Wonder Woman ’77 Chapter 27 Review and **SPOILERS**

I Beat Up Space Aliens for All Nations

Written By: Amanda Deibert

Art By: Christian Duce, Wendy Broome

Letters By: Wes Abbott

Digital Price: $0.99

On Sale Date: September 15, 2016

**NON SPOILERS AND SCORE AT THE BOTTOM**

One big event that happened in 1977 was the death of Elvis Presley on August 16. I don’t remember it—I was only two years old at the time, after all—but throughout my youth, his name was invoked by my parents and grandparents, and in popular media. I remember the fat Elvis in a jumpsuit mainly, and the legend of him having died of a drug overdose on toilet. But even as a kid, I was aware that there had been a thinner Elvis Presley, one that revolutionized popular music or something, long before I drew breath. My parents didn’t even like his music all that much—I think only my one grandma was a true fan—but Elvis’ name was invoked on a regular basis until around the time I got to junior high school. And now, you almost never hear about Elvis Presley outside of a Scott Snyder interview! We’re keeping the torch alive for Lynda Carter’s Wonder Woman, why can’t we have an Elvis Presley ’77 comic? Depicting events that took place before August 16, of course. The late 70s are a hot property right now, think about it! In the meantime, read my review of Wonder Woman ’77 chapter 27, and get into that fat Elvis mood!

Explain It!

So you’ll remember last chapter ended with Wonder Woman taking off in her invisible jet after some lizard-faced alien lady in her spaceship. Well, that spaceship has a cloaking device so it evades Wonder Woman, and she’s like “no duh,” then heads over to NASA to use their radar devices and probably their bathroom. She tells them to look for any unusual radiation spikes, and when one is detected she takes off. No time to answer any specific questions about Agent Diana Prince fellows, she’s fine, I swear! Wonder Woman finds the cloaked spaceship in the Armand Bayou Nature Center in Houston, Texas, which is pretty convenient. She steps inside and finds two cosmonauts and two astronauts held prisoner inside of a room, which I guess we would consider a cell but might have been this alien lady’s nursery, you don’t know! The five of them look for the alien lady in question, who is talking to a hologram of an alien that looks curiously like the Martian Manhunter. The hologram alien refers to the lizard-faced alien as General Gatria and asks if the plan to force the U.S. and the USSR into a conflict, and thereby abandon their space program and stop making a nuisance of themselves, goes well. It does. The hologram then says he’ll inform the council, as soon as Gatria gets rid of the intruder!

Wonder Woman steps into the room and tells the prisoners to secure themselves. General Gatria presses the “lift off” button on the ship and they head into space! She tries shooting Wonder Woman with some kind of beefy gun…we know how that goes, then heads into airless space where she thinks Wonder Woman won’t follow. Wondy refers to General Gatria by name—I mean, how conscientious is that? She only just learned it by overhearing it spoken, and she’s already addressing Gatria formally. Wonder Woman spins into a spacesuit that looks incredible and zips out of the airlock, only to be cold cocked by Gatria! Looks like she might float into space endlessly, but she pulls herself together, tackles Gatria back into the ship, binds her with the lasso and saves the day. Well, that was quick. Back on Earth, Wonder Woman is getting her props from NASA, who say they’ll stash Gatria in a special area…the fifty-first area, in fact. Then dude wonders what they’ll do with the Commie prisoners, and Wonder Woman is like nuh uh, you’re gonna send these guys back to Russia because I don’t play that Cold War nonsense! :snaps:

Usually, these two-chapter digital stories consist of the first chapter being mostly set-up, the second being mostly action. This wasn’t like that, but it was still fairly entertaining. The idea of aliens stoking the flames of the Cold War to keep us out of their business isn’t entirely new, but against the tapestry of the late 70s Space Race—which had competition as well as collusion between both space programs—it gets a fresh spin. It just wasn’t particularly exciting. Though the artist is the same in this chapter as the last, I found the line a lot more fluid and everything better-rendered in general. Maybe I got used to it. Lots of good Wonder Woman moments in this chapter, but it’s not a thrill-a-minute.

Bits and Pieces:

A nice conclusion to this story that shows Wonder Woman at her best, though there isn't a lot of action. Still, considering the events of this story in the context of the year 1977 makes for some interesting conjecture. The art looks better in this chapter than the last, for some reason, which might have more to do with me than anything else.

7/10