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This issue is a conclusion of a story called "The Atom's Quest", whereby is Fiancée, Jean Loring, has been kidnapped by two members of the Secret Society of Super Villains. While this is primarily an Atom story guest starring Wonder Woman, it is noteworthy for highlighting just how humiliated Diana feels after being captured and bound. This "humbleness" is something that was never expanded upon in her own book, but in this story she feels shame to such an extent that it even affects her ability to fight when subsequently freed. Also of note is that either through an error on the cJerry Serpe's part or a problem with the printing of the interior artwork, Diana appears without her trademark white stripes on her red boots.
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Synopsis: |
For months Ray Palmer, otherwise known as the Atom, has sought his lover across half a Galaxy, only to trace her back to Earth and then to lose her again. Now he is out for blood!
As microscopic as a Neutron, he rides the microwave stream that spans the Earth from ancient Lemuria, through an orbiting communication satellite, to New York City. As he swims the electronic river he remembers how Jean, driven to a nervous breakdown by her abduction to another world, was expelled from an ancient dimension by the power of a living planet.
He recalls how he had traced her with the aid of Green Lantern and Hawkman, from one distant planet to another and finally to Earth. Still charged by the radiation of the living planet which first attacked her, Jean helplessly teleported from world to world. Wherever she appeared, the residual radiation within her caused horrible natural disasters. On world after world, Jean Loring brought Earthquakes, Tidal Waves and Hurricanes until at last she appeared on Earth in the undersea pacific city of Lemuria, where her disaster-causing powers were temporarily cured. But no sooner was this done than two villains arrived to kidnap the comatose woman while the Atom was unable to stop them...
The
Atom arrives in New York, ejecting from the mouthpiece of a phone
held by a telephone operator. As he arrives, he finds the building
is shaking and as he darts outside he sees an Alien Spaceship
outside the U.N. Building, from which giant robots are battling
against Wonder Woman. She seems to have the situation well in hand
but he decides to lend a helping hand as what are friends for? He
instantly increases his weight to a full 180 pounds and slams into
one of the robots, sending it toppling over. He then leaps over to
where the Amazon Princess is lassoing the other robot around its
legs. He asks her what is going on and she explains that these
robots landed with an ultimatum from an Alien Space Empire, wanting
Earth to surrender all its natural resources to the aliens.
Naturally, the United Nations had refused and then things turned
nasty! Fortunately she had been in the area at the time to deal with
the disturbance. And with that, she gives a mighty yank of her
golden rope she brings the massive robot crashing down to the
ground!
The Robot's master on board the space ship decides that he has made a mistake and makes a hasty retreat back to his planet! As they watch the craft zoom away into the sky, Wonder Woman turns and asks Atom why he is here in New York? He tells her he heeds her help desperately and goes on to explain what has happened. He tells the Princess that he loves Jean and he has to find her because she is comatose because of him. In fact everything bad that has happened to her is because of him!
Just then a police officer approaches the pair and tells them that if they think New York's Finest are going to clean up this mess they have got another thing coming. He then gestures to the burning wreckages of the robots littered around the plaza!
Meanwhile, inside a sinister Citadel located in San Francisco which serves as the head quarters for the Secret Society of Super-Villains, Funky Flashman tries to wake Star Sapphire from her trance. As she slowly comes to he tells her that Gorilla Grodd and the others have been gone for hours. Still feeling a little groggy, she says that the last thing she can remember is that she and the Creeper had captured Jean Loring and had brought her here from Lemuria. Afterwards, they joined Flashman, Grodd and the Wizard to battle Captain Comet. When she had tried to destroy Comet forever, Grodd hit her with a telepathic Hypno-Burst reducing her to a mindless slave!
As she gets to her feet she rages that she will tear Grodd apart hair by hair! Flashman tells her to calm herself as Grodd no longer matters as long as they have Jean. He asks Star Sapphire where she has hidden the woman and she points to the maximum security cell door across the room. Star Sapphire reminds him that it was she who had learned about Jean's Disaster powers, which makes Jean her catch, not his!
Suddenly though, the two villains find themselves ensnared in branches as the Plant Master emerges from hiding. He tells them that on the contrary, Jean Loring is theirs! Grodd had been afraid Star Sapphire might take an unreasonable attitude once she regained her own will and so he commissioned him to show her the error of her ways! With his compete control of over all things vegetable, particularly over his hybrid, artificial plantoids, he uses a Porcupine Plant tipped with explosive quills to smash the cell door down. Inside he wraps his vines around the unconscious Jean but before he leaves, Star Sapphire tells him that she will also help if he releases her and lets her make her peace with Grodd. He agrees and leaving Flashman behind, who he sees can add little value to their venture, he and Star Sapphire fly across the city with Jean...
Meanwhile on board the invisible plane, Wonder Woman and Atom approach the idyllic Paradise Island. Touching down, they are greeted by Queen Hippolyta who is pleased to see her daughter but aghast to see she has brought a man to the island, all be it a tiny one standing on the Amazon Princess' shoulder! Wonder Woman replies that Atom is a friend and she promises she will not let him set foot on the ground. She continues that they need to use the Crystal of Knowledge to help find Atom's kidnapped Fiancée. Although the queen feels Diana has acted a little rashly, she never-the-less agrees to help and leads them into the chamber where a large, spherical crystal sits on a plinth.
In Equatorial Africa, Plant Master and Star Sapphire touch down at the agreed rendezvous point where Gorilla Grodd is waiting for them. He orders them to attack Gorilla City that, like Paradise Island, has lain hidden from Mankind for years, producing a civilisation in many ways superior to that of Home Sapiens - a society of super-scientific Gorillas. They are a peaceful, unwarlike people apart from the renegade Grodd and so are taken completely unawares by the sudden vicious attack launched on their city. In moments, four fifths of the population is overcome and the rest are not far behind. Some who survive the initial strike though are prepared to counter-attack but Star Sapphire uses her Sapphire Jewel to not only protect herself from the gunfire, but to also disarm her attackers, before finally turning the ground beneath their feet into quick sand! She orders them to surrender or drown and they have little choice but to give in.
Plant Master is enraged that she has not destroyed them but she tells him that while he may hate all things that are non-plant, she sees no purpose in further carnage. As she walks away, she adds that Gorilla city is now under their complete control and the battle is over. But Plant Master thinks to himself that she and Grodd are his allies now, but they are still nothing but slimy, fleshy beasts. When they have served his purpose, she and the ape will be destroyed along with the rest of Man Kind!
Soon,
Grodd is carrying Jean to his laboratory as he explains to Star
Sapphire that he wants Gorilla City to be his base of operations for
his climatic effort to blackmail Mankind. He intends to build a
device to tap Jean's buried energies so that they are his to control
and he can make his demands of the world of Man. For her part, Star
Sapphire muses to herself that both Grodd and Plant Master are
hopelessly insane. She wonders what she gotten herself into...
Elsewhere on Paradise Island meanwhile, a vision of Grodd carrying Jean into his lab is visible within the Knowledge Crystal. The Atom is furious that they are treating his Fiancée like some sort of freak power supply. Wonder Woman says that in a way she is and one that is almost as dangerous as a pound of Plutonium in the hands of a madman. The two heroes rush outside and board the robot plane before zooming into the air. Within minutes the plane streaks up through the stratosphere on an ICBM style course from the western Atlantic to central Africa.
However, their approach is blocked by Star Sapphire who has been assigned to guard Gorilla City. Before Wonder Woman can react she unleashes a blast of overpowering light from her jewel, causing Atom to suddenly increase weight to the point he cannot move and blinding the Amazon Princess. Out of control, the invisible plane screams Earthward until it crashes into the jungle below!
The scene is Times Square in New York, where hundreds of people stare up in horror at the large TV screen which depicts Gorilla Grodd's face sneering down at them. He bellows that he offers them salvation or death - the choice is theirs. He continues that he has devised a means of instigating catastrophes anywhere in the world, of any size and of any duration! To demonstrate, he has arranged a small preview! Suddenly an earth quake hits the Big Apple! All across the world the story is the same. In Paris a Tornado springs up from nowhere, tottering the Eiffel Tower...in Cairo the Nile goes berserk, rising like some strange Tidal Wave to threaten the city and the Pyramids...in Moscow an inexplicable plague of Locusts attacks without warning...and in Peking a blizzard sweeps the old Forbidden City. Ten seconds later the chaos suddenly ceases. A smiling Grodd then proceeds to deliver his demands.
Inside his laboratory, Grodd tells his colleagues that he has given the world one hour to reply. The Plant Master says that they cannot refuse his demands and once he has taken control of World government, Plant Master will be free to begin his own experiments to create a perfect race of Floronic men! Star Sapphire asks Grodd how his device works as she turns to look at Jean, manacled in the centre of the room. Grodd explains that he calls it a Tri-Focal Projector which, like a prism will direct ordinary light, will direct Jean Loring's radiation skyward to where one of NASA's orbiting communication satellites relays the beam to various parts of the world. NASA is completely unaware that he is using their satellite and even if they were, they could not stop him!
He then asks Star Sapphire what she has done with Wonder Woman and the Atom? She replies that Atom is in Grodd's old cell. She has used her jewel to increase his body density to five times normal, making him no more of a threat than Wonder Woman. The villainess used the Amazon's own magic lasso to compel the blinded Wonder Woman to reveal her weaknesses. Apparently, when her bracelets are chained together she loses all her strength so that is naturally what Star Sapphire has done!
Meanwhile in Grodd's cell, the Atom struggles to get up, with every move hurting so much because of the weight pressure on his body. Star Sapphire's jewel must have broken his size-weight controls. But those controls are only a method to utilise the forces in his costume. It is made of fibres from a White Dwarf Star and it is the costume which controls his size and weight by creating a force field around his Atomic structure. If he can just remove the costume he might cancel the effects of Star Sapphire's jewel. Every effort feels like he is breaking a bone but slowly and surely he manages to take it off. With gut wrenching suddenness, Ray Palmer's molecular structure expands as physical forces rearrange themselves microscopically within him. Ray resizes to his normal stature and can at last move again.
He removes his trouser belt and putting his hand between the bars of the door, lowers the buckle and manages to unhook the catch. Once outside in the corridor, he is relieved to find no guards and calls out for Wonder Woman. She responds and he makes his way to the corresponding call door. He opens it to see Wonder Woman sitting meekly in the corner. He asks her what is wrong as the chain around her wrists does not look strong enough to hold him, let alone probably the strongest woman in the world! She replies that the strength of the chain does not matter, only the fact of it. An Amazon bound by her bracelets is bound forever unless that bond is broken for her by a man.
Ray
obligingly does the honours and she thanks him, adding that she
would show more gratitude but an experience like this is humiliating
for an Amazon. He replies her he can understand how she might feel
humbled but that there is nothing to be ashamed about. He leads the
still blinded Amazon Princess out into the corridor and she says
that although she cannot see, she can tell he is no longer the Atom.
He says that it is a long story and it can wait until they have
freed the other imprisoned Gorillas.
A short while later Grodd and the Plant Master are sitting outside looking up at the stars. Grodd has missed these tropical nights while he has been in exile. Suddenly though, he is shaken to see a cruise missile heading straight towards the city through the star speckled sky. Plant Master unfurls his vines and catches the missile, crushing it so that it detonates in mid air. A furious Grodd realises the humans have obviously no intention to accede to his demands. They must have traced his broadcast to this location but it will do them no good once he has made an object lesson of their cities and reduced half the world to rubble!
As he prepares the machine for action Wonder Woman, with a tiny Atom now back in costume and standing on her shoulder, suddenly smashes through the laboratory wall! Grodd orders Plant Master and Star Sapphire to kill them while he readies the Tri-Projector. Atom warns that if any one is going to be killed it will be Grodd if he has harmed Jean in any way!
Just
then Plant Master lobs a plantoid seed pod at Wonder Woman and Atom
shouts a warning. He warns the still blinded Amazon to duck as a
giant Venus Fly trap springs up and snaps at them! She thanks him
for the warning and grabs the plants jaws, holding it at bay and
telling Atom that even a blind woman can take it from here, but to
keep those directions coming though! She adds that she is not so
proud she does not know when she needs help and though blind, she is
still an Amazon and she will not be vanquished! With that she rips
the plant apart!
Meanwhile Atom launches himself at Star Sapphire, making his weight light enough for him to ride the air currents and dodge her jewel blasts. He uses the advantage to clout her feet first, sending her sprawling to the ground. He tells her he would never ordinarily hit a lady but as the saying goes, she's no lady! But the villainess is not done for yet and uses a blast from her jewel to magnetise his feet to the floor. For his part, Atom rapidly shrinks and races behind her to grow back again while she in turn thinks he has vanished before her eyes. He leaps up and removes the tiara containing her jewel from a surprised Sapphire's forehead, leaving her powerless!
Atom sees that Plant Master has Wonder Woman in his clutches and realises that the Amazon Princess is struggling not only due to her blindness, but also the fact that she feels so humiliated by her bondage. He uses the jewel's beam to return her sight and suddenly Wonder Woman can see her opponent. Invigorated, she tears herself free from Plant Master's branches and advances on him. He warns her to back off and unleashes more plantoids to ensnare her ankles. But the Amazing Amazon simply spins at super speed, shredding his strangle vines to a pulp before lassoing the Plant Master with her golden rope. Suitably bound, she leads the villain outside but suddenly realises that Grodd is still free.
The other Gorillas are desperately trying to reach Grodd but are making no progress as he prepares to activate the Tri-Projector. Atom has other ideas and riding the beam of one of the projectors, tacking against the flow like a sailor tacks against the wind; he is determined to keep Jean from being used for mass murder! He edges closer and closer to the projector lens until finally he is within reach to smash it, causing an explosion. No sound follows this eruption or if it does, it is literally drowned out by the violent light exploding from the bursting projectors. Sight destroys sound and in the centre of the whirling, brilliant maelstrom, jean Loring writhes in agony, bathed in uncontrolled radiation. When the light finally fades she slumps in her chair, apparently dead! Atom races over to where she lays, distraught that after everything that has happened he has still lost her. He cries out "Jean! For the Love of Heaven!" and she lifts her head and smiling, tells him not to shout as she is not deaf!
An hour later, Grodd has been confined in a cell with a hypnotic device preventing the ape genius from concentrating his mental energies, at least for a time. Unfortunately though, both Star Sapphire and the Plant Master managed to escape during the chaos of the Projector's destruction. Ray Palmer and Jean Loring hug each other and she asks if February sounds a good month for their wedding? He asks her what happened to waiting until she has established herself as a lawyer? Jean responds that after everything that has happened, she has realised that life is fragile and if it had not been for "The Atom" she would not be a lawyer or his wife. She is more aware now of things she still wants to do with her life and one of them is marry him. He smiles and as Wonder Woman and the Gorilla City apes look on, the couple embrace passionately.
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