The Great Wonder Woman Readathon

[Scott Harris]

Wonder Woman #277
Gerry Conway, Jose Delbo and Joe Giella
backup story: Paul Levitz, Joe Staton and Steve Mitchell



Synopsis: Kobra theatrically crushes a paper mache globe to show what he is symbolically going to do to Earth, then he makes some speeches to his men about taking over the planet.

Meanwhile, Wonder Woman has captured four Kobra agents last issue and now she wraps them in her lasso and commands them to tell her their secrets. However, they have been programmed mentally to resist and instead... they friggin explode! In a burst of blood and skeletons and everything. It's really gross and pretty hardcore for a Wonder Woman story. Diana is very upset at being turned into an executioner and gets ready for some grim vengeance.

Back the the ranch, Steve Trevor explains to the Pentagon brass that Cobalt 93 is a superpowered dirty nuke that contaminates a region for 93 years and now a terrorist group has stolen it. Justthen, Kobra appears on TV with one of those broadcast-to-everyone-on-Earth things. He syas that unless Earth turns over half its gross of all precious metals to him, he will blow up the mmiddle east oil wells.

Diana heads home, where Etta is waiting around. Etta gets upset that Diana once again gives her the cold shoulder and Diana realizes she's been acting kind of douchey because she's always brooding about Steve or some need to save all humanity. So she decides to just skip working on the Kobra case for the evening and instead stays up all night having a heart-to-heart with Etta.

Then she goes to see a voodoo priestess, as one naturally does. Turns out her landlord mentioned this Mother Juju lady to her, because, of course he did. And it turns out the Mother Juju is both a wizard and a telepath, so she already knows what Diana is there for. She tells Diana that Kobra started as a mystical resistance force against the British rule of India but now they want to conquer all Earth.

Diana goes to India and finds the anciet Kobra temple, only to be caught in a Kobra trap: They were waiting and now she is surrounded by Kobra agents as well as actual, literal cobras. To be concluded!!!

Backup stories: Helena broods over what to do about the D.A. knowing her secret identity. Meanwhile, her secretary is still being blackmailed, but her loser husband as it turns out. Helena finds out and kicks the husband's ass. The end.

Notes: Stuff gets real in this issue, man. The stakes get majorly high and I liked the touch that with the Kobra guys dying, Diana is now playing for keeps. I also liked the extended sequence with Etta, as this has been building for a while in previous issues and we finally get some payoff in the form of some character development.

There were a couple hiccups again caused by the shorter page count. Having a major plot point -- like Diana being directed to a telepathic voodoo priestess by her landlord -- happen in a line of dialogue between panels seems like a cheat. It's also something I've seen Conway do a few times in his run and it's annoying. Show that stuff, man! It's important to the plot!

In the lettercolumn, someone writes in to ask why their UPC symbol is missing and the editors have to explain what the direct market is.

Oh, and a cool yellow cover! More yellow covers!

My Grade: Main story gets an A-. Things are cooking now. Backup gets a C-, that subplot went absolutely nowhere.

[An Ear In The Fireplace]

I have to say most of us back then were much more into the Huntress stories. I loved Steve Mitchell's inks on Joe Staton--and I was a Staton fan going back to E-Man. There were a few odd things about Paul Levitz's stories, like the weird relationship between Helena and Richard--but I think most fans were more interested in reading about the daughter of Batman and Catwoman, rather than yet another reboot of Wonder Woman. It was my usual pattern to read the letter column first, then the lead story, and then the back-up story. But I believe by this time I was always turning to the back-up story, after having checked out the letter column, and leaving the Wonder Woman story for last.

But Mother Juju caught my interest and made me pay closer attention to the lead story. Mother Juju was one of my favourite characters, for all her silliness--I wish more had been done with her.

[Scott Harris]

Wonder Woman #278
Gerry Conway, Jose Delbo and Dave Hunt
backup story: Paul Levitz, Joe Staton and Steve Mitchell



Synopsis: This is it! Or, well, it's something, anyway. Diana is trapped by Kobra, so she immediately kicks his ass. He throws some snakes at him, she deflects themback and he dies horribly via snakebite. Whoops!

But that was just a decoy. The real Kobra pops out and sics a giant robot snake on Diana, which she demmolishes in one panel. But It gives Kobra and some of his minions time to escape. Diana rummages around the base and finds some kind of info...

Back at the Pentagon, Diana joins Steve in some crisis management. He finds a new radioactive signature in Egypt, so the two fly off to Egypt, though the general who has been nursing a hard-on for Diana picks this moment to make his move on her. She brushes him off, as well she should.

Steve arrives in Egypt first, because he didn't take Diana along, so she had to follow as Wonder Woman in her invisible plane. He enters the pyramids where the Cobalt 93 apparently is. Minutes later, Wonder Woman follows him and is ambushed by some Kobra thugs. They don't actually know who she is, though, so she lets them drag her into the pyramid, where she is taken before Kobra.

Kobra, as it happens, has the Cobalt 93 attached to a giant missile and is gloating because he's about to fire it. He assumes that she is drugged by their Kobra darts, and the thugs are like "...uh, actually... boss..." just before Diana starts smashing everything. Kobra gleefully hits the button to fire the missile. Diana fights him and the pyramid collapses, apparently (or maybe not?) crushing Kobra to death.

Diana flees, then realizes Steve must be inside. Except, he's not; he was inside the missile and managed to defuse it, causing it to safely splash down in the ocean. So Wonder Woman goes and picks him up. The end!!!

Backup story: Huntress heads to an alcatraz type prison where the D.A. is brooding. They talk about the fact that he knows her secret identity and he syays he won't tell anyone. Just then, some prisoners stage a riot and take over the prison. Huntress thinks she alone can save the guards so she knocks out the D.A. and goes into action.

Notes: This was a little bit of an anti-climax, mainly because the roof caves in on them in the middle of their fight and Steve just defuses the missile before Diana even knows what the hell is happening. I mean, I like Steve being useful and proactive, but not necessarily at the expense of Diana. It is her book, after all. Plus, the final fight with Kobra wasn't quite satisfying, what with the cave in interrupting things.

Overall, though, this is a solid ending to the first big epic of the new era. I liked how in the last issue they tied the whole Morgan Tracy assassin Prime Planner thing to this epic, which means that the story in this issue -- #277 -- has ties all the way back to the Bushmaster story in #256. It retroactively adds a tiny bit of luster to that earlier, somewhat aborted attempt at an epic.

The back-up story is still kind of plodding along. I like Huntress, but I don't think the backup story has actually been up to the quality of the lead, which is something of a miracle considering how bad the lead stories in this book were not very long ago.

Overall, at this point, I think the reboot has been a big success. It's turned a pretty damn bad comic into a depenable, solid series. It's still not perfect, or great, but it's pretty good.

My Grade: Main story B+, backup story C

[Scott Harris]

I have to say most of us back then were much more into the Huntress stories. I loved Steve Mitchell's inks on Joe Staton--and I was a Staton fan going back to E-Man. There were a few odd things about Paul Levitz's stories, like the weird relationship between Helena and Richard--but I think most fans were more interested in reading about the daughter of Batman and Catwoman, rather than yet another reboot of Wonder Woman. It was my usual pattern to read the letter column first, then the lead story, and then the back-up story. But I believe by this time I was always turning to the back-up story, after having checked out the letter column, and leaving the Wonder Woman story for last.

But Mother Juju caught my interest and made me pay closer attention to the lead story. Mother Juju was one of my favourite characters, for all her silliness--I wish more had been done with her.

I certainly understand why people would be more interested in the Huntress story, as Wonder Woman had sucked for years and the Huntress was an interesting character, with all her cool Earth-2 ties. At this distance, though, reading these for the first time, the series just isn't really doing it for me, while I think the lead is more effective.

Mother Juju struck me as a bit random, to be honest; with no set up the sudden appearance of a telepathic voodoo priestess kind of stuck out like a sore thumb. The whole "my landlord told me about a mystic priestess" just seemed like such a complete non sequitor to get Conway out of a plot hole.

Having said that, her appearance makes a lot more sense once the next arc is read. Something I've noticed Conway has done before -- put in stuff that makes no sense and then retroactively justify it so it makes sense. It doesn't always work, but the next arc is much cooler as far as Mother Juju is concerned.

[An Ear In The Fireplace]

With Mother Juju (among others), it's really about building a strong cast of characters to back up Wonder Woman. This is why whenever we saw some new interesting characters, that could fill out Wonder Woman's cast, there was some hope and anticipation. Otherwise, all Wonder Woman had was her deus ex machina mother and the life-challenged Steve Trevor.

[Scott Harris]

With Mother Juju (among others), it's really about building a strong cast of characters to back up Wonder Woman. This is why whenever we saw some new interesting characters, that could fill out Wonder Woman's cast, there was some hope and anticipation. Otherwise, all Wonder Woman had was her deus ex machina mother and the life-challenged Steve Trevor.

I agree completely. The total lack of a supporting cast has been a major problem with the series for... a decade at this point. No supporting cast means basically that there has been no character development, and in fact there hasn't been any until the last couple issues with Etta and to a lesser extent Steve. I'm only up to #282 in my reading, so I am hoping that Mother Juju or somebody does stick around to start building a supporting cast. Diana needs to build a life, otherwise there's no point in even having the secret identity.

I'm a fan of Etta basically for this reason. Diana needs someone like Etta I think. More than she needs Steve, anyway.

But that rant will wait until tomorrow. I know how to fix Steve! Really!

[berk]

And if you're not a huge fan of Wonder Woman having an American Flag motif, I'm guessing you won't be in love with the next cover for the series...

I'm a fan of the American Flag motiff myself, FWIW, but since they have altered her connection to the US in recent years, I'm not sure it makes sense any more.

To me, they should either go all the way with that and make her a sort of female Captain America - or Superman, I suppose would be the DC equivalent - downplay the Amazon origin and drop the whole Greek mythology angle; or, if they really want to concentrate on the mythological background, drop the American flag costume and go with something like the ones on the covers of #270 and the earlier one Scott posted. It's the mismatched combination of the two that I find grating.

[Scott Harris]

Okay, so with the initial reboot arc finished, I want to say a few words about Steve Trevor. Overall, I don't have a problem with returning the status quo to Wonder Woman's 1940's roots, because frankly it was when she was at her best and other than the I-Ching era, the character has basically been floundering ever since. So I get it and for the most part I applaud it.

However, I do have a problem with Steve Trevor. The problem? The way they have the dynamic between Diana and Steve set up is exactly, 100%, to the letter a mirror image of the relationship between Superman and Lois Lane. Steve is in love with Wonder Woman, and not only doesn't realize Diana is Wonder Woman but completely ignore and overlooks her. Meanwhile, she pines away for him as Diana, all the time thinking "if only Steve knew that I am actually the woman he loves!"

Maybe this was interesting in 1942 when it was still fresh, but decades upon decades of Mort Weisinger beating this motif into the ground and beyond in the pages of Action, Superman and Lois Lane had rendered it boring and stale long before this reboot happened in 1979. There is simply nothing you can do with this. Further, as one writer pointed out in the lettercolumn, it doesn't make any sense because Wonder Woman is Diana's true identity. "Diana Prince" is just a front she set up in order to get access to government information; it's just a pose, a shell. There's nothing there. Clark Kent at least seems to have a life and personaity of his own; he's the real character while Superman is just the guy he turns into when trouble appears. But Diana Prince is literally nobody. So why all the coy subterfuge around Steve with her identity?

The answer is obvious and should be obvious to Diana as well in the comic: She should tell Steve -- and Etta -- that she is really Wonder Woman. It puts her and Steve on equal footing so their relationship., such as it is, can actually develop instead of being stunted by this pointless masquerade. It also removes logistical problems that make aspects of her stories unbelievable. As a military officer working in the Pentagon, randomly disappearing for hours on end is just not possible without being immediately discovered and reprimanded. Yet somehow she manages to do this all the time. If she had Steve and Etta in on the game, they could help cover for her, especially as Steve is her ranking officer and boss. And telling Etta also makes sense, because Diana needs a confidant in man's world just as much as Etta needs a friend. Right now that friendship is a one-way street as long as Diana hides her true self.

Granted, I am writing from the point of view of having read an additional 32 years of secret identity stuff, and in today's modern comics, the secret identity is usually treated very differently than it was then. But even in 1980 the secret identity stuff had long since played itself out as a real source of interesting stories. I hope Wein and Conway realize this and ditch this aspect of their plots in favor of having Diana reveal her identity to Steve (something she had done prior to his death in #179). It may be the only way to allow him to become an interesting character instead of just a boring Lois Lane clone.

[An Ear In The Fireplace]

During the short-lived Steve Howard period, Steve did know Wonder Woman's secret identity and I thought that worked well. Going back to the I Ching years, there was no secret. Diana Prince was Wonder Woman and everyone knew it--this is why I think things could have worked out better if Schwartz had taken over directly from that run, because Schwartz usually tried to work with existing continuity and didn't institute careless changes (unless by accident). But Kanigher is a different kettle of fish and he will blatantly ignore continuity and do crazy things.

When Kanigher takes over from O'Neil (who took over from an invisible Dorothy Woolfolk who took over from Mike Sekowsky who took over from Jack Miller who took over from Robert Kanigher who took over from Sheldon Mayer), Kanigher plays fast and loose with the mod Wonder Woman continuity and without explanation the Diana Prince identity is suddenly secret again and mod Diana who was so super-hot with sex-crazed men hanging all over her in the issues just previous is now mousey and unattractive to Morgan Tracy and apparently everyone else because she wears glasses (which look like Foster-Grants).

I have thought that Wonder Woman and Diana Prince should be two different people--as that's part of the original origin: Diana Prince is a real person, while WW is just posing as her. In some versions of The Shadow, Lamont Cranston is a separate person from The Shadow, but Cranston lends out his identity when The Shadow needs to pose as Cranston. That's how it could have worked with Wonder Woman. She might have had an arrangement with the real Prince to use her identity when needed. That would have also let WW have another permanent cast member. We could have both super-sexy adventure-girl Diana Prince AND Amazing Amazon Wonder Woman.

[The Darknight Detective]

Okay, so with the initial reboot arc finished, I want to say a few words about Steve Trevor. Overall, I don't have a problem with returning the status quo to Wonder Woman's 1940's roots, because frankly it was when she was at her best and other than the I-Ching era, the character has basically been floundering ever since. So I get it and for the most part I applaud it.

However, I do have a problem with Steve Trevor. The problem? The way they have the dynamic between Diana and Steve set up is exactly, 100%, to the letter a mirror image of the relationship between Superman and Lois Lane. Steve is in love with Wonder Woman, and not only doesn't realize Diana is Wonder Woman but completely ignore and overlooks her. Meanwhile, she pines away for him as Diana, all the time thinking "if only Steve knew that I am actually the woman he loves!"

Maybe this was interesting in 1942 when it was still fresh, but decades upon decades of Mort Weisinger beating this motif into the ground and beyond in the pages of Action, Superman and Lois Lane had rendered it boring and stale long before this reboot happened in 1979. There is simply nothing you can do with this. Further, as one writer pointed out in the lettercolumn, it doesn't make any sense because Wonder Woman is Diana's true identity. "Diana Prince" is just a front she set up in order to get access to government information; it's just a pose, a shell. There's nothing there. Clark Kent at least seems to have a life and personaity of his own; he's the real character while Superman is just the guy he turns into when trouble appears. But Diana Prince is literally nobody. So why all the coy subterfuge around Steve with her identity?

The answer is obvious and should be obvious to Diana as well in the comic: She should tell Steve -- and Etta -- that she is really Wonder Woman. It puts her and Steve on equal footing so their relationship., such as it is, can actually develop instead of being stunted by this pointless masquerade. It also removes logistical problems that make aspects of her stories unbelievable. As a military officer working in the Pentagon, randomly disappearing for hours on end is just not possible without being immediately discovered and reprimanded. Yet somehow she manages to do this all the time. If she had Steve and Etta in on the game, they could help cover for her, especially as Steve is her ranking officer and boss. And telling Etta also makes sense, because Diana needs a confidant in man's world just as much as Etta needs a friend. Right now that friendship is a one-way street as long as Diana hides her true self.

Granted, I am writing from the point of view of having read an additional 32 years of secret identity stuff, and in today's modern comics, the secret identity is usually treated very differently than it was then. But even in 1980 the secret identity stuff had long since played itself out as a real source of interesting stories. I hope Wein and Conway realize this and ditch this aspect of their plots in favor of having Diana reveal her identity to Steve (something she had done prior to his death in #179). It may be the only way to allow him to become an interesting character instead of just a boring Lois Lane clone.

You make very good points, Scott, but I think Steve should have known right from the start. In fact, after landing on Paradise Island, Moulton should have had Trevor ask Diana to help out with the war effort. He could have set up her employment with the military and even suggested her costumed identity. They could have been more of a team then the way you aptly described their comic-book relationship.

[The Darknight Detective]

During the short-lived Steve Howard period, Steve did know Wonder Woman's secret identity and I thought that worked well. Going back to the I Ching years, there was no secret. Diana Prince was Wonder Woman and everyone knew it--this is why I think things could have worked out better if Schwartz had taken over directly from that run, because Schwartz usually tried to work with existing continuity and didn't institute careless changes (unless by accident). But Kanigher is a different kettle of fish and he will blatantly ignore continuity and do crazy things.

When Kanigher takes over from O'Neil (who took over from an invisible Dorothy Woolfolk who took over from Mike Sekowsky who took over from Jack Miller who took over from Robert Kanigher who took over from Sheldon Mayer), Kanigher plays fast and loose with the mod Wonder Woman continuity and without explanation the Diana Prince identity is suddenly secret again and mod Diana who was so super-hot with sex-crazed men hanging all over her in the issues just previous is now mousey and unattractive to Morgan Tracy and apparently everyone else because she wears glasses (which look like Foster-Grants).

I have thought that Wonder Woman and Diana Prince should be two different people--as that's part of the original origin: Diana Prince is a real person, while WW is just posing as her. In some versions of The Shadow, Lamont Cranston is a separate person from The Shadow, but Cranston lends out his identity when The Shadow needs to pose as Cranston. That's how it could have worked with Wonder Woman. She might have had an arrangement with the real Prince to use her identity when needed. That would have also let WW have another permanent cast member. We could have both super-sexy adventure-girl Diana Prince AND Amazing Amazon Wonder Woman.

...or we could have had super-sexy adventure-girl Diana Prince wearing the Foster-Grants. I was always amused that anybody thought she was homely when she wasn't wearing the costume. Yet, I recall stories (more pre-Bronze Age, BTW) showcasing her in that fashion. Didn't men like the sexy librarian look back then? I mean, even with the glasses on, she still had a divine face and figure. I know I didn't recoil in terror any time Lynda Carter had the specs on, that's for sure!

[Scott Harris]

Wonder Woman #279
Gerry Conway, Jose Delbo and Dave Hunt
backup story: Paul Levitz, Joe Staton and Steve Mitchell



Synopsis: Wonder Woman staggers in Mother Juju's... juju room... and Mother Juju reads the tea leaves or something to see what the issue is. After a crappy date with the overbearing general who has been after her, Diana returns home to ruminate on menfolk. She then realizes Etta is nowhere to be found, but she does hear a weird chanting coming from the downstairs neighbors (whose noise has been bothering her and Etta for a couple issues). Turning into Wonder Woman, she barges into the downstairs apartment only to discover a weird rite going on, with people in robes, a pentagram on the floor and a bound Etta being menaced by a goat-faced man.

Panicking, Wonder Woman fled... to Mother Juju's. Mother Juju now explains that some funky stuff is going down and she gives Diana a lead on where to go next, a government/scientific installation called the Delphi Project. Diana flies there in her jet and busts in, clocking some guards, then smashes into a room where she is horrified to see Etta about to be sacrificed to a giant demon. To be continued!

Backup story: Huntress is trying to stop a prison riot. She frees some guards being held by the dock and sends them to the mainland with the D.A. in tow (not literally, he's actually unconscious in the boat). Huntress tries to figure out a way to take out the riot leader, a big supervillain named Lionmane. She sends him a note saying she will meet him in single combat and if he wins she will tell him "the secret of Fagan's wood." He is pleased at this for some reason. Meanwhile, swat teams approach the island, so Huntress jumps into action to try and distract Lionmane and his men. Huntress and Lionmane begin fighting... to be continued!

Notes: Mother Juju is back. I do like the change of pace here quite a bit. After the long (long, loooong) intertwined plots involving first the prime Planner and the Kobra, switching it up to some really unexpected black magic stuff is a very nice shift in gears. It's also good, as we've previously discussed, to see a character recurring in this comic, which suggests there might be something being built here. Plus, I like the subtle setup for this in previous issue with the downstairs neighbors being loud; this doesn't come out of nowhere, but the result (like in Jack C. harris' crazy #246) is quite unexpected.

One thing I did find a bit odd, though this is consistent with #246, is Diana's shock, disbelief and unsettled attitude when faced with black magic. If there's any mainstream superhero in the DCu that should be a perfect crossover character for magic stories, it's Diana. She was literally made by magic, being a clay statue brought to life by the gods. She personally interacts with the gods and wields magical artifacts daily. Her powers are actually granted by a magical girdle her mother wears. So why is magic such a big shock to her in this issue, to the point where she almost passes out at the sight of a demon?

I think having magic based stories is a great idea for Wonder Woman. Not to compare her to Thor again, but one of the best things about Thor as a series and character is that he is equally at home in sci-fi, fantasy or superhero stories. Likewise, the fact that Wonder Woman has one foot in the magical world and one foot in man's (superhero) world should be a strength. We should get stories like this more often. Think about it, if you were in the JLA and Zatanna wasn't around, who would you go to if you had a magical problem? Diana. It's an untapped narrative source, I think. With the exception of this new arc and #246, if magic shows up in Wonder Woman, it's simply as part of another Mars or Amazon storyline, but I think they are really missing a big opportunity here to carve out a unique place in the comic landscape for Wonder Woman.

This story was just okay for me, but it also had one other minor element that makes it interesting: In the last panel, there's a tease for next issue and it says that Wonder Woman will be teaming up with Etrigan. This is a great idea. Talk about two characters who should be able to play off each other; they're about as different as possible, really. It should be really interesting to see them team up.

The backup story moves along, we're getting some action now. Lionmane seems really lame, but I am a little intrigued by this apparent shared history between Huntress and Lionmane. She says she has to settle a score with him. What score is that? I don't know, they don't say. But I am interested to learn more.

Also extremely interesting: In this issue we get the latest statement of ownership. Okay, so two years ago the book was selling 122k copies a month. Last year it jumped way up to 153k or so, an increase of a whopping 25%. This year? The average sales over the last 12 months is...94k. 94! They lost 40% of their sales in a year! Holy crap! And the number of copies for the most recent issue before filing was only 83k. Is the reboot helping at all? I wonder just how quickly the numbers dropped and if the reboot is actually helping or hurting sales? What a nosedive! No wonder the editors are putting the brakes on talk of a second series, this one is about to die a terrible death!

Of course, DC at this point was forced to publish Wonder Woman anyway, which is one reason the series even lasted through the 50's to begin with. At the time, DC didn't actually own the rights to Wonder Woman, because somehow William Moulton Marston had retained control of the character. DC was only basically renting the character in an agreement that required them to publish a certain number of Wonder Woman comics every year or else the rights would fully revert to the Marston estate. So thanks to legal reasons, in a sense Wonder Woman was safe no matter how bad sales got, but wow. 94k? That's brutal.

My Grade: Main story gets a solid B for being different. It was almost entirely setup for the rest of the arc, but the tease for Etrigan allows me to accept that. Backup story gets a B-. Some action, anyway, and I am curious about this history with Lionmane.

[Scott Harris]

...or we could have had super-sexy adventure-girl Diana Prince wearing the Foster-Grants. I was always amused that anybody thought she was homely when she wasn't wearing the costume. Yet, I recall stories (more pre-Bronze Age, BTW) showcasing her in that fashion. Didn't men like the sexy librarian look back then? I mean, even with the glasses on, she still had a divine face and figure. I know I didn't recoil in terror any time Lynda Carter had the specs on, that's for sure!

About the only interesting feature of the current pseudo-love triangle between Steve, Diana and the general going on in the issues I am reading is that the general is interested in Diana and not Wonder Woman, so she has one guy only interested in Wonder Woman and one guy only interested in Diana. In fact, there's one panel where Steve is looking at Diana and thinks to himself, "I don't understand what the general sees in her." Apparently the glasses are just too much for poor Steve to get past. because of this, even though the general is an overbearing and occasionally sexist tool, I find myself kind of rooting for Diana to give him a chance.

[An Ear In The Fireplace]

...or we could have had super-sexy adventure-girl Diana Prince wearing the Foster-Grants. I was always amused that anybody thought she was homely when she wasn't wearing the costume. Yet, I recall stories (more pre-Bronze Age, BTW) showcasing her in that fashion. Didn't men like the sexy librarian look back then? I mean, even with the glasses on, she still had a divine face and figure. I know I didn't recoil in terror any time Lynda Carter had the specs on, that's for sure!

Exactly. After the I Ching run, the first few issues Kanigher edited (where I Ching is gunned down and so is a woman editor named Dottie Cottonman), were illustrated by Don Heck. Heck had done the mod Diana Prince only five issues before (in which she's hit on by Jonny Double) and Diana looks exactly the same except for those glasses. There's a disconnect between Kanigher's traditional way of seeing women and the new modern way of seeing women.

[Scott Harris]

Wonder Woman #280
Gerry Conway, Jose Delbo and Dave Hunt
backup story: Paul Levitz, Joe Staton and Steve Mitchell



Synopsis: Etta is about to be eaten by a giant demon, so Wonder Woman attacks. They fight, while Etta passes out in terror. Watching the fight from above, the scientists at the Delphi Foundation decide that this has gone a little too far, so they deploy some machine guns from the ceiling and start blasting everybody. The demon, who is named Baal-Satyr, gets really pissed and smashes the machine guns, then clobbers Diana, knocking her unconscious.

Some time later, she awakens on the side of the road, wondering how the hell she ended up there. Changing into her Diana Prince garb, she collects Steve Trevor and returns to the Delphi Foundation to confront its leader, Oscar Pound, whos is a fat guy in a wheelchair. Pound calls Diana's accusations nonsense, and there's no sign of any demons or anything, so she feels foolish and Steve thinks she's a moron.

After they leave, though, Oscar Pound calls out his new partner, and it is... Klarion the Witch Boy!! What?! Turns out the Oscar made a deal with the devils in order to regain the use of his legs; Klarion is acting as some kind of facilitator. That does not bode well.

Meanwhile, Diana returns to Mother Juju for more help, and Mother Juju suggests she track down Jason Blood, aka Etrigan the demon. Wonder Woman does find him, but Blood pretends he has no idea what she is talking about and tells her to get lost. In response, she recites the Etrigan invocation -- which Mother Juju taught her -- transforming Blood into Etrigan. happy to be freed, Etrigan agrees to help Wonder woman and they disappear into another dimension as Blood's assistant and girlfriend watch helplessly. To be continued!

Backup story: Huntress fights Lionmane. We learn the Lionmane used to be bpart of Catwoman's gang; he attacked her over some loot they buried in Fagan's Wood, only she beat him and now he wants to get the loot. Huntress wants revenge, and she defeats him just as the cops finally show up to take control of things. However, one prisoner did escape the island, as we see when we cut to the D.A.... who has been hit with Joker's smilex gas! To be continued!

Notes: Now we're getting somewhere in both the main story and the backup. This version of Etrigan is the original non-rhyming version and he is so much less irritating than the rhyming version. Screw that rhyming crap. I like Mother Juju showing up again, I really like the brief scene with Jason Blood and Etrigan and I like the demonic battles, with Diana doubting her sanity upon her return visit to Delphi. Plus: Klarion the Witch Boy!

One question I had is why the demon -- or the people at Delphi -- didn't kill Diana when she was knocked out. Why did they just dump her on the side of the road? Who did that? It doesn't really make any sense. I'd like to say it gets explained at some point, but having read the rest of this arc, I don't think it ever is explained.

One note about this arc is that it feels decompressed in a very modern way. More so than other comics from its time period. In the first issue, Etta gets taken by a demon and Wonder Woman tracks her down. In the second issue, there's a fight and then Wonder Woman finds Etrigan. That's more or less it. Part of this is the shorter page count, but it feels decompressed to me. It's not necessarily a bad thing or badly done, it's just interesting for the time period.

The backup story was, again, a bit of a letdown. Huntress' score to settle with Lionmane turned out to be almost nothing. part of this is the fault of the art. In the text, Huntress says that Catwoman took a long time to recover from the beating he gave her, but in the art, all he does is put her in a headlock for one panel before she gasses him. that doesn't seem like much of a beating and I can't imagine it would take a long time to recover from a momentary headlock. It just doesn't come across as something that deserves to have a big vendetta attached to it. On the other hand, the Joker smilex thing in the last panel was a big surprise, especially since it suggests that the D.A. is dead. That really was a jolt of energy that this backup series is in real need of at this point.

A good cover, too.

My Grade: Main story gets a B+, backup gets a B, elevated slightly by the surprise ending.