Science's Less Accurate Grandmother: Wonder Woman: Past Imperfect by John Byrne et al.

10 May 2023

Wonder Woman: Past Imperfect by John Byrne et al.

The Crisis on Infinite Earths removed a number of Golden Age heroes from the Golden Age: without an Earth-Two, Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman no longer had Earth-Two counterparts who could have been around during World War II. But as I have read my way through this project, I have read a number of stories drawing on a retcon that Wonder Woman's mother, Queen Hippolyta, travelled back in time and assumed the mantle of Wonder Woman during World War II: All-Star Comics 80-Page Giant, The Justice Society Returns!, Wonder Woman: The 18th Letter, JSA: Strange Adventures, and JSA: Ragnarok have all been stories to show a time-travelling Hippolyta as part of the Justice Society.

It dawned on me while reading Strange Adventures that I had never actually read the story that established this retcon! So I did some research and discovered it happened during an arc in John Byrne's Wonder Woman run, in issues #130 to 133, with a prologue in Speed Force #1 and an epilogue in Adventure Comics 80-Page Giant #1, and then Phil Jimenez had returned to the idea during his run on Wonder Woman. All these issues are on DC Universe Infinite, so I added them to my JSA marathon... which will clearly never end. (Except that the Adventure Comics issue isn't on the service, and I didn't realize that soon enough to get hold of a hard copy, so I'll have to read that sometime later.)

from Speed Force #1

The story begins with a prelude in Speed Force, where the Golden Age Flash, Jay Garrick, narrates a story of how in 1942 he was once saved by a mysterious man who looked like his father, accompanied by a woman. This sets up the main story, where Jay sees footage of Queen Hippolyta as Wonder Woman and realizes that she was the woman—and therefore the man must be him from 1998, having traveled back in time to 1942. So Hippolyta and Jay travel back in time (as you do) and save his younger self to keep the timeline consistent... but then they accidentally become embroiled in a JSA adventure when Johnny Thunder is captured by Nazis looking to make off with his Thunderbolt. Soon they've revealed who they are, and are traveling with the JSA to Nazi-occupied Europe to rescue Johnny and his T-bolt.

John Byrne is one of the greats of comic bookdom, which makes this storyline's utter flatness all the more frustrating. Most of it is narrated retrospectively; Jay and Hippolyta leave in issue #130, and Jay comes back alone in the same issue, and then fills in everything that happened retrospectively in issues #131-33. There is just so much dialogue and narration that it feels like you are not actually experiencing the story in question but having someone summarize it for you. The dialogue is all people explaining things to each other, not actual conversations. Within Jay's flashback there are even further flashbacks with even more narration! When the story's not about Hippolyta and Jay, it cuts to what the dead Diana is doing with the Greek gods, which is all people explaining things to each other about godhood; there's a back-up strip about Artemis and Wonder Girl which is all explanations about Etrigan and Merlin. So much exposition! Byrne's art is good of course, but he smothers it.

from Wonder Woman vol. 2 #133

(The time travel is both a predestination paradox and changes the past. Jay and Hippolyta have to save the Flash so that history remains on track, but then everything else they do in the past changes it, so that when Jay returns to the present, he remembers knowing Wonder Woman when he was young even though he didn't remember this before he left.)

It feels to me like the thing that matters about this story isn't actually in it. Because it focuses on a pretty pedestrian JSA adventure, and because it's all told by Jay, the thing we don't get that we really should is Hippolyta! What does she feel about being in this time? Why does she decide to stay? Who knows! Byrne isn't interested in her as a character, he's interested in her only as a source of retroactive continuity. Mollmann's Law of Retcons, often quoted around here, is that the new version must be at least equal in interest to the previous version, if not moreso, but perhaps there should be a second one: the retcon should lead to a story, not be a continuity change for the sake of continuity. Byrne wanted to bring back the Golden Age Wonder Woman, but he forgot to tell a story to go along with it. It's four issues of nothing.

Thankfully, Phil Jimenez came back to it four years later and did tell a story. In his story, Diana is back to being Wonder Woman and on a time travel adventure when she is accidentally diverted to 1943. She bumps into her mother, but to preserve the timeline, disguises herself as the Golden Age hero Miss America. The two must work together to stop some Nazis from obtaining occult artifacts.

Unlike Byrne's story, Jimenez's actually focuses on Hippolyta as a person. Through this adventure, Diana gets to see a different side of her mother, where she's relaxed, part of a community... and friends with benefits with Wildcat! (I guess if anyone punches above his weight, it will be a championship boxer.) The ending in particular, where mother and daughter each talks about how they feel about their family, ties it all together in way that totally justifies the retcon in terms of story and that Byrne's actual story totally failed to do.

(As always, a continuity note: in All-Star Squadron, The Young All-Stars and Secret Origins, Roy Thomas established that in the post-Crisis history, what had been Wonder Woman's role in the JSA was taken by Miss America. I don't think a single writer after Roy Thomas, however, actually used this idea: she's not in The Demise of Justice, for example. Then Byrne made his retcon of the retcon, and Miss America was doomed, because anyone wanting to use Wonder Woman in a WWII-era JSA story could just use her. Diana calls her obscure in this storyline: so much for being a key member of the JSA!)

"A Stranger with My Face" originally appeared in issue #1 of Speed Force (Nov. 1997). The story was written and illustrated by John Byrne, colored by Noelle Giddings, and edited by Jason Hernandez-Rosenblatt.

Past Imperfect originally appeared in issues #130-33 of Wonder Woman vol. 2 (Feb.-May 1998). The story was written, pencilled, inked, and lettered by John Byrne; colored by Patricia Mulvihill; and edited by Paul Kupperberg.

"U-Boats & Dinosaurs" and "Her Daughter's Mother" originally appeared in issues #184-85 of Wonder Woman vol. 2 (Oct.-Nov. 2002). The story was written and pencilled by Phil Jimenez, inked by Andy Lanning (#184-85) and Larry Stucker (#185), colored by Trish Mulvihill, and edited by Eddie Berganza.

This post is forty-second in an ever-expanding series about the Justice Society and Earth-Two. The next installment covers Batman/Wildcat. Previous installments are listed below:

All Star Comics: Only Legends Live Forever (1976-79)

The Huntress: Origins (1977-82)

All-Star Squadron (1981-87)

Infinity, Inc.: The Generations Saga, Volume One (1983-84)

Infinity, Inc.: The Generations Saga, Volume Two (1984-85)

Showcase Presents... Power Girl (1978)

America vs. the Justice Society (1985)

Jonni Thunder, a.k.a. Thunderbolt (1985)

Crisis on Multiple Earths, Volume 7 (1983-85)

Infinity, Inc. #11-53 (1985-88) [reading order]

Last Days of the Justice Society of America (1986-88)

All-Star Comics 80-Page Giant (1999)