The Sekowsky era ends this month with his last issue of Wonder Woman and this story, "Target for Today?" written and penciled by Mike Sekowsky and inked by Dick Giordano. A man dying of gunshot wounds stumbles into Diana's boutique, reveals that he is a secret agent for a government agency headed by General Stuart, for whom I-Ching also once worked, and tells her that Stuart must learn of an assassination planned on the Koronian ambassador. Then he dies.
After Diana and Ching defeat two killers seeking the dead agent, Ching goes to Washington to contact Gen. Stuart, and Diana goes to Kennedy Airport, where she stops another apparent assassination attempt on Anatole Karoli, the ambassador from Koronia.
Karoli insists on taking Diana out and begins romancing her, during which time she foils more attempts on his life. Later, Gen. Stuart and I-Ching meet with Diana. The general tells Diana that she is still in the Army Reserve, even though she has resigned her commission, and he reappoints her lieutenant with the task of keeping Karoli safe from assassination. Diana goes to Washington, D. C. with Karoli and saves him from still more apparent murder attempts.
But, just after Karoli shakes hands with President Nixon, Diana knocks Karoli down, kicks a pistol he had been packing away from him, and knocks him unconscious. She removes a mask from "Karoli"'s face, explaining to the president that she saw the bottom of the mask poking out from under his collar. The "assassination attempts" were really faked, and the "ambassador" was really an assassin seeking the president's life. Later, the president tells Diana and Gen. Stuart that the killer was an agent of the party out of power in the Koronian government, and their plan was to make it appear that one of the opposition had been guilty of the assassination of the president. Reprinted in Diana Prince: Wonder Woman Vol. 3 TPB (2009) and Wonder Woman Diana Prince: Celebrating the '60s Omnibus HC (2019).
Our reprint is a goody, "Introducing Wonder Woman" by William Moulton Marston and Harry G. Peter and reprinted from All-Star Comics #8 (1941). U.S. Army Intelligence Captain Steve Trevor is forced to crash land on a magical island known as Paradise Island, home of the Amazons. His unconscious body is found by Princess Diana and Mala and brought to the hospital for recovery. Queen Hippolyte agrees to help him recover, but forbids her daughter Diana from contact with the man because she has fallen in love with him.
Hippolyte speaks to Aphrodite and Athena for advice on helping the man. They tell her that she must send the best Amazon to America with the man to help further the cause of freedom. A tournament is held to determine the Amazon who will accompany Trevor. Diana, forbidden to enter the tournament by her mother, enters in disguise and is victorious. She is rewarded with a costume and then entrusted with the mission of returning Steve Trevor to America. This story continues in Sensation Comics #1.
We end with a real treat, "The Stormy Menace of Goblin Head Rock" written and drawn by Harry G. Peter in the 1940s and never printed before. Diana learns that the Cheetah has escaped from Transformation Island but when she goes to tell Steve Trevor, he informs her that Professor Profundo, who was working on a device to control the weather, has disappeared. Meanwhile, Etta and the Holliday Girls are on a cruise ship off the eastern coast and strange weather is causing the ship to head for the rocky coast where a mysterious figure is dancing on the rocks.
When Army Intelligence learns of this and the fact that the ship is carrying gold bullion, Diana changes into Wonder Woman, picks up Steve and they head out in the invisible plane to the site of the shipwreck. Wonder Woman manages to get all the passengers to safety only to find Etta and the girls missing.
Steve dives down to see if he can retrieve the gold but the Cheetah severs his air hose. Wonder Woman sees the Cheetah and goes after her, but when she sees Steve trapped under the sunk ship the Cheetah escapes. WW and Steve retrieve the gold in WW's plane but it is then pulled by strange weather to the Cheetah. When WW confronts the Cheetah she shows her that she has the Professor, Etta and the girls strapped to a lighthouse and with the push of a button will send a lightning bolt down to kill them all unless Diana surrenders.
She and Steve are tied up to the lighthouse with Diana's own magic lasso, but when the Cheetah sends a bolt of lightning down it is absorbed by the lasso. They escape and take on the Cheetah and her gang, but rather than be caught, the Cheetah appears to jump to her death. Reprinted in Wonder Woman Diana Prince: Celebrating the '60s Omnibus HC (2019).
Edited for the final time by Mike Sekowsky.
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