Wonder Woman (first series) 21, January-February 1947, page 7B

© DC Comics

 Editor: Sheldon Mayer

 "Tide of Atomic Fire"

Script:  William Moulton Marston (as Charles Moulton)
Penciler:  Harry G. Peter
Inker: Harry G. Peter
Colorist: Unknown
Letterer: Harry G. Peter?

Wonder Woman 21 provides a good example of the bizarre, fanciful stories written by Marston and illustrated by long-time associate Harry G. Peter in the 1940s.  The atomic bomb blasts that ended World War II were clearly still on the minds of the American public in 1947. 

As Part 1, "The Mystery of the Atom World," ended, Steve Trevor is surprised by the sudden reappearance of Wonder Woman and the Holliday Girls in Paula's lab.  In Part 2, "Tide of Atomic Fire," Queen Atomia hatches a plan to increase the size of her atomic kingdom (now perched on Wonder Woman's ear) "a million-fold! We uranium atoms are the largest, most powerful of all— Enough of us working together can destroy the atoms of all other matter – blow the earth into a million pieces and reduce it to our size.  Ha-haa!"  By 1947, the claim that uranium was the largest atom was far out of date.  Larger neptunium (1940), plutonium (1940), americium (1944) and curium 1944) had all been discovered by scientists including G. T. Seaborg at the University of California, Berkeley.  Nonetheless, the atomic world fuses with the rest of the uranium in the laboratory's storage cylinder, blows up the Amazon Mass Spectrometor, then flies off to a uranium mine on an island.  "Trillions of uranium atoms are drawn into Queen Atomia's kingdom," and a giant fireball threatens the inhabitants of the island.  Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor rescue them by towing a massive steamer to the island with the Amazon's invisible plane.  When the atom universe chases the ship, Wonder Woman tows it to safety. Attacking the atomic sun with her bare fists, she is affected again by hydroxo gas, as shown here.  Steve Trevor bails out of the invisible plane to rescue Wonder Woman.  Both are shrunk to sub-atomic size, Steve into an electron and Wonder Woman into a proton.  They defeat a squadron of neutron robots with their bare fists and capture Queen Atomia.  The atomic universe shoots aimlessly into the stratosphere, as Wonder Woman, Steve and a bound Queen ride a pair of neutron robots back to Paula's lab.  Paula uses Gerta's Enlarging Machine to return them all to full size.  The story continues in Part 3, "Tide of Atomic Fire." For more Wonder Woman background information, follow this link.