Airdate: 9/30/77
An American scientist has harnessed the great powers of psychokenesis,
inventing a machine that can boost such powers in a human possessing them – in
this case, a Japanese associate named Ishida. Ishida, expectedly, has sinister
motives in mind, and when he flees to an former Japanese Internment Camp in Los
Alamos and gets WW to follow (using Steve as bait), they are revealed: he
blames her, erroneously, for he death of his brother, whom she was actually
trying to save when the two were in a military firing range, and now wants
revenge. Forcing her to walk through a minefield, he is defeated when her
mental strength overpowers his. In this end, Ishida’s supposedly “dead” brother
shows up, and all charges are dropped against him after he realizes the error
of his ways.
Although WW’s “new” adventures are set in the modern day,
they still have strong connections to her WWII past, in a sense reflecting the
way 70s America looked upon that war. In this case, the shame of the country’s
treatment of the Japanese by relocating them is explored, perhaps inspired by
President Ford’s acknowledgement, a year earlier in 1976, that the internment
was “wrong” and “shall never again be repeated.” Who says you can get a civics
lesson from a comic book adaptation.
On a more sci-fi note. Ishida’s powers, and particularly his
usage of them for nefarious purposes, closely resemble those in Chronicle, the 2012 flick about three
boys invested with special powers. Of course, they don’t have a special box,
nor is a caped crusader on their backs. It’s a fun conceit, and gives WW another,
more threatening villain than in episodes past – this season is already upping
the ante a bit, and utilizing its modern-day setting to explore more fantasy/sci-fi
-driven opportunities.
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