For the main Wonder Woman character directory see Characters.Wonder Woman. The Golden Age Wonder Woman (Charles Moulton) iterations of all Earth-Two characters here outlined are markedly different from the mainly Silver\Bronze Age, Post-Crisis and DC Rebirth versions described on the main character sheets linked previously. New 52 also has its own section.
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Title Character
Princess Diana/Wonder Woman
Princess Diana of Paradise Island/Diana Prince/Wonder Woman

Created By: William Moulton Marston & Harry G. Peter
First Appearance: All-Star Comics #8, 1941
"I swear, divine one, to right whatever wrong I've caused, or die in the attempt!"
Only child of Queen Hippolyte who won the contest to become the Amazon's champion in the greater world.
- A Dog Named "Dog": She has a pet lion named Leo, who she befriended on New Discovery Island
- Ace Pilot: Before she develops the mental radio controls, Wonder Woman had to all of her piloting manually, and even with the mental radio controls she has to be precisely input her commands by the foot.
- Achilles' Heel: Under Marston and Hummel's pen, Wonder Woman is so tough a metal pipe can be broken over her head without hurting her. Hitting her in the back of her head with that same pipe will knock her out, however. Some writers throw out this weakness. Martin Pasko and Allen Brennert had Wonder Woman remain conscious even while struck in the back of her head from Al Pratt's comet punch. Atom's punches did hurt her, but only because of The Atom's newfound power is far beyond that of a common pipe wielding thug, not because the back of her head is a weak spot. Robert Kanigher kept the back of head weak spot. Wonder Woman #7 suggests she will no longer have this weakness in a distant future the Antimonitor doesn't let happen.
- Acquired Poison Immunity: She quickly develops resistance to toxins, unless they are magical or alien in nature, or something the human biology is otherwise incapable of resisting. Adaptations often portray her as "weak" to chloroform, as with most comic book characters of the time she showed an unrealistic vulnerability to it, not realizing she had soon become all but unaffected by the substance beyond recognizing the scent.
- Action Girlfriend: Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor go on the occasional date and flirt constantly, and fight Nazis and Alien Invaders side by side. He's is a normal human while she's a superhero.
- Aesop Amnesia: In Sensation Comics #10, chains are welded to Wonder Woman's "bracelets" by what she thinks is a man but what turns out to be a female railway worker in bulky protective clothing. Wonder Woman hadn't even tried to break her bonds, or anything else until then, but realized her she still had all of her strength, having not "broken" Aphrodite's law. Despite this, Wonder Woman continues to just assume her strength is gone every time anything she assumes to be a man welds a piece of metal between her "bracelets". Even when she sees evidence of her retained strength she makes no attempt to break the welded metal off until the fact the welder isn't a man is figuratively and sometimes literally staring her right in the face.
- Affectionate Nickname: Steve calls her "Angel", and she will use "boyfriend" like it's his name when she's feeling exceptionally fond of him.
- All-Loving Hero: Her love of humanity is why she remains in the world outside Paradise Island and tries to help as many people as possible.
- Aloof Dark-Haired Girl: In her "Diana Prince" identity Di acts rather aloof to other adults, not so much towards kids.
- Always Second Best: Diana is by far the most physically powerful Amazon on Paradise Island, but she does fall short in some categories. She's only the second best wrestler, after Hippolyte, despite the queen not taking part in the Amazon games. Hippolyte has more versatile telepathy too. Paula von Gunther quickly becomes the island's premier scientist, understanding quantum mechanics and nuclear physics the princess struggles with, and though Paula thinks Diana and Mala are smarter than her on account of both outsmarting her when they were enemies, and still inventing some things she didn't think of, though they still run their stuff by Paula, once she becomes their ally.
- Amazonian Beauty: She is a literal Amazon and she is "as beautiful as Aphrodite".
- Astral Projection: She initially needs Aphrodite's elixir to astral project, but Queen Desira teaches Di how to enter the astral plane freely. On at least two occasions Diana's drawn there unwillingly by villains to make her physical body less of a threat. She eventually learns how to disguise her astral form and teaches this skill to the Holliday Girls, so that they can spy on enemies abusing the astral plane.
- Awesome, but Impractical: Her invisible robot plane surpassed Hippolyte's machine, but the Amazons chose not to mass produce it, as Diana constructed it out of amazsilikon rather than more easily produced and molded materials like metal.
- Badass Back: She can block bullets without looking at them. It's Double Subverted in Comic Cavalcade #15 where the bullets she deflects end up ricocheting into her back of head base of skull weak spot anyway, knocking her out.
- Barehanded Bar Bending: She finds the prisons of "Man's World" so flimsy she has to be careful not to bend the bars by accident, not that any bars not made of Aphrodite's super metals can hold her if she wishes to bend them.
- Battle Couple: Amazonian superhero Wonder Woman, and Ace Pilot espionage expert Steve Trevor were one of the earliest couples in comics to regularly fight alongside each other.
- Be the Ball: After being tied into a ball with the magic lasso by Fausta Grables, Wonder Woman roll right out of the car she's being kept in, knocking the door off of its hinges. Fausta lets is a happen a second time, and the second time Wonder Woman escapes after bowling over several Nazis.
- Body Double: In addition to the nurse Diana Prince, who Diana of Paradise Island impersonates to work in the US Army, she also has a Holliday College student named Betty dress as a decoy Wonder Woman. Betty even got "bracelets" to match Wonder Woman's, though Betty's aren't unbreakable, and Betty needs to wear a mask to disguise that she isn't really Wonder Woman, and not speak.
- Born of Magic: Diana's famous fatherless "birth" from clay her mother had carefully sculpted into a baby.
- Born Winner: Diana's retconned origin in Wonder Woman #1 establishes that she had super speed and strength before puberty, before she took her oath to Aphrodite at age 15 and began training in the Amazon arts in earnest. This means that when Diana's bracelets are welded together and she loses her powers she initially takes it harder than the other Amazons, as she's now slower and weaker than she had been as a little girl! It's later subverted with the explanation one can get benefits of the brain power training without the oath, so even as a three year old Diana still had worked for her strength.
- Brains and Bondage: Wonder Woman is not shy about her BDSM interests, and was also the equivalent of a doctor on Paradise Island, invented the Amazon's Purple Healing Ray, created the invisible robot plane and pioneered the systems that let Amazons control vehicles through mental radio, though Mala and Paula von Gunther had to finish the latter due to Wonder Woman's war time commitments.
- Breaking the Bonds: She can break anything that's not her own lasso or a Venus Girdle. Some things take longer to break than others, but unless it's made by some exceptionally brilliant mad scientist like Dan White or some extra terrestrial, it won't take any time at all. In issue #2 of her solo series she shatters chains while still bound in her lasso.
- Brought Down to Badass: Even when her powers are lost to her Diana proves to be stronger than she looks and in excellent cardiovascular shape. The latter is due to her commitment to fitness, the former she attributes to her "brain power".
- By the Hair: Wonder Woman gets Giganta to surrender by grabbing and pulling on Giganta's now human hair.
- The Cape: Wonder Woman is an ideal loving hero who strives to help everyone, even her own villains.
- Carpet-Rolled Corpse: Inverted in that Wonder Woman rolls up Paula Von Gunther to keep The Baroness from getting frost bite after performing a strip search of Von Gunther just after a snow storm. She still tries to surprise Reform Island warden Mala, but Mala knows exactly who Wonder Woman's prisoner is.
"I've lost ten pounds in that sweat jacket!"
- Casual Kink: Diana has such a blatant bondage kink that reprints of the golden age comic books often edit her speech and thought bubbles to tone it down. All the same, they don't change the artwork, which still often makes it clear she enjoys being bound and binding others.
- Catchphrase: Di has "Merciful Minerva!", "Great Aphrodite!", "Holy Hera!" and "Suffering Sappho!"
- Chained Heat: She allows Mimi Mendez's henchmen to weld chains between one of her bracelets and Mala's, confident she'll remain at full strength. She does, but she and Mala can't break the chain keeping their bracelets together, even after Diana breaks the one holding both of Mala's together to restore Mala's strength.
- The Champion: Diana had to win the contest and become champion of her people to become the Amazon who represented them in the wider world.
- Cincinnatus: When Cheetah sneaks onto Paradise Island, steals the girdle of Aphrodite and kidnaps Queen Hippolyte, she gives the Amazons the ultimatum of serving Cheetah or watching Hippolyte be crushed to death. Hippolyte orders the Amazons to accept her death and defy Cheetah, but the princess tells them all to ignore that order, proclaiming that she's now in charge of the Amazons. Once Diana has dealt with Cheetah, she cedes leadership back to Hippolyte.
- Clark Kenting: Diana of Paradise Island puts her hair up, dons some glasses and wears a skirt, leggings and white button-up shirt to become "Diana Prince", then interacts with the same people in both identities and never gets caught. It slightly helps that most of them have seen the real Diana Prince and some of them have legitimately seen Diana Prince and Wonder Woman in the same place at the same time, since Wonder Woman merely impersonates the nurse.
- Classical Hunter: She doesn't like killing anything, even for food, but she does enjoy the thrill of the hunt, even if the "prey" is another human being.
- Combat Stilettos: Wonder Woman's red boots are high-heels.
- Combo Platter Powers: Diana's abilities mostly come from Supernatural Martial Arts and, to a lesser extent, an oath to Aphrodite and periodic returns to Paradise Island, which grant her enhanced strength, speed, agility, durability, telepathy, and healing (herself).
- Cool Crown: A golden tiara with a big, red star on the front. It's even sharp enough to be used as a weapon.
- Cool Teacher: She periodically gives swimming and diving lessons at a women's athletic club building in Washington DC, and hands on demonstrations to students at Holliday College.
- Covert Pervert: Diana only openly expresses genuine attraction to Steve Trevor, but over time she develops some towards Philip Darnell as well, even if she keeps it to herself
- Create Your Own Villain
- Paula von Gunther "created" Mavis, but Aphrodite blames Wonder Woman for setting Mavis free after capturing Paula von Gunther instead of taking Mavis to prison island with Paula. Of course, capturing Mavis later and taking her to Reform island doesn't stop Mavis from causing trouble either.
- Wonder Woman recognized Wanta Wynn's potential in the Amazon arts, and made sure to give Wynn four unlinked shackles instead of the usual two, instead of allowing her to roam without any at all like Glamora Treat and Bobby Strong, to ensure Wanta didn't use her power for evil. Wonder Woman nonetheless takes responsibility when Wanta's basketball coach insists on removing Wanta's restraining bolts.
- Crew of One: In issue #6, Wonder Woman throws an entire Japanese crew out of their tank and drives the vehicle all by herself to sneak up to a Japanese base in China.
- Cursed with Awesome: Odin tries to have Wonder Woman, several other amazons and the Holliday Girls forcibly turned into his Valkyries but Wonder Woman breaks out of containment before the process is finished and her newly gained ability to fly lets her defeat the remaining soldiers of Valhalla loyal to him almost by herself. But Wonder Woman has a job to do, and she can't properly infiltrate "Man's World" with a giant pair of wings sticking out of her back, so Aphrodite removes them.
- Dare to Be Badass: She often encourages people, women especially, to stand up to their problems in very direct manners. Sometimes it has great results, like with the Holliday Girls, other times it's more mixed, like when several women from Holliday College who weren't recruited by Wonder Woman decide they're butting into a mission at Bar L Ranch anyway, when she encourages Marva Psycho to be bold but she ends up disobeying Wonder Woman because of it, when Wonder Woman leads Eveland into a losing battle against Bitterland.
- Difficult, but Awesome: Using her lasso in a brute-force fight. Wonder Woman #20, roughly five years after her first appearance in All-Star Comics #8, she encounters the first foe who is simply stronger than she is, who manages to drag her off simply by grabbing the pirates she just lassoed. Since then it's veered into Worf Barrage, lassoing a target only to be yanked through the air into his fist. Still, Diana's strength is often underestimated—and she knows how to get targets off-balance—allowing her to whip even a powerful villain around at the end of a giant Epic Flail that inflicts leverage-enhanced Grievous Harm with a Body on him and any other villain underneath.
- Divide and Conquer: Wonder Woman pretends to be ignorant of the Japanese language while using voice mimicry and ventriloquism to start arguments among Japanese General Snidu's officers in his Chinese headquarters.
- Does Not Know His Own Strength: In issue #3 of her solo series, Wonder Woman's strength is compared to Atlas, the Titan who held up the sky, in the narration box. She may become stronger than that, given she does end up surpassing Hercules, who duplicated the feat of Atlas during his twelve labors, but Diana herself doesn't know the depths of her own strength, being surprised when she finds herself handling thousands of tons without being crushed. Metala complains about the princess's ignorance when Diana rough houses with her. A "mere" hundred ton squat is considered impressive by the standards of the other Amazons.
- Does Not Like Guns: Downplayed: Wonder Woman likes guns just fine. Issue #6 of her solo series clarifies that Wonder Woman does not like bullets. She still enjoys the game of "bullets and bracelets", but declares bullets have yet to solve a human problem, and would prefer that which lets her take targets in alive for rehabilitation.
- Dodge the Bullet: She's outrun bullets and jumped over them. Wonder Woman prefers to block them, however.
- Dramatically Missing the Point: When "Kay Carlton", Cheetah in disguise, tries to snipe Wonder Woman after sneaking onto Paradise Island, Wonder Woman assumes "Kay" wants to play bullets and bracelets and derides "Carlton" for being a bad shot, not realizing "Cay" is intentionally shooting to kill.
- Enemies List: In issue #18 she deals with a disguising crook and tries to narrow down his identity from Doctor Poison, Duke of Deception, Cheetah, Duke Mephisto Saturno and Doctor Psycho.
- Even the Girls Want Her: A number of women, most consistently Marya, have commented on Diana's good looks.
- Expy: She's Galatea of Cyprus, only born out of familial, maternal love rather than romantic love, to a mother denied men rather than a man who denied women.
- Fake Identity Baggage: Impersonating Diana Prince gets Diana of Paradise Island in trouble with Diana Prince's husband, Dan White
- Fiction 500: Wonder Woman raises over a billion dollars for war bonds and charity, in early 1940s money! She could easily be independently wealthy, but is content living in "Man's World" on her pay as a nurse, then a secretary. Sometimes as a private investigator or black smith, since if she really wants to indulge she can just go back to Paradise Island, once it becomes clear Aphrodite and Athena allow her time off there.
- Fitness Nut: Despite Diana's strength apparently coming from "Amazon brain power", she's incredibly self conscious about staying in shape, sometimes choosing to run instead of drive or fly, and being halfway grateful to see collapsing buildings she can hold up.
- Flynning: Her sword fights consist of her intentionally blocking her opponents swings with her own weapon with trying to avoid cutting them. This is justified by her either being more skilled than her opponent, such as Herculena, or simply that much faster, such as with Achilles.
- Forgot About His Powers
- Wonder Woman often plays possum or lets herself get captured in order to gain information on the enemy or lure them into a false sense of security. In many cases her ability to talk to animals and her lasso's ability to make those bound by it obey her, should make these plans unnecessary. In some cases this is averted. Paula Von Gunther specifically commanded her slaves to kill themselves in the event Wonder Woman bound them, and Circe used Wonder Woman's animal talk to lure Diana into a trap, but most of her enemies aren't so wise to her abilities.
- In Wonder Woman #2, she and Steve Trevor can observe astral forms that others cannot, yet in Sensation Comics #25 a year later, Wonder Woman needs Professor Karma's astral scope to see astral forms, unless she is astral projecting herself. There are plausible explanations for this, but none of them are stated in the comic, so the writer forgetting/not caring is equally plausible.
- In Wonder Woman #19 she invents a brain wave radar by jury rigging a mental radio, to find a kidnapped Marya, forgetting about the device she build near Eveland as well as Hippolyte's Magic Sphere. While this does get Diana close to Marya, her mental radio gets destroyed by a Death Ray.
- The Glasses Come Off: Part of the change from prim "Diana Prince" to Wonder Woman is ditching the glasses.
- Gravity Master: In issue #20, Wonder Woman demontrates the ability to drastically alter her weight termed "Gravity Control". This allows her to rapidly descend to the bottom of the ocean and extend the length of her jumps. This could also explain her ability to recognize and resist being time shifted.
- Happily Married: She and Steve eventually get married and have a daughter together. Theirs is a very happy marriage even though she's aging much slower than he.
- Hard Work Fallacy: Wonder Woman believes any Amazon can do what she does if they try hard enough, despite all evidence to the contrary. She actually gets Eveland in trouble by over estimating its residents' ability to emulate her simply because they also serve Aphrodite.
- Healing Factor: Diana heals much quicker than the average human. This includes things that should fall outside the realm of human healing like having "color" removed from her red blood cells.
- Hero Does Public Service: She perodically does stunts, leads parades for charity, and assists in education. In issue #22 she's charged with starting a new charitable organization with Cosmetic Kosmet's stolen money by the Attorney General no less.
- Heroic Resolve: Diana is the first Amazon to regain her sanity after one of her bracelets was cracked without having the bracelet repaired first or replacing it with another. She just overcame her berserker state through sheer force of will. She still reforges the bracelet, however.
- Hidden Weapons: In Comic Cavalcade #6 she gets the idea to hide her magic lasso in her boot, disguised as a golden anklet in case her boot is removed, while falling back on her duplicate lasso where she usually keeps the real magic lasso. Apparently the real lasso can get shorter as well as longer.
- Horse of a Different Color: In addition to kangas and saddle rabbits, Wonder Woman has also rode a lion, finding it painfully slow, but fun.
- Human Hard Drive: If Diana wants to remember something, she will. The ability to retain and reprocess desired memories is part of an Amazon's training.
- Immortality: As she has drunk from the Amazonian fountain on Paradise Island she is immortal and does not age while there.
- Immune to Fire: She is explicitly immune to extreme temperatures, and impervious to fire and even molten magma. This wasn't originally the case, with Wonder Woman originally wearing an asbestos suit if she had to directly touch fire. She was always remarkably heat resistant, however. By Sensation Comics #18 Diana trained her body in the art of repulsing heat with its electrical field, making asbestos obsolete for her.
- Immune to Mind Control: Her low level telepathy allows her to brush of attempts to mind control or brainwash her.
- In a Single Bound: A one hundred and fifty foot vertical leap is considered impossible, even be Amazon standards, but Diana considers this too easy.
- Informed Attribute: For four years she had been drawn with brown, even when close up to her face, while an early close up to Hippolyte showed her eyes to be dark blue, and other characters like Gay Frollick have clearly blue eyes even at a distance. Yet in Wonder Woman #13, Prince Pagli describes her eyes as "blue", suggesting Diana's eyes are an even darker blue than Hippolyte's, or that Pagli has very bad eyesight(he and all seal men do in fact have terrible eye sight). Sensation Comics #55 has a close up of Diana where Peter decides to make her eyes dark grey.
- Instant Expert: Diana learns languages incredibly quick, picking up Saturnian enough to eavesdrop on her opponents within hours of first hearing it. She has more trouble learning how to snow sled, and to play baseball.
- Instant Waking Skills: The ability to be fully alert upon waking is a part of Amazonian training and Diana bemoans that the time she's spent in "Man's World" is making this more difficult for her as by Wonder Woman #7 she has become prone to sleeping through most of the night hours-sleeping in by Amazon standards. Once she wakes up slowly due to sleeping gas being blasted through a city by Saturnians, but does not immediately recognize it, thinking she just fell back into the bad habits of "Man's World" again until she see's people knocked out fully clothed in the streets.
- Knows the Ropes: Her lasso is her most iconic weapon. This is the original lasso of persuasion, though it doesn't have this name yet, which forces anyone caught in it to obey the holder's commands, though they have to be careful with their words. On New Earth it's passed on to Donna Troy and that world's Wonder Woman eventually gets the lasso of truth instead, but this version of Wonder Woman keeps it her entire career.
- The Light Footed: She can easily jump well above her own standing height, land with one foot on a high wire and balance in that position while carrying multiple people.
- Lightning Bruiser: Di is the "mile a minute maiden" and has "the speed of Mercury", and is capable of moving so fast she can appear as Wonder Woman and "Diana Prince" in the same photograph. She's also strong enough to lift a submarine. In Sensation Comics #54 she out runs ray from a beam cannon, stops to pick up a shack and runs off with the structure before the ray hits.
- Living Lie Detector: She can tell when someone who is making benevolent claims has malicious intentions instead. However, her magic lasso can only compel those it snares to say what they believe to be true, not any objective facts they don't know or refuse to acknowledge. This Diana never gets the true lasso of truth.
- Luminescent Blush: In Sensation Comics #51 she her entire head and neck turn red when Steve Trevor and the Holliday Girls walk in on her and Secret Service agent "Speed Ferrett" as "Speed" starts flirting with her.
- Made of Indestructium: Her lasso is unbreakable, and cannot be broken or damaged by any known means. Her bracelets can be forced apart at the seems and melted by an acid developed by Mavis. Under later writers they can even be welded together but for some reason retain their shape even when she forcibly breaks the weld, Marston and Hummel usually, more sensibly, had another piece of metal welded between them
- Magnetism Manipulation: Wonder Woman is skilled enough in the Amazon arts of personal magnetism to repel heat through electricity, with her body's natural electricity being enough to make her Immune to Fire, reduce the pull of gravity on her by larger objects, allowing Wonder Woman to slow her descent and increase her air time, and resist being time displaced.
- Mistaken Identity: In Sensation Comics #18, she's mistaken for Mama, Daughter of The Blazing Sun by Incas of the Secret City, due to her inability to be burnt by lasers and fire. In Wonder Woman #8, her ability to tame a pterodactyl as the women of Ventura mistaking Diana for Satana, Queen of The Devils.
- Ms. Fanservice: She's "as beautiful as Aphrodite", wears a strapless bustier and gets tied up all the time.
- Mundane Object Amazement: She considers sleds to be inherently foolish and dangerous. When she hears they can be steered, and the kids she saw using them were just bad at it, Diana immediately wants to try. She's also bad at it, at first.
- The Needless: the Amazons of Paradise Island are functionally immortal—they don't age and don't need to eat while on Paradise Island—they are otherwise humans who have achieved Enlightenment Superpowers due to an oath to Aphrodite and their many years of training.
- Never Given a Name: She was originally just known as "princess" and "daughter" before Hippolyte finally settled on "Diana", after the princess's godmother Artemis, well into the princess's adult life. Issue one of her solo series retconed this into being named Diana by Aphrodite since coming to life.
- New Powers as the Plot Demands: Wonder Woman can display a new power in any given story with the justification that she's advanced further in Amazon Supernatural Martial Arts, the arts themselves have advanced or one Diana's new allies like her ever increasing roster of Solar System Neighbors taught a new technique to her. Despite the various ways of justifying this trope, new abilities rarely have any foreshadowing.
- Nice Girl: She was designed to be an embodiment of love and peace in The Golden Age of Comic Books who first tried finding peaceful solutions and reforming her enemies compared to the more aggressive methods of her male counterparts. Most incarnations since have followed suit by making her surprisingly humble and an All-Loving Hero that can find compassion even for the most vile of her enemies.
- Nitro Boost: She develops "Fun Fuel" tablets out of "blue ether" which can start a car in high gear. Millions of cars are soon racing across USA.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Under Marston's pen, Wonder Woman's greatest weakness, psychologically, is that she's too lenient with the wicked and would be better off indefinitely locking up and or brainwashing more people. Most of her closet scrapes with death coming from being too trusting, self doubting in her authority or taking too nice an approach with prisoners. This is spelled out in issue #4 of her solo series, where she's rewarded for taking charge and enforcing her will on enemies in the first two stories, coerced into doing so again in the third story to great results, and punished for being too soft in the last story.
- No-Sell
- Wonder Woman's immune system instantly nullifies the "Womania Bacillus" that drives women into man hating frenzies. She has to the careful to wait until it's all dead, lest she become a carrier to other women, even others with Amazon training like Paula Von Gunther, however.
- In issue 5 of her solo series she develops an immunity to electrical shocks! Issue #6 walks this back to a mere resistance. She can survive enough electrical discharges that can tear holes in armored ships, but the shock will paralyze her, for a little while, and it doesn't even take that much electricity to make her feel numb.
- The Nose Knows: Diana has a powerful sense of smell that can identify toxins and anesthetics before they can affect her. She can't track the scents of people, however.
- Now That's Using Your Teeth!: Under Marston and Hummel's pen, Wonder Woman doesn't lose all of her strength immediately after her bracelets are welded together. Her arm strength is the first to go and her jaw strength is last to weaken, so she can still sometimes bite through her restraints, or through the restraints of someone else who can then free her arms.
- Omniglot: The Amazons are linguists who study all languages on Earth, including caveman languages thanks to the magic sphere. Diana becomes quite disturbed when she intercepts a radio message from an unknown agent and can't make any sense of what is being said in Wonder Woman #10.
- One-Woman Army: She has taken on whole armies of Greeks, Romans, Nazis and Imperial Japanese single-handedly and won. She sent Paula, Gerta, Steve and the Holliday Girls away before proceeding to storm and defeat the entire Bughuman nation by herslef. She usually has at least Steve and/or Etta backing her up, however.
- Overt Operative: Exploited Trope: Wonder Woman operates in a conspicuous outfit with known officials, but employees several more discreet disguises, with her most common disguise being that of the known nurse Diana Prince, who she can and has been seen in the same place as.
- Pint-Sized Powerhouse: She was trouncing full grown adult amazons even as a child, which makes it strange when as an adult she worries about how she'll do against her sisters in the games due to being out of practice. She still trounces them.
- Play-Along Prisoner: Diana does this almost Once an Episode, often for increasingly flimsy reasons (the real one being that creator William Moulton Marston was ridiculously obsessed with BDSM). Contrary to popular perception, the "lost powers if bracelets are welded by a man" Kryptonite Factor rarely came into play; Marston had no shortage of loopholes he could exploit (did the villains chain her wrists together? Did they make sure to weld the chains?) to have her break her chains at a moment's notice.
- Power Limiter: Amazonian bracelets hold back a lot of their supernatural strength, but also make it easier for them to maintain their mental control as without them their power starts to overwhelm their minds and make them mindlessly violent.
- Pride: Particularly vanity over her physical appearance, she hates doing things that she thinks will make her "uglier", even if they are temporary measures. She also has pride in her prowess, physical and mental. Diana is a little more humble when it comes to her abilities than appearance, but she will be reluctant about doing things that may make her look or sound foolish. Aside from vanity in "her beautiful as Aphrodite" form, these flaws rarely come up during Marston's original run, where Diana is usually completely right about what she can do, and usually wrong when she does express doubt. Other writers have been more willing to use this flaw in the golden age throwbacks however, such as the 1986 Legend Of Wonder Woman, where Diana assumes that since she doesn't understand nuclear physics or quantum mechanics too well, no one else does either. Steve Trevor is eager to finally know more about something than she does. Even earlier, a 1967 Justice League-Justice Society Crossover saw Earth Two Wonder Woman refusing to give even as the fruits of her training and the magic of her lasso had been neutralized. That's something not even the gods could so casually accomplish yet she kept at the sleeping black sphere alien responsible anyway, only living because the creature's host deemed her Not Worth Killing. In both cases, however, her "wisdom equal to Athena's" asserted itself after coming to terms with these humiliations, and Wonder Woman was able to work out solutions to the problems using insight provided by her allies.
- Prim and Proper Bun: In her "Diana Prince" alter ego she, is a prim domineering by the book bespectacled WAC secretary who always wears her hair in a bun. This is contrasted with her co-worker Lila Brown who almost always wears her hair loose and is driven nuts by Diana's attention to detail and sticking so close to the rules as written.
- Primary-Color Champion: A red and blue Leotard of Power, blue on bottom, red on top, yellow accents such as the eagle embroidery, belt and golden lasso.
- Psychic Block Defense: Di had low grade telepathic abilities that allowed her to shrug off or completely ignore attempts at mind control and other telepathic intrusions. It also allowed her to make Mental Radio "calls" without having a mental radio with her, which meant she could remotely control her plane as it had a Mental Radio receiver.
- Psychic Radar: Diana's telepathy allows her to "see" astral forms, provided they cross over into the physical world, and the Saturnians even when they're using invisibility tech.
- Punched Across the Room: In issue #20 she pushes the water underneath a pirate ship so hard the vessel flies into space.
- Rapid-Fire Typing: Diana has to be careful not to type too fast. The unenlightened human eye can't follow her fingers.
- Rebellious Princess: After Steve Trevor crashed on Paradise Island, a contest was held to determine which Amazon would return him to the outside world. Princess Diana wanted to enter the contest but her mother Queen Hippolyte forbade her to do so. Diana entered the contest in disguise and bested all of the other contestants, winning the right to leave. Diana usually obeys authority from here, but defies her mother a few more times when she deems it necessary, such as Wonder Woman #6, when Cheetah as captured Hippolyte and Hippolyte orders the Amazons to let Cheetah kill her.
- Recognizable by Sound: Her telepathograph can determine anyone's true identity through any disguise by the sound of their voice, even if they attempt to disguise their voice. Unfortunately for her, it only works at Earth's south pole due to left over magnetic disturbances from the various supernatural activity that occurred in its past, and its negative charge.
- Replaced with Replica: Wonder Woman fashions a fake magic lasso in order to trick Baroness Von Gunther into believing she has captured Wonder Woman while Etta Candy instead captures The Baroness with the real lariat.
- Ring of Power: In the future, Wonder Woman develops a drug called "mus-relaxo", and creates rings to covertly release it on her enemies in the form of a gas, making them numb and immobile. Even Paula von Gunther is impressed, though they're not much good for more than close range sneak attacks. This future never comes to be, however, thanks to one Antimonitor.
- Royals Who Actually Do Something: She's a princess, her people's champion and a superhero.
- Safe, Sane, and Consensual: Di rather casually drops very heavy handed hints about her kinks.
- Save the Villain: In Wonder Woman #19, Nazis still fighting World War II start killing US generals and admirals but run afoul of a sperm whale, who begins wrecking their submarine. She wrestles the whale away and saves the submarine because the Nazis had kidnapped Marya to power up their Death Ray. The Nazis don't show Wonder Woman any gratitude.
- Scarily Competent Tracker: Diana has trouble finding Cheetah in "Man's World", but once Cheetah shows her hand on Paradise Island, it doesn't take Wonder Woman long to find Cheetah's trail. The only one ahead of her is Gail Young, who has ESP. She can even track animals, or people, who never touch the ground my moving from tree to tree in a forest.
- Science Hero: Wonder Woman started out as a scientist with her own laboratory in which she and an Amazonian physician nursed Steve Trevor back to health, Diana aiding by inventing the Purple Healing Ray. She also flew an experimental stealth Space Plane. Later writers moved her further and further from the role, instead focusing on the ties her mother and birth via Aphrodite's aid gives her to Classical Mythology, despite the original comics usually treating those Olympians that showed up more as aliens than gods. Even those that stick with her scientific acumen tend to have her struggle with nuclear physics and quantum mechanics, so Paula can look smarter.
- Second Super-Identity: In the event Princess Diana cannot wear her Wonder Woman outfit, she wears her original mask from the contest with a purple cape, green bustier, red boxing shorts, green boots and a white waistband. This second persona never gets a name. Some suspect she is Wonder Woman, but never prove it.
- Secret Identity: "Diana Prince" is Wonder Woman's. While her assignment is to be a mole in the United States, she uses this guise specifically to stay close to Steve Trevor, paying the real Diana Prince for permission and credential information. She has the additional secret identities of librarian and private investigator Jane Case, as well as blacksmith Belle Dazzle. She even impersonates Etta Candy with Duke of Deception's help.
- Sensor Character: Diana can sense magic, and when the Saturnians are using the invisibility tech to stay invisible and communicating telepathically to keep silent she can tell where they are and even "see" them if she focuses.
- Shockwave Stomp: She floors the entire crew of U Boat 211 by stomping on the vessel's floor.
- Single Woman Seeks Good Man: Steve's self effacing attitude and willingness to put his own life on the line for others are the reasons she's attracted to him.
- Sleeves Are for Wimps: Wears sleeves only to disguise herself as the weaker "Diana Prince". Her Amazonian training explicitly makes it so temperature extremes do not bother her much.
- Smoke Shield
- When Blakfu attacks the surface in issue #4, the mole men open a crack in the street with smoke pouring out, and Colonel Darnell assumes "Diana Prince" fell to her death when she instead jumped dozens of feet into the air faster than his eyes could track and changed into Wonder Woman while the smoke was still obscuring everything.
- In issue #14 she's hit In the Back with a grenade by the Gentleman Killer after she's been paralyzed by fairy magic. He assumes she's dead but she's alive and well, though blowing high in the air, obscured by the tree tops and the smoke.
- The Smurfette Principle: For years Diana was the only member of the Justice Society of America who was a woman rather than a man, until Black Canary joined in 1948.
- So Much for Stealth: Diana has a bad habit of stepping on dry twigs. This usually happens when she hadn't planned on being stealthy and tries to hide on a whim, but still.
- Spy Speak: "Diana Prince" and Steve Trevor have enough pre-arranged words and phrases that she's able to tell him the truth about the villain's real target in a letter the villain is forcing her to write to send the army on a wild goose chase, and which they read before sending it to him.
- Stone Wall: Wonder Woman designs a personnel carrier ship whose only purpose is to discourage submarine attacks, deploying reactive armor that not only takes minimal torpedo damage but that can be repaired at faster rates than the Axis can produce more torpedoes. Unfortunately, there are few engineers in the US who know how the mechanisms work, so Wonder Woman "gives" "Diana Prince" a miniature model to carry around in Comic Cavalcade #4, to quickly demonstrate it in a pinch.
- Strong and Skilled: Diana possesses strength and speed that rivals if not equals that of a Kryptonian and is also a highly trained combatant, tactician, scientist and nurse.
- Super-Hearing: Di can hear things her human companions cannot.
- Superhero Origin: She's the chosen champion of the Amazons tasked with spreading the message of love, peace, and justice.
- Supernatural Martial Arts: Most of Wonder Woman's abilities (outside of immortality) are the result of being a master of Amazonian martial arts, and are implied to be something any human could learn with enough patience and time.
- Super Not-Drowning Skills: Amazons, including Wonder Woman herself, were depicted as avoiding contact with outsiders by swimming underneath their boats and ships and then pushing them away from their island from beneath without ever having to come up for air.
- Super-Reflexes: How else can she deflect machine gun fire with only her bracelets? Even after Hippolyte undergoes a training and diet regimen to run faster than Diana, Hippolyte can still only equal Diana's reflexes. Badra may have also been about to "sprint" faster than Wonder Woman and was certainly more maneuverable, but still had equal at best reflexes, herself describing Wonder Woman as a counterbalanced "equal".
- Super-Strength: "Stronger than Hercules", and able to smash vault doors, lift ships and snap chains with ease.
- Super-Senses: Diana can sense magic!
- Super-Speed: She is initially the fastest humanoid on Earth. Wonder Woman was explicitly faster than Mercury, though once DC started doing regular crossovers with its characters she may or may not have proved comparable to The Flash(who himself may or may not have been comparable to Mercury). By Sensation Comics #50 Wonder Woman accidentally outruns the light from an electrical bulb, triggering a BoobyTrap designed to kill Margo Vandergilt in the process. By Comic Cavalcade #19, however, Hippolyte has become a faster runner than Diana by deliberately drinking from the Fountain of Youth to gain an edge on her daughter. Badra may have accelerated faster than Wonder Woman from a standstill to a sprint.
- Super-Toughness: She has to block bullets with her bracelets instead of her skin, but she's much tougher than a baseline human. She punches through ice and glass with her bare hand without bleeding and is just fine jumping out of her plane after her parachute is shot and she questions if the fall will hurt her, suggesting she doesn't actually know just how tough she is. In Comic Cavalcade #7 she gets shot in the head, but it only knocks her out of the Mind Control Vulture King placed her under(being pistol whipped in the back of the head knocks her out immediately after this, though). In Wonder Woman #12 she intentionally blocked a bomb with her body, with emphasis given to her skin stopping the metal fragments from hitting Desira's, and showed no sign of discomfort, bringing into question if she truly needs to block bullets since bomb shrapnel should be both sharper and of higher velocity.
- Sword and Fist: Diana never picked up a sword outside of sanctioned contests, but she very often used her favorite weapon the lasso in alongside her fists. Her sword fights often end with her subduing her opponent with her bare hands rather than the weapon.
- Tears of Fear: When Wonder Woman no sells Mavis's strikes, Mavis attacks with an acid that destroys the bracelets of submission, causing Wonder Woman to cry. Mavis thinks she has finally destroyed the Amazon's source of power and that Wonder Woman is afraid knowing she's finally weak and helpless, but Diana is afraid of she might kill Mavis and her Nazi friends with her restraining bolts gone.
- Technical Pacifist: She's from a Perfect Pacifist People, who have sworn off killing but love fighting for sport and Diana has no problems beating up an opponent to hand them over to the cops or protect an innocent. She's more of this than most golden age amazons, who are old enough to remember when they were still a warring tribe and willing to exploit loopholes in their Thou Shalt Not Kill policy Diana would rather not cross.
- Telepathy: Diana is a mild telepath, but she couldn't read minds only perceive intentions, perceive when others were near, send messages and fight back when another telepath was trying to trick her or mess with her mind.
- Teleporters and Transporters: She assists Queen Desira and Paula von Gunther in the creation of a "Space Transformer" to move people and things between Earth and Venus.
- Thou Shalt Not Kill: Diana is one of the most devout Technical Pacifist types in the DCU. That was the point of having a lasso — it was a non-lethal weapon. The Amazons certainly knew how to fight, but only for self-defense or sport. Paradise Island was a "paradise" with lessons to teach us because unlike man's world, it was peaceful. There's a reason they were aided by the goddess of love and the arch-enemy of Amazon society was the god of war.
- Trickster Girlfriend: Diana's relationship with Steve has tones of trickery, with her liking to cover his eyes from behind to make him guess who she is, which he always gets right away since he knows her voice, and generally doing things to make him frazzled before leaning on him and saying things about what a useful boyfriend he is.
- Upper-Class Equestrian: She is a princess who loves riding horses. Diana can run faster than horses and out jump them, she just enjoys their company. She even keeps a horse named Serge who helps maintain her cover as "Diana Prince" in "Man's World".
- Ventriloquism: Diana would occasionally throw her voice so it appeared that "Diana Prince" was talking to an out of sight Wonder Woman just around the corner or on the other side of an open doorway.
- Weaksauce Weakness
- A bomb can go off under her bare feet, in her hands, or on her chest. The shrapnel will not so much as wrinkle her skin. But an nonathletic middle aged human being can knock Wonder Woman down by pistol whipping her in the back of the head and the base of her skull. That the shock waves from the explosions should have reached this area and proved it as tough as the rest of her body was not understood by the writer at the time, but the television show changed her weakness to chloroform. This was also in the comics, except the comics quickly had her develop a resistance to the drug.
- Wonder Woman cannot break her bonds if she "allowed" herself to be bound by a man. Depending on the Writer she may lose her powers if a man binds her bracelets together, but otherwise retain them if restrained in any other way, or she may keep all her powers but be unable to break any restraints a man secures on her. A man binding bracelets together with melted metal specifically was necessary under Marston, but despite Marston having three editors overseeing every story Wonder Woman was in, a few writers like Gardner Fox and even Joye Hummel got away with depicting things differently under their watch.
- World's Most Beautiful Woman: She is canonically this, having been blessed at birth by the goddess Aphrodite.
- World's Strongest Woman: Diana is "Stronger than Hercules," is shown to be stronger than Mars, Giganta, Clea, Odin and Artemis, and casually does things like lift a sunken galleon.
- Worthy Opponent
- She freely admits to underestimating Fausta Grables because of Fausta's obvious weakness, and not taking into account how clever Fausta would have to be to set up her elaborate if fake feats of strength
- Wonder Woman quickly figures out the plans of and easily defeats Princess Yasmini in battle, but openly admits to Yasmini that Yasmini's schemes and archaeological skills are all very impressive and respects Yasmini's decision to kill herself rather than give up her friends.
- After defeating Draska Nishki, Wonder Woman compliment's Draska's cleverness and laments that Nishki's talents will go to waste in a "Man's World" prison.
- Wrestler in All of Us: Under Harry Peter's pen, she contorts her opponents into all sorts of pretzels rooted in catch and professional wrestling, such as when she makes Draska Nishki submit to a figure four knee scissor, wrist lock chin lock combination. She even bates Solo, catching him in a wrist lock as he tries to grab her from behind. In Sensation Comics #51 she jumps through the window of a sky scraper into another to drop kick a gun man.
Allies
Enemies
"Silver & Bronze Ages"/Earth One
The characters featured in the later portions of Wonder Woman Volume 1 who were located on Earth-One are listed below with the DC Comics character sheet they are currently listed on. Earth One
- Diana of Themyscira / Wonder Woman
- Wonder Woman: Allies:
- Amazons: Hippolyta, Antiope, Mala, Nubia, Orana, Sophia
- Humans: Steve Trevor, Diana White, Etta Candy, Phillip Darnell, Glamora Treat, Roberta Strong, The Heyday Triplettes, Thelma Tall, I-Ching, Catherine Perkins, J. Phillip Blankenship, Lisa Abernathy, Lauren Haley
- Wonder Girl: Donna Troy
- Other: Morgana, Lyta Trevor, Ronno/Renno
- Wonder Woman: Gods:
- Olympians: Ares, Aphrodite, Artemis, Athena, Apollo, Demeter, Deimos, Dionysus, Eris, Eros, Hera, Hermes, Zeus, Hephaestus, Poseidon, Hercules
- Chthonians: Hades, Persephone, Phobos
- Other: Odin, Tezcatlipoca, Thor
- Wonder Woman: Villains: Adjudicator, Aegeus, Angle Man, Armageddon, Atomia, Cheetah, Clea, Circe, Doctor Cyber, Doctor Poison, Doctor Psycho, Duke of Deception, Earl of Greed, Egg Fu, El Gaucho, Fireworks Man, Giganta, Gundra, Image-Maker, Kung, Mask, Mikra, Minister Blizzard, Mouse Man, Osira, Paper-Man, Paula von Gunther, Professor Menace, Red Panzer, Silver Swan, Sumo, THEM!
