The 12 Labors of Wonder Woman - Part 7

[jkcarrier]

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6

TL;DR version: Amnesia and bad continuity have left Wonder Woman unsure of her abilities, so she asks the JLA to monitor her next 12 missions to make sure she's still fit for duty.

Red Tornado is next up on monitor duty, and the series finally gets a regular writer: Martin Pasko. From the halcyon days of 1975, it's Wonder Woman #218: "Revolt of the Wonder Weapons"
(Selected panels from a 10-page story)

John Smith, aka the android Red Tornado, has taken a job as a keypunch operator. After hours, he sneaks back into work to use their computers to prepare his report on Wonder Woman's latest case.

Diana Prince is working at the United Nations when she spots a fire over on 59th Street. She summons her Robot Plane to take her to the scene, but...



Since she can't go by plane, Wonder Woman stretches her lasso far enough to snag the Queensboro Bridge, then lets it contract, pulling her to her destination.



WW sweeps the flames off of the building and douses them in the East River.
Red Tornado uses his computer to calculate what happened to Wonder Woman's plane. The culprit is one Damon Celestris, an astrologer to the rich and powerful who is making big bucks by guiding his clients to success:



There's only one problem: The Mento-Amplifier keeps overloading and exploding. Celestris finally figures out the cause:




Since Diana can't pilot her plane, she gets Queen Hippolyta to operate it by remote control and bring it back to Paradise Island. Red Tornado follows, spinning at super-speed in order to remain invisible.




Even bound, Wonder Woman is able to slip off her boots and roll into position to make the catch:



(In the letter column a few issues later, a reader points out that getting impaled on Diana's feet would probably do more damage than just hitting the ground.)



The malfunctioning sphere only shows Diana a glimpse of Celestris' face before conking out completely. So it looks like Di is pretty much screwed:



Finally, WW catches a break, spotting Celestris' picture in the newspaper. He's hosting a big show in Central Park, and Diana sneaks in to check it out. The elevated stage Celestris is standing on starts to collapse, and Diana jumps in to save him. He's not exactly grateful:




Celestris just laughs at her, reminding her that he's rendered her lasso useless. Big mistake.




Wonder Woman forces Celestris to take her to his Mento-Amplifier machine, which blows up again as soon as she gets near. She points out that Celestris' plan was doomed to failure all along: She was his mystery mental power-source, and it was the extra concentration of using her Wonder-Weapons that caused the machine to overload. But if he'd managed to put her out of action completely, the machine would've stopped working anyway.

Red Tornado concludes his report, and recommends that Diana rejoin the JLA. Next up: the other half of issue #218, featuring the Phantom Stranger.

Comments

[silverzeo]

and because of that, Diana proved that she has MORE will than Hal, and had his ring fly off his hand and slips gentle onto Diana...

[fredneil.livejournal.com]

She spots a fire on 59th Street from the United Nations? Her lasso stretches from the UN to the Queensboro Bridge? And I thought the TV show was bad about giving her whatever power the plot needed.