Chalandor, When the Walls Fell

WONDER WEDNESDAY

On Wednesdays I look at various chapters in Wonder Woman’s history. Click here for previous installments.

I guess we’re choosing what’s in her right hand this time. Her right, not our right.

Diana Prince: Wonder Woman vol. 3, DC Comics, 2008.

One thing I appreciate about writer-artist Mike Sekowsky’s late-1960s run of Wonder Woman, reimagining the Amazon superheroine as a nonpowered karate-chopping mod fashion-shop owner, is from time to time it would abandon all that and go do some sword-and-sorcery fantasy adventure. That’s what happens in the first story of volume three of the Diana Prince: Wonder Woman reprint collections.

They’re creepy and they’re kooky.

Wonder Woman #190, DC Comics, October 1970.

The story opens with pretty much what you see on the cover: Diana and random Amazon Leda being attacked by shadowy figures in totally darkness. How did this come to be? Well, Sekowsky obliges us with a flashback, artfully superimposed over the battle itself. Her new mentor I Ching (yes, really) decides that she needs to take some time off and visit her mother on Paradise Island. All she has to do is invoke her mother, and poof! An Amazon appears to take her away.

No, that’s more of a Sekowskyism, really.

I’m always amazed how freaking easy it is for Diana to go visit her mother during this period, considering that the whole reason she gave up her powers in the first place was that the Amazons were leaving this world and she had too much of a life here to follow them.

Anyway, they click their heels and oops, they’re caught in a “dimensional storm” in their journey through the “dimensional stream.” Or so we’re told. Anyway, they wind up not on Paradise Island but, um, somewhere else.

The fight with the “shadowmen” doesn’t really last past the flashback, because at the first sign of moonlight they run away. But now they’re waylaid by sky pirates, or rather a royal flying boat sent to take prisoners to fight in the arena for the pleasure of the Queen of Chalandor.

Sure, that plan makes sense.

That’s apparently all Diana needs to know, and she sends Leda off to use her “dimensional travel ring” to gather an Amazon posse to help her on “the planet of the Queen of Chalandor.” Mind you, Leda could just use the ring to bring them both to Paradise Island, but then there would be no story. So there’s no time for that!

The captain takes her and some big tall guy—called a “barbarian” but seemingly quite civilized, even dashing—to some castle with a big skull on it to see the queen, who looks a lot like Dr. Cyber because apparently Sekowsky has a type of pretty woman that he really loves to draw. And of course everybody likes to draw Wonder Woman in chains, so she’s long since learned to use them as a weapon, and starts kicking everybody’s ass with them as soon as she reaches the palace, especially the nameless queen.

I love that the barbarian’s all, “You go, girl!”

Anyway, she eventually gets knocked unconscious and chained up in the dungeon with the barbarian, who’s actually a handsome prince (of course) named Ranagor—not to be confused with Ranagar, the capital city of the planet Rann, where Adam Strange has his adventures in space.

The two make their escape—or so they think. Actually they’ve been running to the arena the whole time, where they’re expected for their battle with the Gnarth, a kind of silly-looking dragon with ten legs.

Oh no! It’s… it’s… kind of cute, really.

Anyway, they slay the dread beastie and attack the queen again—who for some reason is defended only by dwarves, and not the burly Tolkien kind—until they’re driven off by superior forces and make their escape, joining an army from Ranagor’s kingdom that’s come to put an end to the Queen of Chalandor’s villainy once and fo all.

Oh boy, reruns!

Wonder Woman #191, DC Comics, December 1970.

The following issue is dated the month I was born—although, as with most comic issue dates, it actually came out a few months earlier. And it’s the comic-book equivalent of a clip show, reprinting the story from issue #179 explaining how and why she gave up her powers in the first place.

Oh wait, I still haven’t told you about the time I teamed up with a Christmas tree.

Regurgitating a story from only two years ago is a pretty cheeky move, but it’s framed as Diana telling her story to Ranagor, late one night on the eve of battle. As such, not much actually happens in this issue except some feasting, and meeting Ranagor’s dad, who seems like a nice old bloke.

By the power of Grayskull!

Wonder Woman #192, DC Comics, February 1971.

Ranagor’s army prepares to lay siege to Chalandor and its totally badass castle. I mean, look at this thing! We’ve never had a good look at it before now.

Daaaaamn.

The barbarians keep attacking the castle, but it seems damn near impermeable, and they’re getting slaughtered by the army of Chalandor in every attack. So Diana has an idea. She’ll teach them how to make cannons!  I guess Amazons don’t have to worry about the Prime Directive.

Clearly this is NOT a non-cannon story.

The cannons make a big difference, both against the castle and the flying boats, and the barbarian hordes manage to break through the outer wall, only to be repelled by superior forces of archers.

At one point the narration boxes refer to the heroic rebel forces as the army of Thanagor, which is strange because two issues ago Ranagor said he was from North Ambria. It’s not Ranagor’s father the king’s name either, because that’s Zangor. Of course, Thanagar is the planet Hawkman comes from, so maybe it’s just a random slip.

Anyway, Ranagor’s getting pretty disheartened by this one-step-forward, two-steps-back business, but Diana has a plan. More cannons! Okay, that didn’t work.  How about just fighting it out one on one, or two on two, the queen and her champion against Ranagor and Diana? Well, that one almost works, except the queen runs away and they’re back to square one. How about driving a whole freaking cart of gunpowder barrels into the wall? Yep, that’ll do it. This time the barbarians finally manage to fight their way to victory.

Gee, thanks for the help, mom.

And when the battle’s over and the queen is deposed, who should arrive but Diana’s mom and the Amazon cavalry? Well, it’s the thought that counts. Best of all, some guy’s like, “Women warriors? Whaaaa?” as if his army hasn’t been led by a woman for the whole freaking siege. Where’s that guy been? Diana says her goodbyes to Ranagor, “till we meet again,” which would be never, because he and his world have never been seen again. Diana’s whole visit to Paradise Island takes all of one panel, and a small one at that, and then we see a ticking bomb! “Hurry, Diana–for time is running out–” it says, but what could that possibly mean? The whole point of this trip was that she wasn’t on any kind of deadline. But the nice thing about a clumsy teaser like that is that it can apply to almost any adventure that the next issue has in store, so I’m sure time is running out for something somewhere. Heck, maybe it means the milk in her fridge is about to go bad.