Wrap it Up is a lot like my Provide Some Answers feature, which is about long-running comic book plots finally being resolved. This, though, is a more specific comic book occurrence where the plotlines of a canceled comic book are wrapped up in the pages of another comic book series. This would happen most frequently in Marvel Comics, but other companies did it, as well.

This is a very odd, specific example that does not come up very often, where we're talking about a major comic book series, and thus "canceled" is probably not the right term, but at the same time, it is a comic book plotline in a series that ended with the plotline unresolved and so another comic book series had to pick it up. It just happened that at least one of the comic book series that picked up on the plot was, well, the same basic comic book series just given a new number one.

Confused yet?

Okay, it all started with the classic "Sacrifice" crossover between Superman and Wonder Woman (which all took place between issues of the miniseries, The O.M.A.C. Project. You might be saying, "Wait, Brian, so it was a crossover that took places between issues of a separate miniseries? That's kind of weird, right?" Yes, yes it is), where Batman was investigating the O.M.A.C. Project and Maxwell Lord, the secret head of the revamped Checkmate, revealed that he had also secretly brainwashed Superman a while back. So he had Superman attack Batman and only the defenses of the Justice League headquarters saved Batman's life (as as soon as Superman started killing Batman, it began to defend Batman and then the rest of the League showed up to save the Dark Knight).

Superman then kicked the collective ass of the Justice League, leaving it down to just him and Wonder Woman. Superman was being controlled through this whole time and shown his greatest villains murdering Lois Lane (hence his willingness to kill), but I tend to think that the Superman "Sacrifice" issues suggest that Superman was fighting Maxwell Lord's control. Someone on Twitter once got irked at me over that belief, as he felt that saying that Superman was fighting the brainwashing during his fight with Wonder Woman was diminishing the success that Wonder Woman had in her fight with Superman, thus demonstrating an anti-Wonder Woman bias on my part. I obviously don't agree, but, hey, I figure I might as well mention it.

So Wonder Woman slices open Superman's throat with her tiara and while he recovers, she tries to make Maxwell Lord stop his control of Superman. When he explains that the only way he will ever stop is if Wonder Woman kills him, she does just that in Wonder Woman #219 (by Greg Rucka, Rags Morales and a bunch of inkers)...

Brother Eye, the artificial intelligence manipulated by Maxwell Lord into becoming his servant, freaked out over Wonder Woman killing Lord, so it leaked the video of the killing to the whole world.

Wonder Woman then had to go on trial for murder at the World Court in Wonder Woman #222 (by Rucka, Cliff Richards and Ray Snyder)...

They order her to be confined to quarters in the next issue...

However, an army of OMACs then attack Paradise Island and Wonder Woman has to violate her house arrest to go help defend her people...

The Amazons end up leaving this dimension at the end of the series, with Wonder Woman staying behind. The series, though, ends with Wonder Woman #226 and no resolution of the whole "on trial for murder" deal. Her story continued into Infinite Crisis, but no mention of the court there. Then she took a year off (some of which was shown in 52), but no mention of the court.

Batman helps her set up a new identity as a government agent, Diana Prince.

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In the second issue of her new ongoing series (by Allan Heinberg, Terry Dodson and Rachel Dodson), we learn that Wonder Woman was found not guilty in abstentia...

Reader Steve also wrote in (after I mentioned in an earlier post about times that Wonder Woman was wanted by the police that I didn't recall exactly when they resolved the whole murder deal) that they also addressed it in the pages of Manhunter, where Wonder Woman hires Kate Spencer in Manhunter #26 (by Marc Andreyko, Javier Pina and Robin Riggs) from any U.S. charges over the killing...

After a lot of shenanigans over the next few issues, the Grand Jury ultimately decides not to indict Wonder Woman...

So that resolves that!

Thanks to Steve for suggesting this one.

If anyone has a suggestion for a comic book series that has its plots wrapped up in another comic, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!