Character Spotlight: General Philip Blankenship (And Bonus Wonder Woman Setting!)

I thought by now that surely any new entries I added would be recent appearances, because anything old would be something I already knew about. That is not the case, as you'll see. This post takes us all the way back to the 1970s!

In 1975, as part of a comic book adaptation boom that likely started with Batman (1966) and included such things as Shazam! (1974), Superman: The Movie (1978), and The Incredible Hulk (1978), DC Comics and Warner Bros. decided to make a Wonder Woman tv movie...with a twist. Unlike the comics of the time, the show would be set during World War II! This would later lead to a tv series premiering in April 1976.

As part of the series setting, the show introduced General Phillip Blankenship, the superior of Steve Trevor and Diana Prince (Wonder Woman's secret identity).

The comics soon followed suit, beginning with Wonder Woman #228 (December 1976), which featured a team-up with Earth-2 Wonder Woman against Nazi villain Red Panzer. This could be its own entry, but since it's tied so closely to this character, I'll leave it how it is. During Wonder Woman's adventures on Earth-2, she meets General Blankenship, who is likewise Steve Trevor's superior. Although at one point his door reads "J. Blankenship", this was later retconned so that his name is J. Philip Blankenship.

Although Earth-2 was destroyed during Crisis on Infinite Earths (1985), we later see a Post-Crisis version of General Blankenship in Wonder Woman #185 (September 2002) during a storyline about Diana's mother Hippolyta taking on the role of Wonder Woman during World War II.