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This landmark issue of the comic heralds the return of the original Willaim Moulton Marston vision of Wonder Woman under the Editorial reigns of Robert Kanigher. However, as you will read from the following synopsis, the transition storyline proves to be a rather rushed affair full of artistic license, leaving Wonder Woman with a patchy, contradictory and complex back story which would not be attempted to to be resolved until issue 212. However, even after this issue, she continued to carry the baggage of one of the most confusingly convoluted historys of any of the original Golden Age comic book characters!
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Synopsis: |
The
issue begins with a lunatic sniper gunning down innocent passersby from his
rooftop vantage point. A newly married couple driving to their honeymoon destination
are among the fatalities and their car crashes into a nearby restaurant where
Diana Prince and her mentor, I Ching are dining. During the chaos, the sniper
fires again and this time he kills I Ching, who dies in the arms of a distraught
Diana. As the police seal off the building where the sniper is hiding out, Diana
rushes outside and clings to a ladder hanging from underneath a police chopper
as it takes off. However, as the chopper flies towards the rooftop the sniper
fires a rifle grenade and destroys it. Diana manages to throw herself clear
and drops down to the sniper, who in turn clouts her with his rifle.
She tries to reason with him as the two of them grapple with each other on the edge of the rooftop, but he manages to hit her again with a knockout blow. However, in doing so he loses his balance and plummets over the edge taking the unconscious Amazon with him. He plummets to the ground while the lucky Diana lands on a protruding decoration adorning the building.
After being rescued, she is taken to the nearby hospital and awakens to find that she is suffering from amnesia. As the doctor and nurse try to help her remember, she becomes hysterical, saying that she has to "go back". When the nurse asks her where, she replies that she doesn't know - it's just a feeling that she has. After sedating her, they leave Diana to rest but when they check on her a short while later they find that she has gone!
Meanwhile Diana, driven by a subconscious calling, steals a military jet and is pursued by two others scrambled to intercept the stolen aircraft. After chasing her through the skies they shoot her plane down. The flaming jet crashes into the sea but Diana manages to swim free, only to confront a shark! She manages to survive the encounter though and reaches the surface where she is picked up by a passing boat, containing Amazons from Paradise Island. They immediately recognise the now unconscious Diana as their very own Princess and return to their island home.
When
Diana, now dressed in her traditional red blue and gold Wonder Woman costume,
eventually comes to, she is greeted by her mother, Queen Hippolyta, but the
Amazon Princess is still suffering from her amnesia and does not recognise her.
The queen orders Wonder Woman to be taken to the Amazon Memory Bank, where she is seated in a chair, has electrodes fitted to her temple, and then is played back the Amazons' entire history. However, the queen cryptically instructs that three tapes be omitted from the playback so that Diana does not discover the queen's "secret".
What follows is a recap of the Amazon mythology, showing how Hercules and his men deceived and enslaved the Amazons but, with the aid of Aphrodite, Queen Hippolyta broke free and led her people to a new home called Paradise Island. The queen yearned for a child of her own and the Gods granted her wish, bringing to life a clay sculpture endowed with the beauty of Aphrodite, the strength of Hercules, the wisdom of Athena and the speed of Mercury.
Blessed with these gifts, the child grew up to be a woman of wonder and was presented with her own special costume, including a magic lasso.
When the playback finally ends, Diana at last recognises her mother and remembers everything prior to her days with I Ching. But the Amazons' rejoicing at the return of their beloved Princess is cut short by the arrival of an Amazon warrior clad in a suit of armour, her face hidden. This stranger challenges Diana for the title of "Wonder Woman" and for some strange reason unsettles the queen.
As per Amazon law, Diana and the stranger prepare to duel each other in the main stadium to determine who has the right to claim they are the true "Wonder Woman". As the queen watches her daughter clash swords with the other Amazon, she wonders why the stranger reminds her of someone. The battle is fierce and amazingly the stranger manages to break Diana's sword, leaving her helpless. Standing over the fallen Amazon Princess, she prepares to plunge her sword into Diana but hesitates just long enough for the quick witted Princess to grab at the sword, pulling the stranger down to the ground and disarming her.
The queen decrees that the
duel is a draw and instructs the stranger to remove her helmet. The stranger
obeys and reveals herself to be a black Amazon by the name of Nubia, calling
herself the "Wonder Woman of the floating Island". This causes the
queen to ask herself some searching questions.
Diana and Nubia say farewell to each other, but the black Amazon warns that she will return to prove herself to be the one, true "Wonder Woman".
The queen ignores Diana's questions about Nubia and instead instructs her daughter to return to Man's World in order to teach them the peaceful ways of women. Diana duly returns in an Amazon submarine and is dropped off near the United Nations Building in New York. She gets a job as an interpreter at the UN, readopting the name "Diana Prince" and after meeting up with a couple of other girls hired at the same time, they all decide to share an apartment with each other.
As they walk off together, Diana thinks to herself "I feel as if I've been reborn! I wonder what's going to happen to Wonder Woman the second time around?"
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