lois Lane getting a few pages worth of words and art dedicated to them.

But DC: Women of Action is more than just a pretty coffee table book. It’s stunningly illustrated, of course, and I’ve picked it up and flipped through its pages more than once just to look at the different pieces of artwork.

However, it’s also a loving ode to fictional women we look up to, a love letter to the real-life women who’ve brought them into our lives, and a celebration of superheroes that — as Shea Fontana says in her introduction — continue to inspire us to reach new heights of diversity, representation, and gender equality.

So while I expected to simply flip through DC: Women of Action and admire the artwork, what I ended up doing instead was reading the entire thing cover to cover — while admiring the artwork, of course.

Wonder Woman illustrated by Jen Bartel

DC: Women of Action is a celebration of women in comics, which means it doesn’t just limit itself to our favorite superheroes.

In addition to profiling many of our favorite superheroes, Fontana also throws the spotlight onto many of the best supervillains in the DC Universe because, as she says in her introduction, a hero’s strength is measured by the villains she overcomes.

It also recognizes that these female heroes and villains are only part of the DC mythology and on the pages of our favorite comic books because of the women behind the scenes who worked hard to put them there.

In addition to employing female and non-binary artists to create art for the book and interviewing a wide variety of female writers and artists about the heroes and villains they’ve worked on, DC: Women of Action likewise profiles some of the most historically significant names in comics history — women like Karen Berger, who founded Vertigo Comics, and Ramona Fradon, who co-crated Aqualad and Metamorpho.

In this way, DC: Women of Action is truly a celebration of women — the ones who inspire us on the page, the ones who are responsible for bringing those characters to life, and those who helped bring both together.

It’s a reminder that while the world of comics has quite a ways to go in terms of its diversity and representation, it’s also come quite far from where it started. As a fan of DC comics specifically and the medium of comics in general, it was a joy to see the profiles of the women behind the scenes as well as the ones who have shown up on the big screen.

Shea Fontana understands that it’s not just important to trace the history of these heroes and villains, but to recognize the women who have been responsible for bringing them to us. More than this, it’s pertinent to show that women in comics isn’t some new directive or novel thing — women have always been part of the world of comics, both in creating them and starring in them.

Raven illustrated by Little Corvus

DC: Women of Action is separated into five different sections. The first four are drawn along geographic lines, more or less — Themyscira, Metropolis, Gotham City, Beyond — with the fifth profiling the women behind the scenes.

That the book starts with Themyscira is, of course, fitting. After all, what better way to start a book about women than with an island of only women? And what better superhero to begin with than the most famous Themysciran — and arguably the most famous female superhero of all time — Wonder Woman.

“It all started with Wonder Woman,” is how the famous Themyscriran’s profile begins, and from there we get 10 pages that detail Wonder Woman’s history, highlight interviews with artists and writers, and discuss Wonder Woman’s influence and impact on superheroes, comics and society at large.

We also get four absolutely gorgeous (or should I say — wonderful) full-page pieces of artwork to go along with the profile, starting with Diana’s original, golden age look and ending with a piece that seems to draw inspiration from Gal Gadot’s big screen interpretation of the famous armor.

From there, we read about other famous — and infamous — characters connected to Diana’s story. There’s a profile on her mother, Hippolyta, her long-standing companion Etta Candy, her protege Wonder Girl and two of the biggest members of her rogues gallery — The Cheetah and Circe.

None of these characters have the same page space as Wonder Woman herself, but that seems fitting. Wonder Woman is such a large and impactful character that she necessitates the page space, but to do so with every character — no matter how much we might love them — would require a compendium of books.

I’d, of course, absolutely buy that compendium of books, but Fontana smartly recognizes that this isn’t what she’s writing. Instead, she makes sure to write with as much reverence and respect for each of the characters as she does with Wonder Woman. Characters like Hippolyta and Wonder Girl may only get a single-page profile and one artwork each, but their illustration and accompanying profile are as well-written and full of love as characters who get a multi-page spread.

Bumblebee illustrated by Gisèle Lagacé

The subsequent three sections of DC: Women of Action follows in kind, with more popular characters with long histories getting a bigger portion of the book’s proverbial spotlight, and supporting characters getting a two-page spread of profile and artwork.

That means that Supergirl, Lois Lane and Batgirl fans will get a bit more content to consume, but even characters — or character teams, like the Birds of Prey and DC’s Bombshells — with only a two-page spread still provide a fun, inspiring and informative read and have some of my favorite pieces of artwork in the entire book.

DC: Women of Action is by no means a comprehensive guide at all the female heroes and villains of the DC Comics universe, which means that some of your favorites might have only gotten a two-page spread or might be missing altogether (that my favorite Batgirl, Cassandra Cain, didn’t get her own spread was somewhat of a bummer to me — even if I understood the editorial decision).

However, it’s important to remember that the book isn’t meant to be some comprehensive encyclopedia of superheroes in the DC Universe. In fact, if that’s what you want, I’d point you in the direction of the book which is actually titled The DC Comics Encyclopedia. DC: Women of Action doesn’t purport to be a book of encyclopedic knowledge; instead, it is a celebration of all the amazing and awe-inspiring women of DC who have and continue to inspire us day by day.

In this way, DC: Women of Action wildly succeeds. It’s a book which celebrates both real and fictional female heroes, and one which definitely deserves a spot on your coffee table, in your bookshelf and under the Christmas tree of your best friend.

DC: Woman of Action is out now! Buy it now on Amazon or at Chronicle Books!