Any Inn in a Storm

WONDER WEDNESDAY

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

It’s important to take time to reflect.

Wonder Woman #195, DC Comics, August 1971.

It’s funny that I was just saying in a recent entry that writer-artist Mike Sekowsky isn’t much for mystery in his late 1960s, early 1970s run of Wonder Woman; who dunnit is always pretty obvious from the start, even if he goes for a dramatic reveal late in the story. What’s amusing about that is, lo and behold, now he decides to do a spooky mystery story! And, well, my observation still stands.

In “The House That Wasn’t,” Diana and her mentor I Ching are driving along in a really heavy snowstorm when they run across a couple of gents whose car as broken down, and of course they stop to help. But oh-oh, those aren’t gents at all—they’re goons! They’re a couple of escaped convicts who highjack the car and its drivers to help them make their getaway.

Now, you’d think that Diana would make short work of these guys, guns or no guns, seeing as how she’s a superhuman Amazon warrior. But of course this was during the time when she didn’t have her superpowers and was reliant on her wits and the karate I Ching taught her. That it to say, she and Ching still should have been able to take these guys out with no problem, but this is not that kind of story, so they just go along with it.

And of course, their car breaks down in the blizzard too, so they and their captors are forced to continue on foot to seek shelter from the storm—shelter they find in an old inn they stumble across, a curiously old-timey one called Inn of the White Horse. It’s run by a nice old woman wearing a cap that looks like it’s from the 1700s and her hulking, scowling son Lemuel. Both Diana and Ching are creeped out by the place, but you know what they say: any inn in a storm.

Oh, nothing to worry about. Just evil.

There are others taking refuge there as well: a pipe-smoking mystery writer and a nervous man clutching a briefcase. Of course there’s no phone there, so they have no choice but to wait out the blizzard together.

There are a lot of convenient radio reports in this story. After they pick up the stranded men, there’s a news story about the escaped convict. After the nervous little man shows up clutching his luggage, there’s a radio story about an embezzler who’d made off with half a million dollars, and the description matches the guy.

The plot thickens!

There’s something about the place that strikes Diana as unnervingly familiar, like she’s heard of this place before, but she can’t place it. And the thing is, I have the same experience reading this story. The previous issue was an explicit homage to The Prisoner of Zenda, and I could swear that I’ve read a story very much like this before. Certainly the setup is similar to Key Largo, but some of the specifics—the snowstorm, the creepy inn—strike me as familiar as well.

Soon people start dying, one at the hands of the known criminals but others the victims of some shadowy figure in the dark. Who could it be?  Well, this being a Sekowsky story, your first guess is probably correct.

Why indeed?

But what the deal is with the mysterious old inn is a little more involved. Is it, as Ching senses, eeeeeeevil? Well, they’ll find out soon enough! The reader may be tipped off by the cover of the comic, but like I say, somehow I don’t think Sekowsky is too concerned with making it difficult to guess. All in all, it’s an entertaining enough spooky story, even if Wonder Woman doesn’t get to do anything particularly heroic in it.

Spoiler alert: We’ll never find out.

World’s Finest #204, DC Comics, August 1971.

Coming out that same month was World’s Finest #204, featuring a team-up between the nonpowered mod Wonder Woman and Superman. World’s Finest had long been dedicated to stories teaming Superman with Batman, and would remain so for most of its existence in the future, but this was during a period that lasted only a little over a year in which it became a team-up series between Superman and various characters, like DC Comics Presents would be later on.

The story, “Journey to the End of Hope!,” is by Denny O’Neil, who wrote the first few issues of Sekowsky’s mod era of Wonder Woman. The terrific art is by longtime Justice League of America penciller Dick Dillin.

Out of the blue, Daily Planet editor Perry White assigns Clark Kent to do a story on a computer dating service, having gone so far as to get an application for Clark in advance. Meanwhile, I Ching has just decided that Diana needs a man in her life, and has signed her up for the same service. Oddly enough, no sooner has each authority figure sent the two heroes on their way than they remember that they think this sort of thing is nonsense and wonder what possessed them to suggest that. What possessed them indeed?

It is my sage opinion that we need to get you laid.

And of course, who does the computer set them up with? Each other! Diana may not have known Batman’s secret identity at this point in time, but she did know Superman’s, so they’re amused at the strange coincidence and decide to make the best of it and have a nice date. They’re set upon by some muggers, but Diana readily kicks their ass, probably relishing the opportunity for some action after all the waiting for someone else to save the day that she’d been doing in her own comic book lately.

Biff! Bam! Pow!

Bizarrely, Clark and Diana are supposed to appear on a radio talk show as part of their date, and they both profess being uncomfortable speaking in public. That’s ludicrous in the first place because they’re both very used to being public figures and have done more than their share of speechmaking, but Clark says, “I’d rather face a herd of rogue elephants than a microphone!” And he’s a television newscaster at this point. Shh, no one tell him that involves microphones.

Fourth floor – appliances, desert wastelands…

He’s in luck, though, because the door to the radio studio takes them to a desolated wasteland instead. The air’s not breathable and the landscape is featureless, so Superman figures they must be on some alien world. He creates a quick adobe shelter for Diana with convenient oxygen trapped inside and goes exploring. There he finds a giant robot who explains to him that this is in fact earth, and only 200 years in the future—the year 2171. And yeah, humanity has completely obliterated itself with war and pollution. But the robot emphasizes that although this is the only reality it has ever known, it’s not the future but a future—one of many possible ones, and one that Superman and Wonder Woman must prevent.

That is one philosophical robot.

Back home in 1971 there’s a student protest going on, and somebody’s going to get shot—somebody who otherwise would be the savior of humanity—and they have to go back and save him to prevent this horrible future from happening.

Meanwhile, in that horrible future, those three hoodlums had followed Diana and Clark into the building, looking for revenge, and wound up in the same postapocalyptic wasteland. Finding themselves unable to breathe, they go running for shelter and find Diana, the one they’ve been looking to revenge themselves on in the first place. Normally she’s just kick their asses again, but one of them has a gun. Eek, a gun! This is a job for Superman. The big strong man saves Diana, and she gets all weak in the knees and they almost get smoochy, but Superman says it just wouldn’t be right. Because of Lois, maybe? Because they’ve got a job to do? Because she’s a puny mortal now and he’s like unto a god? Superman doesn’t specify why it would be wrong exactly, but suffice it to say, it’s not Diana, it’s him.

Way to toy with a lady, Superjerk.

Superman manages to get them all back to 1971—including the muggers, which is nice of him. He makes a big deal about how he had to squeeze them through the gap in time that brought them here before it closed, but Superman can travel through time pretty easily in general, so I’m not sure what made this case so special. Then he and Diana have to rush off to the campus, where tensions between student protestors and police are sparking a riot.

And by “ourselves” I mean me.

They don’t really know who the special guy is that they need to save, so they just try to save everyone they can, with mixed results. So did they manage to save the future or not? There’s no way of knowing. Only time will tell. Like a lot of O’Neil’s stories mixing superheroes and real social issues, it’s a bit heavy-handed, but effective for all that. It’s collected in Diana Prince: Wonder Woman vol. 3 along with the Sekowsky stories.