Wonder Woman is a DC Comics superheroine created by William Moulton Marston, first appearing in All Star Comics #8 (December 1941). Along with Superman and Batman, she is one of three characters to have been continuously published by DC Comics since the company's 1944 inception (except for a brief hiatus in 1986).
Wonder Woman is an Amazon (based on the Amazons of Greek mythology) and was created by Marston as a "distinctly feminist role model whose mission was to bring the Amazon ideals of love, peace, and sexual equality to a world torn by the hatred of men.'" Her powers include superhuman strength, flight, super-speed, super-stamina, and super-agility. She is highly proficient in hand-to-hand combat and in the art of tactical warfare. She also possesses an animal-like cunning and a natural rapport with animals, which has in the past been presented as an actual ability to communicate with the animal kingdom. She uses her Lasso of Truth (which forces those bound by it to tell the truth), a pair of indestructible bracelets, and an invisible airplane.
Created during World War II, the character was initially depicted fighting the Axis military forces, as well as an assortment of supervillains and supervillainesses. In later decades, the World War II setting was often maintained, while other writers updated the series to reflect an ongoing "present day." Wonder Woman has also regularly appeared in comic books featuring the superhero teams Justice Society (from 1941) and Justice League (from 1960). Arguably the most popular and iconic female superhero in comics, Wonder Woman is also considered a feminist icon and is informally grouped with Superman and Batman as one of a "trinity" of DC characters, regarded as especially important. Diana is regarded as extremely physically attractive even by the standards of the superheroine. She was named the twentieth greatest comic book character by Empire magazine.
In addition to the comics, the character has appeared in other media—most notably the 1975-1979 Wonder Woman TV series starring Lynda Carter, but also in cartoons such as the Super Friends and Justice League. Although a number of attempts have been made to adapt the character to live-action film, none have yet emerged from "development hell." An animated film was released in 2009, with Keri Russell doing voice acting on the title role.
Publication history
Creation
In an October 25, 1940 interview conducted by former student Olive Byrne (under the pseudonym "Olive Richard") and published in Family Circle, titled "Don't Laugh at the Comics", William Moulton Marston described what he saw as the great educational potential of comic books (a follow up article was published two years later in 1942). This article caught the attention of comics publisher Max Gaines, who hired Marston as an educational consultant for National Periodicals and All-American Publications, two of the companies that would merge to form the future DC Comics. At that time, Marston decided to develop a new superhero.
In the early 1940s the DC line was dominated by superpowered male characters such as the Green Lantern, Batman, and its flagship character, Superman. According to the Fall 2001 issue of the Boston University alumni magazine, it was his wife Elizabeth's idea to create a female superhero:
William Moulton Marston, a psychologist already famous for inventing the polygraph (forerunner to the magic lasso), struck upon an idea for a new kind of superhero, one who would triumph not with fists or firepower, but with love. "Fine," said Elizabeth. "But make her a woman."
Marston introduced the idea to Max Gaines, co-founder (along with Jack Liebowitz) of All-American Publications (Marston's pseudonym, Charles Moulton, combined his own and Gaines' middle names). Given the go-ahead, Marston developed Wonder Woman with Elizabeth (whom Marston believed to be a model of that era's unconventional, liberated woman). Marston was also inspired by Olive Byrne, who lived with the couple in a polygamous/polyamorous relationship. Both women served as exemplars for the character and greatly influenced the character's creation. Wonder Woman debuted in All Star Comics #8 (December 1941), scripted by Marston and with art by Harry G. Peter.
Marston was the creator of a systolic-blood-pressure-measuring apparatus, which was crucial to the development of the polygraph (lie detector). Marston's experience with polygraphs convinced him that women were more honest and reliable than men, and could work more efficiently.
"Wonder Woman is psychological propaganda for the new type of woman who should, I believe, rule the world," Marston wrote. Although Gloria Steinem placed Wonder Woman on the first standalone cover of Ms. in 1972, Marston, writing in an earlier time, designed Wonder Woman to represent a particular form of female empowerment. Feminism argues that women are equal to men and should be treated as such; Marston's representative of femininity is a 6-foot-tall Amazon wielding a golden lasso that forces obedience of those encircled. In Marston's mind, women not only held the potential to be as good as men: they could be superior to men.
In a 1943 issue of The American Scholar, Marston wrote:
Not even girls want to be girls so long as our feminine archetype lacks force, strength, and power. Not wanting to be girls, they don't want to be tender, submissive, peace-loving as good women are. Women's strong qualities have become despised because of their weakness. The obvious remedy is to create a feminine character with all the strength of Superman plus all the allure of a good and beautiful woman.
During this period, Wonder Woman joined the Justice Society of America[8] as the first female member; albeit as the group's secretary (the custom was for characters with their own books to hold honorary membership only).
Evolution of the character
Initially, Wonder Woman is an Amazon champion who wins the right to return Steve Trevor—a United States intelligence officer whose plane had crashed on the Amazons' isolated island homeland—to "Man's World," and fight the evil of the Nazis and other crime.
During the Silver Age, Wonder Woman's origin was revamped, along with other characters during the era. The new origin story, increased the character's Hellenic and mythological roots, receiving the blessing of each deity in her crib, Diana is destined to become "beautiful as Aphrodite, wise as Athena, stronger than Hercules, and swifter than Mercury."
At the end of the 1960s, under the guidance of Mike Sekowsky, Wonder Woman surrenders her powers to remain in Man's World rather than accompany her fellow Amazons to another dimension. A mod boutique owner, the powerless Diana Prince acquires a Chinese mentor named I Ching. Under I Ching's guidance, Diana learns martial arts and weapons skills, and engages in adventures that encompassed a variety of genres, from espionage to mythology.
The character would later return to her superpowered roots and the World War II-era, (due to the popularity of the Wonder Woman TV series), in Justice League of America and the eponymous title, respectively.
Following the 1985 Crisis on Infinite Earths series, George Pérez, Len Wein, and Greg Potter relaunched the character and wrote Wonder Woman as an emissary and ambassador from Themyscira to Patriarch's World, charged with the mission of bringing peace to the outside world.
Powers and abilities
Pre-Crisis
Originally, Wonder Woman owed her abilities to the goddess Aphrodite creating Amazons superior to men, with Diana being the best of their kind.
The Golden Age Wonder Woman was later updated by Marston to be able to will a tremendous amount of brain energy into her muscles and limbs by Amazon training, which endowed her with extraordinary strength and speed. According to her first appearance she is stronger and more agile than a hundred of our best athletes. In Sensation #6 she is able to tear a steel door off its hinges. In one of her earliest appearances she is shown running easily at 80 mph. (Sensation Comics #46, Oct. 1945). In the same comic she is shown to jump from a building and land on the balls of her feet. She can even type at a rate of over 160 words a minute during a test given to her. (As such it was implied, and ultimately confirmed, that any woman who underwent Amazonian training would gain superhuman strength.) In Wonder Woman #1 she is shown uprooting a tree and outrunning a deer, both times while a child. In the same comic she is able to jump 40 feet to escape a lasso, apparently a record for the Amazons. This was later reconfirmed by writer Robert Kanigher in the Silver Age (Wonder Woman v1 #160, Feb. 1966). The TV series took up this notion; "... we are able to develop our minds and physical skills ..." ["Fausta: The Nazi Wonder Woman" 1976]; and in the first episode of Super Friends [1973] Diana states to Aquaman "... the only thing that can surpass super strength is the power of the brain". In early Wonder Woman stories, Amazon training involves strengthening this ability using pure mental energy. Her powers would be removed in accordance with "Aphrodite's Law" if she allowed herself to be bound or chained by a male. In the television series, her magic belt allowed her to retain her powers when she was not on Paradise Island; removing it weakened her.["Fausta: The Nazi Wonder Woman" 1976]
With the inclusion of Wonder Girl and Wonder Tot in Diana's back-story, writers provided new explanations of her powers; the character became capable of feats which her sister Amazons could not equal. Wonder Woman Volume One #105, reveals that Diana was formed from clay by the Queen of the Amazons and was imbued with the attributes of the Greek and Roman gods by Athena - "beautiful as Aphrodite, wise as Athena, swifter than Hermes, and stronger than Hercules." Wonder Woman's Amazon training also gave her limited telepathy, profound scientific knowledge, and the ability to speak every language known to man and beyond. She was even fluent in caveman and Martian.
Although Wonder Woman's mythos was returned to its original interpretation between 1966 and 1967, new abilities were added: super breath (to blow jet streams or transform water into snow)which apparently came from Hercules; ventriloquism; imperviousness to extremes of heat and cold; ride the air currents as if flying; mental telepathy (even to project images); microscopic vision; the ability to vibrate into another dimension, bestow wisdom to other beings, and others which are listed in the Encyclopedia of Comic Book Heroes, Volume Two (1976).
Depending on the writer, Diana's invulnerability and power varied greatly with the story needs, in Jla #1 she is able to briefly survive in space. Throughout the late 1950s and early 1960s, Robert Kanigher, for example, portrayed Wonder Woman as being so strong that she, after standing atop her hovering plane and lassoing it with her magic lasso, was able to effortlessly lift Themyscira out of the way of an approaching tsunami using just one hand. Kanigher showed Wonder Woman as able to lift whales as a girl and blowing so hard on her birthday cake as a baby of two years old that she sent it into orbit.
Finally, while not a super power per se, Wonder Woman was able to increase her strength. In the Silver and Bronze ages of comics, she was unable to remove her bracelets without going insane. In times of great need, however, she would do just that in order to temporarily augment her power tenfold. However, since she would become a threat to friend and foe alike, she would use Amazonian berserker rage only as a weapon of last resort.
Before Crisis On Infinite Earths there were two Wonder Women, the first one lived on Earth-Two, the second one lived on Earth-One. The first canonical appearance of the Earth-One Wonder Woman is supposed to be in "Wonder Woman" volume 1 #80. Their earliest chronological meeting has been in "Wonder Woman" vol 1 #228. They actually met for the first time in Justice League of America (Vol 1) #100, however as "Wonder Woman" vol 1 #228 takes place in 1943, the events of Justice League #100 have not yet taken place in Wonder Woman (Earth-Two)'s internal chronology.
Post-Crisis
Wonder Woman's body is a mystical creation made from the clay surrounding Themyscira. Through divine means, her disembodied soul was nurtured in and retrieved from the Cavern of Souls. Once the soul was placed into the body it immediately came to life, and was blessed with metahuman abilities by six Olympian deities.
Demeter, the goddess of agriculture and fertility, blessed Diana with strength drawn from the Earth spirit Gaea, making her one of the physically strongest heroes in the DC Universe. She has been observed assisting in preventing large chunks of the Moon from crashing onto the Earth, supporting the weight of bridges, hefting entire railroad trains, and even managing to physically overpower Supergirl.
While not invulnerable, she is capable of withstanding great concussive force, shrugging off high-powered rifle fire with some pain but little injury, being sent through a building, and even surviving a warp-core explosion. She is even durable enough to survive the depths of space for a period of time before running out of breath. As noted, while her superhuman strength affords her great resistance to blunt-force trauma, her skin can be cut by weapons if they are sharp enough.
Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty, blessed Diana with great beauty and a loving heart.
Pallas Athena, the goddess of wisdom and war, granted Diana great wisdom, intelligence, and military prowess. It is Athena's gift that has enabled Diana to master over a dozen languages (including those of alien origin), multiple complex crafts, sciences and philosophies, as well as her Amazon legacy of over 3000 years of leadership, military strategy, and armed and unarmed combat. More recently Athena bound her own eyesight to Diana's, granting her increased empathy.
Artemis, goddess of the hunt, animals, and the Moon, graced Diana with the Eyes of the Hunter and Unity with Beasts. The Eyes of the Hunter ability gives Diana a full range of enhanced senses, such as enhanced sight and hearing. Unity with Beasts grants her the ability to communicate with all forms of animal life, as well as to calm even the most ferocious of beasts.
Hestia, goddess of hearth and home, granted Diana "sisterhood with fire, that it might open men's hearts to her." This power has been shown to control the "Fires of Truth," which Diana wields through her lasso, making anyone bound by it unable to lie. This ability also grants her some resistance to both normal and supernatural fire.
Hermes, the messenger god of speed, granted Diana superhuman speed and the ability to fly. Through the act of concentration, Diana can mystically defy the laws of gravity and propel herself through the air to achieve flight. She is capable of flying at speeds approaching half the speed of light. She is swift enough to deflect bullets, lasers, and other projectiles with her virtually impenetrable bracelets. Her brain can process the information while traveling at superspeed at an incredibly fast rate.
Skills
All versions show Diana, even without her powers, as a superior athlete and acrobat. She has been trained since infancy in the 3000-year-old Amazon legacy of armed and unarmed combat. She is an accomplished military strategist. Some versions had her mother training her as a Wonder Girl for a future career as Wonder Woman. From the beginning, she is described as highly skilled in using her Amazon bracelets to stop bullets, and in wielding her golden lasso. Later she is shown to be able to beat her mother in combat.
Diana, and the other Themyscirian Amazons, also possess the ability to relieve their bodies of physical injury and toxins by becoming one with the Earth's soil and then reforming their bodies whole again. The first time Diana does this she prays to her god Gaea saying: "Gaea, I pray to you. Grant me your strength. You are the Earth who suckled me, who nurtured and bred me. Through you all life is renewed. The circle which never ends. I pray you, mother Gaea, take me into your bosom. Please, let me be worthy." During John Byrne's run it was stated that this is a very sacred ritual, to be used only in the most dire of circumstances.
She has also been shown to be able to astrally project herself into various lands of myth. Her physical body reacts to whatever spiritually happens to her on the mythical astral plane, leaving her body either cut, bruised, or sometimes strengthened once mind and body are reunited.
Weapons
Diana has an arsenal of powerful god-forged weapons at her disposal, but her signature weapons are her indestructible bracelets (vambraces) and the Lasso of Truth.
Her Bracelets of the Aegis (though technically vambraces, they have only been referred to as such by Batman) were formed from the remnants of Athena's legendary shield, the Aegis, at the request of Athena to be awarded to her champion. These forearm guards have thus far proved indestructible, and can absorb the impact of incoming attacks, such as deflecting automatic weapons or energy blasts. Diana can also slam the bracelets together to create a wave of concussive force capable of making Superman's ears bleed. Recently, she gained the ability to channel Zeus's lightning through her bracelets as well. Zeus explained to her that this power had been contained within the bracelets since their creation since they were once part of the Aegis itself, and that he had only recently unlocked it for her use.
The Lasso of Truth, or Lariat of Hestia, was forged by Hephaestus from the golden girdle of Gaea. It is virtually indestructible; the only times it was broken was when truth itself was challenged, such as when she confronted Rama Khan of Jarhanpur, and by Bizarro in Matt Wagner's non-canonical Batman/Superman/Wonder Woman: Trinity. In Sensation#6 Hippolyta claims that not even Hercules can break it. The Lasso burns with a magical aura called the Fires of Hestia, forcing anyone within the Lasso's confines to be truthful. It also at one time had the power to force anyone caught to obey any command given them, even surpassing other kinds of mind control. It is even effective enough to defeat strong-willed beings like Captain Marvel (War of the Gods#1). Diana wields it with great precision and accuracy, and can use it as a whip or noose.
At least as early as the 1950s, Wonder Woman's Golden Tiara has also doubled as a dagger and a throwing weapon, returning to her like a boomerang. Its sharpness and mystical nature proved enough to cut even Superman.
Diana once possessed the Sandals of Hermes, or talaria, which granted the wearer great speed and flight. They were passed on, first to Artemis and later to Wonder Girl. Diana also once possessed the Gauntlets of Atlas, which magnify the physical strength and stamina of the wearer. They too were passed on.
The Golden, Silver, and Bronze Age portrayals of Wonder Woman showed her using an Invisible Airplane that could be controlled by mental commands. It was variously described as being either a creation of Amazon technology, or alternately the legendary winged horse Pegasus transformed into an aircraft. Its appearance varied as well, originally having a propeller and later being drawn as a jet aircraft, resembling a fighter plane.
The Post-Crisis or Modern Age Wonder Woman has continued to use the Invisible Plane in the form of a small lightweight disc of alien (Lansinar) technology that, when triggered by her thoughts, transforms into a transparent version of whatever object or vehicle that is appropriate for her needs. This disc was later shown to be a sentient life-form. Following the One Year Later continuity jump, Diana was given a new invisible plane, created by Wayne Industries, because her original invisible plane was stuck on Themyscira.
Diana occasionally uses additional weaponry in formal battle, such as ceremonial golden armor complete with golden wings, war-skirt and chest-plate, and a golden helmet in the shape of an eagle's head. She also possesses a sword (also forged by Hephaestus) that is sharp enough to cut the electrons off an atom.
As a recently temporary inductee into the Star Sapphires, Wonder Woman gained access to the violet power ring of love. This ring allowed her to fly, alter her costume at will, create solid-light energy constructs, and also reveal a person's true love to them. She is able to combine the energy with her lasso to enhance its ability.
In other media
Video games
Wonder Woman is a playable character in the 1995 game Justice League: Task Force for the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis, the 2006 game Justice League Heroes for the PlayStation 2, PSP, Xbox, and Nintendo DS, and the 2008 game Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Wonder Woman is also playable in the Game Boy Advance games based on the Justice League cartoon Justice League: Injustice for All (2002) and Justice League: Chronicles (2003), while she appears as a summonable "striker" character in Justice League Heroes: The Flash for the GBA.
Wonder Woman will appear in the upcoming DC Universe Online.
Books
The character of Wonder Woman has also appeared in many books.
Archive Editions released All Star Comics. The series included 10 editions which featured Wonder Woman. Other titles include 'Seduction of the Innocent", "StarForce", "Star Log", and "Strangers in Paradise"
TV series
A television series called "Wonder Woman" and then "The New Adventures of Wonder Woman", starred Lynda Carter in the title role and aired for three seasons from 1976-1979. Some one-off episodes were broadcasted in 1975 before the tv show became a weekly series in 1976.
A made-for-television movie called "Wonder Woman" was produced in 1974, (a year before Carter popularized the role) and featured a Wonder Woman-type heroine played by the blond Cathy Lee Crosby. This Wonder Woman, however, had no super powers and did not resemble the long dark-haired amazon people identify as Wonder Woman. The tv movie fared well in the ratings and the producers decided to retool the product to more closely resemble the comic-book version, resulting in Carter being cast in the subsequent weekly series. Crosby's incarnation of Wonder Woman has a one-panel cameo in the comic book Infinite Crisis #6, as part of an alternate Earth.
Animated film
A direct-to-video animated film adaptation of Wonder Woman was released on March 3, 2009 on DVD and Blu-ray disc as part of the DC Universe Original Animated Movies series produced by DC Comics animation veteran Bruce Timm and released by Warner Bros. The film stars Keri Russell as Wonder Woman and is directed by Lauren Montgomery. It features Russell's Waitress costar Nathan Fillion as Steve Trevor, as well as Alfred Molina, Rosario Dawson, and Virginia Madsen. The DVD sold 102,890 copies in its first week, and ranked number 5 on the DVD sales chart in America.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonder_Woman
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