Retro Trade Review: Wonder Woman By George Pérez Vol. 1 For DC Comics

Contains Wonder Woman Vol. 2 #1-14 (February 1987 – March 1988)

Written by Greg Potter (#1-2), George Pérez (#8)

Plotted by George Pérez (#3-7, 9-14)

Co-plotted by George Pérez (#1-2)

Scripted by Len Wein (#3-14)

Pencilled by George Pérez (#1-14)

Inked by Bruce Patterson (#1-14)

Coloured by Tatjana Wood (#1-9), Carl Gafford (#10-14)

Spoilers from thirty-three to thirty-four years ago

As a kid, I didn’t really appreciate George Pérez until he started working with Kurt Busiek on the Avengers in the 90s.  Prior to that, I’d often found his work a little staid and boring, and I think I blame the few issues of his Wonder Woman run in the 80s that I read.  But, with age comes wisdom.  

At the start of the pandemic, I read the first nine volumes of the Marv Wolfman/George Pérez New Teen Titans run, and that got me thinking about checking out Pérez’s Wonder Woman.  During the brief span of time where shops were open, I picked up the first three volumes of Wonder Woman, and now it’s time to dig in.

I’ve read some random issues from this run, whenever it tied in to events or featured characters I was interested in.  I do remember thinking that these were a little slow moving, but flipping through them now, I see that Pérez’s work in them is incredible, and I’m looking forward to giving them a proper chance.  I have a lot of love for this era of DC, when they were rebooting the universe and characters post-Crisis.  Pérez and his collaborators had to rebuild Diana in a more modern way.  Having lived through the New 52 and Rebirth, I think that Pérez and his contemporaries did a really good job of that.

Now, let’s find out what I’d missed for so long.

This book features the following characters:

Villains:

• Ares (Olympus; #1, 5-6)
• Heracles (#1)
• Theseus (#1)
• General Kohler (USAF; #2)
• Captain Slade (USAF; #2)
• Deimos (#2-5)
• Phobos (#2-5)
• General Tolliver (USAF; #3, 5-6)
• Decay (#3-4)
• Pan (Olympus; #7, 10-12)
• Cheetah (Barbara Minerva; #7-9)
• G. Gordon Godfrey (#8)
• Cottus (Hecatoncheires; #10, 12)
• The Hydra (#10-11)
• Echidna (#11, 13)
• Harpies (#12-13)
• Polyphemus (Cyclops; #13)
• The Minotaur (#13)
• The Chimera (#13)

Guest Stars

• Green Lantern (Guy Gardner; #8)
• Martian Manhunter (J’onn J’onzz; #8)
• Black Canary (Dinah Lance; #8)
• Doctor Fate (#8)
• Changeling (Gar Logan; #8)
• Batman (Bruce Wayne; #8)
• Flash (Wally West; #8)
• Superman (Clark Kent; #8)
• Robin (Jason Todd; #8)
• Captain Marvel (Billy Batson; #8)
• Blue Beetle (Ted Kord; #8)
• Ronald Reagan (President of the USA; #8)
• Green Lantern (Arisia; #13)
• Green Lantern (Hal Jordan; #13)

Supporting Characters:

• Hermes (Olympus; #1-5, 7, 10-11, 13-14)
• Artemis (Olympus; #1-2, 4-7, 10-11, 13-14)
• Athena (Olympus; #1-2, 4-7, 11, 13-14)
• Apollo (Olympus; #1, 4-5, 10-11)
• Zeus (Olympus; #1, 7, 10-11, 13-14)
• Hera (Olympus; #1, 7, 10-11, 13-14)
• Demeter (Olympus; #1, 4-5)
• Hestia (Olympus; #1-2, 10)
• Charon (Hades; #1)
• Hippolyte (Themyscira; #1-2, 5-7, 10-14)
• Antiope (Themyscira; #1)
• Menalippe (Themyscira; #1-2, 5, 7, 10-12, 14)
• Aella (Themyscira; #1)
• Poseidon (Olympus; #1, 7, 11)
• Phillipus (Themyscira; #1-2, 5-6, 10-12, 14)
• Col. Steve Trevor (USAF; #2-7, 9, 11-12, 14)
• Lt. Etta Candy (USAF; #2-9, 11-12, 14)
• Hephaestus (Olympus; #2, 13)
• Aphrodite (Olympus; #2, 4-6, 11, 13-14)
• Harmonia (Areopagus; #2, 13)
• Themis (Olympus; #2)
• General Hillary (USAF; #2-3, 5-8)
• Colonel Matthew Michaelis (USAF; #2-6)
• Professor Julia Kapatelis (#3-9, 14)
• Vanessa Kapatelis (#3-4, 7-9, 14)
• Carole Bennett (Boston Globe-Leader; #4)
• Persephone (Olympus; #6, 10)
• Epione (Themyscira; #7)
• Myndi Mayer (publicist; #7-9, 14)
• Chuma (Barbara Minerva’s servant; #7-9)
• Major Warren (#8)
• Eos (Olympus; #10)
• Dionysus (Olympus; #10)
• Euboea (Themyscira; #10, 14)
• Mnemosyne (Themyscira; #10, 14)
• Acantha (Themyscira; #10)
• Morpheus (Olympus; #11)
• Eros (Olympus; #11)
• Diana Rockwell Trevor (#11-12)
• Hades (Olympus; #12)
• Heracles (#12-14)
• Ares (Areopagus; #13)
• Hellene (Themyscira; #14)

Let’s see what happened in the comics, with some commentary as I go:

• The first issue reimagines Diana’s origin in some pretty fundamental ways, going back to the earliest moments of human history.  A prehistoric hunter is injured, and takes his pain out on his woman, killing her and her unborn child; he witnesses a light leave the corpse and ascend to the heavens.  In 1200 BC, the gods of Mount Olympus argue over an idea of Artemis’s, to create a new race of humans, all female.  Ares is bitterly opposed, and Zeus doesn’t really care.  Artemis and Athena try to get Hera to agree with them, but she won’t.  Ares makes vows to rule everything some day, and leaves.  The goddesses go to Hades, where they meet up with Demeter and Hestia.  They have Charon take them to a distant spot on the River Styx, where they discover that Gaea has saved the souls of women killed before their time.  They send all of the souls, except for one, to Earth, where they are reborn.  Hippolyte is the first, followed by Antiope, and then the rest.  The goddesses speak to these women, calling them Amazons.  They make Hippolyte their queen, with Antiope her second.  They are given specific girdles to wear, and given a city to live in.  Later, a woman teases Heracles, making him believe that Hippolyte mocks him.  This woman is an agent of Ares, who is plotting against the women.  Heracles goes with an army to Themyscira, their city, and plots an attack.  He challenges Hippolyte to a fight, and loses, but then acts contrite and amused by the whole thing.  They all party together, but Heracles drugs the queen and has his way with her.  She wakes up to find her city burning, and herself chained up in a dungeon.  Heracles has stolen her girdle, and leaves the place in ruins.  Athena comes to Hippolyte, and enlightens her with a new truth.  Hippolyte frees herself and the others, and they fight the men Heracles left behind.  Once they are victorious, Antiope wants to pursue Heracles, but Hippolyte wants the Amazons to follow the commands given by Athena, and to travel to the Agean.  The sisters separate.  When the Amazons under Hippolyte’s command reach the Aegean, the goddesses command them to cross the sea, which Poseidon parts for them.  After a long walk of many weeks, they come to Paradise Island, where they are made into immortals.  The erect a new Themyscira, and after hundreds of years, Hippolyte finds herself yearning for something new.  Menalippe, the Oracle, tells her that she was the only spirit who died while pregnant, and that her unborn child is still waiting.  She has her mold a child out of clay and open her soul to Artemis.  Diana is born, and grows up on the island.  Years later, Menalippe receives a message from the gods, and tells Hippolyte that they need to send their greatest warrior to meet a threat that could destroy everything.  Hippolyte forbids Diana from participating in the contest to determine the greatest warrior, but since all the participants are masked, Diana sneaks in and wins easily.  The unhappy Queen puts Diana to one more test – she’s taken to a temple where Phillipus fires a gun at her.  As she’s able to deflect the bullets with her bracelets, it’s determined that she should be the one to leave the island.  She’s given the clothing, weapons, and accoutrements of Wonder Woman.
• Issue two introduces Colonel Steve Trevor (and his attaché Etta Candy), who has testified against fellow officers after the Vietnam War.  He’s summoned by General Kohler, who hates him, and told to take a relatively new jet to some strange coordinates immediately, despite the bad weather outside the base.  His co-pilot, Captain Slade, doesn’t appear to be too friendly towards him either.  Trevor follows orders, but feels like something is up.  As the plane climbs, we see that Kohler is working for Ares.  On Themyscira, Diana waits for the gods to give her one last gift, and to reveal her mission.  On Olympus, Hephaestus forges her golden lasso, while other gods and goddesses watch.  Once it’s done, Artemis fires it towards Themyscira with her bow.  As Diana picks it up, Hermes arrives to take her on her tasks.  Trevor’s plane struggles its way through an unnatural storm, pitching and diving; he is barely able to keep it under control.  Hermes takes Diana to Areopagus, the dead home of Ares.  He sends her inside, where she finds the mad Harmonia, who gives her a talisman that will help her find Ares.  Hermes calls Diana back to him, worried that something is happening on Themyscira.  Trevor’s plane emerges through the clouds around the island.  Captain Slade turns into some kind of creature and tries to kill Trevor, while also dropping a bomb.  Diana manages to catch the bomb with her lasso and send it flying.  Not knowing what it is, she’s shocked when she sees it explode.  Trevor’s plane crashes into the water, and Diana, thinking it’s a metal bird, but having heard people inside it, dives in to save who she can.  Themis, a sea deity, tells her to save Trevor, and not the other creature.  In America, General Hillary, having been alerted by Candy about how strange things have been, goes to see General Kohler, but finds him dead, his body burned up.  The Amazons take Trevor to a small island they set up across from Themyscira, where their healer tries to help him.  Phillipus is very upset that they are helping a man who tried to hurt them, but Diana believes in him.  Athena appears (for the first time in thousands of years) and explains that Diana needs to find another artifact to work with Harmonia’s talisman to find Ares.  Diana says goodbye to her mother and sisters, and departs with Hermes, carrying Col. Trevor.  Hillary questions Trevor’s friend Michelis, who doesn’t know where he went.  They are being watched by Ares’s sons, Deimos and Phobos, who plot to kill Diana.

• Hermes takes Diana to Boston (and they drop Trevor off at a hospital between issues), and she is surprised by what she sees, having no other knowledge of the modern world.  At the Air Force Base, which is in Concord, General Hillary and Lt. Candy rush to check on Steve Trevor, who just appeared there.  General Tolliver informs Hillary that Trevor is under arrest for whatever happened.  Candy tries to speak up for him, but gets shut down.  Hermes takes Diana to Harvard, and hands her Harmonia’s talisman, telling her that he can’t help her any further.  In the library, Professor Julia Kapatelis has her TA bring her some books.  After he leaves, she falls off the ladder she’s on, but is caught by Diana.  The two women can’t understand one another, but when Diana shows Kapatelis the talisman, and she touches it, she has a strange vision.  When she comes to, she starts to speak to Diana in Greek, and they introduce one another, not knowing that they are being watched by Phobos.  He hatches a plot that involves molding some of a Gorgon’s heart into a statue of a woman.  Somewhere else, his brother Deimos meets with a variety of his servants, which includes some military personnel.  Julia takes Diana somewhere in her car.  General Tolliver tries to interrogate Col. Trevor, who figures out that he and the nurse mean to kill him (they are working for Deimos).  He jumps out of bed and starts to fight his way to freedom.  Tolliver kills the guard to make it look like Trevor did it, after he escapes.  At the Kapatelis house, Julia’s daughter, Vanessa, opens a package that’s been delivered, and discovers the statue that Phobos made.  Lt. Candy gets a phone call from Col. Michaelis, and they discuss what happened with Trevor.  Neither believes that he did these things, and after she hangs up, Candy is surprised to find Trevor hiding in her house.  Deimos addresses his followers again, but this time in Russia.  Julia brings Diana into her house, where she is introduced to Vanessa, who acts a little strangely (she doesn’t want the boy she likes to see Diana, since she’s so beautiful).  Julia spends the night teaching Diana a language, while Vanessa falls asleep in front of the TV.  The statue appears to open its eyes.  Julia hears Vanessa scream, and when the women rush to the living room, they find it falling apart.  The statue is now a full-sized woman calling herself Decay.  Vanessa looks old, and since Decay wants to touch Diana next, she collapses the house on them all.
• Diana gets the Kapatelises out of their house as it collapses around them.  Decay climbs out of the rubble, holding Diana’s tiara.  She flies off, and Diana flies after her, while Julia rushes Vanessa to the hospital, worried about her suddenly advanced age.  On Mount Olympus, the gods discuss Diana’s lack of progress, and how they aren’t able to help her because of some decree that she has to solve the problem herself.  Aphrodite feels bad that it’s her children who are causing Diana problems.  The gods are ready to go to oblivion.  Etta Candy searches General Tolliver’s office, and takes photos of Col. Trevor’s file, and another labelled ‘Ares’.  As she leaves the office, a soldier points out a news report showing terrible things happening across Boston involving the sudden aging of things.  There’s also a report on Col. Trevor, who is being blamed for the deaths of several military people.  Decay keeps flying around Boston wrecking stuff, until Diana catches up to her and they start to fight.  After having some trouble with her, Diana decides to see what her golden lasso will do.  When wrapped around Decay, it causes her pain, until it finally causes her to collapse in a pile of dust.  Diana retrieves her tiara, and is photographed by the various reporters who try to ask her questions.  She flies off.  Somewhere, Deimos beats on his brother for almost ruining his and their father’s plans, and dumps him in a fountain of bile.  At the Boston Globe-Leader, editor Carole Bennett recognizes that their photos of Diana can do for her paper what Superman has done for the Daily Planet.  She looks at the symbol on Diana’s chest, and gives her the name Wonder Woman.  Etta Candy takes groceries to Col. Trevor in the secluded house they are hiding in.  He’s surprised to see Diana on TV, recognizing her from what he thought was a dream.  They head off to look for her, and we see that Col. Michaelis has been trailing them.  At the hospital, Julia is worried that the doctors don’t know how to help Vanessa, who at least is not getting any older now.  Diana comes to Julia, showing her the talisman again.  Julia figures that this must hold the key to everything that’s going on, so she decides to help her.  They go to Julia’s winter house (I guess Harvard professors get paid a lot), where she starts translating the symbols on the talisman.  Diana sees someone outside, and goes to investigate.  It’s Steve Trevor, and they talk (this is the first that Diana has used English, and it’s pretty broken still).  Julia joins them outside, but their conversation is cut short when someone shouts a warning to Steve.  They rush in the direction of the sound they heard, and find Col. Michaelis standing over a dead or unconscious Candy, holding a gun.

• On Themyscira, the Amazons worry that they can’t hear any response to their prayers, and that they aren’t going to be able to hold the demons under their island at bay for much longer.  Beneath Mount Olympus, Apollo has entered a ‘dreamless sleep’ in preparation for their trip to Oblivion (they have a giant boat waiting for them on the River Styx).  Athena acknowledges that their fate rests in Diana’s hands.  A news broadcast shows us that military conflict is growing around the Earth, and that Steve Trevor is still being hunted for murder.  At Julia’s winter home, Diana treats Etta’s wounds; apparently she was surprised to see Michaelis and slipped and bumped her head.  Michaelis is there to help Trevor.  Diana reminds Julia (she’s only speaking Greek again) about the talisman, and we learn that Michaelis speaks some Greek.  Etta pulls out the Project: Ares file.  Deimos holds the other half of the talisman, and maneuvers American and Soviet troops into position to fight one another.  Julia figures out the talisman, drawing a picture that resembles a vulture, based on a geometric pattern found on the talisman.  Diana checks on the others, who are all sleeping, and is surprised to see that the map where Trevor was plotting key places based on Etta’s file contains the exact same shape.  General Tolliver leads an assault on an American military installation.  Diana’s group figures out that every place on Trevor’s map represents a nuclear facility.  Michaelis calls General Hillary, and while they talk, they learn what Tolliver’s done.  Trevor wants to go stop him, and Diana, who suddenly speaks very clear English, says that by putting the talisman against a mirror, she should be able to travel to the other half of it, which in turn will lead her to Ares.  Everyone insists on coming along, and they gear up with the small arsenal that Michaelis keeps in his trunk.  Diana touches the talisman to the mirror, and transports them to Ares’s domain, where Deimos waits for them.  He has a number of snakes growing out of his body that attack Diana.  The others open fire on Deimos.  Phobos decides to make them see and fight their greatest fears (Michaelis is afraid of cats?).  Diana helps her new friends, while they shoot at Phobos.  Diana finds herself wrapped up in thin snakes coming from Deimos’s beard, and has no choice but to throw her very sharp tiara through them, beheading Deimos (this has implications for Diana’s hair, I would think).  With Deimos dead, she grabs the other half of the talisman (Phobos runs away), and they join the pieces.  They are teleported into the military base that General Tolliver has taken control of; he’s been expecting them.  He points to the nearby missile silo, inside of which Ares appears.
• We learn from the news that things are looking dark, as both America and the Soviet Union have had missile silos taken over by followers of Ares.  Diana and her new friends aren’t sure what to do in the face of General Tolliver and his troops.  Ares talks about how the conflict that’s about to begin will make him the most powerful of the gods.  Michaelis has the others hand out gas grenades.  As Tolliver enters a secure room to fire a missile, Diana springs into action, and the others set off the grenades.  Diana is held up by the soldiers, but Trevor makes it into the control room.  When Diana tries to rip open the locked door, she is hit by something like lightning and disappears.  Trevor tries to stop Tolliver from turning a key, and has to shoot him dead.  Tolliver comes back to life, even though he appears to be burning, and tries to stop Trevor.  In a space of complete blackness, Ares confronts Diana, showing her how close he is to being victorious.  He shows her Paradise Island, where the trees and plants are dying, and where the Amazons are starting to age rapidly.  Phillipus tries to buoy Hippolyte’s spirits.  Diana tries to attack Ares, but he’s too much for her.  She manages to strike him with the amulet she got from Harmonia, and that makes him more angry.  He starts to burn Diana in flames.  Etta, Julia, and Michaelis are attacked by the soldiers they just killed.  Artemis despairs that Diana has failed, and Persephone insists it’s time for the gods to depart, but Athena still has hope.  Diana gets the idea to try attacking Ares with her lasso, and when she wraps it around his torso, it forces him to look inward.  He sees that the wars he’s trying to start will destroy the Earth, leaving him without worshippers, which will kill him.  Coming to his senses, he takes back the talisman, and decides to restore balance.  The dead General Tolliver gets past Trevor and turns the key to launch the nuke, but nothing happens.  Tolliver collapses and dies.  Ares tells Diana that the same has happened to his equal in the Soviet Union.  Ares tells Diana she should save mankind from itself, and sends her back to Earth before disappearing himself.  General Hillary’s forces have made it to Etta and the others.  Michaelis is dead, having given his life to save Julia and Etta.  Trevor joins the General, carrying the unconscious Diana in his arms.

• The gods rejoice as Olympus is restored.  Zeus declares a feast, and admits to Athena that she was right about the Amazons.  Athena lets her know that Diana is gravely injured, and Hera gets jealous when Zeus shows interest in Diana’s well-being.  On Themyscira, the Amazons bathe Diana in a healing lake.  The gods watch this, and Pan makes some objectionable comments about the island of women that Hermes takes him to task for.  Zeus summons Poseidon and Aeolus to help.  Diana sinks into the water, drawn down to its depths by Poseidon, who has the Nereides help heal her.  Hippolyte and the others worry, but then see Diana fly into the sky, fully restored.  Zeus appears in the clouds and speaks to them, which makes Menalippe nervous.  Artemis shares her concern that Zeus might become too interested in the Amazons to Athena, and they are joined by Hera who wants to support the Amazons.  Later, Diana talks to her mother about returning to “man’s world.”  Hippolyte doesn’t want her to leave, but Diana is committed to her mission.  Athena comes to them in the form of an owl, and leaves Diana with Hermes’s winged sandals, which would give her the ability to go back and forth from Paradise Island.  This makes Hippolyte agree to allow her to return, provided she follows certain conditions.  In Boston, doctors try to figure out how to help Vanessa, who continues to deteriorate.  General Hillary and Etta Candy are at the hospital, with the General trying to figure out what all really happened still. They hear an alarm, and see that Diana has returned, and is treating Vanessa with some herbs she brought with her, that are helping the girl.  Diana asks Etta to call Julia.  Julia is in her office at Harvard, where she receives a visit from Myndi Mayer, a very fancy publicist who wants to take on Diana as a client.  Julia has no time for her and kicks her out.  Julia arrives at the hospital and is happy to see her daughter completely restored.  General Hillary wants Diana to be debriefed, and Julia realizes that Diana is going to need some help so she doesn’t get railroaded.  She convinces the General to give them a little time, and then she takes Diana to meet Myndi Mayer, and they are surprised to see her dressed more casually.  She suggests Diana take on the name Diana Princess to separate her from the other Princess Diana, but our Diana rejects that.  We see that in a short amount of time, Mayer starts to make Diana very famous, arranging multiple magazine covers, and collecting some fees from her appearances.  General Hillary reports to the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon that he’s sent Trevor and Candy on separate missions to try to keep everything that happened with Tolliver quiet.  We see that Trevor is on a helicopter somewhere, thinking about his dead friend Michaelis and about Diana.  In a castle in England, a small African man named Chuma takes newspapers to his boss, Barbara Minerva, who wants to own Wonder Woman’s lasso.  She orders Chuma to prepare a potion for her so she can get the lasso by any means.  Chuma worries for Barbara’s mental health, as he gets ready to prepare the herb that turns her into the Cheetah.
• Much of issue eight is given over to long text pieces, in the form of journal entries or letters, accompanied by pictures, interspersed with some regular comics panels.  Julia writes in her journal about recent events with Diana.  These include the success of her PR campaign, leading to an address to the United Nations.  During the Legends event, when G. Gordon Godfrey began to speak out against superheroes, it caused problems for Julia.  Eventually, Diana connected with other members of the superhero community to end his evil plan.  She turned down their offer to join the reformed Justice League.  Julia and Diana went to meet with Colonel Michaelis’s widow, and Diana began to understand mortality.  We also learn that she’s been studying English and history, and has inspired Julia a lot.  Barbara Minerva and Chuma fly from England to Boston, with Barbara worrying about the state of her plant, which is in baggage, the whole way.  Etta Candy writes a letter to Steve Trevor, telling him about Diana’s meeting with some military brass, where she showed them how powerful she is.  It made Diana uncomfortable.  Barbara arrives at the Boston airport, is rude to the airline staff, and dismissive of Tam, the guy who comes to pick her and Chuma up.  Vanessa writes in her diary about getting to know Diana better, and being able to tell all her friends about going flying with her.  The boy she likes shows interest in her, and after Diana gives a very inspirational talk at her school, Vanessa and the boy, Barry, get into a fight with some kids who have made a photo of Diana look dirty.  Chuma tosses Tam when he condescends to him too much, and then later, prepares some sort of ritual.  Myndi Mayer writes to Julia about the appearance tour she took Diana on, which got her on many talk shows, and an audience with the President.  Wonder Woman mania has hit the States (Myndi even licensed her likeness to DC Comics), but it’s taken a toll on Diana, especially after various religious leaders got on her case for her pagan beliefs.  Myndi passes on a letter to Julia from Barbara Minerva, thinking it would interest Diana.  As we read the letter, it’s split with comics panels that show the discovery of Tam’s body, drained of its blood.  The letter from Barbara to Diana talks about how she believes she has the other of Gaea’s girdles, and a possible lead on the whereabouts of Antiope and the Amazons that broke from Hippolyte’s groups thousands of years before.  As the issue ends, we see a cat-like figure running across the rooftops, framed by a reddish moon.

• Chuma performs a ritual that involves taking some blood from Barbara Minerva and offering it to the plant they’ve brought with them.  Myndi comes out to Julia’s summer house (so, like, does she own three homes, all close to Boston, on a Professor’s salary?) to get Diana for her meeting with Barabar Minerva.  Julia registers that she doesn’t trust Minerva, but they go anyway.  Diana is excited to see the girdle that Minerva has, and when they are let into her suite by Chuma, Minerva immediately asks to see Diana’s lasso.  She tries to take the lasso with her to go retrieve the girdle, but because it compels people to tell the truth, she admits that she doesn’t own the girdle.  Diana is upset that she was tricked, and storms off, flying away.  Later, Myndi talks to Vanessa on the phone, wanting her to pass on messages about their business to Diana.  Julia works to calm Diana down.  That night, Chuma and Minerva prepare for another ritual.  Chuma puts together a concoction for Minerva to drink, while she puts on some specific makeup.  Once she drinks the potion, she turns into Cheetah, and heads off to get Diana’s lasso from her.  Steve Trevor calls Etta Candy to tell her that he’s not returning even though his mission is complete; instead, he wants to go see his father, who is dying.  Etta offers to come with him.  Cheetah continues her hunt.  Vanessa worries that Diana hasn’t come inside, but Julia tells her not to worry; they hear an animal outside.  Diana is sitting under a tree, dozing with a raccoon in her lap, which senses Cheetah’s presence just before she attacks.  Cheetah uses her incredibly long and prehensile tail to try to choke Diana and throw her into a tree.  They begin to fight, with Diana not understanding why, for a couple of pages.  Diana ends up with her lasso around Cheetah, but Diana gets knocked to the ground.  Cheetah is mid-pounce when Julia shoots her with a rifle.  Cheetah falls into the river close by, and disappears.  Diana even dives into this incredibly deep river to look for her, but can’t find her.  After a few days, Myndi’s assistant calls to tell her that Diana is leaving to return to Paradise Island.  Myndi is not happy, as she has appearances booked.  Diana, Julia, and Vanessa say goodbye to one another, and it’s pretty emotional for all of them.  Diana has Hermes’s sandals on, and flies off into the sky, disappearing.
• On Mount Olympus, Pan keeps pushing Zeus to think about visiting the Amazons, and Zeus starts talking about having his way with Diana.  The other gods don’t like this thought, and Artemis schemes to get Hera and Athena to help protect Diana from him.  Diana rides around Paradise Island with Euboea, talking about the things she learned in the US.  A court of Amazons meet to look at the things that Diana brought back with her, and they generally believe they have little to learn from them.  Acantha wonders at the similarities between Diana’s garb and the American flag, but Hippolyte decides none of it matters, as she intends to have Diana stay with them.  Menalippe feels that danger is coming.  Zeus speaks to Diana from the heavens, and calls her to him (while Hippolyte feels alarmed).  Zeus tells Diana that he wants her to worship him through “communion of the flesh”, but Diana kind of lectures him about consent, and he gets angry and zaps her with red lightning.  Hippolyte yells from below, offering to take her daughter’s place, but that makes him more angry.  Hera somehow pulls Zeus back to Mt. Olympus.  Diana is fine, but worried she has doomed them all.  Later, Diana considers going to the gods, but Hippolyte does not want that to happen.  Diana is summoned to Mount Olympus, where Zeus declares that Diana has to complete a challenge.  She’s to go to the Demon Lair, the locked cavern under Paradise Island as a first task, and then all the other gods are to give her more tasks.  Failing them will doom all the Amazons.  Later, Hippolyte is upset and also a little upstaged by her daughter, but Diana insists on doing what she’s been told to do.  She puts on some armor and gets some weapons, and then approaches the massive seal that holds the horrors within.  With her incredible strength, she is able to pull the gate open a little and slips inside.  She finds a long staircase descending down, and is attacked by Cottus, the last of the Hecatoncheires, a multi-limbed being of shadow.  Diana is able to defeat it, and then falls into a deeper level of the caverns.  She flies over a lake of lava, and is attacked by the seven-headed Hydra.

• The gods speculate on whether or not Diana will survive her trials, while our hero continues to fight the Hydra.  She knows that cutting off its heads is futile, so she instead starts bringing the ceiling down on it.  She wraps it in her lasso so that its belly is exposed, and fires arrows into its heart, killing it.  As it dies, flames engulf it, but Diana needs to recover her lasso.  The Hydra explodes, and she is slammed into the rocks.  Morpheus decides to let her sleep to recover her strength.  Steve Trevor and Etta Candy arrive in Oklahoma, and are greeted by Steve’s cousin, who lets him know that his father died while he was en route.  Hippolyte frets about Diana, and wonders if Zeus has gone mad.  A vulture appears and stares at her, convincing her she needs to act.  Her fellow Amazons see her riding off, and call for Philippus to come and stop her.  Diana wakes up and finds that she has to choose between two portals in front of her to continue her journey.  She sees some Amazons in pain through one portal, and then sees Julia caught in a large web and calling for help.  When Diana flies to her, she turns into Echidna, a snake with a woman’s body for a tail (or is the snake the woman’s tail?).  Hippolyte arrives at the entrance to the cave, looking to follow Diana, but Philippus trips her, and makes it clear that she will not let her pass.  With the vulture watching, the two women fight for a couple of pages, with the regretful Hippolyte coming out victorious.  She puts Philippus on her horse and sends her back to the city.  Pan watches this, and worries that his “truth” is close to being revealed.  Diana keeps fighting Echidna, killing the snake part and breaking the woman’s axe.  She defeats her, and dives down towards a pool of liquid light.  Once she’s in it, it turns completely black, and she has a vision of Steve Trevor’s airplane back when they first met.  Boreas, a wind god, blows her downwards, and she finds herself in water that she can breathe in.  She thinks she sees Trevor’s downed plane, and then Poseidon speaks to her, telling her he will wash away mystery and let her meet who she really is.  She finds herself on a perfectly dry sea floor, and approaches the plane, which is clearly much older than the one that Trevor flew.  A woman dressed like her speaks to her in English, revealing that she is the warrior Diana.
• Hippolyte manages to slip through the doorway into the caves to follow Diana, still led by her vulture guide.  She is attacked by birds, but fights them off by lighting some oil on fire and hurling it at them.  In Oklahoma, Steve Trevor says goodbye to his deceased father, whole Etta Candy looks at a picture of Steve’s mother, who died when he was very young, and learns she was named Diana.  Our Diana meets the new Diana who is dressed like her, and American Diana begins to explain her life story.  She was a pilot who worked for the US Air Force during the Second World War, where she met Ulysses Steven Trevor, and they had a child, the Steve that we know.  Pan is also wandering around this same underground, worried that his plans might fall apart.  He collects some of the Hydra’s teeth and buries them.  When Hippolyte reaches that same ground, the teeth emerge as human skeletons that attack her.  Steve tells Etta about how his mother became a transport pilot, and then Diana tells Diana about how she left him just before Christmas.  She was flying the first prototype of the Sabre jet, when she got caught in a bad storm and had to bail out.  Her parachute tore and she fell into the ocean, but was protected by the gods.  Hippolyte continues to fight the skeletons, finally defeating them.  She comes to the same two portals that Diana did, and is bothered by the wailing of the Pillar of Pallor until the vulture manages to quiet it, making it easier for her to think again.  She follows the vulture into one of the portals; we see Pan waiting in the other one.  Diana continues to explain how she found herself on a beautiful island and heard voices.  She came across the Amazons fighting Cottus as it attempted to leave the doorway.  It grabbed Menalippe, and was hurting Phillipus when Diana started to shoot at it.  It slipped back behind the seal, but took Menalippe with it.  Diana and Phillipus both entered the gateway to get her back.  Diana continued to shoot at it.  Steve’s father told him that his mother wasn’t returning.  Diana explains to Diana that she died, and then Hades appears to explain that Hippolyte and the others decided to honor her, making two sets of armor based on the flag and other items of clothing she had, cremating her body in one, and locking away the other, along with her pistol, for a future warrior.  Hades tells Diana (Sr.) that it’s time for her to move on, and we see that Steve’s father’s funeral is happening at the same time.  Diana tells Diana to use the knowledge she was given to guide her, and to help Steve.  Steve remembers feeling like his mother was watching over him as a child.  Hades takes Diana away to meet her husband again.  Alone again, our Diana flies around trying to figure out what she’s supposed to do next.  She hears music, and follows it to Pan, who tells her that her next challenge is to go to the Citadel of the Green Lanterns to help them fight the Manhunters (it’s Millennium crossover time).  Diana flies through the portal he opens, and we see that Pan calls her a fool for listening to him.  Hippolyte is attacked by Harpies, and gets knocked down into a deep pit.  She uses her axe to slow her fall, but when she swings it into a rock wall, the rock screams.  She recognizes a massive statue as Heracles.

• Hippolyte wants to understand what happened to Heracles, but is more concerned with Diana, so she moves on, finding herself in the lair of a sleeping Cyclops.  She wants to get past him without waking him, and her eyes are drawn by a skull with horns.  On Olympus, Zeus recognizes the skull as Pan’s, and realizes that he’s been tricked by an imposter (and since this is a Millennium tie-in, we can guess that means Pan is a Manhunter).  The gods fight, and Hera sends Hermes to get Diana from the place where Pan has sent her, which is the Green Lantern Corps’ Citadel (although it’s not clear why he’d want her to join the fight against the Manhunters).  Hermes pulls her away invisibly, sending her to Hippolyte.  The queen’s presence wakes up the Cyclops, Polyphemus, who is blind.  He’s about to eat her when Diana comes in and rescues her.  They fight, and she ties the giant to a pillar with her lasso.  Polyphemus begs the women to kill him, saying that the only thing he’s had to eat was Pan’s dead body, and that it’s made him sick ever since.  Hippolyte hears Heracles’s screams again, and goes to him, where she is attacked by flames.  The remaining monsters of the caverns, Echidna, the Minotaur, and the Chimera have Hippolyte.  Diana fights the Minotaur, gets blasted by the Chimera, and trapped in Echidna’s coils.  Hippolyte cuts off Echidna’s head, and Diana tosses the Minotaur across the chamber.  He gets grabbed by Polyphemus, who has freed himself.  As he tries to eat the Minotaur, the rock bridge they are on collapses, and they fall into a deep chasm.  Diana comforts Hippolyte, and wonders how Polyphemus got free.  They are joined by a much-transformed Harmonia, who explains that she freed the Cyclops, and guided Hippolyte as a vulture.  She’s normal and peaceful again, and says that the monsters of the caverns need to be transported to her father’s realm.  She gives Diana her lasso and her talisman.  They return to Heracles, where the Chimera is fighting the Harpies.  The gods wonder if Diana can complete her task now.  To learn what is going on, Diana wraps her lasso around Hippolyte and the massive stone Heracles.  Those two old enemies gain understanding of one another, and then the stone starts falling off of Heracles.  The creatures all turn into energy and start flying towards the gateway.  Diana rushes to get ahead of them, and then holds out the talisman for them to fly into.  While she does this, Paradise Island is rocked with tremors, but Diana manages to catch them all.  She finds herself in Ares’s realm, where the god insists that he become the caretaker of these creatures of destruction.  As much as Diana doesn’t trust him, she knows it’s right to leave them there.  Ares flies off with their power, leaving Diana with Harmonia.  Diana believes her tasks complete, but then Hermes turns up and tells her that he needs her to go back to “man’s world” to avenge Pan’s death.
• Diana finished up her involvement with the Manhunters in the Millennium miniseries (I should do a column on that soon, as it became my gateway to much of the DCU), and immediately headed back to the caverns to check on her mother.  Arriving there, she finds Heracles restored to his proper form, and holding all of Themyscira up over the collapsed Hippolyte.  He insists she get Hippolyte out of there, so Diana rushes her to the doorway, but then leaves her in the rubble with her tiara as a message to the assembled Themyscirans, before returning to help Heracles.  He still refuses her help, believing that he’s been punished by Zeus, but at that point, Zeus appears to them with the other gods, and explains that he is ready to recognize the worship of the Amazons, and frees Diana from her other tasks.  The Earth begins to hold up its own weight, freeing Heracles.  Diana grabs him and flies him out of the collapsing cavern.  The Amazons are shocked to see Diana standing before them with Heracles in her arms, and she explains that they are all free of their long task of guarding the door.  Hippolyte tells them to listen to Diana when she preaches that they are all at peace.  Heracles steps onto the island, the first male to ever do that, and asks for their forgiveness for how he acted in the past.  The Amazons embrace him, and in Olympus, Zeus apologizes to Hera for his mistakes in the past.  Aphrodite tells the other goddesses that their plans worked, and everyone rejoices except for Hermes, who mourns the death of Pan.  In Oklahoma, Etta talks to Steve in his aunt’s attic.  Steve decides to leave the Air Force, and when Etta declares her love for him, he tells her it’s returned, and they make out on the floor.  Hippolyte recovers on the Island of Healing, and talks to Phillipus about the fight they had.  Later, the Amazons hold a ceremony where they burn their armor and weapons (well, some of it, symbolically), and we see that Heracles is a welcome guest.  Later, Diana flies around while Hippolyte and Heracles speak in private on a river bank.  It’s clear that they’re into each other.  Heracles is ready to finally ascend to Olympus, and he leaves her.  Later still, in the Amazon Senate, there is a discussion of whether or not Diana should return to “man’s world.”  Diana wants to go back to preach peace, and surprisingly, Hippolyte agrees with her.  Later, Diana goes to the Temple of Hades to speak to a statue of the other Diana, and says goodbye to her mother there.  We see Diana, wearing Hermes’s sandals, return to the modern world.  She flies past the jet carrying Steve and Etta, and then passes Myndi’s apartment, where she’s in the process of seducing some guy.  At the Kapatelis’s house, Vanessa complains about blowing a circuit in her bedroom so Julia will come up, where she finds Diana waiting for her, asking if she can stay there.

So, I enjoyed this book, but found it tough going in places, and can understand why my younger self never had interest or patience for it.  

As part of the mid-80s mandate, Pérez had to streamline and modernize Diana’s story for the post-Crisis world.  He jettisoned a lot of the weirder parts of Wonder Woman’s history,  the invisible airplanes, purple rays, and battle kangaroos, and instead worked to place the Amazons in Greek Mythology in a logical and believable way.  I liked the notion that all of the Amazons were previously women who had been killed by men, making it easier for them to be a little more multicultural (although that basically just manifested in Phillipus, the only person of colour on Paradise Island).  The explanation that Hippolyte was pregnant when her first self was killed also helped explain Diana’s provenance.

This approach led to some problems though.  It basically negated Donna Troy, and years were spent helping make sense of that character’s place in the DCU (I mean, I assume they resolved it, I don’t even really know anymore).  It also meant that the earliest issues of this series had a lot of heavy lifting to do, as there was a lot of back story to explain, and that made things a little less than exciting.  

Truthfully, just about any time the gods got involved in the story, things ground to halt.  The final fight with Ares was cool, and the Cheetah issues worked, but much of the rest of this book is very slow-moving, and way too wordy, even for the standards of the day.  

I know that there is a long tradition of including Steve Trevor and Etta Candy in Diana’s comics, but their inclusion here often felt forced, as Diana needed a reason to be connected to the first Diana.  I was thankful that Pérez didn’t get Steve and Diana to hook up though, as he was portrayed as being too old from the beginning, and that kept worrying me.

Diana’s naivety and inexperience makes her more likeable than her prior incarnation.  I thought it was interesting to see how she became a bit of a celebrity, and I presume that will be explored a little more in future volumes, as she returns to America.  I did want to see more of her interacting with other heroes; those scenes representing Legends and Millennium were too short and glossed over.  

I do applaud the effort Pérez put into making this a strong example of feminist comics, with Diana continuing to surround herself with strong women in America like Julia and Myndi, who are both very different from one another.  The feminism in this book never hits you over the head, except perhaps when Zeus is around, and I feel like that probably made it effective in helping shape a lot of kids’ worldviews.

Pérez’s art is fantastic in this series.  I like how lush and detailed every page is, and enjoyed the liberty he took with giving Diana a wider wardrobe than just her regular outfit.  The armor looked very cool.  If I had a complaint, it’s that I often found it difficult to tell some of the Amazons and goddesses apart, without relying on them being named in dialogue.  There were a lot of characters in this book, and it must have been difficult to keep track of how they all looked; it was too hard for me.

One thing Pérez did here that I absolutely love is portray Mount Olympus as if it was designed by a neo-classical MC Escher.  Everyone exists at right angles to one another, and while I don’t know where they grow food or lay their heads, it made the place feel very otherworldly and special. 

These are classic comics, from what I will always think of as the overall best era in DC’s history.  I’m glad I finally got around to reading them properly, and am glad I’ve got two more volumes in the series on my shelf.  That’s next time.

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