Wonder Woman Unbound (29 page)

The cover depicted Green Arrow’s ward, Speedy, sitting next to a needle and drug paraphernalia, and Green Arrow proclaiming, “My ward is a
JUNKIE!
” Speedy was hooked on heroin, and the following issue declared that drugs were “more deadly than the atom bomb” and included an antidrug message from John V. Lindsay, the mayor of New York City. The series gained a lot of acclaim for its discussion of drug use, including positive profiles in several leading magazines and newspapers, but O’Neil and Adams’s tenure only lasted for fourteen issues due to poor sales.

Sales in the 1970s weren’t great for anyone, with the lagging DC continuing to decline and even the successful Marvel dipping considerably, but the Bronze Age at least brought a creative renaissance to DC. Apart from Batman and Green Lantern, Julius Schwartz took over the editing duties for the Superman line from Mort Weisinger, ending the era of multicolored Kryptonite and pets like Comet the Super-Horse and Beppo the Super-Monkey. DC also nabbed Jack Kirby from Marvel, who created his famous Fourth World line of comics at DC. The books chronicled the intergalactic war of the evil planet of Apokolips and its cruel lord Darkseid against the good planet of New Genesis and its benevolent ruler Highfather. The books were trippy and epic, reflective of the psychedelic culture of the time, and they remain highly regarded today.

In the midst of all of this creativity and new ideas was
Wonder Woman,
rejuvenated by Denny O’Neil, the architect of DC’s two most famous Bronze Age properties. But the new direction for Wonder Woman didn’t go over well with anyone.

The End of Wonder Woman

By all accounts, they had the best of intentions. Wonder Woman hadn’t been popular for years, so O’Neil and Sekowsky chose to revitalize the character, making her a normal human woman who had to deal with real-world problems. The title of the series changed slightly to
Diana Prince: Wonder Woman,
and a new era for the character began. Unfortunately, it was a mess behind the scenes. After twenty-seven years where
Wonder Woman
had only two editors and two writers, the twenty-six-issue, four-year run of the Diana Prince era had four editors and three writers. Everyone tried valiantly to fit Diana Prince within the hip, contemporary world of women’s lib and mod fashion, but the new direction was met with criticism and cries for a return to the Amazon Wonder Woman. On top of the editorial chaos and general disdain for the book, Diana Prince was a startlingly pathetic depiction of a modern woman.

One of the main goals of this new direction was to appeal to a female audience. Sekowsky later described his approach to the series: “I didn’t see how a kid, male or female, could relate to [the Amazon Wonder Woman]. It was so far removed from their world. I felt girls might want to read about a super female in the real world, something very current.” The ads for the book made their target audience very clear, declaring, “
Girls!
If you dig
romance,
and we know you
do
—you’ll really flip for the new
Wonder Woman
! Yes,
romance,
plus
intrigue, high adventure,
and a brand-new kind of story that will bring you a brand-new kind of thrill!” The ad also warned: “Don’t dare miss the heroine of the year!”

Making Wonder Woman a normal human in the real world without superpowers could have been fascinating, particularly with the timing. A female perspective in the midst of the burgeoning women’s liberation movement and the general social upheaval of the late 1960s offered a wealth of stories and issues to address. But O’Neil and Sekowsky ignored all of that and took a different tack that was rooted in their origin story for the depowered Diana Prince.
*

Although the new creative team meant to depict an independent Diana Prince setting out into the world on her own, her origin story and the series that followed were actually all about Steve Trevor. In
Wonder Woman
#179, Steve went on a secret mission to infiltrate a powerful criminal network run by the nefarious Dr. Cyber. After assaulting his superior officer and fighting through a wall of guards as he fled an army base, Steve was branded a traitor and became a wanted man. Only Steve and his superior officer knew the truth: this attack was a hoax to let Steve have an in with the criminal underworld. Wonder Woman was understandably shocked when she read a newspaper headline that proclaimed “Hunt Col. Trevor: Army Officer Labeled Spy By Superiors!”

Wonder Woman didn’t believe for a second that Steve was a traitor, and she was formulating a plan to help him when she was summoned back to Paradise Island by her mother. Queen Hippolyta told her, “For ten thousand years, we have lived here, performing the mission assigned to us … helping mankind find maturity! But now, our magic is exhausted! We must journey to another dimension, to rest and renew our powers!” Paradise Island was about to disappear from the Earth, along with all of the Amazons, and Wonder Woman could either leave with her sisters or stay behind without her superpowers.

She immediately replied, “I love you, mother … you and my sister Amazons! But Steve Trevor desperately
needs
me … I must stay!” Her decision was swift and not at all difficult; given the choice, she immediately chose Steve. Steve was clearly in a bad spot and was going to need some help, and Wonder Woman, with or without superpowers, was the heroic, helpful type.

Leaving behind her bracelets, star-spangled outfit, and golden lasso, she stated, “I hereby relinquish all mystic skills! I lay upon the sacred altar the glories of the Amazons and willingly condemn myself to the travails of mortals.” She bid her mother good-bye and returned to America, and even her invisible plane disappeared once she’d landed in the Lower East Side of New York City. Luckily for her, in less than a page she found a commercial space for rent with an apartment on top and decided to open a fashion boutique. Diana was Marvelized, established in an actual city with an apartment, a job, and other real-world problems. By the issue’s end, she’d found Steve and was ready to embark on a new life without Wonder Woman.

Diana gave up her superpowers for heroic reasons, sacrificing her family and her abilities to rescue Steve. However,
Wonder Woman
#179 can be viewed in a different light due to the events in
Wonder Woman
#178. This alternate reading casts Diana’s ostensibly heroic sacrifice in a more problematic, self-serving light.

The issue began with Steve’s arrest for murder after a man he had a scuffle with one evening turned up dead later that night. Steve’s explanation was that he was at a hippie club called the Tangerine Trolley, but he was found guilty because the girl he was talking to had disappeared and couldn’t confirm his alibi. Wonder Woman decided to ingratiate herself within the hippie community via her Diana Prince alter ego to find the missing girl and exonerate Steve, but first Diana had to abandon her usual square appearance so she would fit in. She ditched her glasses and her dowdy military uniform in favor of a new, flowing hairdo and modern, psychedelic fashions with bright colors and bold prints. In the end, she found the girl and saved Steve, but Diana’s mod new appearance added a twist to Wonder Woman and Steve’s relationship.

Wonder Woman
#178 ended with the freed Steve and Wonder Woman relaxing together on a sofa; Wonder Woman was nestled in close to Steve, who had his arm around her. Steve mentioned that he could never forget what Diana had done for him, stating, “She’s so much more than what I thought she was—in fact, I think I’ll ask her out one of these days and really get to know her.” This was a huge new development in how Steve saw Diana. For nearly three decades, Steve had barely noticed her, instead dedicating all of his time to Wonder Woman. Diana had just saved him from a long prison sentence, but she had saved Steve many times before. The only difference was that she’d changed from a plain wallflower to a trendy, attractive woman. This change in Steve’s attitude toward Diana prompted Wonder Woman to think, “Why, this is silly … I can’t be jealous of myself—
can
I? If he can fall for Diana like this, he can fall for any woman! And I’ll lose him forever if I don’t do
something
to keep him interested in
me!
” The issue ended with Wonder Woman thinking, “Wonder Woman must change …”

Reading between the lines of her rapid decision to give up her superpowers, the fact is that Diana didn’t need to be Wonder Woman to be with Steve anymore. If Queen Hippolyta had summoned Wonder Woman home before Diana’s mod makeover, the depowered wallflower Diana Prince would have been all alone, because Steve didn’t care about her at all. But now Steve was interested in Diana and, if mentioning asking her out while on a date with Wonder Woman was any indication, he seemed to like Diana more than Wonder Woman. Not only could she remain behind and date Steve as Diana Prince, but she would be giving Steve the woman he preferred. No wonder she was so quick to decide to stay behind. It was a win-win situation for the man she loved. This reading sends an interesting message about this independent, modern heroine; letting the desires of her boyfriend dictate her choices was hardly in keeping with the spirit of the women’s liberation movement.

This interpretation perhaps reads too much into O’Neil and Sekowsky’s desire to get rid of the Amazons and move onto their new direction as quickly as possible. The speed of Diana’s decision may have been solely because of the limited space given the departure of the Amazons, since the whole thing only took two pages. Regardless of intention, the implication that Steve now preferred Diana over Wonder Woman can be easily read. In either case, Diana stayed behind because of Steve Trevor and became a normal woman, getting an apartment, opening a shop, and even learning kung fu.

Right after she arrived in New York and secured her new shop and apartment, Diana saw an old, blind man being attacked in a back alley. She ran to help him, but he dispatched his attackers by himself. The man was I Ching, a martial arts master and enemy of Dr. Cyber, who sought out Diana after he deduced that she was really Wonder Woman. Finding her powerless, he taught her karate, kung fu, and several other fighting forms, and together they scoured the criminal underworld for any information about Steve. Ultimately, Steve showed up on Diana’s doorstep, having just been gunned down by Dr. Cyber’s thugs when they found out he really wasn’t a traitor to America. Steve was rushed to the hospital in critical condition.

In the following issue, Diana set out to find his assailants, but Steve was kidnapped and killed right in front of her. Holding his dead body, a distraught Diana cried out, “I’ve lost
everything!
Without family … without
Steve
… my life is
worthless!
” After Steve died, the main plot of the series became Diana’s quest to find Dr. Cyber and avenge his death. Diana and I Ching traveled the globe, battling their way through scores of henchmen and leaving destruction in their wake. The real-world aspects of the mod Diana Prince and her new life in New York running a boutique took a backseat to this pursuit of vengeance.

O’Neil and Sekowsky’s goal was to turn Wonder Woman into a realistic woman whom readers could identify with, but the end result was that Diana’s entire life was centered around Steve. The decisions that led to her losing her powers were based on what was best for him, not for herself, and her life became a quest to avenge him. Basically, everything about the new Diana Prince was defined by Steve, and she didn’t have her own identity outside of him.

Although the era of female comic book characters striving to be subservient housewives was now past, Diana embodied that old mind-set where a man was a woman’s sole reason for existence. Elsewhere in superhero comic books, female characters had moved beyond this limited depiction of womanhood. Rather than being an independent, liberated woman, the new Diana Prince represented everything that real-world independent, liberated women rallied against.

Behind the Times

We can call Marston’s comics kinky, or label Kanigher’s stories as silly, but neither is a commentary on the quality of the comic books. Each creator had a particular take on Wonder Woman, and we’ve delved into these differences and the evolution of the character without making a value judgment. Certainly both creators thought that they were doing fine work. This was not the case with the mod era of
Wonder Woman.
Every time Denny O’Neil is asked about his time on the series, he talks about how bad the book was and how many glaring missteps he made, and he often apologizes for his work. These were not good comics.

The mod
Wonder Woman
suffers further when placed in the context of the Bronze Age. Marston’s
Wonder Woman
had problematic quirks, but comparatively it was rather progressive and, at the very least, completely different from the other books being published at the time. Kanigher’s
Wonder Woman
was campy, but so was everything else in the Silver Age. The mod
Wonder Woman
was regressive at a time when comics were getting good. Great strides were made in depicting the role of women in superhero comic books, while simultaneously women battled for new rights and fair treatment in the real world. Wonder Woman lagged behind everyone, to such a degree that Gloria Steinem and other feminists took it upon themselves to call for a return to the original, Amazon Wonder Woman. The world was moving forward while Wonder Woman moved backward.