Today in Comics History, July 24: Happy birthday, Lynda Carter!

theme from Wonder Woman (Warner Bros. Television, 1975), composed by Charles Fox and Norman Gimbel
Get out your ceremonial Amazoian attire and dance around with your kanga: it's the birthday of actor, singer, songwriter, model, activist and wonderful woman Lynda Carter!


from Fifty Who Made DC Great one-shot (DC, 1985)

AWAY FROM KEYBOARD

In the meantime, please enjoy The World's Greatest Combination of Publicity Still and Photo Caption.


from Starlog #2 (November 1976)

The Power of Comics

Comic books! They can transport us to lands far away, mystic distant climes or thousands of years in the past...or future! They give us adventure beyond our imagination, startling stories of magic, wonder, power and mysticism! They awe and astonish us with their tales of suspense and their journeys into mystery! Larger-than-life characters stride these pages to give us a world and action beyond our very ken!


Panel from The Bionic Woman #5 (June 1978), art by Jack Sparling

Or, um, y'know, it can just give us the same old stuff we have to deal with in our everyday regular normal mundane boring lives.

Amaze-ing Monday: The overhead view is of me in a maze

And today's maze is...
from The Bionic Woman #4 (May 1978), art by Jack Sparling

Whoa! Now, that's an amaze-ing maze! Trouble is, it really isn't meant to be solved on the page, so hey! Put away your pencils, folks. No, this is a maze meant as a gauntlet through which Jaime Sommers, the Bionic Woman, must run the gauntlet to save her friend, Dr. Rudy Welles. Well, huh, I dunno. If I Was a Bionic Bull, i'd just run right through those paper-thin walls and out the other side, avoiding the vicious minotaur be being sure to pick myself up that delicious, yummy cheese in the middle.

But no, Jaime's gotta do it the hard way...through the power of step-dancing!



Granted, there are some advantages Jaime has over her male counterpart, Steve Austin, the Six Million Dollar Guy...she definitely looks better in a track suit!



Oh, did I mention that Jaime is being pursued by the Invisible Woman in a thong? No? I didn't mention that? Jaime is being pursued by the Invisible Woman in a thong. I figgered it was worth mentioning.



Still, if I'da been Jaime, I woulda lept over the walls in one big bionic bound (with accompanying bionic sound effect). Better yet, I'd have sent ahead Maxmillian the Bionic Dog.



Because Max can do anything:



Say, do you know why he's called Maxmillian? Because he cost a million dollars. Bwah-ha-ha-ha! Oh, Glen A. Larson, thank you for making us laugh at life...again.

So, the moral of the story? When it comes to running your deathtrap mazes, accept no substitution and always go for the real thing:



Yeah, we're lookin' at you, Miss Zoe Slater:



And, for best results: choose Max!

Steve Austin vs. a Crocodile!

No, no, not "Stone Cold" Steve Austin...sorry, wrestling fans...but actually Colonel Steve Austin, the Twenty-Six and a Half Million Dollar Man (adjusted for inflation).


Cover of The Six Million Dollar Man #4 (December 1976), cover art by Jack Sparling

Oh, sure, we all remember when Steve fought Bionic Bigfoot and the Fembots. (That great alt-rock band of the mid-seventies). But have we ever seen The Man with the Scientific Kung-Fu Grip battle an actual crocodile? No, we have not. Hey, and he'd better get there quick, because apparently that cold-blooded reptile is stalking a Disney Princess! Better sing your longing song quick, princess!


Pages from The Six Million Dollar Man #4 (December 1976), script by Joe Gill; pencils, inks, and letters by Joe Staton, except for: inks by Jack Sparling on Steve's face throughout, colors by Wendy Fiore

Will be be in time to prevent the Princess? It's pretty tense even when we can't hear that familiar neh-neh-neh-neh-neh of Dr. Rudy Wells's patented steam-powered bionics in action!

bionic noise sound clip  Sound Effects sound clips

But don't be too worried, folks! All of Colonel Austin's dangerous underwater stunts are actually performed by Hollywood stuntman Colt Seavers! (He's been seen with Farrah, too.)



YEE-HAW! Ride 'em, Cyborg!



And now we find out that this crocodile infested sea is in...the desert? What the heck, Charlton Comics? I call shenanigans on that! But, hey, Steve always gets the girl...even if she does have eggs instead of ears.



Ummm, maybe the guys with the rifles could have done something about that crocodile? Huh, guys? Or was it your hookah break? Well, you can't blame them for slackin' off, seeing as their sun is going supernova behind them.

So there you go. Steve Austin, the Six Million Dollar Man, our country's most advanced human/cyborg weapon, is a powerful deterrent against the invasion of aquatic reptiles. Put that in your report and toss it on Oscar Goldman's desk without checking in with his secretary Peggy Callahan first, huh? Now that's a real man's man! Betcha NBC's Saturday night spin-off bionictress Jaime Sommers couldn't fight a big aquatic beast...



Oh. Wow. I...I stand corrected, Ms. Sommers.