Wonder Woman #178

Issue Details

Synopsis

When Wonder Woman testifies against Steve it's up to Diana Prince to save him.DC's publisher Carmine Infantino wanted to rejuvenate what had been perceived as a tired Wonder Woman, so he assigned writer Denny O'Neil and artist Mike Sekowsky to convert the Amazon into a secret agent. Wonder Woman was made over into an Emma Peel type, and what followed was arguably the most controversial period in the hero's history.The collaborators' first issue put Diana Prince's transformation into motion, even though it focused primarily on her wardrobe. When testimony by Wonder Woman landed her friend Steve Trevor in jail for murder (which he didn't commit), her alter ego tried blending in with the hippie culture to find eye witnesses who could clear his name. Diana succeeded and realized that she needed to better connect with the people she protected.Those changes would explode in the following issue, after Queen Hippolyta informed her daughter that Paradise Island was relocating to another dimension in order to replenish the Amazons' dwindling mystical energies. Shockingly, Diana opted to renounce her powers and costume so that she could remain on "Man's world," and help Steve thwart the terrorist machinations of the evil Dr Cyber, including one that had Cyber sending bomb-rigged toys to the children of America's leaders.Though powerless, Diana quickly built a new life for herself, opening a boutique and undergoing training under the tutelage of I Ching, a blind martial arts expert she befriended. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough for the radically altered Wonder Woman, who wouldn't stop Doctor Cyber before the villainess saw to the murder of Steve Trevor.For the next 5 years, Diana's adventures lauded the versatile spirit an independent strength of the modern woman more than her physical wonders, although some feminists argued that the "depowering" of Wonder Woman had greatly diminished the character.