Comments
During his Silver Age run Robert Kanigher introduced more and more stories featuring Diana as a child, with issues often alternating between Wonder Girl and Wonder Woman based stories. This issue features the first “pre-adulthood” tale.
Wonder Woman – Volume 1 – 105
General Info
Issue No:
105
On Sale Date:
February 1959
Cover Date:
April 1959
Era:
Silver Age
Story Title:
The Secret Origin of Wonder Woman Eagle of Space
Creative Team
Cover Artist:
Ross Andru, Mike Esposito
Writer:
Robert Kanigher
Penciller:
Ross Andru
Inker:
Mike Esposito
Letterer:
N/A
Colourist:
N/A
Editor:
Robert Kanigher
Characters
Main:
Wonder Woman (Diana Prince), Wonder Girl, Steve Trevor
Heroes:
N/A
Villains:
Duke of Deception
Olympians:
Aphrodite, Athena, Mercury (Hermes), Hercules
Amazons:
Hippolyta (Hippolyte)
Other:
N/A
First Story Synopsis
Shortly after the birth of Diana, daughter of Queen Hippolyta, Paradise Island is visited by Aphrodite the Goddess of Love, who comes to wish the young Diana well, and tells the infant girl that she will grow to be the fairest maid in all the land. The baby would be visited also by Athena, who would give her wisdom, Mercury who would be amazed at the tot’s speed, as well as Hercules who is impressed by the girl’s strength.
Time passes, and eventually conflict would claim the lives of all the men of Amazonia and the women would be in utter woe. Seeking to escape the conflict of the mainland, Queen Hippolyta would rally the rest of the Amazons and announce that they would be leaving, to escape the wars and find peace on an island far, far away. That night, the queen would be startled to find that Diana had gone missing in the night, and when they would go out to search for her they would be surprised to see the teenage girl building a ship for them at super speed. Impressed by this display, her fellow Amazonians would begin calling her Wonder Girl.
As they set sail into the vast oceans, Wonder Girl would use her superior strength to help the ship make it past a whirlpool. as well as save the ship from burning. Eventually they would pass through a strange fog of sleeping gas. While most of the Amazonians would be knocked out by the gas, Wonder Girl would resist its caustic vapors and push onward, sailing them to safety. They would soon pilot out of the gasses and Wonder Girl would spot an island.
As the others revive, they would go to shore where they would be visited by Athena. Athena would tell the women gathered that this island, dubbed Paradise Island, would be their new home, and that as long as they stayed there they would retain eternal youth under the condition that nobody leave the island.
Over the years, young Diana would help her fellow Amazons build a new home, and spend her time exercising, having fun, and riding the Rocs, which were giant birds, native to the island, and also mastering all forms of science and languages. One day while out swimming with her fellow Amazons, Wonder Girl and the others would be terrorised by a giant whale. Wonder Girl would use her superior strength to send the whale packing, saving her friends. The entire exploit would be photographed and be the first record of the illustrious career of the girl who would eventually grow up to be Wonder Woman.
Second Story Synopsis
After a series of rockets have gone missing in space, Steve Trevor shows Diana Prince some startling photographs that have were snapped by one of their rockets before it went missing. It clearly shows a prehistoric pterodactyl flying in space. Steve explains to Diana that he is going to blast off in a new experimental rocket the next day in order to learn the mystery of how an animal long thought extinct could possibly be alive in outer space.
After Steve blasts off in the rocket, Diana changes into her guise of Wonder Woman and follows after him in her invisible jet. To her astonishment, once she reaches outer space she witnesses Steve’s rocket be captured by a pterodactyl. Leaving her plane, she tries to get the prehistoric beast to let go of Steve’s rocket, but only succeeds in freeing him from the cockpit and pulling him to safety in her own jet. The creature then grabs Wonder Woman’s ship and carries them to the Saturn’s moon of Titan, where to their surprise they find it a prehistoric world much like Earth, populated by dinosaurs.
Wonder Woman’s plane is grabbed by a Tyrannosaurus Rex that tries to eat it, causing Diana to fall out of the ship and leaving Steve trapped inside. Landing in a pool of water, Wonder Woman fights off a Plesiosaur before returning to the surface. There she finds that the Tyrannosaur has escaped with her jet. Using her mental link to her plane to call the craft back, she is surprised that Steve is not inside of it.
She is then confronted by a pack of Titanian cave people who are being terrorized by a stampede of dinosaurs. Wonder Woman uses her lasso to dig a trench to keep these beasts at bay and save the cave people. Taking one of them as an ally, Wonder Woman goes back to investigate her plane and finds a strange phosphorescent smear on its undercarriage. Using this as a clue, Wonder Woman and the cave boy fly over the jungle in her jet until they find plants that are glowing in the same way. Sure enough they find Steve, who has been placed on a heap of Tyrannosaurus eggs, waiting to be a meal when they finally hatch. Diana saves Steve, then using trees she constructs a giant flute and uses its music to send the dinosaurs packing. Then in order to prevent them from terrorising the people who live on Titan she builds a barrier to keep them away.
With the threat of the dinosaurs quelled, Wonder Woman then makes a telepathic link with her caveman friend and imparts to him knowledge of modern civilisation in the hopes that the cave-people here can catch up with modern humanity on Earth. After saying their farewells, Steve and Diana return to Earth where Steve tells Wonder Woman that she must someday meet his coworker Lt. Diana Prince. Finding this funny as Steve and the others do not know her double identity Wonder Woman tells him it will have to wait for another time.
