Wonder Woman has connections to Sword & Sorcery. Like Hawkman, she uses weapons that scream sword fights and monsters. Also like Hawkman, it depends on when you are talking about, because Wonder Woman has a long and varied history. In the most recent DC films it isn’t hard to see: Gal Gadot armed with sword and shield more often than using her glowing lasso. As an Amazon, Wonder Woman, Diana Prince, lives in an environment riddled with mythology and fantasy.
I am going to pick out three specific stories here that were more “Sword & Sorcery’ than usual. These heroic fantasy story lines aren’t really surprising considering the dates, 1971-1973. DC, after the success of Marvel’s Conan the Barbarian, was launching its own S&S titles after trying story lines in their horror comics.
The Queen of Chalandor
“Detour” (Wonder Woman #190-192, September-October 1970 – January-February 1971) was written by Mike Sekowsky and drawn by Sekowsky and Dick Giordano. There is an exception to this: the second part, issue #191 isn’t really an important part of the story but a chance for the editors to recycle Diana’s new origin story with 16 pages written by Denny O’Neil. This story explains why she no longer has her super powers. (We are going to ignore those pages.)
The three issue story-line has Diana and Leda transported to a fantastic realm. After defeating the shadow men, they are discovered by some nobles in a flying ship. Diana hears them talking about sending them to the arena to fight so she sends Leda back (using a magic ring) to get an Amazon army. The slavers lose eight men in capturing Wonder Woman.
She is taken to Skull Castle be paraded before the Queen of Chalandor. There she meets a tall barbarian who was also captured. Diana doesn’t wait for the arena but starts fighting there in the throne room. She defeats the guards and gets her hands on the queen before she is knocked unconscious. Waking, she finds herself in a cell with the barbarian, who is named Ranagor. He explains about the Chalandorians flying about the country in their flying boars, taking captives for the arena.
The duo break out of their cell, avoid guards but end up in the arena anyway. There they meet the dread and well-armored Gnarth. Diana kills it with that old stand-by, the sword in the mouth. Having killed the beast, the two gladiators attack the crowd. They are chased through the castle but escape by jumping off a high wall into the river. On the far bank they are met by Ranagor’s father’s army. He is actually Prince Ranagor. The army has come to end Chalandor’s reign of terror.
Diana joins the army. She tells Ranagor her origin. (Long, unwelcome side trip.) Ranagor’s army attacks the castle but is turned back. Diana, knowing modern science, helps the besiegers to make gunpowder and cannons. They attack again but the flying boats drive them off.
They keep trying but morale is low. Diana knows she must do more. So she challenges the queen to a personal combat.
During the fight, Ranagor kills the queen’s second, making the monarch flee the contest. Diana uses the distraction to send a whole cart load of gunpowder barrels at the castle.
With the walls breached, the army sweeps in and wins the day. The Amazons show up after the battle is won. The queen is exiled to wander the countryside in a land that hates her very name.
This story seems more Edgar Rice Burroughs than Robert E. Howard, with its flying ships and arena fights. Perhaps to be more accurate, it reminds me of ERB passed through Lin Carter’s pen, so perhaps Thongor is the inspiration. The cover for #192 is odd in that Ranagor is crucified on the cover but not in the story. Somebody was reading their Conan because Marvel wouldn’t use that image until April 1975.
Fafhrd & Tie-In
“Fangs of Fire” (Wonder Woman #202, September-October 1972) is something special. It was written by Samuel R. Delany, the Science Fiction author. It was drawn by Dick Giordano. This issue was intended to present Fafhrd & Gray Mouser and promote their new comic, Sword of Sorcery. More dimension hopping here, as I-Ching, Selena Kyle (Catwoman) and Diana are escaping Lu Shan and end up in Newhon.
Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser attack the trio. Diana defeats Fafhrd while the Mouser take out Catwoman.
They decide to talk instead of fight. Fafhrd & Co. are there to steal a gem called The Eye of the Ocean from a sorcerer named Gawron. After looking into a magical gem of I-Ching’s they team up to take on Gawron. (Is Delany rhyming this with Sauron, from The Lord of the Rings?)
Gawron has a “dimensional energy transfer matrix machine” in his cave.
Daring-do proceeds but it is I-Ching who gets them out again, creating a door back to our world.
Fafhrd and Gray Mouser get a glimpse of a city street before being sent back to Newhon. (Shades of What If? #13 (February 1979) What If Conan the Barbarian Walked the Earth Today?)
The entire thing is not very Fritz Leiber (though “Adept’s Gambit” has dimensional travel.) As an intro to the new comic, it served to show the two heroes but little else. Delany writes what is essentially a Science Fiction story with little point. Perhaps that comes in the next installment, which he also wrote, but doesn’t involve Faf and the Mouser.
Time Travel & Heroics
“The Riddle of the Chinese Mummy Case” (Wonder Woman #207, August-September 1973) was written by Robert Kanigher and drawn by Ric Estrada and Vince Colletta. This one is a mixed bag but it does have plenty of heroic fantasy in it. Diana the powerless did not prove a big winner, so she has returned to her old costume and abilities. When archaeologists find a coffin with Diana’s image in stone inside it, Wonder Woman finds her scientist friend, Paula. using a “space transformer”, Palua send Diana back in time 2000 years.
Diana finds the Chinese fighting off a barbarian horde. Princess Mei and Diana hit it off, as fellow warrior women. Chang the barbarian, leader of the raiders, tries to take on Diana and gets beaten. His warriors call her a witch and attack. Diana and the Chinese army route them. Chang promises he will be back.
Diana is waiting for Mei but finds her missing. Some barbarians at the gate have a coffin with a stone figure of Mei. They capture Diana too. They tie her to a wheel and throw knives at her. She uses the wheel, with herself attached, to knock down villains.
She then flies to where Chang has a fake dragon attacking the Chinese stronghold. Diana defeats them, then helps build the Great Wall of China to protect Mia and her people. A statue of Diana is carved so the Chinese people will always remember Diana. Paula pulls Wonder Woman back to our time.
A time travel story, “The Riddle of the Chinese Mummy Case” isn’t really Sword & Sorcery but has the feel of such. In a small way it reminds me of the film The Great Wall (2016), though that one had actual monsters. Time travel wasn’t really new for Wonder Woman. She did it all the way back in 1946 with “The Winds of Time”.
Next Time
In 2017, knowing that Wonder Woman has an S&S flavor, she paired up with the Sword & Sorcery grand-daddy of them all, Conan. Written by Gail Simone and drawn by Aaron Lopresti and Matt Ryan, this comic would not have been possible back in the old DC/Marvel days of the 1970s. We will look at this mini-series in depth next time.
