It’s time to return to Kellogg’s Cinnamon Mini Buns mini-comics. I didn’t eat that cereal because I was one of those kids who didn’t eat sugary cereals and of the few I tried in my older years oddly this wasn’t one of them despite my liking cinnamon buns. And yet I tried the Spider-Man cereal. I don’t understand me sometimes. This time I found the comic I wanted to review, as opposed to last time when I actually had to use a video for my review. However, this is one of those sites of questionable legality when it comes to comic posting, so I won’t be linking to it. Also I braved computer viruses on a few sites filled with annoying pop-up ads for your benefit. You’re welcome.
So this one was a bit different from the others. While all four featured DC heroes, the Wonder Woman story really didn’t follow the comics. Instead it was promotion for a toyline that was never made, Wonder Woman And The Star Riders. Basically we’re giving Diana a bunch of new friends and turning them into this:
Yes, complete with taking place in a magical realm apparently Diana sacrifices the power of the gods to become an American magical girl. That makes this comic harder to find than the other three because frankly it’s too silly not to have in your minicomic collection.
Wonder Woman And The Star Riders Vs. Purrsia has no credits and no title. This 1993 mini-comic is meant to introduce this version of Wonder Woman and her new friends, but I’m not expecting an origin story going into this one. Have a seat, folks. This should be…interesting.
The first page gives us our setting: “East of the sun and west of the moon”. No mention if they’re caught between said moon and New York City. (There’s a forced reference not enough of you will get. Let this link help you. The line put the song in my head and I’m not in a suffering alone mood right now…plus it’s a good song. Haven’t seen the movie.) It’s here that we meet our Star Riders. Wonder Woman, of course, Dolphin, Ice (interestingly both also the name of DC Universe characters but not them), Starlily, and Solara. Respectively their champions of…well, Diana’s just listed as “amazon princess”, but the others are champions of the frozen north, the deep blue seas, desert flowers, and the sun. Kind of random on this one.
They’re heading to their playset magical palace because Earth is in trouble. Apparently a day with a “y” at the end. At the meeting Wonder Woman tells the others what I would think they’d already know since its their gems that our title villain has stolen. With the ice, sun, air, and planet jewels gone (my guess is Diana gets that last one as the others do match the home locales of the others) Earth is in chaos. Dolphin’s sea jewel is the only one left and hidden, but Purrsia (yes, she has a cat motif) is secretly watching them in her magic globe villains always seem to have. I’m guessing Zordon stole his from Rita Repulsa. Her goal is to replace Wonder Woman as protector of Earth so she can be queen of the universe. Still beats any of Catra’s schemes in this review series.
Using her magic mask and her flying panther Panthera, sure why not, Purrsia sneaks into the palace and grabs the sea jewel from the super-secret hiding place…in Dolphin’s vanity drawer. Dolphin senses it and the Riders run to her room. Purrsia uses a “slumber jem” to put the others to sleep but Dolphin manages to protect herself in a bubble. With the others out, including the who actually is based on a DC character and not just sharing a name while also being the title character, Dolphin goes after the villain herself on her winged horse Clouddancer. Oh, I didn’t mention that they all have Pegususes (Pegusi?) in this comic except for the villain who rides her cat and berates her all the time. Luckily none of this made it into the DC Extended Universe. I hear Wonder Woman ’84 had enough issues.
Unfortunately, with the sea gem in Purrsia’s possession the oceans are going crazy and the villainess uses the distraction to capture her. The other Star Riders show up but with all the gems Purrsia is a match for them until Wonder Woman breaks out her sword…no, sorry, that was 2000s Wonder Woman. This is the 1990s, so she uses that other weapon she’s famous for, her star-shaped magic wand. Remember how she took down Maxwell Lord painlessly with that and used her magic to end his ability to control Superman without killing him? Now I wish she actually had that. Yeah, no magic lasso, no deflecting bracelets, no tossing tiara, no…whatever the heck her belt was supposed to do, and of course she has a Pegasus who doesn’t even turn invisible. How is this Wonder Woman?
Wait, I’m wrong. She uses the lasso later, getting Purrsia to confess why she took the gems. She wanted their beauty and power, but now sees the error of her ways and wants to join the sisterhood. With everything now restored Purrsia steals Solara’s gem again and escapes. So she was tied up in the lasso and still lied about joining up? Is that even possible? Well, maybe Diana will get to actually be Wonder Woman in the Justice League America comic, but that’s a ways off.
I’m surprised Aquaman hasn’t heard “kiss seaweed” more often.
As for this one, if I’m going to call out the New 52 for making Diana too much into Xena, I’m going to call this out for not being Xena enough. The other three comics are going to be for the usual boy audience so why this was thrown into the mix is confusing. Imagine being a boy wanting to see Wonder Woman fight criminals like Flash, Superman, and the Justice League does only to run into this thing, while the more girly readers would read this and be disappointed by her appearance in the Justice League minicomic and possibly not being interested in the Flash or Superman stories at all. It’s like a completely different audience and there isn’t much crossover. Fans of regular Wonder Woman of any gender would not be happy with this and fans of this would not be interested in the other three. It’s very much an odd duck in this quartet frankly. Then again, given what the girls division did to She-Ra I’m guessing they didn’t understand action stories for girls at all.
If you want to see this yourself, I’m guessing DC Comics, Mattel (the company that was going to make the toys), and Kellogg’s don’t really care so I put together a handy PDF so you don’t have to use a questionable site like I did. Download Wonder Woman & The Star Riders here. Your anti-virus will thank you. Let me know if something’s wrong so I can try again.
Next time depends on what I can find. If I can find more Legion Of Power mini-comics I’ll review that. Otherwise it’s back to Eternia and the best series of Masters Of The Universe minicomics.
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