Monday, March 15, 2010

Groove's Faves: Wonder Woman is "Hell On Skis"

Y'know, Groove-ophiles, good ol' Wonder Woman went through a lot during the Groovy Age. She lost her powers and became an Emma Peel clone. She got her powers back and went through some goofy Silver Age style adventures. She had to go through a series of tests to re-join the JLA. When her ABC-TV show, set during WWII became a hit (thanks, in no small part to the dead-on casting of Lynda Carter in the title role), her comicbook adventures became all-new WWII-era tales. When the TV show switched to CBS and brought Wonder Woman to the then-present days of the late 1970s, her comics followed suit. Consistency wasn't a watch-word for fans of WW's comics. If one was very careful, though, there were some real treasures to be found amid all of the chaos. One of those treasures is our focus for the day. A fun, exciting, WWII-era tale written by Gerry Conway with pencils by the extremely talented but too-little-seen Jim Sherman (most famous for a short run on Legion of Super-Heroes, which I'm gonna have'ta cover one of these days) and inks by a young Bob Wiacek. Toss in a corny-but-cool-looking supervillain and some hair-raising ski-stunts, and you've got the makings of a Wonder Woman story worth remembering! From World's Finest Comics #245 (March 1977), here's "Hell On Skis"!

3 comments:

  1. The Wonder Woman series had switched to Earth-2 with issue #228 (February, the month previous to this) and would stay there until #243 (May 1978). I guess the JLA was the only place to see the Earth-1 WW during this time.
    Thanks!

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  2. First, let me say your site/ blog is like that favorite store you go in and get lost browsing all day, loving every minute of it, for me. It is a dream come true for me, and the childhood memories and nostalgia it brings is priceless. Second, thank you for highlighting this story and artist. I always remembered how incredible the artwork was for this one. Especially the scene of Wonder Woman lifting the pilot out of the cockpit after ripping it off of the plane. I was JUST trying to remember the period where as a kid I got hooked on SUperboy and the Legion of Super Heroes, because I remember the art being INCREDIBLE for a time. Thank you for giving me that wonderful artist's name (Jim SHerman) and giving me the memories of some of my favorite comics.

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  3. You're very welcome, Jeremy! Welcome to Groove City!

    ReplyDelete

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Special thanks to Mike's Amazing World of Comics and Grand Comics Database for being such fantastic resources for covers, dates, creator info, etc. Thou art treasures true!


Note to "The Man": All images are presumed copyright by the respective copyright holders and are presented here as fair use under applicable laws, man! If you hold the copyright to a work I've posted and would like me to remove it, just drop me an e-mail and it's gone, baby, gone.


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As for the rest of ya, the purpose of this blog is to (re)introduce you to the great comics of the 1970s. If you like what you see, do what I do--go to a comics shop, bookstore, e-Bay or whatever and BUY YOUR OWN!