Monday, August 22, 2005

My first Wonder Woman

It wasn't my first comic, and possibly not even my first DC, but the earliest memory I have of Wonder Woman is reading a story in which she grows to giant size, eats a huge pizza, and gets fired off into space tied to a rocket. I'm not sure how old I was, but even then I remember wondering what happened to all the food she had eaten when she shrank back to normal size.

It was Wonder Woman v1 #136 and after many years (not that many. It was old when I first read it) I finally got to read it again today. I was surprised when I saw the cover, as it rang no bells at all. Which is odd, because it's quite memorable. Far from accentuating her giant size, the composition of the cover showing her stuck between two skyscrapers makes it look more like she is being eaten by a giant alligator-like mouth.

The elements I recall are all there; WW growing to giant size, the huge pizza, and the rocket ride. But I had completely forgotten about the robot aliens that caused the problem and their planned invasion. Not to mention the stilted "wear a seatbelt" message page where WW catches a car that is overturning and tells the kids inside that it wasn't her who saved them, it was their seatbelts. In point of fact it is an open top car and if WW hadn't have caught it the occupants would have all been crushed when it landed upside down, seatbelts or not. But that's just nitpicking.

Some stories are timeless. I enjoyed it at the age of 8 and I enjoyed it again today. Because it's a big, exciting, very silly story where everything comes right in the end. We could do with a few more like this now.

1 comment:

Scipio said...

"Uh, thanks, Wonder Woman... think you can put our car down rightside up BEFORE you start lecturing?"

Love WW, but she has always been SO preachy!