Purple Ray
| Purple Ray | |
|---|---|
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | DC Comics |
| In story information | |
| Type | Device |
| Element of stories featuring | Wonder Woman |
The Purple Ray is a fictional Lazarus-like healing device featured in Wonder Woman comics that was meant to bring a person back from the dead. Created by William Moulton Marston, it is still unclear what this creation was meant to allegorize and what the significance of assigning the color purple was.
Prior to the comic book storyline Crisis on Infinite Earths, Diana invented the Purple Ray in order to heal Steve Trevor from injuries he sustained when his plane was shot down and he was left adrift in the sea for days.
The Purple Ray was an all-around healing device. Variations on the concept survived into Earth-1, post-Crisis, post-Zero Hour and post Infinite Crisis continuities. Once it was used to revive the JSA members, who had been killed by an insane wax museum guard who had disguised himself as historical villains.
The Purple Ray is noteworthy for restoring Steve Trevor to health, as well as being modified to transfer power from many of the Paradise Island Amazons to Donna Troy, so that she would have powers of her own similar to those of her sisters. Much later, the ray started having technical problems, which caused moments of weakness for Troy, forcing her to explain her past to the Teen Titans. However, the Amazons later contacted her to explain the problem and the fact that they solved it. On another occasion it was used to revive Changeling of the New Titans, somehow increasing his powers in the process.
The Purple Ray was shown to have destructive power if allowed to overload. In Wonder Woman (vol. I) #322, an insane love-god Eros went on a rampage and set out to kill Steve Trevor. In the ensuing battle, the Purple Ray was damaged and overloaded, bursting into a destructive heat beam that caused a fire on Paradise Island. It was then repaired temporarily to heal Trevor of injuries he sustained at Eros's hands; when the mad god attempted to intervene, its healing powers cured Eros of his insanity by removing his memories of his time as Steve Trevor — and transplanted them into Trevor. Later, in issue #328, the Purple Ray was intentionally engineered to fire its life-giving energies into a gigantic Shadow Monster sent by the Anti-Monitor to destroy the Amazon nation, resulting in the destruction of the Shadow Monster.
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