What Dreams May Come...

The Wonder Wednesday festivities return this week, as we take a look at issue #300 of Wonder Woman, volume one, from February 1983 (just a few months before I graduated from high school, for those who are keeping track...).

And what a celebration this issue is, kicking off in fine style with a fantastic, wrap-around cover by Dick Giordano and George Perez.

Our wonder epic, by Roy and Danette Thomas, begins in a dark alley in Washington DC, at 3 a.m. Our heroine is facing off against a large, shadowy and shapeless creature, one which has been terrorizing her in dreams all week. But now it's taken physical form and Diana's fighting a loosing battle against the thing.

By the way, a host a wonderful artists provided their bit for this anniversary spectacular. The framing sequence is penciled by Gene Colon, the regular artist on the title at the time.

She's about to be hurled against a wall when a red and gold clad figure appears from the shadows and catches her, as the monster vanishes in the glow of a street lamp.

The mystery man is the Kirby version of the Sandman. He explains to Diana that during his duties of monitoring the Dream Dimension, he became aware of her nightmares and sleepwalking. He's very troubled that the creature of Diana's dreams is taking real form.

Diana is grateful to Sandman for his intervention, but a little non-plussed by the fawning comments he makes about her beauty. She admits that she's been feeling a lot of pressure about her job and from the man she loves. The Sandman suggests she should change the job..."or the man."

Diana points out its not really Sandman's business and they part company, as she dashes through the early morning streets of the nation's capitol, returning to the apartment she (as Lt. Diana Prince, USAF) shares with Etta Candy just before her roomie wakes up, but not soon enough to get the two of them to work on time.

Both Etta and D.P. are called into General Darnell's office, assuming they are to be berated for their lateness, but Diana is awarded a promotion to Major, with a promise that she may even be a colonel if the paperwork has gone through by the time she and Steve Trevor are to return from the upcoming Arms Talks she and Trevor are to attend in Mexico.

For Colonel Trevor's part, his ego seems to have been hurt by Di's promotion and when she calls him on thinking she got the promotion because she was a woman, he denies it, saying he's never really thought of her as a woman at all. (OMG!! Of all the stupid man things to say...) Naturally, she storms off.

But she realizes her recent lack of sleep from the nightmares has her on edge, and thinks Steve might not be deserving of the full anger she's feeling. She changes to Wonder Woman and summons the invisible jet, thinking to catch a cat-nap at 40,000 feet to restore her.

As her eyes close, the monster from her dreams reappears and attacks the jet. She begins defensive maneuvers to throw off the thing and swoops away, to return to the ground...only to discover that she's on a collision course with the Washington Monument. Believing she won't be able to get clear, she's surprised when a golden lasso catches the nose of her plane and lifts it above the monument...

...which is about when our Diana realizes she's broken the barrier between dimensions and found herself on Earth-Two, face to face with her parallel doppleganger, Wonder Woman. This segment of the story's art is capably handled by Ross Andru and Dick Giordano.

The two have met once before and are happy to catch up a little. But Diana is a little surprised by how the E2 Wonder Woman's life has turned out. She has long ago revealed her secret identity...and married her Steve Trevor.

"I know I once said I'd never marry him until all evil was vanquished from the world...but not even an Amazon can wait that long."


This other Steve Trevor insists this second (to him) Wonder Woman to stay for dinner before returning to her Earth. As they tour the Trevors' home, Diana meets her doppleganger's daughter, Lyta...who asks if this second Wonder Woman will stay to help her train, as she hopes to take over being Wonder Woman from her mother.

Diana does stay for dinner and her visit offers her some interesting perspective on her own life. She returns to Earth One in time to catch up with Steve at a twilight launching of a new nuclear submarine. Of course, there's a terrorist sniper to spoil the launch festivities, but she and Steve work together to make short work of the guy...and she carries Steve off to a nearby rooftop and says that if he still wants to marry her, she's ready.

He's flabbergasted, but thrilled...and even a little surprised that she wants to be married in just a few weeks, on Paradise Island. Even though we know this Wonder Woman never met Mindy Mayer, it's clear she has a hot publicist, as the next day, as the gang is headed to the talks in Mexico, Etta is reading a newspaper with the headline WEDDING BELLS FOR WONDER WOMAN!

Di is a little cool on the subject when Etta mentions it. Trevor overhears and thinks that it will probably be best for Diana Prince to get over him, now that he's marrying Wonder Woman, so she can find a nice guy and settled down. And then the radio message comes, advising them of a bomb hidden in the briefcase of top secret documents handcuffed to Diana's wrist.

She makes a show of being heroic, grabbing a parachute and leaping from the plane before anyone can stop her...and the bomb explodes, "killing" Diana Prince.

We get to see her funeral next and Wonder Woman even shows up to offer a few kind words. She's moved by just how upset her friends are at Diana's passing...but suggests to Steve that Diana wouldn't have wanted them to delay the wedding on her account.

After everyone's departed, the Sandman makes a return appearance. Diana's a little pissed that he knows from her dreams that she and D.P. were one in the same. He offers to tell her his own origins and how he came to live in the Dream Dimension, as a way of building trust. This segment, flashing back to the five issues of the Sandman's own title, are well-drawn by Keith Giffen and Larry Mahlstedt.

I won't recap his origin here, since it really does feel like a bit of a pause in the longer story...with no focus whatsover on Wonder Woman...but his back story is helpful for those of us who weren't at all familiar with the character. Essentially, he's trapped in the Dream Dimension and rides herd on the wild creatures who live there and inhabit our dreams.

And as it turns out, he's totally got a thing for Wonder Woman and even tells her that he loves her, and that if she would join him in the dream dimension, he would be totally happy. She brushes him off, saying that she feels gratitude for his help and sorrow for his situation...but not love. He leaves, but say's he'll be back when she needs him.

Now Diana travels to Paradise Island, where she is thrilled that the first wedding gifts have begun to arrive...but she quickly falls asleep, slumped in her mother's pillowed throne...and she dreams.

Here the art shifts to that of Jan Duursema and Tom Mandrake, as we see her familiar origin story play out: the crash of Trevor's plane, the rescue, her competition against her friend Mala, winning the tournament. And then, late in the night, Hippolyta prays to the goddesses, afraid for her daughter to be taken away from the magical protections of immortality of Paradise Island. And the gods show her the only way to keep Diana at home, which is to die.

Diana ascends to the throne, sending Mala in her stead to return the man she's already fallen in love with back to Man's World. Wonder Woman awakens, seeing the shadow-thing receding into the shadows of the Throne Room. She wakes her mother to talk about her dream problems...and Hippolyta suggests Diana might go look at the platform which is being constructed off shore, where the Wedding will take place.

She does, and then sits down on the beach, falling quickly into another uneasy slumber, as Dick Giordano takes the art reigns for this tale of "The Princess and the Sky Pirate", in which the man who crashes offshore of Paradise is a criminal named Trevor Stevens. Diana still falls for him and leaves the island with him when his flirting reminds the Queen of the silver-tongued Hercules. It isn't until they arrive in Man's World and Stevens kills a number of policemen that Diana realizes the error of her ways.

She wakes again, after yet another appearance by the Shadow Thing, and decides to hand deliver some wedding invitations to the Justice League satellite. Superman meets her there, congratulating her with a kiss, but gently chiding her that she'd not let him break the nuptial news story.


As Diana is about to re-enter Earth's atmosphere, she dozes off again, this time re-imagining her origin with Kal-El as the man who crash lands off the shores of Paradise. Rich Buckler does the pretty pictures here, as we see the story of a super marriage that can't last, it's two participants regularly torn away from one another to fight crime or rescue the world in some way or another.

(There is an amusing sequence on their honeymoon where Super husband and wife are stopping up a volcano...is this ever really a good idea?...and some hot lava splashes on Diana and burns away her costume.)

Diana returns from slumberland to discover the invisible jet has automatically returned to Paradise Island...and she has a few minutes of consciousness to call Steve. He's a little bummed that the Arms Talks have gone poorly...and he admits he hasn't had a moment to think about the wedding.

Their call is cut-off, or he hangs up, and she realizes she's not thought about much else besides the wedding...but she just can't stay awake.

This last dream sequence is handled, art-wise, by Keith Pollard, and we see the old story, but this time with a petulant, man-hating superior Wonder Woman returning Steve Trevor to Man's World. She makes short work of some criminals, but cuts off Steve's praise, saying he'll find she's an "avenging angel", if anything.

It's not long before she's selected Mount Rushmore as her headquarters--after she's made a few improvements--and only a short time later when Steve and some other officers try to stop her from getting the President to abandon his office in the White House to her. A game of bullets and bracelets goes wrong, and Trevor is killed, his dying words "how could I...have cared...for someone with so much...hatred inside her..." touching this cold-hearted Diana. She admits he was the only man she cared for...and now she's a fugitive for his murder.

She wakes up quickly from this one, and thank goodness, as the guests and the Groom are waiting for her on the Wedding Platform. As Diana arrives, in costume but with a white cape and pink roses in her hair, Trevor asks the reverend (what, gods-worshipping Diana will be married by a Christian preacher?!...oh the things we ignored in the early 80s...)if he may speak to the bride before they begin. The preacher harumphs that they are already late...and the ceremony begins.

Diana has said her "I Do", but Trevor says No instead, to gasps of shock and surprise. As the guests murmur to themselves, the bride and groom go off quietly to talk, unaware they are being watched from the Dream Dimension.

Steve admits that he has begun to realize what deep feelings he had for Diana Prince, now that she's died...and that until he's figured out how he could be in love with her, it doesn't feel right to marry Wonder Woman. Diana tries to tell him the truth, but realizes that her having kept the secret of D.P. for so long will only hurt him more...and he returns to Mans World.

Diana throws herself down onto the beach sand, her tears flowing even as she chides herself for acting like someone in a Rock Hudson-Doris Day film...and then the Sandman appears, trying to soothe her tears...and sprinkling some of his sleeping sand on her, as he carries her off to the Dream Dimension. As he shows her around, he tells her how happy they will be here...

...and then the Shadow Thing returns to attack one last time. Finally fed up, Wonder Woman attacks it full on, as Sandman warns that the Thing might have the power to kill her here. But she manages to lasso it, and commands it to explain why it torments her. The shadow-thing changes shape, becoming a dark silhouette of Wonder Woman herself...and confesses that it represents her fears, her self-loathing, "your Death wish"...but now that it stands revealed, it dissapates and the lasso drops to the ground.

The Sandman apologizes, saying that he knew all along the secret of the Shadow Thing. He hadn't told her in hopes she would seek comfort and protection in the Dream Dimension, to keep him from his loneliness...but he knows she loves Steve Trevor and counsels her to give her man time and wishes her well.

And here's Diana's (and Diana Prince's) happy ending:

All in all, this was a really terrific anniversary celebration and one I enjoyed re-reading as much as I enjoyed reading the first bunch of times when it came out.

While I've always been a huge fan of George Perez's WW reboot, there's a stilted business about the newly-arrived princess' careful speech which simply wasn't an issue in the early Eighties, when she'd been around for long enough that familiarity with Rock Hudson and Doris Day movies and comments like "bum a meal" didn't sound completely foreign coming out of her mouth. Actually, she took pretty quickly to Man's World when she arrived the first time back during WWII, as well. This Wonder Woman-as-immigrant thing is definitely a modern convention.

While this pre-Crisis Wonder Woman still had some antiquated ideas about men, at least she was comfortable enough in her adopted world to sound like she was a part of it...and not some strange visitor. I think this comfort in her own skin and her world is one of the things I like best about Gail Simone's take on the character.

Whew...thanks for joining me, if you've lasted all the way to the bottom of this recap. It's been fun to share with you!

War of the Giants

Here's another blast from the past, DC Special #19, December-January 1975-1976. DC Special took old stories from the DC archives and grouped them thematically. This one was the "War of the Giants", and full of fun-a-plenty. Sadly, no information was included in this volume about when the stories had originally been printed. I didn't care about that back then, but I'd be more interested to know now.

First up was a Superman tale, "Eterno the Immortal" (story by Jim Shooter with art by Wayne Boring), in which the ever-bumbling Superman Revenge Squad revive a giant metal robot, which had conveniently been long dormant below the Earth's mantle, loosing it via a volcano that bursts through the ground just outside the Metropolis city limits. For a while, it seems like Eterno will beat our Man of Steel, but eventually, the Revenge Squad messes up and Eterno accidentally hears them say they are using him as a puppet, and the rampaging robot turns his wrath on their rocketship. Before long, their mutual destruction is assured, leaving Kal-El to clean up the mess.

Second is a Green Lantern tale by John Broome, "Captive of the Evil Eye" with truly classic art from Gil Kane. Hal Jordan has left Ferris Aircraft for a job in the Pacific Northwest as a claims adjustor, and when he's sent out to the site of a meteor crash to report on damage to timberlands, he discovers the 300 foot tall alien giant Thotan, who has been sent to Earth by the Nabgorians, who are at war with the Joxandans (I'm not making this up!). Thotan's mission is to inhale all the oxygen on Earth, so it may be used to poison the atmosphere of the ammonia-breathing Joxandans' planet. Hal gets sucked into the giant, and seems to be trapped there, until he's able to engineer a sneeze by which he escapes. His ring brings his size up to Thotan's and the battle is a short one...and the story quickly wraps with Thotan's delivery back to the Nabgorians, along with a stern warning from Hal that the next invader will get worse.

Our third tale, "The Indestructible Giant" is a non-super hero story by Jack Miller, with art by Gil Kane and Sy Barry. "From out of the unknown" (was this originally offered in "Tales of the Unknown", I wonder??) a giant appears on Earth, rampaging across the countryside, derailing trains, upending cruise ships, knocking over buildings and trampling humans. The government tries everything to no avail, and only a chance lightning storm reveals a weakness to electricity. A lightning cannon is jerry-rigged and kills the giant. And only after his death do they discover that the dreadful weapons he seems armed with are fake, and he is apparently only a child.

The last story in the volume is my favorite, of course, featuring Wonder Woman in an odd tale of "The Human Charm Bracelet" by Bob Kanigher with art by Ross Andru and Mike Esposito. Diana Prince is working for Army Intelligence, wearing cat-eye glasses, and trying to remember why the date June 19th is supposed to be important to her.

Meanwhile, on Planet G, home of the space giants (really, folks...Planet G!!! No wonder they didn't have trouble meeting deadlines back in the old days...)a Giants Olympics is being held. The competition includes events like whale riding and submarine fishing, and Tooroo is quickly declared the champion, and receives the planet Earth as a plaything. Before he departs, his giant girlfriend Rikkaa asks him to bring back a souvenir for her charm bracelet, "not the Empire State Building, but something really novel--unusual--unique!"

Meanwhile, back on Earth, Diana has become Wonder Woman. Some captured spies are attempting escape with a helicopter, and she leaps into the fray to protect Steve Trevor...impressively balancing atop the spinning rotors of the helicopter. Of course she makes short work of them...while her mother Hippolyta watches her daughter on the Omni-Screen, concerned that Diana has not yet remembered the importance of the day.

By now, Tooroo arrives on the planet, menacing both boats and planes as he attempts to find the right charm for Rikkaa's bracelet. Wonder Woman attempts to engage him, but discovers that her lasso has lost its special powers. She suddenly realizes that it must be after ten a.m. on June 19th...which means (for no readily explicable reason) that all her special weapons against crime have lost their power for 24 hours. Apparently that's the day they recharge or something...

Tooroo quickly captures the Invisible Plane, with Wonder Woman and Steve inside and they are taken off planet and gassed by "insidious fumes". They wake up later to discover that they and all of Diana's accessories, including the plane, have been made charms on a special bracelet. This is classic stuff.

To Tooroo's public embarrassment, Diana challenges him to an Olympics competition to regain her and Steve's freedom. It seems an impossible challenge, without her special weapons, but they don't call her Wonder Woman for nothing, and she manages to match Tooroo in each of the proscribed events. When she has won the tournament, she claims Planet G as her prize, and when the nervous giants ask what she will ask of them, she replies:

"Just because you are big, doesn't mean you can disregard the rights of those who are smaller than you! It is my command that you respect the rights of others and live in peace." Chagrined, they thank her for teaching the lesson and wish she and Steve a safe trip home to Earth.

I believe that this was the first comic book I read to feature Wonder Woman with her powers and costumes...although this costume featured the red lace-up sandels and hair-encircling tiara of an earlier generation. Despite the confusion about the bizarre June 19th business, it was a nice, proper introduction for me to the Amazing Amazon.

Introducing (and Reintroducing) Diana Prince

This issue was my first introduction to Wonder Woman: #105 of The Brave and the Bold, February 1973 (I was eight years old!) with story by Bob Haney and art by the great Jim Aparo. In the story, Bruce Wayne suspects he is being gaslighted by a family from Gotham's Latin Quarter and calls in his friend Diana Prince for a little undercover action. She poses as a chaperone from a fictional agency and promptly "warms" her way into the unsuspecting family (who really aren't hatching a plot against Wayne).



Again, I remember trying to figure her out. This was Wonder Woman? She speaks about running a boutique, "when business is good". (Really, was there a time in the early 70s when mod stylish clothing wasn't vanishing off the shelves?) But I guess that was as good an excuse as any to be off adventuring, rather than selling clothes. And what about this "Amazon guardian angel" who appears? What?!? More than a little confusing.


This was a strange time in the Wonder Woman history. She'd renounced her Amazon immortality and god-given strengths in her grief following Steve Trevor's death and ran around taking the advice of a guy called I Ching (I kid you not!) and often seeming to act like a helpless female. If only she'd known that Trevor would twice be brought back from the dead before the Crisis eventually brought about her total reboot.

To be clear, though, whatever Diana's shortcomings at the time, she still held her own in battle at Batman's side...and they get the real villians of the piece exposed and captured in short order. But this appearance really didn't do too much for me as far as establishing Diana as a major player in the universe. Thankfully, that wouldn't come too much later.

* * *

It's fun to look at that time period again now, since the Diana Prince identity, as well as a variation on the white pantsuits of that time, are being revisited in current issues of Wonder Woman. Today's DP is decidedly more self-assured (and thanks to Terry and Rachel Dodson, more beautiful than ever!), of course, and I'm looking forward to seeing more of her.

There's been no lack of internet furor about Allan Heinberg's run on the new Wonder Woman. I read the most recent issue (#4) this past weekend, and I'd like to add my Two Cents. I gotta say, I really like what he's been doing. Yes, the time delays have been dreadful and frustrating (and seemingly disrespectful of a character who, unfortunately, has been shown a lot of disrespect over the years--fortunately she's strong, she can take it.), but there's plenty of good here.

Mr. Heinberg's got his hands full writing Diana at this point in her history. Prior to the Infinite Crisis, she was forced to kill Max Lord to stop him controlling Superman and that will, for a time, change many things about the character. Her conversation during IC with the original Wonder Woman surely gave her even more to think about. While it sounds like the dream assignment for a WW fan/writer, really, its got to be a little bit of a nightmare, too. Do you say something completely new and ignore the recent past? Do you use up your shot rehashing what has come before? I've spent more than a few hours of this last year trying to imagine what story I'd choose to tell under the circumstances.


I can't help but wonder if Allan was somehow hamstrung by the mysteries surrounding the events of 52 and Diana's eventual appearances there. I'd love nothing more than for the last chapter of his story "Who is Wonder Woman" to come out soon and reveal that the delay in story-telling here somehow relates to the whole business of time anomolies in that other title ('cause you just know all the clamouring internet horde would be all "oh, we knew that's what he was doing--we love him" ).

It's true, the Dodsons' art is absolutely mesmerizing me, but one thing's clear: Heinberg writes a strong Diana. He has a good sense of who she is and what she believes in, and also seems to know what she's struggling against these days. In the past she has often been quick to leap into battle, but these days, a little more thought is required first. Under his pen, she hasn't done a single thing out of character...except maybe refer to Hercules (one point here, Allan: it really should be Heracles)with the respect of the title "Lord."

I look forward to the concluding chapter of this run, even though it's not likely to come out 'til the fall, just to see our Diana kick the butts of all those villains who swarm her in the last panel. (Another thing I'll say for Allan, he writes a heck of a cliffhanger!)