Golden Age Hokum
Out of the realm of completely random reviews comes a review of Wonder Woman (volume 1) issue 93. There are three main stories and two side stories. The main stories are cute but don't necessarily show their age that well. In the first Diana's mother has disappeared and is presumed dead and so she returns to Paradise Island to take over her rule. If Diana gets completely dressed in the queen's attire she will become queen and even if Hippolyta returns they won't be able to reverse it. But every time Diana puts on a separate piece of the required costume something else interfers with it and she ends up battling a Roc (a giant bird of prey), a shark and some mermen before she eventually finds and rescues her mother. In the second story Diana returns to New York City but an invading fleet of Martians (led by Duke Deception) have plans to shrink the entire planet (starting with Manhattan) in order to conquer it. Diana somehow uses lightning bolts bouncing off the Empire State Building to foil their plan. In the third story Diana uses her powers to convince a young boy to do good. The comic is unusual as it depicts Diana having the ability of super breath which she doesn't often exhibit. The backup stories are kind of just filler. One is about a poorly planned family vacation from the perspective of a dog, and the other is a short romatic tale (which reminded me of a one page Archie comic.) There was also an interesting page encouraging women to enter the field of nursing because women were now accepted as nurses. Kind of an anachronism seeing as now in a lot of industrialized countires that more women than men are graduating to become doctors. Still at the time I suppose it was a valuable statement, and women didn't get to where we are today overnight. Overall the issue is definite Golden Age material, it was fun to read, but you would never think that this is the hero that would go on to break Maxwell Lord's neck.