- William Moulton Marston
''All the world's been waiting for you/And the power you possess/In your satin tights/Fighting for our rights/And the old red, white and blue!"
- From the Wonder Woman TV series.
The first prominent female hero in
The DCU the history of comic books, and generally considered the greatest of the superheroines was created in the 1940s. Wonder Woman is distinguished by her indestructible bracelets, which deflect bullets, and her enchanted lasso, which compels men to tell the truth and puts animals to sleep.
She was created in 1940 by psychologist William Moulton Marston (then an educational consultant to DC Comics) along with his wife Elizabeth Holloway Marston, as a deliberate counterpoint to the all-male stable of "ubermenschen" published by DC at the time. Marston was remarkably free of the era's usual prejudices about and disdain for women, and intentionally designed the character to embody his image of an idealized strong, unconventional and independent female.
As a historical note, Marston was also vital in the development of the polygraph ("lie detector") — which may be why Wonder Woman's lasso forces criminals to speak the truth. Marston also had unconventional sexual views (He and his wife had a third partner, Olive Byrne— unconventional by today's standards, grounds for arrest and/or public stoning in 1940), including a belief that a certain amount of bondage was healthy. Thus, many of his stories had elements of this; see the
"Suffering Sappho!"
section of
Superdickery.com for some examples.
Due to the deal Marston struck with DC, for a long time (at least through 1986), DC had to publish at least four issues of
Wonder Woman each year or lose the rights to the character. This may have been one of the reasons that she was one of the few
superheroes who continued publishing during
The Interregnum, along with
Superman,
Batman, and a handful of others. Her longevity is certainly one reason that contributed to her being one of DC's "Big Three"—as Frank Miller described it, Wonder Woman, Superman, and Batman are all the "
gods" of the DC Universe, and the rest are all "just" heroes. Also possibly playing a big role: her visibility in the
Superfriends cartoon, as noted below; it's possible the only reason Aquaman didn't join the Big Three was because
his powers sucked, but still, for a long time he was probably more recognizable than Green Lantern or the Flash.
Originally, Wonder Woman's powers were relatively limited, compared to her contemporaries. She was strong, but not as strong as Superman; she was fast, but not as fast as the
Flash. She couldn't fly, but she could "glide on air currents". Most of her powers were gadget-based; the bullet-deflecting bracelets, the Lasso of Truth, the invisible jet. The
Silver Age version of the character was stated as having the Strength of Hercules and the Speed of Mercury, deities who were shown to be a match for Superman and Flash, respectively, in other series; Wonder Woman herself battled Superman to a standstill in a the tabloid-sized special comic "Superman versus Wonder Woman."
The bosomy, raven-haired Amazon heroine was never as well-known by the general public as the other "big heroes" until the 1970s, thanks to Shannon Farnon, her voice actress on
Superfriends, and Lynda Carter, who portrayed her in prime time. In addition, feminists loved her, as evidenced by her being on the cover of the premiere issue of the movement's flagship magazine,
Ms..
At the same time, however, Wonder Woman was undergoing a
Re Tool; with the popularity of shows like
The Avengers and
Charlies Angels, and their visions of strong
Action Girls, she lost her powers, took up martial arts under inscrutable old Oriental guy I Ching, and became Undercover Agent Diana Prince. Ironically, this period was mostly ended by the above feminists, such as Gloria Steinem, who protested the depowering of a strong female character. As a result, Diana was repowered and rejoined the Justice League, and the whole episode is considered a
Dork Age.
Later, she was revamped for
Crisis on Infinite Earths by the comics legend George Perez. She was powered-up, giving her flight, and tying her much more to Greek mythology and a mission as a messenger of peace to "Man's World". Furthermore, she considered a
Secret Identity obviously counterproductive in that role, so she stayed with her new friends, Julia Kapatelis, a classical Greek scholar, and her daughter Vanessa. Futhermore, Steve Trevor was revised to be old enough to be Diana's father, thus precluding the cliche romance; instead, he romanced Etta Candy. However, it turns out that he is indirectly linked to Diana's home since his mother, Diana Trevor, crash landed there and died helping the Amazons defeat a monster, making her a deeply honored hero to them.
In addition, she was simultaneously made much more naïve and tougher. The naïveté is such that Wonder Woman could not conceive of a woman being an enemy, which made the time when the Cheetah tried to con her out of her lasso an extremely upsetting moment. The toughness comes from being a classically trained warrior who is ready to kill as necessary and with no regrets, such as when she decapitated the villainous god Deimos. At the same time, her supervillain enemies became much more credible threats as in how the Cheetah was changed from a normal woman in a silly cheetah suit to a villain who became a powerful and deadly were-cheetah who is a real challenge to Diana in battle.
In recent stories, she's suffered from a negative reaction in-universe, between escalating her role as emissary, leading to accusations of forcing her beliefs on people; killing a villain with
telepathic control of
Superman because
she felt it was the only way to stop him; and reluctantly getting involved in a war between the Amazons and Man's World. In the wake of all this, she regained (or rather gained for the first time in this continuity) her Diana Prince: Secret Agent identity in order to connect with people.
Many fans were not pleased.
A popular (and therefore cheapened) way to escalate the drama in Wonder Woman stories (or
Crisis Crossovers) recently has been to threaten Paradise Island... and then make good on the threat. The Amazons have been all-but-destroyed by Darkseid, themselves (in two civil wars), Imperiex, Hera, OMACs and, most recently, Granny Goodness in the wake of
Amazons Attack.
Currently, Wonder Woman's series is in the hands of Gail Simone. Her supporting cast is being revisited and she's up against a powerful monster called Genocide. The tale is epic, twisty and generally well received. Gail is the first woman to have ever written Wonder Woman's comic for a long period of time and deeply loves the character.
Recently fans have been pushing for her series to re-numbered to her actual tally of 600, rather then the 45 it will be in that issue. Why you may ask? Most other heroes
that have made it to 600 have had their comics renumbered, yet Dan
Di Dio feels her lower numbering is more accessible to new readers. Fans want Wonder Woman's numbering to reflect the historic place she has in comics as the longest running female hero.
Di Dio says he'll renumber the issues if he gets 600 postcards (individual ones only),
information and the address can be found here.
She has appeared in these other media...
- The Brady Kids (1972): The character's first appearance in animation. The Brady kids meet Wonder Woman and together they are accidentally transported back to the time of the ancient Olympic Games. The kids plan to compete in the marathon and beat the Greek athletes to qualify for the race. Wonder Woman persuades the kids to disqualify themselves, explaining that if they win the race they will change the course of history. It's all kind of surreal.
- Wonder Woman: A 1974–77 show starring Lynda Carter. It is dated, but fondly remembered.
- Superfriends: Alongside the male heroes of DC Comics.
- Justice League: Voiced by Susan Eisenberg as a princess fresh from Paradise Island, and a little naive. She had a budding relationship with Batman. Her origin story was retooled to fit with the series narrative, which left out much of the comic origin, though it was revisited in later episodes.
- Justice League The New Frontier: An animated Direct To Video based on the acclaimed comic series by Darwyn Cooke. This Wonder Woman was closely tied with her classic origin but examined the change from the Golden Age to the Silver Age. She was voiced by Lucy Lawless of Xena Warrior Princess fame.
- Wonder Woman: A newer DTV produced by Bruce Timm but set in its own continuity and focusing exclusively on her, intending to embrace the classic origin in full. She is voiced by Keri Russell.
Tropes associated with Wonder Woman include:
- Absurdly Sharp Blade: She carries the Sword of Haephestus, which can shave electrons off an atom.
- It should be noted that, because it's also magic, it can actually, easily, kill Superman. This evens things out, meaning any one of the big three can kill the other two, should it ever come to it (though Batman still has the biggest advantage, being Batman and all).
- Ambiguously Gay: Paradise Island has fueled slash for decades.
- In a recent comic, Diana introduces a male suitor to the courtship rituals of Themiscrya. When he points out that Themiscrya is filled entirely with women, she basically says, "Yes, exactly".
- It's been acknowledged that many Amazons are lesbian since George Perez's run in the late 1980s, in keeping to the Classical Greek roots.
- Action Girl: Despite some times of Unfortunate Implications, she has never been depicted as incapable.
- Action Mom: Hippolyta
- Anti Hero Substitute: Artemis took over as Wonder Woman for a brief time during The Nineties.
- Author Appeal: The bondage situations, as mentioned in the main description.
- Boobs Of Steel: Hell yeah!
- Canon Immigrant: The magic lasso originally did more than compel telling the truth — in the Golden and Silver Age, the captive of it had to obey ANY instruction the holder gave. As this was too squicky for family hour, both Superfriends and the television series changed it to the current version, based on William Moulton Marston's pioneering work with the lie detector. It stayed that way when DC rebooted the character after Crisis On Infinite Earths.
- It was retooled again at some point: the lasso now not only compels people to tell the truth, it also automatically reveals the truth about anything it's attached to: Diana can use it to find pressure points on giant monsters, etc. This evidently comes from the lasso being some kind of manifestation of the concept of Truth. Which may be why using it on Darkseid in Final Crisis canceled out the Anti-Life Equation.
- Canon Dis Continuity. The reboot made the original Wonder Girl an awkward character; she was later retroconned as a Wonder Woman clone.
- Clothes Make The Legend
- Cool Plane: Her invisible jet. Just don't think too hard about the way it works. (Or why she needs it if she can fly, though at first it was because she couldn't fly (Golden Age), then she can only fly short distances (Silver Age) and needs the jet for long-distance flight. This hasn't been true since the 1980s, though.)
- More recent versions have depicted the jet as a stealth plane.
- Which was its original purpose, back in the Golden Age. Why else make a plane invisible?
- Rule Of Cool says so.
- The Crown
- Depending On The Writer: To the point where many other writers treat good portions of the previous writers work as Canon Discontinuity for no particular reason than to put their own "touch" on the character, which is then ignored as the next writer does the same as the writer before...
- That's the way most comic writers work on most Long Runner series or characters these days...
- Deus Ex Machina: Her lasso of truth, making it somewhat difficult to tell stories.
- Fan Dumb: Most people believe they know about Wonder Woman, and view her negatively. These people Did Not Do The Research, yet are listened to for some reason. The fact that she did not get a singular guiding purpose until 20+ years ago makes it that much more frustrating.
- Fetish Fuel: So much.
- Flying Brick
- Friend To All Living Things: Diana has the infrequently acknowledged ability to talk to animals.
- Getting Crap Past The Radar: The B&D content of the Golden Age comics was so blatant and ever-present, it pretty much stomped on the "sub" part of "Subtext".
- Hot Amazon: Super example.
- Hot Librarian: Posed as one more than once, specially in the live-action series.
- Immune To Bullets: Sometimes. Frequently her bracelets are, but she herself is not. Despite being completely able to take on Superman...
- Kill It With Fire: One of her oft-ignored abilities, in the comics, is immunity to fire.
- Kryptonite Factor: In the Golden Age, in keeping with the bondage undercurrent, she lost her powers whenever she was tied up (or just when bound by a man).
- Lady Land: Paradise Island/Themiscrya
- Lady Of War: Some recent reimaginings.
- Leotard Of Power: The classic example
- Living Lie Detector: With help from her magic lasso. It's also canon that she's the spirit of truth, and it's hard to tell a lie around her even without the lasso.
- Made Of Iron: She's not so tough as other Flying Bricks, but she's still far more durable than normal humans. While pointy objects and bullets seem to annoy her a lot, blunt stuff and even lava or other such things don't bother her.
- Painted On Pants: Wonder Girl traditionally wears these.
- Reluctant Warrior: She may be an Amazon, but she constantly advocates diplomacy. At one point, she is forced to kill Maxwell Lord since he had telepathic control over Superman, and (while under the Lasso of Truth's effects) refused to not use it to kill other heroes.
- Requisite Royal Regalia: Her tiara.
- Science Marches On: Originally, Paradise Island was kept hidden from the world by being always covered by clouds. When satellite mapping was invented, someone would have noticed that one spot of the ocean was always cloud covered and would have investigated. So it was changed to magic somehow keeping it hidden.
- Secret Identity: Though not much anymore.
- Sidekick: Wonder Girl, Etta Candy.
- Star Spangled Spandex: Wonder Girl, Donna Troy.
- Straw Feminist: When written badly. The Pet Peeve Trope of a lot of WW fans.
- Super Hero Origin
- Super Senses: Diana can sense magic!
- Super Speed: She has the speed of Hermes, and in a recent issue of Justice League, can hit and dodge faster than Superman thanks to her warrior training.
- She'd still lose in a race, though. As Batman put it, "Who's faster: Bruce Lee or Usain Bolt?"
- In another, older issue, a variant of when she first met Flash, she showed off how fast she was. He countered...by running backward and still beating her. She was amused.
Wonder Woman: I warn you, the gods granted me the speed of Mercury.
Flash: Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you were fast.
- Super Strength
- Thou Shalt Not Kill: Averted with the current version series, considering Diana is perfectly willing to kill if she judges it necessary and will never second-guess making that decision.
- Will Not Tell A Lie: As the Spirit of Truth, even a secret identity is difficult for her.
