The 12 Labors of Wonder Woman

[jkcarrier]

saralakali requested "The 12 Labors of Wonder Woman", a storyline that ran in 1974-75.

A little background:
After a few years of Wonder Woman being a non-super, karate-chopping, "mod" adventurer, DC abruptly decided to take the character back to her classic form. While there was some attempt to explain the transition, some things fell through the cracks, not the least of which was the unexplained return of the previously-deceased Steve Trevor. When new editor Julius Schwartz took over the title, he and writer Len Wein decided to try and untangle this continuity. The result was Wonder Woman #212, "The Man Who Mastered Women!"

(approximately 6 pages worth of panels from a 20-page story)

Reporter Clark Kent is on the scene when Wonder Woman thwarts the attempted assassination of Pamanasian prime minister Indira Gamal. After WW changes back to Diana Prince, she pulls Clark aside to catch up on old times.



Superman heads to the JLA satellite, but WW isn't there. She mistakenly went to the JLA's old mountain sanctuary, having forgotten that they moved. Superman brings her to the satellite, where an examination shows that there's nothing physically wrong with her.




The JLAers agree to her terms, and Superman is assigned to monitor her first (which means he's pretty much eavesdropping on her 24/7...kind of creepy, even though she consented to it). Diana goes to Paradise Island, where she accuses Queen Hippolyta of messing with her memories, since she knows that only Amazons have the technology to do such a thing.



And that's that. Trevor would eventually be resurrected (a couple of times), but for now Diana is feeling abandoned and miserable. She needs something to take her mind off her problems. Morgan Tracy of the United Nations Crisis Bureau had previously offered Diana Prince a job, and she decides to take him up on it. Unfortunately, Tracy and Prime Minister Gamal have both been kidnapped by Batman's old foe, The Cavalier, and his harem of sexy slave girls.



Clark Gable The Cavalier plans to take over Pamanasia, and from there...dun dun dun...The World! But Wonder Woman has something to say about that.



...or does she?



With his mojo not workin', Cavalier is forced to resort to weaponry. First, his electric sword.



(Gosh, that's not Freudian at all)
He also tries throwing the razor-sharp plumes from his hat at her, but she deflects them with her tiara. Finally, he pulls out his "specially-treated snuffbox".




It turns out, whatever was in that snuff counteracted his sexy hypnosis, freeing his victims. Sadly, WW prevents them from killing his smarmy ass, but you can't have everything. So the continuity is straightened out, the Prime Minister is saved, Diana Prince gets a new job, and Wonder Woman is one step closer to rejoining the JLA.

If there's interest, I can post the other 11 parts of this storyline too. You can never have too much Bronze Age. :D

Comments

[psychopathicus_rex]

Frankly, I'm glad to see some regular adventures of Wondy as a straight-ahead superhero, instead of more mythological stuff. I'm love me some mythology, but these days it seems like no one can right Wondy at all without throwing in a mythological reference or three - Wonder Woman has become a mythology comic. I'm fine with her having mythological roots and all, but it gets a bit much sometimes - reading older stuff where she fights regular old villains like she used to is rather refreshing.

[darkknightjrk]

Doesn't even need to be mythologically-based--just something a little bit bigger than The Cavalier--I mean, you use the phrase "Twelve Labors," even putting aside the myth aspect, it brings to mind something big, something impossible, something that only the person who's given the labor can do--Cavalier is someone Batman could and probably has taken out in his sleep.

[psychopathicus_rex]

Well, perhaps things will escalate. Remember, this is only Labor number one.