Wonder Woman Double-Sized Annual #2

Crimelord Juliana Sazia is lounging in bed with a glass of wine, discussing her recent history with an unseen figure. In flashback, we see her story. Juliana was the wife of Boston mob boss Tony Sazia. Shortly after his death, Juliana took over the various mob-connected families of Boston, outwitting her husband's main rivals. Mob activities attracted increased attention from Wonder Woman, but she soon focused her attention to other elsewhere. Boston remained under Sazia family control, and now Juliana seeks to gain a foothold in a place where she can have some power – Calvin City, once mighty industrial giant of New England, and current center of advanced technology research.

Her primary enforcer is a being known as “Decay”, a horribly desiccated woman with the power to rapidly age all matter. A panel in the flashback shows a mysterious figure removing the heart of the Gorgon defeated by Alexander Kostas, the heroic son of Zeus known at that time as the Olympian (a scene from the end of Wonder Woman Double-Sized Annual #1).

We segue to the present, as the leaders of the local gangs meet in the abandoned headquarters building of a bankrupt finance company, discussing in secret how to deal with Sazia’s power play. However, their meeting turns out not to be so secret: the walls of the 30^th floor boardroom they are meeting in suddenly bust open as Decay bursts into the meeting. The mobsters scatter to hide in various places around the building, but Decay tracks each one down relentlessly. She uses her powers to render the criminal leaders of Calvin City old and feeble as a sign of Sazia’s power over them, while killing any of the criminals’ soldiers outright.

One of the mob bosses has turned informant, however, and when the cops listening to the informant’s wire hear the carnage, they call in a SWAT team. Both the Olympian and local speedster Rush see the SWAT vehicles converging on the building and decide to move in ahead of them. They quickly form an alliance while fighting Decay. Rush is immune to her powers thanks to his connection with time, and Olympian’s timeless armor protects him from the worse effects. They fight Decay to a standstill but are unable to kill her, until the arrival of Wonder Woman, who snares the creature in her Lasso of Truth, focusing the healing power of Gaia into it and destroying it.

After congratulating the two young heroes, she warns the Olympian that the creature Decay was created from the heart of a gorgon by the demigod Phobos, master of fear and son of Ares. She fears that the similarities in their genealogy may suggest that Phobos has set his eye upon the Olympian as a suitable challenge. Meanwhile Rush determines to oppose the machinations of Juliana Sazia.

In a final scene, the man in bed with Sazia is revealed to be the human avatar of Phobos, and the two toast the crippling of the city’s crime families and begin planning their upcoming attacks in the campaign to take Calvin City. The next big target is their rival in Calvin City's Chinatown: the Lotus Blossom Triad...