Chapter Nine: …Stop a Bullet Cold…

Place: Offices of DC Comics, New York City

Year: 1986

"Perez," said asked Schwartz, "you said that because Diana left Paradise Island for Steve, she never got all her strength back after he died. Here in your story, however, she's over Steve and broke her chains. She's beaten her kryptonite. Perez, are you going to make her stronger?"

"I most certainly hope so! For years now, we've said that if an Amazon is bound by a man she becomes no stronger than any woman in this man ruled world." The writer raised an eyebrow at that. "Marston actually had Diana say that back in the Golden Age. Now, that does obliquely address sexism but it also implies that women without superpowers—and in our world, that's all of them—are useless. Breaking the chains using mortal strength sends a message; every woman can be a Wonder Woman."

Young Turks, they never think these things out, thought Schwartz. "George," he chuckled, "aren't you thereby undermining your own premise by giving our girl even more superpowers."

He felt himself blush. "Yeah, there is that but…" He stopped to think for a moment. "But, inasmuch that Wonder Woman is a symbol her new superpowers symbolize the strength of women."

Schwartz smiled. Clever boy.

Buoyed by the editor's look of approval, Perez continued. "When it comes to who's the strongest superheroine, fans'll often say Supergirl or She-Hulk and that's alright. They are both inspired by the two strongest heroes so it only stands to reason that they'd have the same relative power level; however much stronger Superman or the Hulk are than an ordinary man, Kara and Jennifer are that much stronger than an ordinary women. Ultimately, however, this is just wrong. Supergirl and She-Hulk should be strong but no superheroine should be stronger than Wonder Woman. In changing this however, it need not be arbitrary.

"I've mentioned O'Neil's Wonder Woman stories earlier but this will be somewhat more specific. In 1968, he killed Steve and robbed Diana of her strength thus ushering in the I Ching era with our heroine as globetrotting secret agent."

Perez saw the new Batman editor groan. "Aw c'mon Denny, it wasn't that bad. There were some good stories there that we can use and if there were some lemons, we'll just use them to make lemonade."

"How?"

"Like this. Diana's beaten her mental block when she broke the chains and stopped Ares in the big fight I just talked about, right? Well a while later we see her in a car with Etta when the tire blows. They get out of the car and Etta goes to change the tire while Diana holds up the car… but when she picks it up, the car rockets up into the sky until it disappears. It ultimately crashes with no casualties but needing some explanation."

O'Neil pricked his ears at that.

"She's shocked by this sudden spike in her strength but that's not the end of it. Diana goes jogging… and she accelerates, going faster and faster. When she finally stops, she's catching her breath in Pakistan. Later, she asks Etta if she looks ok and Etta says yeah. 'Maybe I haven't seen you eat all day, but why?' Diana responds that she hasn't eaten in the last month. She hasn't had anything to drink, she hasn't slept, she hasn't even breathed and she feels fine! And then she finds herself walking on air, just a few inches off the ground; she practices cartwheels, hovering, spinning sideways like a wheel. And before anyone asks, yes, she can ride on air current but she can't fly. Not until now at least.

"See what I mean Denny?"

O'Neil laughed. "You make good lemonade!"

"You ain't seen nothing yet," boasted Perez. "But, back to the story. She wants answers and goes to her mother, asking the mind controlling Queen Hippolyta if there's some other secret she withheld. Hippolyta admits she deserves that but says that this time at least, she innocent. She even wraps herself in the Lasso to prove she's telling the truth. Wanting answers, Diana goes to the temple and prays to Aphrodite. The goddess of love appears to her granddaughter and tells her that Gaea's blessing is upon her."

With that, many of the DC writers there look confused. Roy Thomas in particular scoured his brain. Gaea, where have I heard that name? Somewhere in Bulfinch's Mythology but—"Now I remember!" he whispered. "George," he said in a normal voice, "while we've all heard of Zeus and Hercules, some among us haven't done much more research into Greek mythology. More detail please?"

"Gladly. She is Zeus' grandmother and, along with son/husband Uranus, the first of the gods. The Earth Mother and her son the Sky Father had many children such as the Cyclopes and the hundred handed giants. On seeing the freaks conceived by his incest, however, Uranus chained them in the underworld; since Gaea is the Earth itself, he in effect shoved them back into their mutual mother's womb when they were born. Crying for her children, she armed one of her more beautiful sons, Chronus, with an adamantine sickle to overthrow his brother. Alas, he proved no better than his father in this respect with how he tried to kill his own son Zeus. He failed of course. Greek myth portrayed Gaea as the oldest surviving god and seemingly the most powerful, though of course Zeus held the second role officially. It should be noted that she was in constant conflict with the patriarchal Zeus and that a version of Chronus already exists in the DCU as I showed in Teen Titans.

"Diana, of course, already knows this; she was raised from birth to be the champion of the gods. What she didn't know until told by her grandmother Aphrodite was that the clay from which she was formed was a pound of flesh that Gaea gave up. That was because she had hoped to create the ultimate champion in Diana, one greater than all the gods, greater than even Zeus, in order to restore the divine feminine. When Hercules, Mercury, Aphrodite, Athena, and the rest gave their gifts, so did Gaea. Her power amplifies all the other gifts but is only now manifesting for only now is Diana ready.

"As visual shorthand, perhaps Wonder Woman could grow a little taller as a result of Gaea making her stronger. She looks at Superman eye level and he says something about her wearing heels… and she bites her lip. She's not wearing heels."

A few furtive glances aside, Perez saw everyone else nod. They wouldn't be so magnanimous for what he said next. "I was also thinking of giving her the muscles of a female bodybuilder."

"What!"

"Are you serious Perez?"

Ignoring the sick looks from various writers, Jeanette Kahn told everyone to stop their complaints. Nevertheless, even she was put off and asked Perez to repeat what he said.

"You heard me Jeanette. Increased muscularity would force readers to realize how much stronger she is now. And why not? Male superheroes look like male bodybuilders don't they? Why shouldn't at least some female superheroes look like female bodybuilders? Think about it. Someone like Batman, who should have gymnast's physique and doesn't even have any powers, is drawn like Mr. Universe but when it comes to women not even She-Hulk is drawn as anything more than a supermodel. I want to change that."

Kahn's eyes nearly fell out of their sockets. "You mean twenty inch biceps and veins popping out? Cobble stone abs? Aren't you afraid that we might scare away fans if we turn Diana into Rachel McLish or Cory Everson?"

"With how Wonder Woman was created to challenge gender norms, it's a risk worth taking. After all," Perez mischievously told DC's publisher, "are we so chauvinistic to believe that a woman can't be strong and let the world know it?"

Jeanette Kahn laughed good naturedly at that. "Touché. I'm still not sold on that George but you make some good points there. We can talk more about it later. I had a question though abou—"

"Can she have bigger hooters?" They all turned around to see who asked that and saw inker Wally Woods. "When All Star Comics introduced Power Girl, I, um, was the inker and I kept increasing the size of her breasts, y'know to see if anyone would catch on… Damn but when I was done I gave her a set of fat titties! Since, y'know George said Wonder Woman is superheroine number one, she should have even bigger chi-chis than Power Girl." He held his hand over a foot in front of his chest. "Breasts this—OW!"

Rubbing the red spot on his forehead where Kahn had thrown a pen, a very heavy pen, he whined, "What was that for?!"

"For being an idiot!" shouted the publisher. "Junk like that's the reason women think comic books are immature trash. What am I saying, junk like that's the reason everybody thinks comic books are immature trash. And no, as long as I'm the boss, Wonder Woman will not wear French-cut thongs and Power Girl will not have a cleavage window!"

Despite a few sour looks, crestfallen artists mumbled their acquiescence.

"Overgrown frat boys," grumbled Kahn. Twenty years later and I'm still babysitting punks… She looked to Perez and said, "At least you got your head screwed on straight George." She narrowed her eyes, however, when she saw a naughty smile spread across the man's face. "George…"

"Y-yes!" the startled man said. "Yes of course we should never stoop to such low down means of raising sales!" He looked away with a disappointed look on his face. "Never." Better get back to work before the boss gets even more suspicious. "Like I was saying before we got sidetracked, Wonder Woman has gotten much stronger we see how much when she asks Superman if she can use his weights. So they go the Fortress and she curls 500,000 ton building sized barbells in a hyper gravity chamber. She's sweating as she flexes her muscles, though not too much, and asks Superman to increase the gravity. He sheepishly says that he set it on neutron star level gravity five minutes into her workout." He smiled. "She never even noticed."

A man who never forgot a piece of trivia like neutron star gravity, Bridwell took out a pencil and did the math. The results staring back at him from his notepad? "Seventy billion megatons…!" he breathlessly whispered.

"Like I said before," continued an oblivious Perez, "Wonder Woman can now fly outright, no more riding the wind. While she was always closest to Hermes of all her male patrons, she thanks Gaea for increasing her flight abilities and her speed so many times over. The same is true for what she did for Hercules' gift of strength. Sub-light speed and planet smashing for Diana.

"She's the world's greatest fighter partly due to Athena's gift. She's also a master strategist, leader, and diplomat. She speaks dozens of languages, has perfect recall, and is the equivalent of a PhD. All this, of course, doesn't mean she got off easy. If she is the best, it's because she constantly trains herself in both body and mind. The goddess of wisdom and of war gave her tremendous potential but it was Diana herself that realized it.

"The most precious of her original gifts, however, is her grandmother's. I'll say more about my initial skepticism on love and beauty being superpowers but for now I'll say that if Diana is a hero, its due in large part to Aphrodite's giving her granddaughter a heart of love for every living thing. In more practical areas, Aphrodite's gift grants Wonder Woman the power to see into people's hearts. She's not a telepath, it's more passive than that, but she can look into the soul of any sentient being. She can feel their pain, see their memories, and know if they're telling the truth.

"New powers will include the power to talk to animals. The TV show came up with that and it's a nice touch; I can say that's a gift from Artemis, goddess of the hunt and of beasts. Artemis also gives her super senses like eagle eyes or wolf's hearing, etc. Demeter the earth goddess, in conjunction with the Earth goddess Gaea (Earth with capital 'E') gives her the regenerative abilities and the invulnerability of earth. Her agility, reflexes, stamina, are all suitably upgraded. As champion of the gods, she has teleportation to magic realms and is stronger than most superpeople against magic."

Marv Wolfman was confused. These new powers... Did Diana always have them in Perez's new continuity, did she have them and now know it, or did she not have them and is only now getting them? He was about to ask when Schwartz bellowed, "It doesn't work!"

"Why not?" asked a stunned Perez.

"Because if she's bullet proof why does she need bracelets!?" The editor looked around with a sour look. "Anyone willing to give our guy some ideas?"

Roy Thomas looked sympathetically towards a chastened Perez then back at Schwartz. "I wrote Thor over at Marvel and had the same problem; Thor being tough enough to survive an atom bomb but blocking bullets with his hammer. I kept for it being a nice visual. It would be a shame to get rid of Wonder Woman's deflecting bullets…"

"We're not loosing that visual," said Perez cheerfully, "so don't worry about it. Firstly, I never said she was bullet proof. Secondly, bullets won't ricochet off her like with Superman but they will be meaningless. For example, she's stopped some bad guys from stealing military ordnance and she's giving them some kind of speech. That's when a sniper takes aim with an electromagnetic rail gun and fires a full metal jacket armor piercing round made of spent uranium, the heaviest metal around, at seven times the speed of sound. And the bullet hits her right between the eyes leaving her to go down!"

Perez paused. "Law of averages: she was bound to miss a bullet one day.

"The bad guys see this and cheer. They killed Wonder Woman! When they see her get back up, however, they stop cheering. When the bad guys see her just pry the flattened slug from her skull and the bullet wound close instantly, they know it's over. She stopped a bullet... cold.

"They panic and get behind some Vulcan cannons, the guns they put on fighter planes. The three collectively fire 19,800 bullets a second but Diana just rolls her eyes and walks into the metal storm! All the other crooks run except for one last punk who runs up to her and pulls out his pistol… and throws in the towel when he sees Diana smile. She wanted to make a point; the point is made.

"And, of course, she's rubbing pain relief ointment all over her body when she goes home. Just because you're super tough and have rapid healing doesn't mean you can't get hurt. The bracelets, then, still have their uses. Besides, as indestructible as they are and as strong she is, can you imagine if she boxed someone's ears with them? I'm also planning to say they're made from Zeus' Aegeis which was in turn made from the hide of the she-goat Amalthea who nursed him as a child. If so, then in them she holds the lightning."

So clangs them together and shoots lightning bolts. "Good save," conceded Schwartz, "but what about the Plane. If she can fly now, why does she need the Invisible Plane?"

"The easiest way out is to use it like in Armored Personal Carrier." He saw uncertain looks on some faces and added, "They look like little tanks; soldiers need to go somewhere and they pile into the Carrier vehicle. When the soldiers arrive at their destination, they are fresh and relaxed and ready for battle. Same thing for Wonder Woman; she could go to Mars under her own power but she would arrive exhausted. If she uses her Invisible Plane she'll get there faster and strong enough for whatever challenge she might face.

"In fact, when she has to go to another planet, it's the only way. Already Amazon tech at its finest, Aphrodite gave it faster-than-light power back #261 so if she has to go to Thanagar or Oa, she hops into the Invisible Jet/spaceship and off she goes. Otherwise," Perez intoned, "even at light speed…

"As for what else it can do, the Plane might be useful for carrying passengers or cargo; yes, she could jerry rig some kind of platform Bobby Kanigher style but let's not do that now. With how tinkering by Gremlins in a recent issue led the Plane to develop sentience, we can also say it can morph into shapes. If she needs to carry more passengers or cargo than it can normally carry, it simply stretches or if she has to go underwater, it turns into a submarine or if she's going around town it turns into a motorcycle. With how I'm also going to be drawing this, I'm going to have a lot of fun!"

"The Lasso is her most precious gift, however. Its long been part of the Champion's weapons; Hippolyta had it when she was the 'wonder woman' of World War II and Artemis had it as the 'wonder woman' of Ancient Greece. Now it's Diana's. Like I said, she already has the power to see into people's hearts courtesy of Aphrodite, her grandmother, but it's the already indestructible, magical lariat that helps for focus that power. That's partly because it was built by her step-grandfather Hephaestus

"That's actually kinda cool," said an eager Conway. "I was wondering though, are you going to keep the stunts she pulled with the lasso. Y'know like lassoing the corner of a building and ordering it to retract so it can pull her up. Or that time she wrapped two atom bombs with the Lasso to contain the blast!"

"Or the time she used the twirling Lasso's harmonic waves to put out a fire!" Perez laughed. "No, I'm not going to say those things didn't happen but don't plan on seeing those kinds of stunts in my run." He grew thoughtful. "For the most part."

Wolfman asked his old friend, "What about the tiara? I remember her using it like a boomerang. Was it also built by the gods?"

The writer shook his head. "No it wasn't. There is some magic around it to keep in mint condition for all these thousands of years but it's a royal symbol, not the Champion's weapon. That doesn't make it any less useful though.

"Guys, I want to wrap this up and move onto the villains so I might as well go out on a bang," said Perez. "So let's imagine that Wonder Woman goes to a mega gravity planet that dwarfs Jupiter to find out just how strong she is. It is one giant piece of pure granite with no atmosphere, that's bombarded by radiation, and has no living things or even the potential for life. It's where the Green Lanterns Corps trains its recruits and various aliens test their latest weapons and so on. Diana's there and walks up to a mountain ten times higher than Everest and closes her eyes; she calls on all her training, she psyches herself up. Knowing it's now or never, she punches the mountain with every last ounce of strength she has. When it's all over, she opens her eyes and is shocked to find herself floating in space surrounded by an asteroid field. That's right folks; she smashed an entire planet to rubble! She trembles for a moment… and then she stops to smile and kiss her bicep.

"Taking a page from Maggin, this is Wonder Woman. If Superman, by sheer virtue of his being the first and greatest of superheroes, should be the most powerful of superheroes, then Wonder Woman, by sheer virtue of her being the first and greatest of all superheroines, should be the most powerful of superheroines, perhaps infinitely so. In Superboy #140, the Boy of Steel saved thirteen planets and the billions on them by chaining the planets together and pulling them away from their dying suns across the universe to fresh new suns. I'm not saying we should see the adult Diana roping together forty planets in her lasso and pulling them from a black hole or see her destroy a solar system by sneezing but I am saying that she's the greatest.

"In Maggin's cosmic Superman stories, he says that Superman is the chosen one of the Lord God Almighty, even meeting God Himself in his in continuity novel, Last Son of Krypton and in other stories like "Sword of Superman." Thus paraphrasing Bob Hughes recent Superman article in Amazing Heroes #96, Wonder Woman will go from being one of many (female) super beings from a super island, to being the ultimate pinnacle of womanhood. Diana the goddess named is become the star child, the Daughter of the Heavens, predestined from the dawn of all time to be the center point of history. Her legend will grow until the end of time when her daughters will rule the universe. She is the chosen daughter of Gaea and when we see the glimpses of the Earth Mother, she will have Diana's face so that all may know in Diana is the seed of all the gods for she will one day stand outside of time and become Gaea herself."

All were silent, all were still, in awe of these words and it would have remained so if not for Denny O'Neil. Remembering how it all began, he let out a low whistle. "That's a whole lot of lemonade!"

Author's Notes: Hi guys! Calling to say that I'm back and that, sorry to say, the next chapter, one about Wonder Woman villains, might take a while. Unlike the earlier chapters, I don't have the next one plotted out and so will be making it up from scratch. For now, however,

Sir Thames: As always, thank you for your kind words. :'-) As for starting everything from scratch, if only DC had listened to Wolfman...

MarkMark: Glad you like it and... looking back I realize that there was a bit of a recap at the start. A true artist's skills can always be improved! I'll be more careful in future chapters. And while this may be about stopping bullets cold might the upcoming villain chapter be about the Axis fold? ;-)

"Anonymous": With how they reveal a cowardly bully, the whole point of Ares in myth is the stupidity of war. When the Greeks wanted victory, they prayed to Athena. When they were slogging through mud and blood and seeing their friends get killed, they blamed Ares. With that for hate and now for love, something I always liked about pre-Crisis WW was her worshiping a goddess of love and (in the context of DCU) a goddess of altruistic love at that. (And something I raised was an eyebrow at was her unequal relationship with Steve... :-O )The Power of Love, pass it on!

Wolvmbm: I'll answer them all for everyone's sake. :-)

1) I understand that DC was desperate to get WW back to normal though on the good side, it led to lots of stories. For them and me! Here a major part of the WW ideas will be Diana coming to grips with her mom's brainwashing her. I never thought about it till now but a nice idea would be to have Diana face her white suit past! I've already cited the white suit era story where Ares attacks Paradise Island. Maybe WW re-adopts Diana Prince as a Matches Malone alias or she greets I Ching's family (the good ones at least.) The idea from the white suit era of the worlds of myth being pocket dimensions is something I do want to use.

2) Yes, I have thought of Cassie! If you play close attention, the big fight with Ares is based on the climax from the WW animated movie. The girl whom Diana finds crying in the park and who reappears at the end is unnamed both here and in the movie but can you guess what her name is in the novel adaptation? ;-)

3) Like I said earlier, a whole chapter for the villains is in the works!

4) I initially thought about Hippolyta being the Golden Age WW though recently, I've been thinking of changing that in order to keep Lyta Trevor AKA Fury as the daughter of an Amazon. More info in the future.

5) As for Superman villains... you have a point. I did leave the other guys untouched. Perhaps Julius Schwartz might call out Magoon for that!

Well, that's all. Until next time! :-D