In this new continuity, Wonder Woman's origin is significantly changed and she is no longer a clay figure brought to life by the magic of the gods. Instead, she is the natural-born daughter of Hippolyta and Zeus. The earlier origin story was revealed by Hippolyta to be a ruse thought up by the Amazons, to protect Diana from the wrath of Hera, who is known for hunting and killing several illegitimate offspring of Zeus.[62]
By the time that Robert Kanigher took over the character, a change away from traditional comics as a whole was accomplished. He eventually veered completely away from superheroism and essentially only told stories involving the Wonder Family, which consisted of Wonder Woman, her teenage version Wonder Girl, her baby version Wonder Tot and her mother. This eventually proved not very popular and Kanigher was forced to rethink the character and cast her in a more traditional superhero context (he actually explained this decision in comics to the reader with his various creations vying to remain in continuity against his wishes). It was at this time for instance that Wonder Woman saw the return of some characters that had been missing for some time such as the Cheetah or Doctor Psycho. It was also at this time that she became a founding member of the original Justice League of America.
Stealth Expert: Wonder Woman is exceptionally stealthy, as she was able to quickly sneak away from Chief and Charlie to General Ludendorff's gala, and later to steal the hacking device that Bruce Wayne had plugged into the LexCorp Industries servers and leave it in his car, without getting caught on either occasion. Later, Wonder Woman noticed Cyborg spying on her and Batman from a distance. Shortly thereafter, along with Batman and Cyborg, she was able to swiftly slip away when Commissioner Gordon turned away for a moment, and even Flash was left incredulous at how he didn't notice his teammates leave, despite having superhuman reflexes and standing right beside them. Wonder Woman even managed to enter the highly-secure Batcave itself on her own, impressing Batman.
Superhuman Strength: As a demigoddess, Wonder Woman possesses incredible superhuman strength, making her the second strongest member of the Justice League, only surpassed by Superman. She can effortlessly bend metal bars, slam through solid walls and reinforced glass, and pry open steel doors. Even before accessing her full divine powers, Wonder Woman was strong enough to dominate several Amazons during her training, knocking down one with a whip and another with a shield, as well as kicking Antiope's sword out of her hand. Wonder Woman's strength extends to her ability to leap great distances. In a bar fight, she was able to throw a man across a room with an effortless shove of her hand. She effortlessly lifted an adult man with one arm and held him in the air, and threw an armored Ehrhardt E-V/4 tank in the air with ease. She was also able to effortlessly knock down many German soldiers with her shield and lasso. Wonder Woman was also able to deflect a missile with her shield, and withstand hundreds of shots at a time on her shield, albeit with considerable effort, as well as deflecting with her bracelets bullets and energy blasts with relative ease. Diana's immense strength allowed her to fight Ares, the powerful God of War, despite the considerable divine power of her older brother, managing to grab him from the waist and throw him against the roof of a warehouse. However, she was still easily dominated by the much stronger Ares. After obtaining and releasing her true divine power, Wonder Woman was able to fight Ares to an even greater degree, managing to knock him down and hit him in the face twice, as well as defeat a small German battalion using only her strength, and raise a very large and heavy German tank without much effort, which weighed 29 tons.[11] One hundred years later, Wonder Woman had become powerful enough to face the powerful Kryptonian deformity known as Doomsday, with her blows being powerful enough for the monster to wobble, stopping a massive blow of the monster with her sword. She was even able to knock him down with one strike of her shield on one of Doomsday's legs, as well as cut a car thrown toward her by Doomsday in half. Wonder Woman was also able to fight several times against the powerful Steppenwolf, managing to take him from the waist, knock him down through a wall, and shove him against a concrete wall. She was able to stab her sword into one of the feet of the New God, cut him at the waist, and, with the help of Aquaman, knock him down before he reached Cyborg. Wonder Woman was also able to break Steppenwolf's Electro Axe with her sword after Superman froze it with his freezing breath. In addition, after his resurrection, Wonder Woman was able to defend herself briefly against Superman during his confusion, the two generating a powerful shockwave with a single headbutt. The only beings that surpass the strength of Wonder Woman are Doomsday, Steppenwolf and Superman.
Shortly thereafter, Wonder Woman is shown being able to summon it with her tiara, have it hover by the War Department, and extend from it a rope ladder with which she could board it. She uses the plane to fly into outer space, and frequently transports Etta Candy and the Holliday Girls, Steve Trevor, and others. During the 1950s, the plane becomes a jet, and is often shown swooping over Lt. Prince's office; she strips out of her uniform at super speed and bounds to the plane. Though the Plane was depicted as semi-transparent for the reader's convenience, in-story dialogue indicated that it actually was completely invisible, or at least able to become so as the need arose.[199]
Despite helping win the war, defeating Ares and still loving humanity, Diana is still left sobered, emotionally broken, psychologically scarred, and devastated over not having been able to save the Belgian village from Dr. Poison, as well as over her beloved Steve Trevor's self-sacrificing death. Indeed, Diana would later claim that she "would never be the same" ever again after World War I. Moreover, in the years that followed, Diana bore witness to a "century of horrors" (Wars, Fascism, Communism, nuclear weapons' deployment, geopolitical brinkmanship, racism, homophobia, genocides, war crimes, propaganda, and etc.), and due to all of this occurring without Ares being there to spread corruption, Diana almost completely lost faith in humanity, coming to believe that humans "made a world where standing together is impossible".[4] As such, Diana resolved to mostly abandon superheroism for 100 years.[5]
GenresuperheroCharactersWonder Woman [Diana of Themyscira]; Steve Trevor; Charlie (of the Oddfellows); unidentified military officers; Jason; The Dark Gods [King Best; Mob God; Savage Fire; The God with No Name; Karnell]; unnamed Hong Kong residents; Mera; Green Lantern [Simon Baz]; Hawkman [Carter Hall]; Vixen [Mari McCabe]; Black Canary [Dinah Lance]; Batwing [Lucas Fox]; Blue Beetle [Jaime Reyes]; unnamed rioters; Justice League [The Flash [Barry Allen]; Aquaman [Arthur Curry]; Batman [Bruce Wayne]; Cyborg [Victor Stone]; Hawkgirl [Kendra Saunders]; Martian Manhunter [J'onn J'onzz]]; Supergirl [Kara Zor-El]; Hippolyta; Philippus; unidentified AmazonSynopsisWonder Woman battles the Dark Gods and Jason, who is under their control. Once freed from their control, Jason has a plan to stop the Dark Gods that involves a sacrifice.Reprints
In 1954, Dr. Fredric Wertham alleged that there were lesbian subtexts to Wonder Woman and claimed comics contributed to juvenile delinquency in his book Seduction of the Innocent where despite a very obvious heterosexual relationship with Steve Trevor, Wertham asserted that Wonder Woman’s association with the Holliday Girls could be interpreted as a lesbian relationship. The Comics Code Authority was then introduced in reaction to Wertham 's claims against the entire industry.
While living in "Man's World" for a century following World War I tempered some of Diana's more blindly held beliefs, she still held true to her core values of kindness and compassion, and further grew into an exceptionally considerate, diplomatic, and empathetic woman. This can be seen when she silently emphasizes with Lois Lane after the death of Superman had been killed (recalling her own pain after Steve Trevor's sacrifice), smiling knowingly when Aquaman accidentally sat on the Lasso of Hestia and confessed his fears about their upcoming mission and how attractive he found her. With all of her experiences, Diana is also the most diplomatic member of the Justice League, as evidenced by her treatment of the Flash with compassion and patience, despite his tendency to somewhat annoy her and the other Justice Leaguers with his humorous attitude, and the kindness and support she showed to Cyborg while he continued to grapple with his powers.[10] Indeed, through her compassion and unbreakable spirit, Diana has given renewed hope to many of her teammates throughout the years. For example, she motivated and inspired the Wonder Men into looking past purely monetary interests, with Chief resolving to no longer be neutral in the war, Sameer finally admitting his passion for acting, and even the depressed Charlie struggling with PTSD finally beginning to sing again for the first time in years. Likewise, during the Justice League's battle against Steppenwolf's forces, Wonder Woman was able to inspire confidence in the inexperienced Flash and Cyborg, assuring them that they wouldn't need to fight the Apokoliptan invasion alone. Furthermore, she was the most understanding of Superman's confusion upon his ressurrection and remained ambivalent about fighting the newly-resurrected Superman and even implored him not to force her to, showing him compassion and persistence while attempting to get him to remember who he is (even calling him by his birth name). In addition to her general willingness for empathy, however, Diana is also extremely friendly and can step back enjoy the smaller moments in life, as seen in her utter delight in experiencing ice cream and agreement with Superman (who, up until this point she had not spoken to much) about him not missing out on the positive results of their victory over Steppenwolf.
Superhuman Durability: Diana possesses a high resistance to damage and magical attacks. Her resistance to injury is not quite as great as Superman or Supergirl. However, due to her vast threshold for pain and her Amazonian ability to heal at a superhuman rate, this easily makes up for the difference. She has withstood considerable bludgeoning damage in the form of hand to hand combat with metahuman opponents such as Superman and Shazam.[105] She has considerable resistance to human weaponry, though this is not absolute; bullets, and edged weapons can cause minor to moderate injury, but never life threatening.[82] She once survived an Eighth Metal bullet to the head and was back on her feet and fighting again a few moments later.[106]
