Wonder Woman #25 (Story One, Part 3, finale): SIEGE OF THE RYKORNIANS

The next morning, gigantic stalks of Rykorn cover the Bar-L ranch. Etta promises that it isn't her doing. Hard Candy and his ranch hands fight valiantly to cut the crop down, but their puny saws are helpless against the enormous tree-like stalks. "Rykorn plants multiply and spread like lightning! And from the Rykorn burst newly-grown plant people overnight!"

A delighted Cob and Tassel rally their newborn army. "Using Rykorn leaves filled with potent knock-out sap, the Rykornians besiege the earth people." (Wow. Knock-out sap. Who knew?) The half-conscious Etta has just enough strength to mental-radio Wonder Woman, who's in her guise of Lt. Diana Prince. "Suffering Sappho!" is Diana's only reply. (woulda been my first thought, too).

The General notices Wonder Woman leaping from a nearby window and calls for her help, but she hasn't the time as she "has to see a scientist about some plant people." Steve Trevor offers his help to the General who is understandably upset. "Ye gads!" he shouts. "There's a national emergency and my right-hand woman, Diana Prince, is missing. Wonder Woman is no help – she spends her time leaping from our windows!" The General calls out the army to combat the plant people.

Meanwhile, the Rykornians have used the enslaved earthers to help plant more seeds. Their plan is to uproot every living plant in America and replace it with Rykorn. Just then, the army arrives! But Tassel isn't worried. The sap-armed, wily Rykornians make short work of Steve and his intrepid comrades.

"Meanwhile, at Paula's secret lab, Wonder Woman and her brilliant scientist friend work tirelessly on a strange, gigantic machine -- " (and folks, it is indeed strange. The wacky imagination of Harry Peters is always in evidence when drawing Amazon machinery. This thing looks like something Dr. Seuss would have dreamed up. I almost expect to see starbellies pouring out of the mouth).

Back to our captive friends... "String them up on some small Rykorn," demands the king, "the plants'll grow in a few minutes and the prisoners will be crushed to death!" Yeowch! Etta once again attempts a mental radio message, in hopes of avoiding the fate of being a "squashed turkey." Instantly, Wonder Woman responds. Ordering her plane into the air, Wonder Woman hangs off the ladder, carrying the gigantic Rykorn Destroyer machine with her lasso.

"Swooping over the Rykorn fields, Wonder Woman quickly frees the prisoners..." As she tells them to run, she turns on the Rykorn Destroyer and sweeps all the cob homes (each of which are occupado) inside, while the blades in the front chop the giant stalks down. Having captured the entire invading force, Wonder Woman leaps toward her invisible plane and guides it to Rykornia by mental robot control.

After her return, Steve asks what happened to the Rykornians. "I returned them to Rykornia," explains Wonder Woman. "They're so terrified of my machine which they think is an earth monster, they've lost all desire ever to invade the earth again!" And luckily, Etta has lost all desire for those yummy seeds, as well!

That ends this story, boys and girls. And just by reading this review, you've gotten 25% of your minimum daily requirement of starchy roughage! Neato, huh?

Stay tuned for another thrilling adventure of Wonder Woman because issue #25 still has two zingetty-zangetty stories to go! And since you've already had an earful about this episode, what did you think of Diana's battle with Rykornia?

Wonder Woman #25 (Story One, Part 1): SIEGE OF THE RYKORNIANS

Woo Woo! I smell the distinctive aroma of a very old comic book. Just a sniff, and I'm fastening my seatbelt, putting my tray table in an upright position and readying myself for a superspeed journey into the 1940s. And, if you join me, we can travel together into the pages of WONDER WOMAN #25. C'mon! It'll be fun -- I promise!

The cover is quite intriguing. Wonder Woman is sitting at a desk looking at three wanted posters. She appears pensive; worried. These are obviously very dangerous criminals. What she doesn't see, is that behind her, peeking out from a doorway, are the three felons, all armed and ready to strike. I have an overwhelming urge to shout "look out!!!" But I won't. My prime directive says that I must not interfere in the stories of comic books. So though painful, I remain silent.

::insert silence here::

"Look out!!!" (phew! I feel much better, despite the impending court martial I'll no doubt receive).

I have to say right off, that our buddy H. G. Peters was the artist, I am not 100% certain about who wrote the three stories in this comic. Marston passed away in May of '47 and this has a cover date of Sept.-Oct. of 1947.

I do know that Marston had a backlog of stories, and that his family actually wrote several stories after his death. I think these were probably some of Marston's originals, though, as the backlog would've easily covered a book with a Sept. publishing date. They also have quite a bit of bondage (the third story is so full of bondage there are only a handful of panels free of it). That screams Marston to me.

If it isn't him, and it isn't Kanigher (it could be a mixture, i.e. Kanigher wrote one, Marston another, etc.) then it could be members of his family. When I spoke to Marston's son, he told me that the family members wrote several stories after Bill's death. I don't know if the family members kept to all of his idiosyncrasies (i.e. chock full 'o' bondage) but I do know that according to the eldest son, they did try to emulate his dad's work as closely as possible.

That said, I have reached no conclusion about the first story, the one this post is about. If anyone has any information, let me know.

The first story (and this issue has three independent tales, not a "book-length adventure") is what we'll be reading in this revisit. I'll do the other stories in subsequent revisits.

"Have you ever considered the fact that perhaps on another planet in our solar system there might be an entirely new form of life completely unlike ours? Science hasn't discovered it yet, but there is such a planet! Rykornia is an unexplored planetoid, hidden in Earth's atmosphere by a shroud of clouds, and inhabited by fiendish creatures just waiting their opportunity to invade our world."

(Uh-oh. Fiendish corn-people! Quick! Somebody melt some butter!)

"Follow the stirring adventures of the alluring Amazon Princess... as she fights the most terrible menace ever to invade the Earth and matches her Amazon strength against the 'SIEGE OF THE RYKORNIANS."

The splash shows Wonder Woman pushing some sort of harvesting machine through a giant cornfield. It's cutting off the stalks and sweeping in giant ears of corn with little geometrical corn people in them. Looks pretty fiendish to me.

(note: I am going to try to avoid making all the obvious corn puns. This is a challenge, but I've abstained from puns for several days in preparation and feel I can prevail.)

Page two shows us Rykornia. (Not that I feel this is reaching on the part of the author or anything, but Rykornia is a planet that exists in our own atmosphere. It is "concealed by clouds too thick for earth telescopes to penetrate". Uh-huh. A planet. Just hanging up there in our atmosphere. Okay, got it.)

The Rykornians are described as "weird plant people." They seem to like hanging around in cornfields, looking through telescopes made of corn. They watch the earth. And they're ruled by King Tassel and his right-eared man, Lord Cob. (Darn it. Made a corn joke. ::slap:: sorry, folks. Man, this is difficult.) The entire planet of Rykornia is covered by giant corn stalks. And it appears everything they own is made from corn, as well. (This strikes me as particularly fiendish. After all, we don't make everything out of humans. But these corn people make more than just the occasional soylent green out of themselves. Ewww!) However, there is no more room on Rykornia for any more people. So, naturally, they'd like to conquer the Earth. Fertile soil, y'see. (I'm guessing their telescopes aren't trained on Death Valley. Just a hunch.)

Meanwhile, the Amazons are having a Kanga Carnival!!! Woo Woo! Wonder Woman arrives in her invisible plane with a bunch of Holliday Girls. Hippolyte greets them saying, "Welcome to Paradise Island, Man's World Girls!" Hee hee. (But here comes my first clue that this may not be Marston after all. Etta Candy says, "Wahoo" instead of "Woo Woo". I've never seen her say "Wahoo" before).

The girls and the Amazons all mount sky Kangas (for the uninitiated, the Kanga is the favorite riding animal of the Amazons. They look like Kangaroos, but are quite large, and the Amazons ride them like horses. Sometimes, as here, they can fly. The Kangas were a gift from some aliens in an earlier adventure). Hippolyte uses a giant "balloon gun" to shoot multi-colored balloons miles high into the air. The contestants are to catch the balloons in their hands but may not break them. Sounds pretty straight-forward until Etta makes a grab, but the balloon is traveling too fast for her to catch. "Ha!" cries Wonder Woman. "That's why it's sport! These balloons are filled with Amazon Speed-Gas which makes them fly at a tremendous speed and change course at the slightest breeze." (Amazon Speed-Gas, huh? Nah-ah. Too easy.)

Everyone gets a workout trying to capture the balloons, including the indefatigable Amazon Princess. (Dang, but that lil missy can ride a kanga!!! Yeeha!)

Etta and the Holliday Girls are having a very tough time of it, but their leader urges them on. "After them, gals!" cajoles Etta. "Woo! Woo!" (there went that theory, huh?) "We gotta show the Amazons that man's world girls are skillful athletes too!" Trying to lead by example, Etta chases a runaway blue balloon but over-reaches. She falls off her kanga with nothing beneath her but 5 miles of space! Is this the end of our intrepid Holliday fave, Etta Candy? Come back tomorrow for more Golden Age excitement with SIEGE OF THE RYKORNIANS!!