Work That Bodyguard

 WONDER WEDNESDAY

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

Well, there’s just one more story in the third and penultimate volume of Diana Prince: Wonder Woman, collecting the late ’60s, early ’70s exploits of Wonder Woman when she had suddenly become a non-superpowered, karate-chopping mod. This one’s billed as “a big 3-star issue,” which I guess justifies the price hike from the previous issue’s 15 cents to a whopping 25 cents.

I kid, but I guess there actually was a fair amount of extra stuff in there to justify the price: a reprint of Wonder Woman’s origin and first appearance from All-Star Comics #8, and a previously unpublished Golden Age story, “The Stormy Menace of Goblin Head Rock,” featuring the Cheetah. Unfortunately, neither of those are reprinted in this collection, which is a shame because I’d really love to see that Cheetah story.

Diana always wore white during this period, but always different white outfits.

Wonder Woman #196, DC Comics, October 1971.

This is also the last issue by writer-artist Mike Sekowsky, who’s been our guide for the rest of this mad mod meandering journey. Writer Denny O’Neil, who worked with Sekowsky for the first few issues, takes over a couple issues later, after some all-reprint issues revisiting earlier points in the run.

And how does Sekowsky end his run? By revisiting the JFK assassination!  Well, kind of. Diana becomes a bodyguard of sorts for a handsome and flirty politician who keeps almost getting assassinated. This one’s the ambassador for the fictional country of Kolonia.

You can’t say Dallas doesn’t love you, mister ambassador.

Diana’s minding her own business, thinking about her shipment of hot pants, when a dying man staggers into her mod fashion shop, gasping about an assassination attempt on the ambassador. Koronian ambassador Baron Anatole Karoli is flying into Kennedy Airport (uh-oh, a bad omen) that day and then is off to meet the president.

Aye, the hot pants.

So what makes this Diana’s business? Well, it turns out that this dead guy on their floor is an agent of General Stuart, a guy her mentor I Ching (sigh) has worked for before (on the ill-fated “Operation Slam-Bang,” he says mysteriously). Also, there’s a dead guy on the floor. Also, goons show up to stop them from… I dunno, doing anything. Also, murder is afoot! It must be foiled.

She asks if he knows the general despite him talking about that at length just three pages ago.

Diana shows up at the airport just in time to foil an assassination attempt by a blind man and his dog—or rather a fake blind man with a sniper rifle disguised as a cane and, well, his dog.

I love that she references Get Smart.

The ambassador lays on the charm, insisting that she dine with him, and she agrees because he’s in deadly danger and, well, kinda cute. Of course it’s a good thing she does, because someone tries to poison the guy. Diana meets Ching’s old pal General Stuart, who drafts Diana back into the army on the spot, which I guess is a thing that army brass can just do in this world.  Just go with it. She does, anyway.

I’m not sure it works like that.

So she sticks to the ambassador, and the assassination attempts keep coming, until finally she manages to escort him to the president—in a garbage truck, no less. Now, the president isn’t called by name, but he’s pretty clearly Richard Nixon, just as he would have been at this time. And then comes the stunning twist!

And you know what? I’ve been saying for weeks that Sekowsky was no good at mysteries because he always made it pretty obvious from the start what was going on, but this time he managed to come up with a pretty decent twist, so I’m gonna respect that and not blow it.

I will say, though, that the way Sekowsky ended stories in the last few issues was pretty weird. You’d have the actual climax, but then it would end on some exposition-heavy panel with nothing particularly interesting going on, the kind that makes you want to turn the page to see things start happening again, only it’s over.

And now we go back into reruns.

Wonder Woman #197, DC Comics, December 1971.

I said a few issues ago that it was weird that a story was interrupted for a reprint retelling of the beginning of the mod era from only a couple of years before. Well, once Sekowksy was done DC churned out a couple more issues reprinting stories from just a couple of years ago issue 196 reprinted the O’Neil/Sekowsky Dr. Cyber stories from issues 181 and 182, and then 197 retold Diana’s adventure with the Amazons and heroes of legend from 183 and 184.

Hey, remember when this just happened a little while ago?

Wonder Woman #198, DC Comics, February 1972.

Fortunately, these reruns don’t go on any longer than that, and it’s soon on to a whirlwind of new stories and new directions. The next volume brings stories by Denny O’Neil, the great science fiction writer Samuel R. Delany, and longtime Wonder Woman scribe Robert Kanigher, who was the guy who’d been writing the adventures of the star-spangled Amazon before this powerless period and who was just the guy to bring the good old days back.