A few decades after Noah left the ark…
The Mouse Man found himself in a kingdom where many men were off fighting an ancient war. One man had stayed behind, an evil man named Vandar Adg. He had abandoned his military post and snuck back to the kingdom. Even the king had gone to fight, leaving the women to perform the menial chores of the kingdom.
As the Mouse Man, too small to be observed by either the uncouth looking Vandar Adg or the women of the kingdom, continued to monitor the city from thousands of years ago, he saw a strange light approaching from the sky at great speed. Then, as it drew closer, he realized it was an object, a comet that came incredibly close to the earth’s surface, without actually striking it. The young 1960s Mouse Man, Vandar Adg and all of the women were bathed a strange light, and then the comet left the vicinity of earth, to continue its journey through the universe, not returning to earth again until the 30th Century, where its effects would slow down the aging process of the Legion of Super-Heroes, so that many of them would be called ‘Lad’ or ‘Boy’ or ‘Kid’ long after their initial debut as teenage super heroes.
For now, the Mouse Man was unable to feel the effects of the comet’s rays, but continued to walk through the city looking at the women’s reactions to the sudden appearance and disappearance of the comet. Then he saw someone who seemed strangely familiar. The woman wore no lipstick, in accordance with the people of her time period. Her hair was somewhat longer than that of the average 1960s woman, reaching halfway down her back. Yet she was six foot four and, in her primitive way, very beautiful.
“Wonder Woman!” he thought, “I’d heard she was older than she looked, but how can this be? She’s been alive from this time until my time and still looks like a 34 year old in the 1960s.”
Vandar Adg would go on to realize that the comet had stopped him from aging. He would leave the kingdom and wander the world and become its most enduring criminal, later taking the name Vandal Savage.
The women would watch their husbands return from war, some dead, some alive. Yet all of those women would outlive their husbands. The unmarried women would take husbands too, but in the end, all of them would see their husbands die of old age, while they remained young. A few of them were prepared to live discrete lives in human history, remarrying only men of high risk occupations, so that the chances of seeing their husbands grow old and die would be unlikely.
Most of the women knew that they could only continue on in isolation. Having married once, and seen the outcome, they dared not marry again, nor live with men at all, as what became known as ‘Man’s World’ was subject to normal aging processes.
They retreated to an uncharted island in the vicinity of what became ancient Greece. They called it Paradise Island, and settled there. Cut off from mainstream society, they were unable to read the creation stories which Moses eventually recorded in the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible, namely Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Leviticus and Deuteronomy), and unaware that the comet had caused their aging to stop, they soon believed the ancient Babylonian myths of the pagan goddess Aphrodite. Without Christian men to lead them, they built their entire culture around belief in a goddess who didn’t exist.
The comet’s effects on women were not singular. Unlike Vandar Adg, the women found their speed and strength and intelligence dramatically increased. In time, they called themselves Amazons, and in the 1940s, they would encounter a wounded Major Steve Trevor, who would win the heart of their named Princess Diana for the first time in thousands of years. Diana would return to Man’s World and assist him as both Diana Prince and Wonder Woman. In the 1960s, she would have three encounters with the Mouse Man.
The time travelling Mouse Man knew none of this, but his trip to the past had exposed him to the historical rays of the comet too. He would now never age beyond 23. He had not been able to give Professor Hyatt any information that would have revealed the true origins of the Amazons (as he did not know it himself). Yet he was back in the 1960s having arrested his own aging process.
In the years ahead, he made more journeys to the past. The next was to the 6th Century BC, where he witnessed an extraordinary adventure: An ancient king named Nebuchadnezzar had a dream, which he could not understand. Yet it made a significant impression on him. He called every magician, fortune teller, mystic and witch and medium in his kingdom to his palace and asked them to both tell him the content of his bizarre dream and its explanation. None of them could do it. In a rage, the king had them all put to death. Finally, four followers of God named Daniel, Shadrach, Mesach and Abednego were miraculously able to tell the king the content of a dream which he had not related to anyone, and to explain it.
Hiding in the king’s court, the Mouse Man heard the explanation unfolding.
“It’s a prophecy covering every era in human history from 6th Century BC down to 20th Century AD,” thought Mouse Man, “It predicts every major world power, the failed attempts to reunite the nations of Europe right down to Hitler’s time … all in cryptic prophetic language that churches in my time are only beginning to understand in the light of historical hindsight. God gave this dream to King Nebuchadnezzar, and then then gave only his people the means to understand it. Everyone involved in occult based magic and psychic powers ended up helpless and dead. Boy will Professor Hyatt be amazed at this!”
Mouse Man returned to the 1960s and related all that he had discovered.
He made more visits to the past, and saw Jason Blood involve himself with a magician and become possessed by a demon, condemned to centuries of unholy war with supernatural powers. He saw Zatanna’s mother Sindella die as a result of involvement in magic. There were numerous examples, and every case, he saw that occult based power led eventually to tragedy and despair.
By 1977, he had made many notes with Professor Hyatt and had many discussions.
“I don’t get it,” said Mouse Man at last, “Why do magical powers always lead to awful outcomes and/or death? I would have thought that such powers enabled people to stave off such troubles.”
“I’ve been studying the Bible more since you first hit the creation wall at the beginning of time,” said Professor Hyatt, “Deuteronomy Chapter 18 has one of the scariest warnings, and the most ignored warning, in all of the Bible.”
Professor Hyatt read it aloud:
‘Don’t sacrifice your children in the fires on your altars. Don’t let your people practice divination or look for omens or use spells or charms, and don’t let them consult the spirits of the dead. The Lord your God hates people who do these disgusting things, and that is why he is driving those nations out of the land as you advance. Be completely faithful to the Lord.’
“But people haven’t been,” Professor Hyatt went on, “Demons have made the occult more popular than ever, and everything you’ve reported from 6th Century BC down to present day has given us a unique insight into the consequences.”
“But Wonder Woman has a magic lasso, and she only fights for good. Think of all the good she’s done,” said the Mouse Man.
“It’s an indication of how far you’ve come, that you can say that of the woman who defeated you three times in the 1960s,” said Professor Hyatt.
“I was acting out the wrong way back then. She had a right to catch me and imprison me,” said Mouse Man, “And I’m grateful to you and the Atom for giving me a new chance all these years.”
“All these years!” said Professor Hyatt, “Do you realize that it’s been over a decade!”
“Sure,” said Mouse Man.
“But you haven’t aged.”
“Wonder Woman hasn’t aged in thousands of years,” said Mouse Man, “Oh! … That’s it. The only common experience we’ve had is the exposure to the passing comet in that time when I was back in the past! I must have met Wonder Woman when she was in her thirties. I was 23, and neither of us have aged since exposure to the comet stopped it, if it was the comet.”
“It’s the only theory that makes any sense,” said Professor Hyatt, “But who are we to know what tragedy might not already have become of Wonder Woman’s use of a magical weapon?”
Neither of them were aware that Wonder Woman was soon to undergo the greatest tragedy of all. Steve Trevor would die, permanently. Diana had been widowed when she outlived her aging husband thousands of years earlier. Now she would see her second love die before they could ever marry.
“Then she must be warned,” said Mouse Man, “But she’ll never believe that one of her earlier enemies would have a benevolent motive for asking her to give up one of her most potent weapons.”