All-New Collectors’ Edition #C-541978 (October 13, 1977) $2.00
Cover Art: Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez (Penciller), Dan Adkins (Inker), signed
“Superman Vs. Wonder Woman” 72 pages
Joe Orlando (Editor), Gerry Conway (Writer), Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez (Penciller), Dan Adkins (Inker), Gaspar Saladino (Letterer), Jerry Serpe (Colorist)
FC: Superman and Wonder Woman
SC: Hippolyte, Maj. Steve Trevor
SA: Albert Einstein, Admiral Chester Nimitz, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Henry L. Stimson
Villain: Baron Blitzkreig
Reintro: Lois Lane
Reintro: Perry White
Intro: Sumo the Super Samurai (true name unknown)
Intro: The false Zwerg (true name unknown), see the second Bad Guys note below
Intro: The Enlightened One (true name unknown), Sumo's instructor in the martial arts, in flashback
SynopsisIn a memo to President Roosevelt, Secretary of War Stimson recommends that the facts behind a battle between Superman and Wonder Woman on June 11, 1942, be classified Top Secret.
It is June 10. Japanese fighters attack American naval forces recovering from the Battle of Midway. Superman, in the Pacific theater as Clark Kent to cover the recent battle, discovers the planes are piloted by robots, freeing him to use his full strength against them. He destroys the squadron and captures a Japanese submarine observing the conflict. Superman takes its captain to meet Admiral Nimitz. They learn that the attack was a diversion to allow a second sub to deliver a special agent to Mexico. That agent's mission: to “join in a joint German-Japanese plot to disrupt something code-named… the Manhattan Project.” Nimitz contacts Stimson, who orders Superman to Washington immediately.
On the White House lawn earlier that same day, Wonder Woman rescues a noted physicist and his FBI bodyguard from a squad of “human bombs,” Nazi-controlled zombies wired to explode. The Amazing Amazon deals with the assassins, then follows the mysterious sedan watching the attack. The trail leads to Grand Central Station in New York where our heroine prevents the murder of Albert Einstein. Later, as Diana Prince, she learns that according to Military Intelligence neither assault ever happened. A quick check of the files tells her the FBI agent she saved is assigned to the mysterious Manhattan Project.
On the Pacific coast of Mexico at dawn of the following day, Baron Blitzkrieg and his dwarfish aide Zwerg greet a new ally, a costumed Japanese giant code-named Sumo. The hulking samurai, calling on special hypnotic powers, forces a captive American scientist to disclose everything he knows about the Manhattan Project. Blitzkrieg proposes to steal both sections of the project's model atomic reactor from the government labs at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and Los Alamos, New Mexico.
Her suspicions aroused, Wonder Woman uses Diana's military credentials ― and a convenient blown fuse ― to gain access to the Manhattan Project files. Horrified to learn that the United States is building an atomic bomb, she flies to Paradise Island to consult with Queen Hippolyte.
An hour later, word reaches the offices of
The Daily Planet of Wonder Woman on a rampage in Chicago. Investigating, Superman finds Princess Diana literally tearing a building apart in her search for the experimental nuclear reactor hidden beneath the University of Chicago campus. Though sympathetic to Wonder Woman's qualms about atomic weapons, the Action Ace cannot let her compromise the Allied war effort. Since a battle in the heart of a city would wreak untold havoc, he suggests they “settle [their] disagreement” with “a trial by combat” on more suitable terrain.
Sumo and Baron Blitzkrieg attack America's atomic research facilities, the former attacking Los Alamos, the latter Oak Ridge. Meanwhile on the moon, Superman and Wonder Woman discover the ruins of an ancient, apparently alien city in the Tycho crater… ruins that glow with radioactivity. As the heroes continue their fight, the villains use their powers to bulldoze their way through the facilities' defenses. They seize the two halves of the model reactor and steal away into the night. Desperate to attract Superman's attention, the government orders America's cities to turn their lights on and off in a carefully orchestrated SOS pattern. The ploy works and the duo start back for Earth.
Returning to his Mexican hideaway, Blitzkrieg is outraged to learn that Sumo has disappeared.
Secretary Stimson briefs the super-heroes on the theft of the model reactor, warning them that the device is highly unstable and will in all likelihood explode when activated. Setting aside her reservations about atomic weapons for the time being, Wonder Woman agrees to help Superman track down the thieves and recover the model.
With the aid of special Geiger counters, the Amazing Amazon follows one radiation trail to the Japanese island of Honshu while Superman follows the other to a restaurant in the French Quarter of New Orleans. Confronting Sumo in Yamaguchi, Wonder Woman finds herself hard-pressed to overcome the titanic samurai's superpowers, derived from a “sacred potion of power” given him by his sensei, the Enlightened One. Simultaneously in the Big Easy, the Man of Tomorrow struggles to defeat Baron Blitzkrieg. It is only by exerting their awesome super-strength to the utmost that the super-heroes overcome their Axis adversaries. Once Blitzkrieg is down for the count, his aide reveals that he is actually an American agent substituted by the OSS “months ago” after their capture of the real Zwerg.
The super-heroes rendezvous on an uninhabited Pacific island. As they renew their debate about the wisdom of America's atomic research program, Baron Blitzkrieg regains consciousness and seizes the model reactor. Using his psychic powers, he activates it. Determined that Germany should not have the secret of atomic energy all to itself, Sumo jumps Blitzkrieg. Superman scans the reactor with his x-ray vision, hoping to figure out how to shut it off. Instead, the sudden burst of radiation triggers the mechanism. Our heroes escape the resultant atomic explosion by mere seconds but the super-villains, refusing to believe the heroes' frantic warnings, are consumed.
The following morning, FDR personally assures Wonder Woman that “the United States will never use an atomic bomb as an actual weapon of war” but, as she warns Superman privately, “Even if Pandora never had opened her box, someday someone would. Once the forbidden box exists, it must be opened … and once the demons escape, they can never be recaptured.”
Behind the ScenesLike the Earth-Two Wonder Woman's Bronze Age series running concurrently in
Wonder Woman and
World's Finest Comics, the story in this issue conforms to a continuity that blends elements of the Golden Age and TV versions of the character.
CosmologyNo origin is given for the Tycho Crater ruins in this issue, although Wonder Woman speculates that the city was destroyed in an atomic war.
ContinuityThe story in this issue takes place on June 10-12, 1942. Because Sumo dies from radiation poisoning in the final issue of the story arc that runs through
Wonder Woman #233-241, also said to be set in June of '42, this story must take place before that sequence.
The Good GuysSuperman is shown flying throughout this issue, contradicting his appearances in the “Justice Society of America” stories in the Bronze Age issues of
All-Star Comics, where he travels in gigantic leaps.
Superman displays full awareness of his Kryptonian heritage in this story. In the Golden Age, he did not learn his planet of origin until
Superman #61 (November-December 1949).
Superman states in this issue that “nothing short of a volcanic explosion can even stun [me],” confirming that the Kryptonians of the Earth-Two dimension are less powerful than their Earth-One counterparts (who can literally bathe in the hearts of stars).
Because Lois Lane and Perry White appeared in “Superman” stories throughout the 1930s, '40s, '50s and '60s, there is no point at which it can be authoritatively said that the characters segue from their Golden Age incarnations to their Silver Age personas. It is therefore impossible to pinpoint the exact title and issue number of the Earth-Two versions' last appearances.
The Bad GuysIt is established in this issue that Baron Blitzkrieg can only use one of his super-powers ― strength, speed, invulnerability, heat vision ― at a time.
The real Zwerg makes no appearance in this story.
Points to PonderThe events of this story explain Wonder Woman's comments about atomic energy in
Wonder Woman #232, as mentioned in the first Points to Ponder note for that issue.
Although Wonder Woman states that the lights on both coasts of the United States are blinking an SOS, the art shows the lights stretching across the nation's southern border and up the Eastern seaboard.
