It's that time again! It's time to join Wonder Woman as she goes another one of her Twelve Labors! Last time, the Elongated Man monitored as Wonder Woman prevented . It...was not a great story in my opinion.
The cover is a Dick Giordano piece, and it's pretty good. It shows Chronos gloating over Wonder Woman getting restrained through some clock arms. I also liked the
"The Man Who Wiped Out Time"
Writer: Martin Pasko
Penciler: Dick Giordano
Inker: Dick Giordano,
Letterer: Unknown
Colorist: Unknown
Editor: Julius Schwartz
The story begins at the Justice League Satellite, located 22,300 miles above the Earth. The ductile crime-solver Ralph "Elongated Man" Dibny, and the robotic wind machine John "Red Tornado" Smith. The two notice that a carrier pigeon has come to the space station by teleporter. Ralph realizes that Hawkman must be reporting in. You see, back in the Silver and Bronze Ages, Hawkman could communicate with birds. Ralph realizes that Hawkman won the race.
Red Tornado is confused by this. Did the League taking up racing pigeons? Well, that would be hilarious, but no. You see, in the last issue, Superman flipped a coin in the air to determine who would monitor what would be Wonder Woman's tenth trial: Hawkman or the Atom. However, the coin decided to beat some odds...
I think Superman used a trick coin by mistake. Hawkman has an idea. He and the Atom both keep an eye out for Wonder Woman's next adventure. Whoever reaches it first, get to monitor it. Ralph discovers a very small note attached to the bird...made of gum wrappers. He then realizes that this report isn't from Hawkman, but the Atom. It's here we learn of Diana's latest adventure.
Diana is returning from an adventure she had in the Catskill Mountains in New York. That's a story for next month. She arrives at the UN's Secretariat Building, and realizes that she's due for the annual medical exam that all UN personnel go under. She races up two flights of stairs to the doctor's office. Tracy Morgan notices this and goes to see her. He sees the doctor check her heartbeat, and it's a normal 70 bpm (beats per minute). This is essentially Morgan's face.
Yeah. Diana ran up two flights of stairs. Her heart should be pounding from the exertion.
No, not like that. Diana just tells him that she must be in great shape. However, Diana reveals in her thought balloon that as an Amazon, her heartbeat always stays constant, regardless of physical exertion. So, how does an Amazon's body deal with the increased demand for blood during physical activities? Maybe it's because they're somewhat magical beings? I don't know. Anyway, the doctor starts to examine the next patient, when...
It's weird. It's like it just...vanished from the doctor's wrist. He's not the only one. Ray Palmer is in New York City, and he turns on the news. He's not going to let Hawkman beat him to finding a crisis to monitor. Instead, he finds himself watching a game show. Wasn't it supposed to be time for the news? Ray checks his watch, and finds that it's gone. And that's not the only timepiece to go missing. The game show's clock has vanished, too. Ray goes to a phone, dialing the operator for the time. It was the 1970s, after all. The number he called no longer works. Looks like he beat Hawkman to finding a crisis after all.
Back at the UN, chaos has erupted. Nobody seems to know what time it is. Diana switches to her Wonder Woman togs, and looks over some monitors. The entire UN building has gone bananas. Watches, clocks, anything that can be used to tell the time has vanished. Today, that would include phones and smartwatches. Luckily, Diana is the Star-Spangled Woman with a Plan. She glides out of the building. Yeah, back in the Silver and Bronze Ages, Wonder Woman couldn't fly. She had to glide on air currents. She takes her magic lasso and wraps it around the UN building.
She commands everyone inside the building to freeze. But this is a temporary solution, and a much bigger problem is afoot. The entire city is breaking out in riots and traffic jams. Diana can't confine all of Manhattan Island in her lasso, so she'll have to use a new gadget she's been working on. She's been modifying her Invisible Jet's mental radio to have a telepathic public address system. She uses it to contact everyone on the island to calm people down. Diana succeeds, so it looks like her new modification is working perfectly.
Wonder Woman realizes that she needs to provide the city a way to tell the time. She can build a big clock for them, but how could she ensure that it told the proper time? Well, remember earlier when Diana thought about how an Amazon's heartbeat always remained constant? Diana knows how many beats her heart makes per minute, and she can use that to calculate the time.
She flies off in her Invisible Jet and notices a building still has its giant clock. Didn't all the devices that could tell time in the city vanish? So, what is this clock still doing here? Why don't we ask this guy?
Meet Chronos! Appropriate that the Atom is monitoring this adventure, as the time-themed villain is one of his rogues. Wonder Woman and the self-proclaimed "Time Thief" had crossed paths before, in Justice League of America #21 (August 1963). The time-obsessed villain is floating on a flying sundial that somehow makes him invisible. He uses the flying sundial's gnomon to knock Wondy's plane out of the sky.
The Amazing Amazon tries to use her lasso to catch the plane. Chronos throws her a rope.
He did this because he wanted to taunt the Amazing Amazon. He reveals to her that he developed a device that can literally destroy time, and he's hidden it inside a time-themed landmark in Manhattan. True to his gimmick, the rope is actually a rope-clock, that counts down the minutes until it burns away. Once it does, Wondy starts to fall. Before it did, Diana managed to get her plane on the Secretariat Building's roof. She then used her lasso to swing onto the roof. Which is rather awesome.
(awesome)
There's still one question remaining. How is Chronos doing this? Well, we have to go back a bit and join one David Clinton. He was appointed the new assistant curator of the Knickerbocker University Museum of Clocks and Watches. It's not a real place.
David Clinton is Chronos's civilian identity, by the way. He puts on a pair of protective contact lenses, and activates a small device he calls a "Time-Perception Banisher". It makes people think clocks have vanished. But they're actually still there. It's just people can't see them. This is how Chronos "stole time". It's all just a big illusion.
(magic)
He also somehow managed to slap a giant bubble-shield that caused all of Manhattan Island to suffer from the Banisher's effect. The shield also blots out the sun, so they can't even use that to tell the time. We get a bit more of an in-depth look at the chaos of the "lost time". Workers are confused when lunch breaks are, or even when they go to work. Trains are arriving at the wrong time, even Julius Schwartz can't get comics out.
Chronos is watching the madness from within his flying sundial. I can imagine he wishes he had some popcorn and soda to enjoy the show. Wonder Woman heads to Grand Central Station. It's a giant clock landmark, and Wondy hopes that the device is there. However, the clock reaches out to give her a hug.
The hands of the clock grab Wondy, but she's able to get her arms free...and take the clock with it. Oops. She uses her lasso to avoid getting people crushed by the giant clock. The Amazing Amazon uses an improvised net between two lampposts with her magic lasso to fully free herself from the clock. Wonder Woman continues investigating every clock she can find, until it hits her. Where is the device?
Before she can head to where she figured the Banisher is, Chronos attacks. He tries to hit Wondy with a hourglass containing special sand. It's "reverse quicksand", trying to trap the Amazon royal. She spins it off her. Some of the sand hits Chronos's face, knocking out his special protective contact lenses. Thanks to the Banisher, he can't see his clock-themed weapons. Oops.
With a toss of her tiara, Diana takes down the flying sundial. But where was the Banisher? You see, when Chronos said it was in a "time landmark", he was being literal. He meant something that marked the land...like a signpost indicating Times Square. She rips open a lamppost, finds the Banisher, and crushes it. And with that, time has returned to Manhattan Island.
Later, Diana is back in her civilian togs, meeting with Tracy Morgan. Morgan notes that every time that he sends her on an assignment, Wonder Woman is involved. He wants to know why that is. Diana states that's not true. She gives him her report of her assignment in the Catskills. Remember, that was mentioned earlier. And Wonder Woman is not mentioned in the report. Curious...
Back at the Justice League Satellite, Green Arrow, Flash, and Superman have arrived for a meeting. So has the Atom. He noticed that Hawkman isn't here, which means he won the race to monitor Wondy's next adventure. But then the Winged Warrior does show up, stating that he did monitor Wonder Woman's tenth trial. Wait, if the Atom was monitoring Diana in Manhattan...and Hawkman was monitoring her in the Catskills...then that means there were two Wonder Women running around! One of them has to be an impostor! Well, maybe next month, we'll get to find out...
I admit, I enjoyed this issue a lot more than the last one. It was neat seeing Wonder Woman fighting a supervillain that's not a regular part of her rogues gallery. I did find it funny that the comic said that Chronos "stole" time because technically...he didn't. He just stopped people from being able to tell what time it is. That's not quite "stealing" time. This story has a bit of a Silver Age feel to it, which does make some sense. I also quite liked Giordano's art. I'm not sure why.
If you want to read this for yourself, I recommen
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