Wonder Woman – Volume 1 – 255

Synopsis

Riding on the air currents, Wonder Woman sails towards the United Nations Building in New York in order to make an appointment in her civilian guise, Diana Prince.

She spies an open window leading into one of the equipment rooms on an upper floor and glides in through it. Unseen, she uses her lasso to transform into her civilian attire and exits the room.

Quickly she heads down the corridor as she knows she is already late for the UN Space Conference. She asks for directions from one of the secretaries who guides her to an auditorium.

As she takes a seat next to Mr. Starfield and General Novack she makes her apologies, explaining that she had got “hung up traveling cross town!”. Starfield informs her that she has not missed much and as he does so, a man steps up onto the platform. Diana asks who the gentleman is and as Starfield begins to explain that he is Dr. Strenzic, the presiding delegate, General Novack icily informs her that everything she needs to know is in the briefing book she is supposed to have with her!

Diana apologises to the General for not having her briefing book and detects an aura of tension in the room but cannot see any visible reason why. She watches as Dr. Strenzic firstly introduces Morgan Tracy to say a few words.

The head of the UN Crisis Bureau tells the audience that while it has been difficult to keep a security cordon around the session, he appreciates everyone’s cooperation and hopes that they will report anything suspicious to him.

As he speaks, Diana suddenly makes her excuses and tells Starfield and Novack that she had better take the opportunity to get one of the briefing books, while the formalities are taking place. She says she will be right back and exits the auditorium quickly. But once outside she transforms into Wonder Woman and races up to the balcony behind the stage in a matter of seconds.

As she peers down, she confirms what she has just glimpsed from her seat as one of the security officers behind Dr. Strenzic reaches slowly for his gun. But before she can leap down, he suddenly cries out that Strenzic must die and aims to fire. However, before he can pull the trigger a flying golden tiara knocks the gun out of his hand! Pandemonium breaks out as Morgan and the other security officers wrestle the now unarmed attacker to the ground. Wonder Woman sees they have the situation under control and races back as Diana Prince to rejoin the others.

She meets up with Starfield and Novack as they exit the auditorium and they explain that there has been a security problem. Mr. Starfield tells her that someone tried to kill Dr. Strenzic but Morgan Tracy stopped him, certainly looking the part considering he runs the Crisis Bureau. Before Diana can comment she hears a voice say “Diana’s quite familiar with the Crisis Bureau Mr. Starfield – after all she used to work for me!”and turns to see Tracy walking over to them.

He greets her and asks if she still remembers him? She icily replies that she has an excellent memory and that she even remembers why she stopped working for him! He mentions that she was disturbed by his cooperating with the Military during the Trevor murder case. He then tells her that he is surprised she has come back. She in turn responds by telling him to think back to when she worked for him as she had always managed to surprise him!

As he watches her walk away he muses to himself how strange it is that she disappeared in the middle of one unsolved mystery only to turn up again during another. He finds that more than just surprising…

A little later, Wonder Woman has returned to the skies, gliding on the air currents over Manhattan and enjoying being ‘home’. She ponders what she misses most about the city she has adopted as her second home while she touches down on a sidewalk. Just then she hears a voice call her name and turns to see Andre, the owner of a chic cafe, welcoming her. She smiles and greets the man whom she had befriended while living in New York. She tells him that she has been out of town for a while and they enter the cafe together to sit down, drink some herb tea and catch up a little.

Meanwhile, in a soundproofed meeting room at the UN, Morgan Tracy is discussing the security situation with his team. He tells them that Sinclair, the security guard who tried to kill Dr. Strenzic, has no recollection of what he had done and that his mind is a blank. The doctors who have examined him have confirmed this fact too.

Suddenly, the security alarm in the records office goes off and they race out the door, intent on catching the intruder in the act. But when they arrive at the room, they find it is empty. However, the doors have been ripped of their hinges and files have been strewn everywhere. As Morgan Tracy examines the mess, he tells one of his men, Jason, that it will take days to sort this out. But as Tracy speaks, Jason is slowly lifting his revolver and taking aim at the UN Crisis Bureau chief.

The others spot him and manage to pull his arm away as he fires, missing the intended target. Tracy sees the same blank stare as found in Sinclair and realises something is seriously wrong. He orders his men to check if any files are missing while he tries to figure out what is going on!

The following morning snow has fallen on New York overnight and the traffic has come to a standstill. A bus driver curses the February weather as he tries in vain to get his bus out of a snow drift. Just then though he feels the bus lift up out of the bank of snow and sees the Amazing Amazon in his rear view mirror place the bus back onto the snow ploughed section of road. The bus driver thanks Wonder Woman for the help as she flies off.

A few minutes later Wonder Woman has changed into her Diana Prince clothes and walks towards the UN Plaza where she meets up with Mr. Starfield and General Novack. They quickly enter into the warm and head towards the auditorium for the reconvened conference. They are met by Tracy who informs them that while security efforts have been doubled, there had been a break-in the previous night. The strange thing is, only Diana’s file had been taken! With that he walks away leaving Diana to ponder why her file had been singled out?

Novack tells her that it is more than just strange and that the suspicious nature of the matter must be cleared up. She agrees and tells them that perhaps she should stay away from the conference until the matter has been sorted.

As she walks off down the corridor she meets a woman by the name of Dr. Fisher. Fisher welcomes her back but Diana replies that although she has returned to the UN, it is only for a brief visit. Dr. Fisher responds by telling Diana that she belongs at the UN and should be working for her. Diana thanks her for the kind offer and walks off.

She ducks into an empty room and transforms into her Wonder Woman costume. Something strange is happening at the UN and it involves her more deeply than she had first thought. She leaps out of the window and glides up onto the roof of the building to take a look at the city. Although she does not expect to see anything out of the ordinary she can at least think clearly up here.

She spies Dr. Strenzic arriving down below for the morning’s conference, with quite a crowd surrounding him. She remembers reading about a protest movement being organised to do with mercenaries sent to underdeveloped countries by his native homeland. Could the attack yesterday be anything to do with this?

Suddenly, she sees the police officers escorting Strenzic turn their weapons on the shocked Doctor. She instantly leaps down at super speed and manages to block the bullets with her bracelets. She then removes her lasso and ensnares the policemen, ordering them to sleep. As Strenzic tries to find the words to thank her, she carries him in her arms up and away from the advancing protesters.

As they touch down a few yards away, Dr. Strenzic sees Morgan Tracy and walks over to explain what has just happened. But Tracy suddenly pulls a knife and lunges towards the Doctor. He is saved by an Amazon bracelet blocking the knife’s path and shattering the blade. It seems that everyone is going mad today and she wonders whether maybe there is some sort of outside influence causing these events?

Her thoughts are abruptly cut short though as she is suddenly struck by a powerful electrical discharge! A figure on a hovering platform appears above, introducing himself as the Bushmaster. As he continues to electrocute the helpless Amazon with electricity, he gloats that although she seems to be immune from his electrical powered mental control equipment, not even she is beyond the raw power of its energy unleashed! The Amazon Princess struggles to get to her feet as she fights to stay conscious.

Satisfied that she has been neutralised, the Bushmaster turns his attention to Dr. Strenzic. He grabs the frightened Doctor by the scruff of the neck and hands him a gun, ordering him to kill himself!

But all of a sudden the Bushmaster finds himself thrown off his floating platform by Wonder Woman, who has quickly recovered. She informs him that he should not have diverted his energy away from her and back to mind control again. She then takes the gun from Strenzic and snaps it in half. But the Bushmaster has not finished yet and opens fire with his own blaster, telling her that she would have lived if she had not interfered again – but now she must die! However, she easily blocks the shot with her bracelet and replies “Not today Bushmaster..and not at your hand, ever!”.

He stares in disbelief at his weapon, which has been drained of all power by the massive discharge, wondering how she could possibly have survived the blast. As she steps towards him tough he jumps back onto his platform and zooms away, leaving a smoke screen behind him. She rebukes herself for not ensuring that the platform had been knocked out of action completely and swiftly uses her lasso to clear the dense smoke. Leaping back up onto the roof she tries to spot the fleeing Bushmaster in the sky but to no avail.

But as her eyes wander to the river she spies a strange looking boat that had been moored there the previous day, next to the UN Building. As she watches it begins to power away towards Roosevelt Island and she guesses that the Bushmaster is on board. She dives into the water and begins to swim after her quarry, but as she draws near it suddenly launches into the air and flies away into the distance! She realises she is too late to summon her invisible plane to give chase and that for now, the Bushmaster has escaped her!

Later, aboard a commercial airliner heading back to Houston, Mr. Starfield, General Novack and Diana Prince are seated together. Starfield sees that Diana is distracted and asks her if she is daydreaming? She replies that she is just wondering the whereabouts of someone at this particular moment…

And while she does so, that someone is contacting his base many miles away to advise that he is on his approach. The Bushmaster informs the base that although his primary objective to kill Dr. Strenzic had failed, he had managed to obtain the file…and that the subject apparently has not connected him to the theft…