The time has come at last! Every month this year, I've taken a look at one of Wonder Woman's Twelve Labors, twelve adventures she's underwent to prove her worthiness to rejoin the Justice League. Sadly, most of them have not been the most enjoyable comics I've ever read. Hopefully, this final issue will allow the Labors to end on a positive note. With that, let's take a look at Wonder Woman #222!
The cover is an Ernie Chan piece. I kind of like it. You got Batman standing next to an image of Wonder Woman hanging on to a Ferris wheel as she is kicking herself. The Dark Knight is asking us to help him decide which Wonder Woman is the real one. Why are you asking us, Bats? You're the detective! You figure it out!
"Will the Real Wonder Woman Please...Drop Dead!"
Writer: Martin Pasko
Penciler: Jose Delbo
Inker: Tex Blaisdell
Colorist: Unknown
Editor: Julius Schwartz
The story begins with Batman making one demand before he explains the mystery of the two Wonder Women.
It makes sense he'd want to have the entire JLA at the time together for this. After all, this is Wonder Woman's final labor. After the Dark Knight makes his report, the JLA will vote on whether Wonder Woman should be allowed to rejoin the JLA. I personally think this is a bit unnecessary. Anyway, what did the Caped Crusader observe? Well, he was taking his Bat-Plane to the United Nations. Diana had just returned from her adventure in the Catskills, and was about to deliver her report on it to her boss Tracy Morgan. However, it seemed someone had beaten her to the punch.
Huh. Evidently Diana has a twin sister that even she didn't know about. Anyway, she pursues her mysterious double and engages her. It turns out that the duplicate Diana is just as tough and has just as much skill in the martial arts as she does. While this is happening, someone is preparing a disaster.
The dupe Diana spots the plane about to hit the building, and switches to Wonder Woman...just like the real Diana would do. The fake Diana uses her lasso to whip herself onto the plane, knocking its wing downwards. The real Diana pursues with the same lasso trick. The fake Diana rips off the plane's door to get the pilot...only to find it was a dummy.
Wonder Woman decides that enough is enough. She's going to get the truth about who this imposter is, and she's going to do it with her magical lasso. She asks if the imposter is Diana Prince, and the fake Diana tells her she is not. The real Wonder Woman expected this, as that's how she would have answered the question. However, nobody can lie when they're under the lasso's power. Not even Wonder Woman herself.
The two Wonder Women tussle on the plane, until the dupe Diana is able to get control of Wondy's robot-plane. She tries to flee, and Diana follows her using the plane the two were fighting on. They end up on their way to...a theme park of all places.
Yes, Dazzleland! The Most Joyful Place on Earth! Dazzleland was the big dream of Wade Dazzle. Dazzle was a children's writer, who created some of the most popular fictional characters in the DCU: Jerry Gerbil and Harriet Hamster. He also created Mike Mallard, who is huge in Italy. I joke, but yeah. Dazle is basically a pastiche of Walt Disney. Wondy arrives and finds herself meeting Harriet Hamster, who is packing heat. Wondy isn't intimated. After all, Harriet is a short hamster whose gun looks morel like a gumball dispenser. She switches back to her Diana Prince guise and looks around the place.
She spots her double in an area of the park called "Disasterland". It includes rides that are based on the destruction of the Hindenburg and the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. Yeah, because that's what kids love, rides based on horrific disasters.
Anyway, Diana heads towards the Chicago Fire attraction. As part of the attraction, she has to put on a special "fireproof" suit. The ride is all special effects, the suit is just part of the illusion. She notices that she and one of the tour group has been brought away from the other. A green mist overcomes the two, and Wondy witnesses a real-life horror of the theme park.
Much like what'll happen to Barry Allen in about a decade, the man crumbles to dust. Wonder Woman then hears a voice inviting her to come visit, and all will be explained. Batman was able to catch up with her, but she ends up disintegrating as well. Diana is turned into vapor, and rematerializes in front of what seems like Wade Dazzle himself, standing in front of a curtain. However, the park has one final secret.
Remember how I said earlier that Wade Dazzle was a pastiche of Walt Disney? Well, this is a nod to an urban legend regarding Disney. The legend said that after he died of lung cancer in 1966, he was cryogenically frozen. In actuality, Walt Disney was cremated after he died. Anyway, it's explained that Dazzle had contracted a disease that medical science could not cure yet, so he was frozen until a cure could be found.
Thing is, the machinery needed to keep Dazzle in suspended animation needs a special fuel to work: The life forces of other people. People are chosen at random in the park, and their life forces are drained to keep the machine going. This energy is also used to create duplicates of the victims so that nobody notices that anyone is missing, so what does that have to do with Wonder Woman? Well, Wonder Woman is immortal. As such, she has a infinite amount of life forces that can be tapped by the cryogenic machinery used to keep Dazzle alive.
The machine begins to tap into Diana's life force, but she's able to use her lasso to break free in a rather...explosive matter.
The explosion wrecks the machinery used to keep Dazzle alive. Diana escapes and engages her duplicate. The duplicate Dazzle tries to use the Mt. Vesuvius ride's lava to kill Diana. The "lava" used there contains a powerful acid that is used to dispose of the remains of the victims of Dazzle's life-draining device. He realizes that the dupe Wondy will die as well...and the Dazzle dupe can't let that happen. She was one of his creations, and she shouldn't die for anything Wondy did. He calls to her to get out of there. The real Wonder Woman weaves her lasso into a screen to protect herself, but the two duplicates are not so lucky, being reduced to yellow blobs.
She spots Batman, who explains that Wade Dazzle was already dead. How does he know this? He's Batman, the Mary Sue of the DC Universe, that's how. The two look over the schematics of the bio-duplicates and note that they were designed to imitate people to the pint that they even can imitate human bodily functions. The Crisis Bureau will have to figure out a way to detect and track them down.
Back in the present day, Wonder Woman realizes that since the duplicate was the one that battled Chronos in Wonder Woman #220, she only actually completed 11 labors, not twelve. Batman suggests that since the duplicate did such a perfect job imitating Wondy, it be counted anyway, rendering this whole duplicate thing utterly pointless.
The votes are cast, and Wonder Woman is readmitted into the JLA. And there was much rejoicing.
Agh, I hate to say this. I really do. But this issue made Wonder Woman's Twelve Labors end with a whimper, not a bang. And that's sad. What irked me the most about this issue was the whole thing with the duplicate Wonder Woman revealed to have done one of the Labors. What was the point of that if the JLA were just going to count it anyway? It felt like incompleted editing. I did get a good laugh out of the whole Dazzleland thing. It's kind of hilarious that a theme park that's meant to be a pastiche of a place that is supposed to be "family-friendly" would have rides and exhibits based on horrific disasters. I wonder if there was a "Sink in the Titanic" ride in Dazzleland.
The biggest positive of the issue is the art. Jose Delbo does some good work here. I really like it.
The Labors themselves are, in my opinion, not Wonder Woman at her best. I think the biggest problem they had was the rotating creative team. This storyline had four writers on it and seven pencilers. It made the overarching story feel very uneven. I think if the Twelve Labors would have been a lot better if there was a constant creative team. There was potential to make a really good epic story here. Shame it turned out the way it did.
I do get the impression from this that Wonder Woman's book was not really seen as a high-priority book for DC at the time. Which is kind of sad and baffling, considering her significance as one of the first female superheroes, and her increased presence in pop culture thanks to the TV show.
I would only recommend the Twelve Labors if you're a hardcore Wonder Woman fan, or have a nostalgic connection to these stories. If you want to read this for yourself, I recommend checking out the 2012 trade paperback Wonder Woman: The Twelve Labors. Thanks for reading this blog entry! If you liked it, show it off! Take care of yourselves, and each other! Stay safe, stay healthy, stay home, wash your hands often, and wear a mask! Join me next time when we look at the first issue of a cosmic superhero...
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