True to her nature, we see the ever forgiving Diana assist the woman who had so treacherously betrayed her and to save the life of her innocent baby. Nathan Massengill’s interior art leaves a lot to be desired and he draws probably one of the ugliest interpretations of the Amazon Princess I think has ever graced the interior of a Wonder Woman comic!!
News Reporter Cassie Arnold broadcasts a piece live outside the burning ruins of Buchanan’s warehouse complex, now obliterated by the singularity Donna had triggered. Arnold tells her viewers that authorities have no clue what caused the massive blast and there seems no indication of who was inside and if they might of survived. She adds that the TV crew will stay on site in case their is any news of survivors being found in the rubble. But as she signs off she tells her cameraman how there is not chance in hell anybody could have survived this catastrophe. She doubts they will even find bodies…
Meanwhile at that moment hundreds of feet down in the pitch black catacombs beneath the complex the weakening Donna asks Wonder Woman if they are dead yet? The Amazon reassures her that they are still very much alive although she hopes Ares Buchanan is very much dead. She doubts she could withstand any attack from him at this moment. As Wonder Woman continues to keep Donna supported above the waterline the attorney tells her how – even though she had betrayed Diana to Ares, had killed people for him and even for herself too – she could not let the Warmaster kill the Amazon Princess because she had become Donna’s only true friend.
Just then Donna cries out and screams that the baby is coming and that she cannot stop it. Wonder Woman holds her tightly and reassure her again that they will be alright and she will not let any harm come to her or her baby. Donna asks if she can see anything around them in the gloom and Wonder Woman replies that only barely she can make out rock walls, surmising they are either in the tunnels Ares was using for his smuggling operations or they have broken through and fallen either further down into an underground water source.
Grabbing Donna under her arm she warns the attorney that she is going to attempt to fly them both out of here, hoping that her own wounds have healed sufficiently. But as she tries to lift off she cannot sustain her momentum and they both splash back down into the inky water. Wonder WOman apologises to Donna, asking if she is alright but all Donna can do is scream again. She tells Diana it hurts too much and that she is not strong enough to stop it. Wonder Woman replies that Donna herself had juts been explaining how wicked and selfish she had been – and thatrequires a lot of strength. She adds that Donna’s baby needs that strength now and asks her to focus it.
As Donna experiences another contraction and screams Wonder Women reminds her what they had learnt at the birthing classes they had attended together – to breathe and focus. But a panicking Donna is terrified that in all this water the baby will sink into the inky waters and drown! How will they find it? Wonder Woman tells her that she will worry about that and for Donna to instead focus on the delivery. She reminds Donna that the baby has been living in fluids for nine months and that it’s becoming quite fashionable nowadays for women to give birth in swimming pools. As she holds Donna’s hands and her friend continues to push, Donna finally gives a terrific cry and wide eyed, tells Diana that she has delivered it!
Quickly, Wonder Woman dives under the water, hardly able to see a foot or so in front of her but using her keen hunters eyes and instincts to home in on the infant.
Above, a totally exhausted Donna can no longer keep herself afloat any more and sinks beneath the waves. For a few seconds there are simply ripples where she had once been before suddenly the waters part ands Wonder Woman surfaces, with mother and child safely in her custody!
Meanwhile at the residence of mobster Antonio Sazia, he is entertaining a sexy red head in his bedroom when suddenly the White Magician appears floating above the bed! A furious Sazia demands to know what he is doing here and the Magician replies that Ares Buchanan is dead….and that Wonder Woman still lives. She will have undoubtedly have managed to discover their connection to the arms dealer before he had died. They have to act now. But Sazia corrects him, saying she knows everything the Magician has been up to. Sure, he has himself been in dealings with Buchanan which could hurt him, but as mafia boss he has been hurt plenty of times before. The White Magician on the other hand is a “hero”. Everybody trusts him. Even loves him. This would be very bad for him. Randolph had been taking bribes, helping shipments of arms and even taking out competition. And if the police started digging even further back before his associations with Buchanan they may find even more skeletons the hero has been hiding all these years.
A furious White Magician tells him to shut up however, asking if Sazia wants to continue to bait him or to seize the opportunity to finallyown this city? Because if he does, then between them they have the power to make it happen. Intrigued, Sazia asks the terrified red head to leave the room for a few minutes before asking Randolph to continue.
The white Magician explains how he is very old and had been living in the country when it had been created. But since that time it has been perverted. The people have turned away from their leadership. Immigrants, red indians, the spawn of slaves…all have more influence over the masses than they do. His magics had helped him stay young as the years past watching these changes until one day he had come upon the idea to use his powers to become a hero so that he could earn the adulation of the people. And the public were indeed grateful…but not adoring. They did not recognise who they should be turning control over their lives to.
Sazia asks what this has to do with him? Randolph continues that he had even allowed himself to be controlled by that pig Buchanan – but now it was time he took control for himself. Show the flock who their true master is. Up until now he has only used his white magic – but that is the tip of the iceberg and he could appeal to dark entities that could give him the power to send Boston screaming into the sun or create an army of gargoyles. He asks Sazia to imagine of his enforcers were such an army and the things he could accomplish.
But the mobster is not impressed and drawing his gun, tells the White Magician that he already has a good thing going here and such things would only attract all the super heroes. “Boston is my city” he adds before firing several times point blank at Randolph. But the bullets have no effect ad a furious White Magician blasts the mobster into ashes!
He curses Sazia for being an imbecile and that he was only offering him a partnership and had not meant to be goaded into killing him instead. Just then the terrified red head enters the room, pointing a gun at Randolph. He turns to look at her calmly and reminds her that Sazia’s bullets had had not effect and what is going to stop him blasting her too? And then, with a sweep of his cloak he vanished, his final words drifting through the air…”The White Magician does not war on women.”
Back in the catacombs a grateful Donna is smiling, clutching her new born daughter. But she tells Wonder Woman that she has to leave the attorney and take the baby to safety, as its so cold and weak that if she blacks out she would drag the child underwater with her and she would drown. Wonder Woman smiles and replies that nobody is going to be blacking out and nobody is going to be leaving. “I’m here and I’ve got you. We just have to wait until someone finds us.”
But a skeptical Donna asks who long might they have to wait? A day? A week? Up on the surface it must look like the apocalypse and the authorities will not realise there are actually any survivors until it is too late. She adds that although their friends know they came here nobody is going to listen to them. So what are they going to do? Scrounge a boat from somewhere, sneak around the police cordon, find another route into these tunnels and then search through miles of pitch black maze – and all juts in the hope that they will find their friends down here?
But even as she is speaking Wonder Woman can see a light coming down the tunnel and smiles as a row boat crewed by Etta and Hoppy approaches and a ladder is lowered into the water…
