Wonder Woman Poster # 3 Wonder Woman #178 (1968) Mike Sekowsky

Description

At the end of the 1960s, under the guidance of Mike Sekowsky, Wonder Woman surrendered her powers in order to remain in Man’s World rather than accompany her fellow Amazons to another dimension. Wonder Woman begins using the alias Diana Prince and opens a mod boutique. She acquires a Chinese mentor named I Ching, who teaches Diana martial arts and weapons skills. Using her fighting skill instead of her powers, Diana engaged in adventures that encompassed a variety of genres, from espionage to mythology. DC’s publisher Carmine Infantino wanted to rejuvenate what had been perceived as a tired Wonder Woman, so he assigned writer Denny O’Neil and artist Mike Sekowsky to convert the Amazon into a secret agent. Wonder Woman was made over into an Emma Peel type, and what followed was arguably the most controversial period in the hero’s history. The collaborators’ first issue put Diana Prince’s transformation into motion, even though it focused primarily on her wardrobe. When testimony by Wonder Woman landed her friend Steve Trevor in jail for murder (which he didn’t commit), her alter ego tried blending in with the hippie culture to find eye witnesses who could clear his name. Diana succeeded and realized that she needed to better connect with the people she protected. Those changes would explode in the following issue, after Queen Hippolyta informed her daughter that Paradise Island was relocating to another dimension in order to replenish the Amazons’ dwindling mystical energies. Shockingly, Diana opted to renounce her powers and costume so that she could remain on “Man’s world,” and help Steve thwart the terrorist machinations of the evil Dr Cyber, including one that had Cyber sending bomb-rigged toys to the children of America’s leaders. Though powerless, Diana quickly built a new life for herself, opening a boutique and undergoing training under the tutelage of I Ching, a blind martial arts expert she befriended. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough for the radically altered Wonder Woman, who wouldn’t stop Doctor Cyber before the villainess saw to the murder of Steve Trevor. For the next 5 years, Diana’s adventures lauded the versatile spirit an independent strength of the modern woman more than her physical wonders, although some feminists argued that the “depowering” of Wonder Woman had greatly diminished the character. After Steve Trevor is wrongfully accused and convicted of the murder of a man who insulted Wonder Woman, Diana Prince undergoes a glamorous makeover so that she can go underground and ferret out the real murderer. “And I’ll lose him forever if I don’t do something to keep him interested in me! Wonder Woman must change…” — Wonder Woman. Michael Sekowsky (November 19, 1923 – March 30, 1989) was an American comic book artist known as the penciler for DC Comics’ Justice League of America during most of the 1960s, and as the regular writer and artist on Wonder Woman during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Sekowsky began working on Wonder Woman with issue #178 (Sept.-Oct. 1968),17 first as artist and then as writer and editor, until issue #198. His run on the series included a variety of themes, from espionage to mythological adventure. He contributed a story about Wonder Woman and Batman to The Brave and the Bold.