Today, see how a single Wonder Woman writer somehow came up with two different dates when Wonder Woman loses all of her powers each year.
This is “I’ve Been Here Before,” a feature that deals with a term that I coined called “nepotistic continuity,” which refers to the way that comic book writers sometimes bring back minor characters that they themselves created in the past as characters in their later work (we’re talking after a break of at least two years or so). This is not an insult, it’s just interesting to note it when it occurs.
Okay, this is funny, since just yesterday, on June 18th, I did an article about how Robert Kanigher wrote an issue of Wonder Woman where Wonder Woman lost her powers on June 18th. Today is June 19th, and reader Sharon K. wrote in to let me know that Kanigher had actually DONE that plot before, only it was June 19th the first time around!
HOW JUNE 19TH WAS BAD NEWS FOR WONDER WOMAN
As a quick recap from last time around, Robert Kanigher was a longtime DC writer and editor who had the longest stint as the writer of Wonder Woman of anyone who ever wrote the Amazin’ Amazon. He took over the character from Joye Hummel, who had been the assistant to Wonder Woman co-creator William Marston. Hummel had taken over writing the character under Marston’s name when Marston grew too ill to write it himself. Once Marston died, though, that setup was no longer viable, and so Kanigher (who was nominally the assistant editor on the series under Sheldon Mayer, but in practice, Kanigher was the real editor of the book) assigned the book to himself and he wrote it for the next 22 years, and he actually then RETURNED to the book after the famous revamp that took place in 1968 sort of fizzled out, so Kanigher was allowed to return and drop all of those revamped plots (which he did in the most aggressive way possible. He literally had the editor who was doing the book before he returned murdered by a maniac with a gun at the start of his first issue back).
As I noted last time, Kanigher wasn’t about to mess with a good thing, so he kept the Wonder Woman stories MOSTLY the same as what Marston and Hummel were doing throughout the rest of the 1940s and most of the 1950s (I think Kanigher’s Wonder Woman wasn’t quite as good as Marston/Hummel and Hummel, in particular, had a sort of sense of wonder that Kanigher did not), but then things changed when Wonder Woman’s other co-creator, H.G. Peter, finally decided to retire in 1958 after 18 years on the strip (sadly, Peter died soon after he retired). Ross Andru and Mike Esposito, a popular art team that had worked with Kanigher on a number of war stories, took over the series and Kanigher finally started to really revamp the series. He literally just restarted the series with Wonder Woman #98, redoing the origin and everything for a new generation of readers to go with the new art team.
One of the innovations that Kanigher introduced (although perhaps it was Andru’s idea?) was to turn Wonder Woman’s invisible plane into an invisible JET to better suit the cultural zeitgeist of the era. As I wrote last time, Kanigher was a big believer in just coming up with story ideas and not caring whether they were consistent or not. He naturally felt that if the sales stayed up, then he was doing his job. As a result, though, Kanigher also would go back to the same general well a lot. For instance, in 1959, Wonder Woman fought against giants at LEAST three-four times and fought against an exact double of herself (Kanigher had her fight specifically ROBOT duplicates of herself at least three times).
So let’s keep that in mind with March 1959’s Wonder Woman #106 (by Kanigher, Andru and Esposito), where it turns June 19th and Diana Prince can’t remember why that is an important date for her…
It really doesn’t speak to Wonder Woman’s competence that well that she literally forgot the one day all year that her powers stop working, right?
We first see Wonder Woman in action, and it’s weird, since Kanigher seems to think that Wonder Woman’s bracelets, tiara and lasso are, like, REALLY important to her. They obviously ARE important, but she has plenty of awesome abilities outside of her weapons…
So a giant comes from another dimension and Wonder Woman is shocked to remember why June 19th was such a bad time for her…
So Wonder Woman becomes a living charm bracelet back in the giant’s dimension as a gift for his girlfriend. Wonder Woman hopes that enough time passed, so she challenges the giant to a contest…
Wonder Woman does a great job hanging in the contest without her powers and special weapons, but luckily, her powers and weapons return to work right during the last task of the contest, to see who can return a fired arrow first…
Luckily, things worked out well for Wonder Woman this time…
However, that wouldn’t be the last time she had this problem!
THEN JUNE 18TH WAS A PROBLEM YEARS LATER
Literally nine years later, in Wonder Woman #176 (by Kanigher, Irv Novick and Mike Esposito), we learn that Wonder Woman, for some inexplicable reason, does not have her superpowers on June 18th. I have no idea why, especially since so many of her abilities are just part of her being an Amazon, so do all Amazons lose their abilities for a day or is a Wonder Woman-specific thing? Is it a curse? Is it magic? What in the world IS the point of this whole thing?
Wonder Woman tries to still fight crime without her powers and it does not go well (why would she think it WOULD?)…
But luckily, her powers return in the end. Really, just read my piece on that issue to learn more about it.
As I noted in that piece, no one followed up on that weakness for Wonder Woman, but I guess there’s still time!
In any event, Sharon also noted that Julius Schwartz, Robert Kanigher’s longtime friend and fellow editor at DC, was born on June 19, 1915. Kanigher? June 18th. So that explains why June 18th and June 19th, but as to why Kanigher wanted Wonder Woman powerless on his birthday…well…I’d prefer not to think about that too deeply.
Thanks so much to Sharon K. for the info behind this article! If anyone else has a suggestion for a future I’ve Been Here Before, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!