But that was last month. This month, we're going to join the Scarlet Speedster as he takes over chronicling duty. He's going to regale us with the tale of the robot that caused the end of war. Will it be better than the last issue? Let's find out as I look at Wonder Woman #213!
The cover is pretty neat. A Bob Oksner piece, it depicts a mob trying to stop Wonder Woman from stopping a strange robot from smashing a house into the ground. A house with a woman trapped inside it. The Flash is holding up the image like it's a painting or a giant blown-up photograph, saying the world has gone mad...and he's going to explain how. The cover is very Silver Age, with the Flash talkin to the viewer. I like it.
"The War-No-More Machine"
Writer: Cary Bates
Penciler: Irv Novick
Inker: Tex Blaisdell
Colorist: Unknown
Letterer: Unknown
Editor: Julius Schwartz
The story begins with Barry Allen, aka the Flash, racing across the countryside.
He's heading to a tape recorder so he can make his report about Wonder Woman's second labor. His report will tell the tale of Wondy and two regular humans as they stand up against a crazy machine. It was a dark and stormy afternoon in New York City. However, this night would give rise to one of the craziest cosmic coincidences ever.
On this day, Diana Prince would bump her foot on the sidewalk on the way to her new job at the UN's Crisis Bureau. A graduate student named Angie Blake would get a splinter in her finger as she was participating at a protest. A gangster named Marty Tragg (No relation to Arthur Tragg from Perry Mason) ends up crashing his car into a lamppost after it skidded on the rain-slicked pavement. At that very same moment, a robot lands on Earth thousands of miles away, and it starts emitting unearthly radiation.
A couple of days later, Diana is summoned to the Crisis Bureau. Something big has gone down. A massive outbreak...of peace.
No joke. Everyone's suddenly gotten...peaceful. Diana doesn't see an issue with it at first. After all, isn't world peace a good thing? However, this peace...is problematic. This was a peace forced on people. It's fine for people to not want to fight, but...
As shown here in this panel, having no aggression can cause problems, too. Brazilian farmers run away from locusts. In Japan, a martial arts exhibition ended in disaster because the fighters refused to fight. And the Inuit in the Arctic won't hunt for food. Yeah. It's too peaceful. A Dr. Hans Krissen is flying into Kennedy for a strategy meeting, and Diana goes to meet his plane.
Up above the airport, Krissen's plane is getting skyjacked. The man responsible? One Martin Tragg. He points his gun at the pilots, and they're so frightened that they won't even grab the plane's controls, causing it to go out of control and dive. Diana spots the plane while on the freeway, and summons her invisible plane. The plane drops some smoke down on the freeway, allowing Diana to change into Wonder Woman. She joins her plane, and uses her magic lasso to bring the plane to a safe landing.
Diana is able to stop Tragg, and get Krissen. It's odd, because with everyone forced to be super-pacisifistic, Tragg should not have been able to even hold up the plane. He's somehow immune to the forced peace. Why him, some random guy? Krissen and Diana arrive at the UN Plaza, where Angie Blake is still protesting war. Uh, Angie? Have you been watching the news lately? Anyway, after Krissen arrives and starts the meeting, Diana heads off to Paradise Island.
She believes she might find some answers to why she and Tragg are immune to the peace wave at the Amazons' home. It's there that she finds a beast called a Rhinotaur on the rampage.
The Amazons, normally fierce warriors when the time calls for it, show their own lack of immunity to the forced peace. They're panicked, and terrified of the beast. Wonder Woman tries to stop the bizarre beast with her lasso, but the Rhinotaur sends her tumbling into a column. She then grapples with the Rhinotaur, forcing it down into the ocean...where it turns out salt water is able to calm it. Huh.
Hopefully it knows how to swim. With that crisis solved, Diana heads to an ancient temple on the island. Contained within was the Magic Sphere, a gift from the goddess Athena given to Diana's mom Hippolyta eons ago. The sphere was evidently some kind of ancient artifact...that looks more like a washing machine.
Seriously. It looks like the Amazons use it to do their laundry! The sphere's power may have dulled with age, but hopefully it can still help Diana get the answers she needs.
Two days pass. Marty Tragg finds himself released from jail. Man, the justice system works quick in the DCU. The failed skyjacker finds himself in the custody of Wonder Woman. Hey, it could be worse, Marty. She also picks up Angie Blake. The Amazing Amazon then takes the two to a hill in New Jersey. She wants them to gaze into the Magic Sphere. The sphere shows that recently, a robot had landed in the middle of the Grand Canyon in Arizona.
Upon landing, the robot started emitting waves of energy that reached across the world. This is the cause of the crazy peace everyone's been feeling lately. So, why were Diana, Marty, and Angie unaffected? Well, at that moment, there was a thunderstorm in New York, and all three of them were near a freak lightning bolt that hit the street. Marty theorizes that the electricity in the lightning bolt interfered with the robot's energy waves.
Marty's half-right. It wasn't just the electricity. Remember earlier in the story? Marty crashed and hit his head. Angie got a splinter from a sign she was holding. Diana stubbed her toe on the sidewalk. It was the pain they felt combined with the electrical exposure that made them immune. Marty points out that if the Magic Sphere could reveal the cause of this mess, then it could show how to stop it. However, the Sphere's power has faded over the years, so it can't. How convenient.
Diana needs their help to stop the robot causing this. They both refuse. Angie is a pacifist, and Marty feels he doesn't owe the world anything. Also keep in mind this. Marty's a gangster. He's probably the last criminal left on Earth. He can literally do whatever he wants and nobody will be able to stop him. Not even Superman. So, I can see why he'd refuse to help from that angle.
Angie, though...I would find it more understandable if she said that she's reluctant to do this because in way, this is what she wanted. No war. No violence. She wanted peace. Then Wonder Woman can convince her that this peace is false, and that it's causing harm to people because they have zero aggression whatsoever.
Anyway, Diana is desperate, so she uses her magic lasso to compel them to help her. The three head to the Grand Canyon, where they find the robot. When they arrive, Wonder Woman tells them to stay with her robot plane. If she can't stop this thing, they'll take the plane and warn the world.
...What good will that do?! Thanks to this robot, people are literally TOO AFRAID TO FIGHT! THERE ARE ONLY THREE PEOPLE IN THE ENTIRE WORLD THAT HAVE THEIR MINDS FREE! Anyway, Wonder Woman tries to engage the robot...and it goes well.
 |
| "Just because I create pacifism, does not mean I am a pacifist!" |
The robot is about to stomp Diana's face into Wonder Hamburger. Luckily, Tragg and Blake somehow manage to shake off Diana's mind control lasso, grab said lasso, and use it to trip up the robot. Barry notes the irony of a violent criminal and a pacifist working together. The distraction allows Diana to dig herself out of the ground. The two civilians toss her the lasso, and she gets to work. Diana loops the lasso around the robot, knocking it down.
With that, the three celebrate like they were friends. Barry Allen disassembles the robot, and Wonder Woman then makes like the Third Doctor and reverses the polarity of the robot's peace-making device. And everything is back to normal.
As Barry Allen recounts the case to a recorder, he adds that Diana discovered a message in the robot. It's from the creator, a scientist whose world was ravaged by a massive nuclear war. The scientist created and sent the robot to another world, hoping it would save another world from the terrible fate of their own. The scientist's intentions were noble, but if humanity is to truly ever get world peace, they're going to have to work at it. He's also looking forward to learning about Wonder Woman's next labor, which will be monitored by the Hal Jordan Green Lantern.
This issue... was significantly less stupid than the last one. It still was pretty dumb, though. There were a lot of moments that made me ask plenty of questions. Like Angie Blake, for example. Why was she still protesting war when there was no more war? I would have liked to see more interaction between Wondy and her new allies. Tragg's violent nature and Angie's pacifism would have made for some very interesting character interplay. There was potential there.
I actually think the idea of Wonder Woman facing a robot that forced peace on people was actually rather cool. The robot was a great foil to Wondy in a way. Diana wants to bring about peace on Earth as well, but her way is through inspiring others and being a negotiator. The robot doe it through subjugation, making people so pacifistic that they can't even defend themselves. That's pretty scary when you think about it.
Irv Novick turns in some fine artwork. It's wonderful to look at, and it does contribute to the very Silver Age feel of the story. At this point, comics had entered the Bronze Age. As such, the story feels like a bit of a throwback.
This issue was better than the last one, but it's still pretty goofy. If you want to read it for yourself, I recommend that you hunt down the 2012 trade paperback Wonder Woman: The Twelve Labors. Thanks for reading this blog entry! If you liked it, spread it around! See you next time, where we look at a hidden sequel to a classic Marvel miniseries...
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