It has been a great year for Wonder Woman! Beyond her killer film, DC Comics featured the princess in three team-ups with complimentary heroes. Thankfully, Zak Snyder couldn’t screw them up.
First is the a team-up we could only have in our dreams. The Adam West Batman and the Lynda Carter Wonder Woman join forces during three different eras in this six-issue miniseries. Three eras? Yes. The overall story arc involves R’as al Ghul appearing in Gotham City during the Forties, Sixties and Seventies.
In the first period, Bruce is a kid when his parents host an auction that attracts the Nazis and Ra’s al Ghul. Both villains are trying to collect two books about the ancient world (where’s Paradise Island, the Spear of Destiny, etc.) and they’ll do anything to get them. Observing the auction are members of America’s intelligence agencies with an undercover Wonder Woman in tow. When the villains resort to violence after a very wealthy Gotham book lover outbids everybody, Wonder Woman and the young Bruce work together to stop the Nazis. Unfortunately Ra’s al Ghul escapes with one tome.
They team up again during Batman’s prime in the Sixties to stop Ra’s al Ghul after he steals the second book. Deducing where Ra’s will go next, Batman, Robin and Catwoman fly to Paradise Island to warn Wonder Woman about Ra’s al Ghul’s upcoming invasion. The heroes succeed in driving back the trespassers but realize too late they were caught in a diversion due to the wily Ra’s real objective.
In the finale, Wonder Woman returns to Gotham City during disco’s heyday because Ra’s al Ghul’s organization has come out of hiding. All her leads say there’s something hidden within the city her immortal nemesis is looking for. Sadly, Batman has retired and wants no involvement. Wonder Woman then teams up with Batman’s successors, Nightwing (formerly Robin) and Batwoman (formerly Batgirl). In the end, Batman cannot resist a good mystery so he joins later for what may be their final confrontation with Ra’s al Ghul.
As a Batman fan, in all his incarnations, and someone who saw Wonder Woman the first time it aired on ABC/CBS, I loved how the writer/art team integrated these television franchises together. They captured the silliness (Bat Jet, Robin’s quips) while mixing in the core backstory elements, like young Bruce stumbling into the bat cave which would become his HQ. Extrapolating the Sixties Batman into the Seventies was my favorite touch: Nightwing’s big collar, an updated Batmobile (a Trans Am) and how some common villains are tweaked for the gaudy decade. Oh yeah, another factor you’ll notice that the author insisted on having the artist do…changing Catwoman’s appearance without an explanation. This is definitely a trade paperback all audiences will enjoy since it doesn’t require everyone to know all the characters’ histories.
This labor of love highlights TV’s two biggest female action stars while I was growing up in the Seventies. When Wonder Woman switched from ABC to CBS, the setting was changed from WWII to the modern era with Wonder Woman being an ally of the IADC. The stories were similar to the Sci-Fi/Espionage plots of The Bionic Woman and The Six Million Dollar Man so this team-up is highly plausible. I found myself loving this slightly more than the Batman ’66 story because every major enemy of both heroines combine forces to conquer Paradise Island; they want to harvest all of the Amazons’ magic metal femium. This confederation of evil has the Fembots, Nazis (Captain Radl), Dr. Cyber and the Toymaker. Wonder Girl and Max the bionic dog play major roles in the final act.
If you’re not familiar with Jaime Sommers, fear not. The story doesn’t require any serious knowledge about her background.
The final team up I was confident about due to the author being the very talented Gail Simone. She found a plausible way to bring enough parity between Diana’s superhero-level powers and Conan just being a very experienced-skilled human; using the old amnesia story line, thus Wonder Woman can’t tap into all of her abilities.
So during the Hyborean Age, Conan encounters Diana as a fellow prisoner/contestant in an arena-style fighting match. She’s highly skilled warrior with little recollection of who she is though. Conan thinks Diana was a girl he once met when he was about 10 during some inter-tribal negotiation, but there’s no time to really ponder it since both of them manage to escape their enslavement and go on the run. This mini-series is only half over and given Conan’s gruff nature, I doubt he’ll fall in love with Diana yet he will always hold her in high regard for her fighting prowess.