{"id":5198,"date":"2026-09-08T09:00:32","date_gmt":"2026-09-08T13:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.opendoor-comics.com\/unbagged\/?p=5198"},"modified":"2026-09-08T09:17:47","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T13:17:47","slug":"unbagging-wonder-woman-vol-1-193","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.opendoor-comics.com\/unbagged\/2026\/09\/08\/unbagging-wonder-woman-vol-1-193\/","title":{"rendered":"Unbagging Wonder Woman Vol. 1 #193"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Wonder Woman Diana Prince 50th Anniversary Omnibus HC<\/h1>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Release:  <\/td>Dec 19, 2018<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Creators<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Writer<\/td>Mike Sekowsky<\/td><\/tr>
Artist<\/td>Mike Sekowsky<\/td><\/tr>
Cover Artist<\/td>Mike Sekowsky<\/td><\/tr>
Cover Inker<\/td>Dick Giordano<\/td><\/tr>
Inker<\/td>Dick Giordano<\/td><\/tr>
Editor<\/td>Mike Sekowsky<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n
\n

Dig<\/strong>! But if you think I’m going to hold still while you punks beat me up, you’ve got the wrong victim, dig<\/strong>?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

While I read the story in the omnibus shown above, the Creator credits are for the specific issue listed in the post title. The cover for the 1971 issue, by Dick Giordano and Mike Sekowsky looks like this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

(The cover for the omnibus is by goddamn National Treasure Jos\u00e9 Luis Garc\u00eda-L\u00f3pez<\/a> and Patricia Mulvihill)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last week, I posted an Unbagging of a really good story from a book featuring a bold new reimagining of Wonder Woman<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This week, I’m posting an Unbagging of a really bad<\/em> story from a book featuring a bold new – if misguided and boneheaded – reimagining of Wonder Woman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I found it to be an odd coincidence that shortly after I finally got around to reading this collection of stories that, when originally published, led to lobby DC Comics to restore the Amazing Amazon’s status quo, Gloria Steinem passed away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What does it mean? Well, nothing, obviously. I just found it to be an odd coincidence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So what was it that Steinem protested about this new take on Wonder Woman? Well, there’s plenty to protest, but the basic complaint is that she lost her powers. Why did she lose her powers? For dumb reasons, in-universe – Paradise Island had to leave this dimension for a time, as it periodically does, and any Amazon staying behind becomes a powerless mortal. Though it pained her, Diana didn’t want to leave her life in Man’s World, or, more to the point, her beloved Steve Trevor, so she stayed put and became a mere mortal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don’t know enough about the real world reasons for taking away her powers beyond simply feeling the need to shake things up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The idea of Diana had to learn to live just like any normal woman in Man’s World having to contend with the daily mundanities of life as a mortal now blessed by the gods could have made for an interesting story arc, exploring the idea of empowerment by taking away her power, but the people behind the idea were like, “Nah, we’re not doing that.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, an aged Chinese man named I Ching showed up – guided by his inscrutable “oriental wisdom,” of course – and trained her in advanced martial arts techniques that could, in some small part, help close the gap between her new life and her old.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The set up, then, was that no longer blessed with the power of the gods, Diana Prince hones her body and mind to perfection through the study of secret knowledge and training techniques, and, much like Peter Cannon or Remo Williams, achieves a certain level of near-superhuman ability. In the mode of The Avengers<\/em> (the British TV show, not the comic published by DC’s Marvelous competitor) or Modesty Blaise<\/em>, she and I Ching would engage in globe-trotting adventures and international intrigue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And, okay, that’s an interesting take, too, if you really feel you need to shake things up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And there was<\/em> some of that. For a little while.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then Denny O’Neil left, and things kind of floundered. Diana visited Paradise Island in that other dimension. Diana got trapped in another other dimension on her way there and, like Ash Williams in Army of Darkness<\/em>, teaches the primitive people living there struggling to gain their freedom military tactics and how to make gunpowder. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or how abut Diana and I Ching spend a night in a haunted inn?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just all kinds of random-ass things happen after that initial run of stories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oh, and what about Steve, the man she gave up her immortality for? He apparently dies, gets left where he fell, and is never spoken of again – so far, anyway, and I’m almost all the way through the omnibus – and Diana keeps falling for a new guy every other issue or so. Sometimes more frequently. Sometimes more than once in a single issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyway, the other part of the set-up is that, as Diana Prince, former Army Intelligence officer, she has opened a boutique in either New York, or Gotham City, or Metropolis, depending on which superhero she’s having a special team-up with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among her neighbors are a man named Tony Petrucci and his mother Mrs. Petrucci. And that leads us, finally, to the actual story I’m here to discuss, which starts, as many of the stories do, in the midst of things, with a panel that is amusing out of context.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Diana, what were you doing last night?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The man pointing the gun is the aforementioned Tony, who is, as we will learn, out for revenge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When we go back to the beginning, we see that Mrs. Petrucci is upset because Tony is nowhere to be found, and she knows that wherever he’s gone, he took his gun – which he kept after his service in Vietnam – with him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She tells Diana about an event that happened three years earlier. Tony’s younger sister Angela had gone to a party where tragedy struck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

When Tony saw that a guy named Eddie, a known prankster – the two had been in the same unit in Vietnam and one of Eddie’s pranks nearly led to tragedy there – had been at the party, he immediately suspected that Eddie was the culprit. But Eddie was also sickened by the spiked food, so he seemed to be in the clear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ultimately, three people died, and Angela fell into a coma, and though she had regained consciousness eventually, three years later she remains in a catatonic state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A suspect was never found, but Tony never quit looking, and now Mrs. Petrucci fears that he has found out who did it and is going to do something rash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Diana vows to track Tony down and stop him for his own good, taking to the mean streets trying to find the vengeful brother, and running into trouble of her own, though it’s nothing she can’t handle thanks to her training with I Ching. (Did I mention that I Ching is blind. Well, he is. Because of course<\/em> he is.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

There’s more trouble than that to be found, but eventually, she stirs up enough of it to provide her with a lead when someone tries to provide her with some lead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

She tracks Tony down to a construction site where he has cornered the person behind the tragic events of the party, who turns out to be the very first person anyone suspected: Eddie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here’s where things get especially weird in this already weird story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the cop said the food was spiked with funny<\/em> <\/strong>seasoning, I naturally assumed it was drugs, like PCP or something.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Eddie says this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

But we can’t really take Eddie at his word, especially after Tony points out that the place where Eddie supposedly lives is just a front, and that he actually lives in some fancy digs that a lowlife loser like him couldn’t possibly afford unless he had some secret source of income.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tony had spotted Eddie coming and going from his actual apartment while working at this very construction site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When confronted with that, Eddie says this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

So it was<\/em> drugs? That’s a terrible marketing tactic, Eddie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyway, Diana takes Eddie out without killing him and saves Tony from himself, the police arrive, and Eddie is taken away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then we get a tacked on happy ending and learn that despite the fact that they love Angela so much her mother and brother apparently never visited her in the nursing home where she was staying because they’re taken by surprise to learn that she has completely recovered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

She’s also fallen in love with the doctor who was treating her and as he is the man of the house, Angela asks Tony for his blessing to marry the doctor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In very special episode fashion, we get this final bit of wisdom from Diana.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
What indeed, Diana?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I have to assume that the intent was for this to be a very special issue about the dangers of drugs that had to be watered down to pass muster with the Comics Code Authority. They talk around<\/em> it, never actually mentioning drugs, insert some plausible deniability, then drive home a message about the dangers of people spiking food at parties with…vinegar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just say no to vinegar, kids!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But setting that aside, this story is…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, it just sucks<\/em>. It’s weird, but also boring, and it’s already annoying even without the muddy, clumsily inserted moral. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reading it made me mad<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But that was really a cumulative effect of reading all<\/em> of these stories. It was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back, and I picked it as the one to focus on from this collection because it’s just so representative of what a godawful mess it all is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It doesn’t even look <\/em>very good. The one redeeming thing these stories had going for them in my estimation is the art. I really like the Sekowsky\/Giordano combo, and most of the time the layout is dynamic and interesting, with some panel-to-panel flow that I wouldn’t call experimental but that did at least depart from the norm a bit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And as Kelly Sue DeConick notes in her introduction – in which she straight-up warns the reader that the stories are not good<\/em> but are still worth reading – it’s a very fashion-forward book. It’s very stylish with its mod-inspired aesthetic, and having Diana own a clothing boutique provided a lot of opportunities for showcasing the style, though it didn’t deliver on that as well as it could have.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But this issue just looked slapdash, and I have to wonder if that’s the result of needing to do rework as a result of initial Code violations. That’s just a wild guess on my part, but whatever the case, this one just wasn’t up to the same standards as most of the rest of the run.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I will say one thing for Sekowsky’s writing – at least after Denny left, I Ching didn’t spend as much time spouting fortune cookie wisdom as he did in the initial run of issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I suspect that Mrs. Petrucci’s broken English would have been much more broken and downright insulting if Denny had written it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyway, DeConnick was right in her introduction about these stories not being good, but after reading this one, I’m not quite as sure I agree with the rest of her assessment…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>
\n

Born and raised in the sparsely populated Upper Peninsula of Michigan, Jon Maki developed an enduring love for comics at an early age.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wonder Woman Diana Prince 50th Anniversary Omnibus HC Release:   Dec 19, 2018 Creators Writer…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Unbagging Wonder Woman Vol. 1 #193\n\n#Unbagging #comics #WonderWoman","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[3],"class_list":["post-5198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-unbagging","tag-dc"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peoZaI-1lQ","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.opendoor-comics.com\/unbagged\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.opendoor-comics.com\/unbagged\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.opendoor-comics.com\/unbagged\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opendoor-comics.com\/unbagged\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opendoor-comics.com\/unbagged\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5198"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.opendoor-comics.com\/unbagged\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5198\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5219,"href":"https:\/\/www.opendoor-comics.com\/unbagged\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5198\/revisions\/5219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.opendoor-comics.com\/unbagged\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opendoor-comics.com\/unbagged\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opendoor-comics.com\/unbagged\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}