Wonder Woman #217 (May 1975)

It's that time again! It's time to join DC's resident Amazing Amazon as she undergoes her Twelve Labors! Last month, we joined Black Canary as she chronicled Wonder Woman's stopping a billionaire from stepping foot on her home island. Now, the chronicling duties go to Green Arrow, as he introduces us to a mind-bending story of madness! Let's look at Wonder Woman #217!

The cover is a Mike Grell piece, and it's pretty cool. The main event is the villain of the story himself trying to drown Wonder Woman in a bowl of...pudding? Water? And Ollie of course has to make a bad joke about Wondy being in the soup. Time and place, Arrow. There's also a couple of teases for backup tales that I can't look at because they weren't collected in the trade. The one with Wonder Woman fighting a pterodactyl looks cool.

"The Day Time Broke Loose!"
Writer: Elliot S! Maggin
Penciler: Dick Dillin
Inker: Vince Colletta
Colorist: Unknown
Letterer: Unknown
Editor: Julius Schwartz

The story begins with Oliver Queen, the Green Arrow, seemingly going nuts.

He witnessed Wonder Woman's latest labor...and he's wondering if that was all nothing more than a hallucination prompted by madness. Let's hear his tale and find out, shall we?

It started with a visit. Ollie Queen went down to the UN, where Diana was attending a general assembly in her civilian identity. He spots the Amazon getting a note from a messenger. The Emerald Archer follows her, only to find...

"Whaddaya mean Wondy couldn't tell that was a cosplayer?!" Yeah. Somehow there are two Green Arrows. However, this other Green Arrow makes a mistake. He believes that Diana Prince is actually Supergirl, and he wants her to save some people from a volcano. A confused Diana watches him take out a rubber-tipped arrow. He wants Diana to melt it with her heat vision to show she's the Girl of Steel. However, Diana can't, because she's not Supergirl, so she does not have heat vision.

To her surprise, the rubber on the arrow seemingly melts itself, "Green Arrow" claiming that she did it with her heat vision. Yeah, Diana should just judo chop this guy right now.

A confused Diana uses her lasso to quick-change into Wonder Woman, but she's not the only one doing the whole 'quick-change' act today.

Yup, Diana should have judo-chopped that guy. The imposter Green Arrow switches into a cop disguise and tells Diana that he saw "Green Arrow" running down the hall. Ollie had tried to follow Diana and "Green Arrow" on another elevator, but he found himself seemingly brought through time to the era of knights and dragons: The Medieval Age.

"Huh. I didn't know they were filming a new Robin Hood movie here."

The knights shoot at Ollie with their crossbows, but the archer notices that one of them is talking like a stereotypical Western cowboy. It turns out that Ollie wasn't transported through time, just trapped in an illusion. Everyone on the floor Ollie ended up on is also trapped. They were the knights Ollie was fighting. The scene shifts to pirate ships, to Ancient Rome, even the Old West! Ollie ends up falling out of the building and just narrowly ends up becoming the Green Street Pizza.

Diana sees the diplomats and employees brawling in the halls, and she realizes that there's only one vile villain behind this insanity.

Meet the Duke of Deception! He's one of Wondy's oldest, and arguably Wonder Woman's very first supervillain, first appearing all the way back in Wonder Woman #2 (Fall 1942). The Duke is a demigod who's whole specialty is, naturally, deceit, manipulation, and deception. He pulls off his lies with the aid of his ability to create realistic illusions. The Duke often worked under Ares. Considering his links to him, he can be arguably considered the DC Universe's version of Dolos, Greco-Roman myth's embodiment of guile and trickery.

Ollie witnesses Wonder Woman leaping out of the building and using her lasso to get herself to her Invisible Jet. He goes back inside the building, I have no idea why, but finds himself in prehistoric times as a caveman facing a mammoth. The Duke of Deception reveals himself to Diana, bragging that his powers had grown since they last faced off.

Meanwhile, Ollie fights the giant mammoth, only to realize he was still in the United Nations' lobby, and he shot a giant timepiece. Diana heads to the top floor of the UN building, as the Duke said he'd meet her there. And his illusion powers ensured that he'd have some imaginary guests meeting her.

Gotta hand it to the Duke of Deception, man knows how to set a scene. Diana catches the Duke with her lasso. She uses it to make the Duke dispel his illusions. However, the Duke is well-aware of the Amazon's magic lasso and its abilities, so in a bit of clever misdirection, he reveals that the "Duke" that Wondy caught with her lasso was an illusion.

The real Duke was disguised as one of the monsters, and he manages to take advantage of Diana's distraction by grabbing her lasso and tying her hands together. At time, Wonder Woman had this big weakness: she would lose her powers if her wrists were bound by a man. Meanwhile, Ollie had changed out of his Green Arrow costume and back into his civilian togs when he finds himself in a Roman-style Colosseum-esque arena, and Wondy chained up.

Somewhere, William Moulton Marston is smiling.

The Arrow is in a cage alongside Tracy Morgan (Diana's boss at the Crisis Bureau), and several ambassadors. The Duke of Deception has invited them to a special occasion: The Execution of Wonder Woman. He creates an illusion of Robin Hood's Merry Men, who stand in a circle around Wondy, and aim their bows. Unusually, Wonder Woman is able to easily block the arrows with her bracelets and leap out of the archers' circle.

"But wait a minute!" You may ask. "Doesn't Wonder Woman lose her powers if her wrists are bound by a man?" Well, yes. But the whole 'bullets-and-bracelets' think could be argued is more of a skill than an actual superpower. Her bracelets are indestructible, and her wrists being bound don't change that. I can imagine that Wonder Woman can still keep her powers if she's bound by her own lasso. She tries to catch him again, but uses his misdirection powers to escape again. The Duke decides that if a firing squad won't work, he'll try another tactic.

"The Duke's been binging Grey's Anatomy again."

So, how does ol' Dukey plan to finish off the Amazing Amazon? Well, he plans to cut her open with a scalpel. You see, the Duke's illusions can be very convincing. They can even fool Wonder Woman herself. He's literally going to use mind-over-matter to make Wonder Woman die. Wonder Woman decides, "Hey, this guy likes to play mind games? Well, so can I!"

She tells him he's doing this to overcompensate. The Duke had failed as Ares's lackey in the past, and this whole thing is just him trying to get back in the God of War's good graces. He tells Wondy to shut up, but her words clearly got to him. His concentration fades, allowing Diana to escape. The Duke tries to flee, but Wonder Woman is able to catch him with her lasso. Third time's the charm, indeed.

It's then we learn exactly what the Duke was up to. You see, he was hoping to use his illusion powers to drive the delegates insane to hopefully plunge the world into war. He hoped this would make Mars bow down to him. Guess Wondy was more dead-on than she thought. The Amazon is naturally infuriated as a world war is rather devastating. We've seen that twice. So, she takes him...somewhere. She doesn't say exactly where, she just says she's taking him somewhere where Aphrodite can deal with him. I have no idea.

It's then we flash forward to the present. What was going on with Ollie Queen? Well, Batman had put him under hypnosis as a security measure. It was a way to prove that Ollie was not the Duke of Deception disguising himself. If he was lying about being Ollie Queen, then he would have been discovered to have been lying by a polygraph. Uh, Bruce? Polygraphs have not been shown to be the best way to detect whether someone is lying. And the Duke of Deception's whole schtick is being able to lie and manipulate. He of all beings could beat a polygraph test!

To me, this is one of the better stories here. Like issue #216, I felt there was some real potential here. A villain with the power to create very convincing illusions, in an influential place like the United Nations, who plans to use said powers to cause World War III? That's some scary stuff. I did think the whole bit with Green Arrow being put under hypnosis was a bit...strange. I get what it was going for, but it felt a bit...off to me. I can't really explain it.

Also, I have to say that that this is the first time I've read a comic with the Duke of Deception, and to be honest...I think he's a villain with some real potential. I'm surprised the character hasn't made a major reappearance in Wondy's books over the last few years, considering his whole thing is lies and fakery. I mean, considering what's been going on the last few years, now would be a great time to revive the character.

Dick Dillin does some good art here. However, I have noticed over the course of this storyline was that there have been multiple artists on the book. Don't get me wrong, some good artists have worked on the Labors. Curt Swan, John Rosenberger, Irv Novick...I just wonder why they couldn't keep a consistent artist for this. It would have helped the Labors get some visual consistency. Did DC really not care about Wondy's book that much in the early 1970s? This was probably just before the TV series started up, so maybe better times were ahead for Wondy in the books. I don't know.

If you want to read this one for yourself, I suggest hunting down the 2012 trade paperback Wonder Woman: The Twelve Labors. Thanks for reading this blog entry! If you liked it, show it to your friends and loved ones! Take care of yourselves, and each other. Stay safe, stay healthy, stay home, and wash your hands often! Join me next time, as in honor of Pride Month, we look at a comic that delves a bit into the past of one of Marvel's preeminent gay characters...