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Today, we look at the writer who explained a decades old comic book that seemed to suggest that Wonder Woman wasn’t interested in helping out kids with disabilities.
This is “Provide Some Answers,” which is a feature where long unresolved plot points are eventually resolved.
A little while ago, I wrote about the interesting All-Star Comics #27.
According to Roy Thomas’ All-Star Companion from TwoMorrows, the National Institute for the Handicapped had requested that All-American Comics (and then National, when National purchased All-American Comics) do an issue about handicapped people due to all of the United States servicemen who were returning home from the war with newfound disabilities.
DC gladly complied with the request, but then the United States decided to do “National Employ of the Physically Handicapped week” in the fall of 1945 (here’s the transcript of the legislative order, “the That hereafter the first week in October of each year shall be designated as National Employ of the Physically Handicapped week. During said week, appropriate ceremonies are to be held throughout the Nation, the purpose of which will be to enlist public support for and interest in the employment of otherwise qualified but physically handicapped workers”) and so National was asked to push the story up so that it could run in the Fall of 1945 and the issue debuted in November of 1945, with the other issues being pushed back accordingly.
The issue was a well-meaning, if a bit strange, comic book, about a former star quarterback who always pitied his younger brother, who was confined to a wheelchair, but after he lost an arm during the war, he found himself receiving pity and realize how he had treated his brother, so he asked the Justice Society to help some handicapped children feel better about themselves…
The Justice Society did so by taking the kids on crime patrols with them, which seems kind of dangerous, but again, I guess it’s the thought that counts.
The funny thing that I pointed out at the time, though, is that while Wonder Woman is present when the Justice Society agree to help out the kids, she does not go on any of the missions with the handicapped kids. When the team returns later in the issue, she is still nowhere to be seen…
There are two reasons for her absence. One was “outside” the comic and the other was explained decades later in an issue of Wonder Woman!
WONDER WOMAN’S HISTORY WITH THE JUSTICE SOCIETY
Wonder Woman actually made her comic book debut in All-Star Comics #8, but it was a separate story that was basically a preview of her regular feature in the then-soon-to-launch Sensation Comics #1…
However, three issues later, Wonder Woman showed up in an official Justice Society story in All-Star Comics #11…
Wonder Woman would then become the Justice Society of America’s secretary (ooooph, I know). But here’s the weird thing. As you may or may not know, All-Star Comics was originally an anthology series the same as any of DC’s anthologies, but the big twist here came in All-Star Comics #3 when Gardner Fox came up with a framing sequence for the stories that they were all part of the Justice Society of America and that their solo stories were all part of a bigger narrative. That became the format for many years going forward, the book would have a framing sequence with the whole team and then the team would split up and each of the heroes would get solo stories (almost always written by Fox, with art by different artists). Well, when Wonder Woman first showed up, she got a solo story in All-Star Comics #11…
But after that, she only has a single solo story in All-Star Comics #13 between #11 and All-Star Comics #27, so that is why Wonder Woman didn’t get her own story with a handicapped kid. She wasn’t getting solo stories, period! She was a popular character at the time, so it could be that she was TOO popular to merit her own feature in the series. I have no real idea why she didn’t get a feature, honestly.
But that’s the “outside” reason why Wonder Woman didn’t help a handicapped kid. Now on to the “inside” reason!
WHAT HAPPENED TO WONDER WOMAN WHEN WORLD WAR II ENDED?
In All Star Comics #8, William Marston and H.G. Peter had American pilot Steve Trevor crash land on Paradise Island and Aphrodite and Athena tell the Amazons that they have to go help out America…
It’s funny, Americans in 1941 were already pretty confident in the idea of American exceptionalism, but it is still pretty funny to see a comic book story involving the gods outright stating so explicitly.
Queen Hippolyta’s daughter competes to be the “Wonder Woman” to help represent the Amazons in America and she is the ultimate victor and Hippolyta reveals that she has designed a costume to be worn in America for the Wonder Woman…
Hippolyta doesn’t explicitly say “I worked in the American flag to the design because of, you know, America,” but I think that that was implied.
However, what was to happen when World War II was OVER?
Jack C. Harris addressed the issue in Wonder Woman #242 (by Harris, Jose Delbo and Joe Giella), where Wonder Woman confronts her mother about the fact that her mission is ostensibly “over”…
but Wonder Woman is not prepared to leave Man’s World and she, well, just doesn’t!
However, we learn in the next issue (inks now by Frank Chiaramonte) that Wonder Woman and her mother have worked out a deal where Wonder Woman could stay in Man’s World after World War II was over, but she had to help Paradise Island when asked and, sure enough, one of those times she wasn’t available was All-Star Comics #27!
Too funny. Thirty years later she got a note from her mother!
If anyone else has a suggestion for a comic book plot that got resolved after a few years (I tend to use two years as the minimum, as otherwise, you’re probably just in the middle of the actual initial reveal of the storyline, ya know? But I’ll allow exceptions where a new writer takes over a storyline and has to resolve the previous writer’s unresolved plots), drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!
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