The 12 Labors of Wonder Woman - Part 3

[jkcarrier]

Sorry for the long hiatus between posts!
Part 1
Part 2
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.

This issue, it's Green Lantern's turn to observe. Take equal parts Twilight Zone and Dr. Strangelove, add a dash of Renaissance Faire, and you get Wonder Woman #214, "Wish Upon A Star!" (approx. 6 pages worth of panels from a 20-page story)

Diana Prince takes United Nations delegate Lord Rosewater out to lunch at "Henry's Pub", a faux-British theme restaurant run by a sleazy character named Henry Tudor. Hal (Green Lantern) Jordan follows discretely behind:



Diana winning the prize was no coincidence, as GL found out later:



The landlord gets mowed down by the delivery truck bringing more ducks, thus fulfilling both their wishes. Tudor realizes that Diana must have the other wishing charm (which turns out to be the star-shaped gem in her tiara), and contrives to put her in a position to make another wish, so he can follow suit:



Lord Rosewater is summoned back to the U.N., where a crisis is developing:



Communications systems all over the world are failing, so they can't recall the wayward bomber, and even the Justice League are incommunicado.

Meanwhile, Henry Tudor, disappointed that his wish didn't seem to do anything, goes about his business:



Diana, as Wonder Woman, hops in her invisible jet and goes to intercept the bomber plane:



She makes it on board, but falls victim to her classic weakness:



Luckily, she has an ace up her sleeve:



(I don't think this "super-persuasion" power was ever seen before or since, although I guess you can hand-wave it away as an extension of her "Beauty of Aphrodite")

Harv sets her free, but...





With nuclear war averted, everything goes back to normal, including Green Lantern's ring. He rescues Tudor from the bank vault and confiscates his magic amulet. If there had been a nuclear war, Tudor would have been safe in the vault...making him the de facto "King of the World" after everyone else on Earth was dead.

And what did Diana wish for? GL suspects it was to pass her test and be readmitted to the JLA. He figures she's earned it.

Comments

[darkknightjrk]

Question--did each of these issues have different writing/artist teams? I noticed on part 2 that it was the Flash team of that time--Bates and Irvek--in the tags, and now it's Swan and Maggin.

Also, I can't help but wonder if maybe the WW book now needs more stories like this--obviously done in a more modern fashion, but just some fun done-in-ones with Diana doing awesome shit in stories vaguely tied to other aspects of the DCU.

[jkcarrier]

Marty Pasko took over as regular writer about halfway through the storyline. The artist roulette continued all the way through. The last issue was drawn by Jose Delbo, who then became the regular artist for a long run.

[darkknightjrk]

Huh. So who was in charge of creating the storyline during the time when there was a writer scuffle? The editor?

[jkcarrier]

I imagine either editor Julius Schwartz or Len Wein (the guy who wrote the first installment) came up with the basic "12 Labors" concept. Once that was established, all you'd have to do is decide who the JLA guest-star would be for each issue, and let the writer run with it from there. It's possible that Schwartz deliberately set things up this way so he could "audition" various writers to see who he wanted to take over permanently.

[wizardru]

Wouldn't it have been easier to just destroy the warheads instead of triggering twin nuclear reactions and containing them?

Still, classic Elliot S! Maggin madness. Good Stuff, really.

[q99]

A little Dr. Strangelove there are the end :)

[retro_nouveau]

I don't like when Clark can take a WMD at point blank, and the same goes for Diana. I would much rather she had thrown them into low orbit for later retrieval (assuming they're fused by altimeter or impact). Not as much drama, I know.

But Bullets & Bracelets, against two machine guns, walking on the lasso, at hundreds of miles an hour? Nothing but love!

[wonderwomanhero]

Black Canary's next right? or was it Plastic Man?

[jkcarrier]

Aquaman is next, and Black Canary after that.

[saralakali]

Plastic Man wasn't a member of the JLA at the time. Maybe you're thinking of Elongated Man?

[saralakali]

Thanks again! I was wondering if you were going to post any more of these.

Dammit! Why won't DC reprint these in a TPB?