By Robert Kanigher, Ross Andru & Mike Esposito, Irving Novick & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-84856-474-9
Wonder Woman was created by psychologist and polygraph pioneer William Moulton Marston and uniquely realised by respected illustrator and co-creator Harry G. Peter just as the spectre of World War II began to directly affect America.
Using the pen-name Charles Moulton, Marston scripted all her adventures until his death in 1947, whereupon Robert Kanigher took over the writer’s role. H. G. Peter soldiered on with his unique artistic contribution until he passed away in 1958. Wonder Woman #97, in April of that year, was his last hurrah and the end of an era.
With the exception of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and a few innocuous back-up features, costumed heroes had all but vanished at the end of the 1940s, replaced by mostly mortal champions in a deluge of anthologised genre titles until Showcase #4 rekindled the public’s interest in costumed crime-busters with a new iteration of The Flash in 1956.
From that moment the fanciful floodgates opened wide once more, and whilst re-inventing Golden Age Greats such as Green Lantern, Atom and Hawkman, National/DC gradually updated all the those venerable veteran survivors who had weathered the backlash and none more so than the ever-resilient Amazing Amazon …
Artists Ross Andru & Mike Esposito, who had illustrated every script since Wonder Woman #98 in May of 1958, finally bowed out during the dog-days of this pivotal monochrome collection (re-presenting issues #157-177, October 1965-August 1968), graduating to Superman, Brave & the Bold, The Flash and eventually new Kanigher combat creation The Losers, whilst the Amazing Amazon floundered on the edge of cancellation – as indeed she had done for much of the 1960s.
Writer/editor Kanigher had constantly reinvented much of the original mythos, tinkering with her origins and unleashing her on an unsuspecting world in a fanciful blend of girlish whimsy, rampant sexism, strange romance, alien invasion, monster-mashing and utterly surreal (some would say-stream-of-consciousness) storytelling…
By the time this volume opens the Silver Age superhero revival was at its peak and, despite individual stories of stunning imagination and excellence, the format and timbre of Wonder Woman was looking tired and increasingly out of step with the rest of National/DC’s gradually gelling – and ultimately shared – continuity but, by its close, costumed characters were again in decline and a radical overhaul of Diana Prince was on the cards…
While all the other champions and defenders were getting together and teaming up at the drop of a hat – as indeed was the Princess of Power in Justice League of America – within the pages of her own title a timeless, isolated fantasy universe was carrying on much as it always had.
The madcap mythological mayhem began with the first of a two-part shocker from Wonder Woman #157 when Diana followed her beloved on a suicide mission to Red China – or Oolong Island, at least – where an insane and obnoxious giant cybernetic menace was planning to launch Nuclear Armageddon against the West.
Captured and transformed into ‘I – the Bomb!’ Steve Trevor was only saved by Amazon science but still had to endure separation and ‘The Fury of Egg Fu’ in #158 before crushing the ovoid outlaw once again.
Kanigher never forgot he was writing comicbooks and he took pains to constantly point it out to the readership – even though their preference might not be to have narrative rules, and suspension of disbelief flouted whilst fourth walls were continually broached. With ‘The End – or the Beginning?’ which closed out the issue, he gathered all the vast cast of the series in his office and told them that most of them were fired. Readers were then challenged to guess who would be back for the Big Change in #159…
The promised reboot consisted of a full switch to the faux 1940’s stories road-tested in #156 (see Showcase Presents Wonder Woman volume 3) and began with ‘The Golden Age Secret Origin of Wonder Woman’ wherein we saw the humbling and self-exile of the Amazons, and how thousands of years later baby Diana was shaped from clay and given life by goddesses Athena and Aphrodite. Growing to mighty maturity, the girl then rescued downed Air Force pilot Steve Trevor and after winning a divinely-ordained contest travelled back to “Man’s World†to conquer injustice and aggression through Amazon strength and ideals.
There was even room for a follow-up tale in which their journey was interrupted by enemy agents who brought down Wonder Woman’s Invisible Plane on ‘Doom Island’, only to discover the staggering power of America’s latest defender…
Issue #160 found her battling deranged bandit The Cheetah who took her Amazonian Bracelets of Submission and inadvertently unleashed all Diana’s pent-up hostility in ‘The Amazon of Terror’ before arch foe Mars psychically prompted a brilliant if misogynistic mutant midget to attack her in ‘Dr. Psycho’s Revenge’…
WW #161 opened with a convoluted clash against freelance spy Countess Draska Nishki whilst rival film companies battled to produce the ultimate filmic Pharaonic epic. Happily ‘The Curse of Cleopatra’ proved to be industrial espionage and not ancient Egyptian evil and, undaunted, Diana then foiled a crooked attempt to steal Steve’s knowledge by Nishki and Angle Man who shrank inside his skull. Determined to save her beloved’s honour the Amazon had to win an incredible ‘Battle Inside of a Brain!’
‘The Startling Secret of Diana Prince’ opened #162 and disclosed how the Paradise Island Émigré purchased the identity and papers of lovelorn Army Nurse Diana Prince in order to be close to Trevor at all times before ‘The Return of Minister Blizzard’ pitted Wonder Woman against an icy usurper determined to steal the throne and heart of a polar princess by giving her Manhattan as a gift…
Psycho returned in #163 and used an evolutionary advancement device to turn a two-ton anthropoid into curvaceous eight-foot tall blonde berserker. ‘Giganta – the Gorilla Girl’ then attacked the Amazon, determined to have Steve as her mate… ‘Danger – Wonder Woman’ then reintroduced the Machiavellian Paula von Gunta – also inexplicably hot for Trevor – who used thugs, hypnosis and the Amazon’s own magic weapons in her campaign to remove her romantic rival.
Issue #164 featured a full-length thriller wherein the Power Princess was almost bamboozled into marrying Steve’s commanding officer General Darnell, before being compelled by Angle Man and her own magic lasso into attacking America in ‘Wonder Woman… Traitor’ whilst in #165 ‘Perils of the Paper Man’ found an incredible parchment pariah turn to crime in an effort to win the Amazon’s heart before ‘The Three Fantastic Faces of Wonder Woman’ were made manifest by the irrepressibly evil Dr. Psycho.
In #166 ‘The Sinister Schemes of Egg Fu, the Fifth’ to steal US submarines were quickly scrambled by the Amazing Amazon whilst in ‘Once a Wonder Woman…!’ Diana’s attempts to win Steve in her unglamorous mortal persona were accidentally foiled by the perfidious Cheetah and WW# 167 offered up ‘The Secret of Tabu Mt.’ when the real Diana Prince needed help rescuing her new husband from a lost Aztec tribe, after which Steve shamefully used the ‘Strange Power of the Magic Lasso’ to make the Amazon his slave for a day…
After inexplicably forgiving the sod, in #168 Diana almost lost her magical lariat in ‘Three Hands on the Magic Lasso’ when a ruthless collector hired Giganta, Dr. Psycho and Paula von Gunta to steal it for him whilst ‘Never in a Million Years’ found Diana back on Paradise Island attempting to forcibly dissuade a love-struck Amazon from following a man back to America.
The Golden Age veneer was gradually slipping and it once again seemed that the series was sliding towards oblivion. Middle period fantasy elements began to reappear, so when Mars created an almost unstoppable menace in #169, guile and passion at last won the day when ‘Wonder Woman Battles the Crimson Centipede’ after which General Darnell renewed his romantic campaign when the Amazon was trapped in ‘The Cage of Doom!’
A duplicate of Steve created by Dr. Psycho in #170 psychologically tortured and almost destroyed ‘The Haunted Amazon’ and unconquerable alien apes could only be stopped by ‘Wonder Woman – Gorilla’ after which WW#171 saw vacationing Amazons sucked into the ‘Terror Trap of the Demon Man-Fish’ before a malign miniscule malcontent reared his furry head again in the crime caper ‘Menace of the Mouse Man!’
Veteran war artist Irv Novick took over the art with #172 (October 1967) and ‘A Day in the Life of an Amazon’ presented a slightly more realistic edge, even though the portmanteau tale saw Diana crush costumed criminals, fight a giant baby and blitz an alien invasion whilst ‘The Amazing Amazon Crime!’ found her hard-pressed to defeat a felonious android facsimile…
Firmly re-established back in the late Sixties, #173 revealed ‘Wonder Woman’s Daring Deception’ when a jealous Amazon tried to usurp her position as ambassador to Man’s World after which she briefly became ‘Earth’s Last Human’ until a neat time-travel trick enabled her to go back in time and foil a Martian sneak attack. In #174 her boyfriend at last got to outshine Diana when mysterious power-pills (courtesy of Angle Man) enabled the Air Force pilot to become a superhero in ‘Steve Trevor – Alias The Patriot’ whilst ‘Wonder Woman vs. the Air Devils!’ ended the issue in a tense duel between the Princess of Power and the self-proclaimed King of Crime…
With the end in sight and after decades at the helm, Kanigher managed one last genuine surprise twist in #175 when ‘Wonder Woman’s Evil Twin!’ from a parallel Earth attacked, determined to take everything our heroine cherished, but his final script was something of an anticlimax when the ‘Threat of the Triple Stars’ (#176 June 1968) found the Amazon seriously outmatched by three brothers whose sibling rivalry extended to seeing whom could out-power, woo, overwhelm and wed her. Apparently she had no say in the matter…
The final tale in this volume – and indeed of the old Amazing Amazon – was a fill-in by Bill Finger, J. Winslow Mortimer & Jack Abel, and one of the best tales of the entire run.
‘Wonder Woman and Supergirl vs. the Planetary Conqueror!’ (August 1968) detailed how interplanetary marauder Klamos had briefly tired of battle and sought a mate. Abducting the most powerful females from a host of worlds, the astral emperor forced them to battle for the “honour†of being his bride. In a thrilling, gritty tale, the Girl of Steel and Amazing Amazon at last showed their mettle – and feminist credentials – by trashing everything and exposing a colossal deception at the heart of an evil empire that spanned a dozen galaxies.
It was a splendid high note to end on. With the next issue Mike Sekowsky would begin a root and branch overhaul that would see Steve murdered, Diana stripped of her powers and the Amazons gone from the Earth. A whole new kind of Wonder Woman was coming… and can be seen in the magical quartet of full-colour collections Diana Prince: Wonder Woman, and hopefully one day in an equally stunning monochrome Showcase edition such as this one…
Always wild, bold, action-packed, thrilling and utterly delightful, whilst often mind-boggling and practically incomprehensible by modern narrative standards, these exuberant, effulgent fantasies are usually illogical and occasionally just plain bonkers, but in those days adventure in the moment was paramount and if you could put rationality and consistency aside for a moment these utterly infectious romps simply sparkled then and now with fun, thrills and sheer spectacle.
Wonder Woman is rightly revered as a focus of female strength, independence and empowerment, but the welcoming nostalgia and easy familiarity of such innocuous imaginative fairytales must be a magical escape for open-minded readers, whilst the true, incomparable value of these stories is the incredible quality entertainment they still offer.
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