Wonder Woman 1.8: Last of the Two-Dollar Bills

Airdate: 1/8/77

Wotan, a nefarious Nazi agent, makes an amphibious landing on the Virginia coast, and thwarts Wonder Woman’s plans to stop him, but not before she gets a good look at the masked man’s baby blue eyes. Later in Washington, she and Etta get “film-flammed” by a street photographer, and she recognizes him as Wotan. Why the ruse? His pictures are used by the Nazis to create lookalikes of a head employee at the Bureau of Printing and Engraving, Frank Wilson, and his wife; the doppelgangers will steal plates to make millions of counterfeit 2-dollar bills and destroy the nation’s economy (Wotan himself pretends to be a new hire at the café where the wife works so he can oversee the entire operation). A meddling Wonder Woman gets captured by the evildoers and locked up – she managers, however, to lure Steve closer to the action by impersonating an agent who sees signs of trouble. A toothache gives away the imposters when a canny dentist observes Frank’s steel filling as a uniquely German trademark, but before the group can rendezvous with their U-boat Wonder Woman stops them in their tracks, courtesy her boomerang tiara which slices through Wotan’s inflatable raft!

Using her voice-imitation powers

Above-average episode FINALLY explains the real reason 2-dollar bills stopped being printed. Actually, they had been out of circulation for 10 years at the time of this airing, and were just about to be reintroduced as a cost-saving measure and not celebrate the nation’s bicentennial. They still didn’t improve Jefferson’s portrait.

Excellent, textbook-example of how to create exposition by withholding information – not until about 10 minute in do we figure out what the villainous plot is all about. Congrats to scribes Paul Dubov and Gwen Bagni. Also enjoy more time devoted to Diana/WW’s unrequited love for Steve; best scene: Diana moons over a sleeping Steve, with heartache written all over her face. Poor girl!

We get a good look at WW’s full outfit when she meets Steve at the Engraving Bureau, complete with miniskirt and cape.