It’s the Final Countdown! (Again) – Wonder Woman #293

Countdown to Chaos

Wonder Woman #293

Cover Date: July 1982
Released: 8th April 1982

The first thing here to comment on is this is a Wonder Woman comic so it’s her show, though all the other female heroes get something to do, more or less.

We however start with our last female heroes to join the quest, Starfire, Wonder Girl and Raven from the Teen Titans. Raven has a major case of the premonitions so they fly off to Paradise Island to get some help from the Amazons. And like any good hero burning a message into a panel so the boys know where they have gone! The one thing that really strikes me looked back is just how tiny Starfires costumes is, more or less a sparkly bikini, especially the back which for some reason we see a lot in this issue. I’ve nothing against skimpy costumes now and again, but with almost everyone being more dressed and the cheesecake on how it’s drawn it really stands out here. Anyway Korri and Donna go to help stop the final horseman on another Earth, this time the very rarely used Earth-I (its only appearance apparently), a science utopia where sickness and more importantly death have been eliminated. So obviously they end up fighting Death, who’s trying to bring so old-time dying to this Earth,

After a back and forward where the two heroes try their best to thwart Death but are unable to stop him. This fight goes unresolved as things come to head and the two Titans are defeated. Apparently, though the whole point was to drain the various heroes in the fight and at that moment all the heroes we’ve seen in the special, from all the Earths, are transported to be traped in the villain’s magical disco ball!

Wonder Woman uses her lasso to break out of her crystal cell and starts to fight the giant The Adjudicator, when the four horsemen show up the other heroes break out to help and we get a brief fight between them and all the heroes. It’s here when we even get a line from Power Girl herself, y’know the reason why we’re here!

Again the fight just stops as The Adjudicator decides to give judgements on the Earth(s) and apparently the heroes are beginning to fade away. Wonder Woman in a last-ditch attempt to stop this attack ropes him with her lasso and ask how and why he’s doing all this, apparently, he was given a task by the Overseer to keep him out of trouble. Then we get a scene right out of Star Trek as the Overseers call the Adjudicator back home, saving the Earths from destruction, though they say he is only mad and not a child as is the normal ending for such stories.

And that’s it all the heroes gather together and Donna gets to bond with her big sister as we cut to credits before worrying about all the heroes getting home again. 

As you can probably tell after two and a bit issues of build-up, the comics just suddenly ends with a Deus Ex Machina, one we don’t even get to see as they work in the wings. It needed an extra issue at least for an epic final fight with the big bad we’ve been building up here. We’re still a good few years from those kinds of big events happening though so we get a pretty weak source ending, with a few panels of horrendous art to boot.

 ⋅ Writers: Paul Levitz / Roy Thomas ⋅ Pencilers: Gene Colan ⋅  Inkers: Frank McLaughlin / 

⋅ Bob Smith / Adrian Gonzales ⋅  Colourists: Carl Gafford ⋅ Letterers: Ben Oda ⋅ Editors: Len Wein ⋅