The I Ching era had an influence on the 1974 Wonder Woman TV movie featuring Cathy Lee Crosby, in which Wonder Woman was portrayed as a non-superpowered globe-trotting super-spy who wore an amalgam of the Wonder Woman and Diana Prince costumes. The first two issues of Allan Heinberg's run (Wonder Woman vol. 3, #1–2) include direct references to I Ching, and feature Diana wearing an outfit similar to that which she wore during the I Ching era.[9]
In September 2011, DC Comics relaunched its entire publication line, dubbing the event The New 52. Among the major changes to the character, Wonder Woman now appears wearing a new costume similar to her older one, and has a completely new origin. In this new timeline, Wonder Woman is no longer a clay figure brought to life by the magic of the gods. Rather, she is the demigoddess daughter of Queen Hippolyta and Zeus: King of the Greek Gods. Her original origin is revealed as a cover story to explain Diana's birth as a means to protect her from Hera's wrath. Currently, Diana has taken on the role and title as the new "God of War".[129][130]
Gaines decided he needed another expert. He turned to Lauretta Bender, an associate professor of psychiatry at New York University’s medical school and a senior psychiatrist at Bellevue Hospital, where she was director of the children’s ward, an expert on aggression. She’d long been interested in comics but her interest had grown in 1940, after her husband, Paul Schilder, was killed by a car while walking home from visiting Bender and their 8-day-old daughter in the hospital. Bender, left with three children under the age of 3, soon became painfully interested in studying how children cope with trauma. In 1940, she conducted a study with Reginald Lourie, a medical resident under her supervision, investigating the effect of comics on four children brought to Bellevue Hospital for behavioral problems. Tessie, 12, had witnessed her father, a convicted murderer, kill himself. She insisted on calling herself Shiera, after a comic-book girl who is always rescued at the last minute by the Flash. Kenneth, 11, had been raped. He was frantic unless medicated or “wearing a Superman cape.” He felt safe in it—he could fly away if he wanted to—and “he felt that the cape protected him from an assault.” Bender and Lourie concluded the comic books were “the folklore of this age,” and worked, culturally, the same way fables and fairy tales did.
The Golden Age Wonder Woman had strength that was comparable to the Golden Age Superman. Wonder Woman was capable of bench pressing 15,000 pounds even before she had received her bracelets, and later hoisted a 50,000 pound boulder above her head to inspire Amazons facing the test.[169] Even when her super strength was temporarily nullified, she still had enough mortal strength of an Amazon to break down a prison door to save Steve Trevor.[170] In one of her earliest appearances, she is shown running easily at 60 mph (97 km/h), and later jumps from a building[clarification needed] and lands on the balls of her feet.[171]
Gaines was hugely relieved, at least until September 1943, when a letter arrived from John D. Jacobs, a U.S. Army staff sergeant in the 291st Infantry, stationed at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. “I am one of those odd, perhaps unfortunate men who derive an extreme erotic pleasure from the mere thought of a beautiful girl, chained or bound, or masked, or wearing extreme high-heels or high-laced boots,—in fact, any sort of constriction or strain whatsoever,” Jacobs wrote. He wanted to know whether the author of Wonder Woman himself had in his possession any of the items depicted in the stories, “the leather mask, or the wide iron collar from Tibet, or the Greek ankle manacle? Or do you just ‘dream up’ these things?”
^ Phegley, Kiel (May 23, 2016). "Rucka, Sharp & Scott Aim To Make Rebirth's Wonder Woman Accessible & Fantastic". Comic Book Resources. Archived from the original on September 10, 2016. While Wonder Woman sees the return of writer Greg Rucka, he’s teaming up with Liam Sharp, Matthew Clark and Nicola Scott to deliver a very different take from his previous run with the Amazon Princess. Archive requires scrolldown.
Diana quickly regained her sanity and was taken out of the mental hospital's care. She immediately noted the absence of Barbara and set out to locate her. However, when she arrived at Empire Enterprises, she was greeted only by Doctor Cyber.[81] Cale set Team Poison onto Wonder Woman once again, and Colonel Poison managed to shoot Diana through the chest. Diana and Steve quickly overcame their forces and followed Veronica Cale and Cheetah to a gateway that led to Themyscira. Wonder Woman and Cheetah fought, and a drop of Diana's blood fell onto the gateway which opened the portal to Ares' prison beneath Themyscira. Phobos and Deimos, whom Cale had turned into dogs with the help of Circe, entered the portal, along with Diana and Veronica Cale. Veronica found her daughter beside Ares.[82]
Shortly after coming to the outside world, Diana interrupted a terrorist attack and was named "Wonder Woman" by the press.[5] She continued to use her gifts to fight for peace and justice in Man's World.[6] She later fought who she thought to be Ares, though in truth it was Phobos and Deimos who were disguised as their father. Fearing that she would eventually discover the truth and free Ares from his prison beneath Themyscira, the Gods of Olympus sent Phobos and Deimos to erase all memory of Themyscira from Diana's mind. The twin gods were unable to erase the memory, so instead they later implanted false memories regarding her home to deceive Diana, leading to a completely separate origin story and causing her to hallucinate new adventures. Diana was unaware that her memories had been tampered with, and believed the falsifications until her search for the truth led her to Ares himself years later.[7][8]
^ Lyons, Charles. "Suffering Sappho! A Look at the Creator & Creation of Wonder Woman". Comic Book Resources. Archived from the original on January 19, 2013. Retrieved August 23, 2006. In October 1940, the popular women's magazine "Family Circle" published an interview with Marston entitled "Don't Laugh at the Comics," in which the psychologist discussed the unfulfilled potential of the medium.
Good Characters Female Characters Prime Earth Characters 2011 Character Debuts Modern-Age Characters Public Identity Demigods Amazons Single Characters Height Height 6' Height 6' 0" Weight Blue Eyes Black Hair William Moulton Marston/Creator Harry G. Peter/Creator Characters Pallas Athena (Prime Earth)/Quotes Incomplete Articles Divine Empowerment Superhuman Strength Articles Needing Citation Superhuman Durability Flight Superhuman Speed Superhuman Reflexes Superhuman Agility Superhuman Stamina Accelerated Healing Animal Empathy Immortality Magic Aviation Enhanced Intellect Diplomacy Leadership Multilingualism Equestrianism Hand-to-Hand Combat (Advanced) Tactical Analysis Weaponry Archery Swordsmanship Throwing Justice League of America members Star Sapphire Corps members Sinestro Corps members Green Lantern villains Bisexual Characters Bruce Wayne's Love Interests Gods of Olympus Justice League Dark members Kal-El's Love Interests New 52 Characters Twins
The Crime Syndicate imprisoned the Justice Leagues inside the Firestorm Matrix[71] which psychologically placed them in situations that depicted their greatest failures. Wonder Woman was placed in a situation where she was forced to do battle against both Amazons and humans for the lives of Superman and Steve Trevor. Martian Manhunter and Stargirl attempted to break her out but Wonder Woman ignored them.[72][73]
The first of these half-mortal siblings to reveal himself to Wonder Woman was her older half-brother, Lennox Sandsmark, who could transform himself into living, marble-like stone and, before his death, was revealed to be the father of Wonder Girl (Cassie Sandsmark).[137] His killer, the First Born, the eldest progeny of Zeus, would become Wonder Woman's first major super-villain of the New 52.
Following the Rebirth retcon, the "Year One" storyline explains that while put in a cell after coming to Man's World, Diana was visited by the Greek gods in animal form. Each gave her powers that would reveal themselves when she needed them to. She first displays strength when she accidentally rips the bars off her cell door when visited by Steve Trevor, Etta Candy, and Barbara Ann Minerva. Later on a trip to the mall, she discovers super speed, great durability, and the power of flight while fighting off a terrorist attack.
An American pilot and the love interest of Diana.[21][22] On his role for the film, Pine said, "I am an American pilot who's a spy. It's like a boy's dream: You're either a spy or a fighter pilot. The first thing I wanted to be was a fighter pilot a long time ago. I wanted to be Goose [from Top Gun]".[15] As to how his mortal character would interact with an Amazon, Pine stated, "When I first read the script, it had elements of Romancing the Stone, kind of a very classic fish out of water. Two people that don't really bond well at first and they're butting heads and just fun, witty banter".[15] When speaking about meeting the director and being cast, Pine said, "Patty is a pretty incredible human being. When we first met about the part of Steve, she sat across from me and essentially acted out the entire film over the course of a two-hour lunch. She was so specific, so articulate, and so ardent. I would've said yes just for Patty alone."[23] Pine went through a workout regimen for the film, commenting, "I got in incredible shape for this film" but also joking "I was also wearing about 75 pounds of clothing. What I realized is that I made a major mistake, I got in great shape and they just put clothes over all my hard work."[24]
As Wonder Woman joins the Battle against Doomsday, she arrives just in time to save Batman from Doomsday's lethal thermal blast, deflecting the beams with her indestructible bracelets. She then jointly attacks Doomsday with Superman while Batman tries to expose the creature to Kryptonite, allowing its destruction. She relentlessly battles the monster, and despite Doomsday being stronger, Wonder Woman held her own, parrying a tremendous punch with the Sword of Athena, and then slicing off Doomsday's right arm with it. Eventually, Batman baits the monster into coming closer to her, allowing Wonder Woman to hurl the noose of her unbreakable Lasso of Hestia around his torso.
Wonder Woman, while in her guise as the human Diana Prince, is an extremely experienced genius antiquities dealer, with Diana's tremendously long immortal life and natural fluency in all human languages allowing her to accumulate an immense amount of knowledge on the subject, though (being an Amazon with Old God heritage) she seems to specialize most in ancient Greco-Roman antiques. Hence, Diana works as Curator for the Department of Antiquities[6] at the extremely prestigious Louvre Museum in France, and she is held in very high esteem by the curator of the Gotham City Museum of Antiquities. She was swiftly able to tell that the museum's exhibit of Alexander the Great's sword was a fake, knowing exactly where the actual sword was and impressing Batman himself.
For millennia, the goddess Athena waited patiently for the chance to prove herself worthy of the crown of Olympus. As Earth society developed, the goddess of knowledge grew in power and cunning, and ultimately challenged her father Zeus for the throne. To win this challenge, Athena sent for her champion, Wonder Woman, to face that of Zeus — Briareos of the Hecatoncheires. Though she was still blind, Diana was aided by the winged Pegasus but seemingly fell to Briareos. Unknown to Zeus, this was a trick played by Athena and Diana to prove to the latter that Zeus had no compassion and was not a worthy ruler. Athena agreed to forfeit if Zeus would spare Diana's life, but he denied her, proving his unworthiness. This prompted the other goddesses to deliver the head of Medusa unto Diana, which she used to turn Briareos to stone. Athena took the throne at last, but Zeus immediately began plotting a coup with his brothers in Tartarus.[30]
To find the perfect location to shoot the Amazon island of Themyscira, the birthplace of Wonder Woman herself, the film's producers searched all over the world, finally settling on the Cilentan Coast: a stretch of coastline on the Tyrrhenian Sea, located in the Province of Salerno in Southern Italy.[134] It was chosen because most beaches in the world that sit below big cliffs disappear beneath the tide for part of every day. Production designer Aline Bonetto and her location manager Charles Somers considered 47 countries and visited several of them before they found what they were looking for. Bonetto explained that, "Italy had beautiful weather, a beautiful blue-green sea, not too much tide, not too much wave. Our effects team added some cliffs in post-production, and it was the perfect way to go".[135] The estuary at Lower Halstow in Kent is featured in the scene in which Diana arrives at a Belgian creek to make her way to the warfront.[136] Bill Westenhofer served as the visual effects supervisor for the film[137] and Martin Walsh served as editor.[127]
Now a mod boutique owner, the powerless Diana Prince acquired a Chinese mentor named I Ching. Under I Ching's guidance, Diana learned martial arts and weapons skills, and engaged in adventures that encompassed a variety of genres, from espionage to mythology. During this time she fought villains such as Catwoman, Doctor Cyber, the hippie gang Them!, and the campy witch Morgana.[9]
The debate continued with the release of Jenkins's 2017 film, Wonder Woman, which according to the BBC had "some thinking it's too feminist and others thinking it's not feminist enough".[235] Kyle Killian found an inherent contradiction in the construction of Wonder Woman as "a warrior" who, she states, is also highly sexualized. Killian thus suggests that these elements "should not be the focus of a kickass heroine—her beauty, bone structure, and sexiness—if she is to be a feminist icon".[236] Theresa Harold concurred, comparing Wonder Woman to Katniss Everdeen (of The Hunger Games), who "didn't have to wear a teenager's wet dream of a costume to fight in".[237] Christina Cauterucci also felt that Wonder Woman's ability to be considered a "feminist antidote" was undermined by her "sex appeal".[238] Other critics refer to the construction of Wonder Woman in the film as "an implausible post-feminist hero".[227][239]
After Jimenez, Walt Simonson wrote a six-issue homage to the I Ching era, in which Diana temporarily loses her powers and adopts an all-white costume (Wonder Woman vol. 2, #189–194). Greg Rucka became writer with issue #195. His initial story arc centered upon Diana's authorship of a controversial book and included a political subtext. Rucka introduced a new recurring villain, ruthless businesswoman Veronica Cale, who uses media manipulation to try to discredit Diana. Rucka modernized the Greek and Egyptian gods, updating the toga-wearing deities to provide them with briefcases, laptop computers, designer clothing, and modern hairstyles. Rucka dethroned Zeus and Hades, who were unable to move with the times as the other gods had, replacing them with Athena and Ares as new rulers of the gods and the underworld. Athena selected Diana to be her personal champion.[9]
While in London, Wonder Woman was summoned to help a young lady called Zola from the minions of the goddess Hera and after Diana defeated the enemies, she was informed by Hermes that Zola was pregnant with Zeus’s child, which caused Hera’s wrath.[16] Diana then took took Zola and the injured Hermes to the island of Themyscira, home of the Amazons, where Hera’s wrath reached them in the form of her daughter Strife. Wonder Woman used the Lasso of Truth to stop Strife from hurting the Amazons, but it caused her to reveal the fact that Diana and her were sisters.[9] The next day, Diana learned from her mother that she was in fact Zeus’ daughter and, hurt by her existence being a lie, she decided to renounce the name Diana, and swore never to return to the island again.[10]
Trevor pitched a mission to destroy the facility where the gas was being created, but his superiors decided against it, stating that it was too late in the war to do something as drastic as that. When Trevor argued that more soldiers would die, his superiors simply stated that that was what soldiers did. With the battle of Themyscira and the death of her aunt so fresh in her mind, Diana was infuriated by the man's comments and berated him, calling him a coward and telling the rest of the council that they should be ashamed. Trevor escorted her out as she ranted, apologizing to the council on her behalf.
Throughout Diana's childhood, she was training and sparring with her Amazonian sisters. One day when pilots were test flying, one of the pilots called Steve Trevor, has an accident with his plane, and Hippolyta opens Themyscira's shields and disguise, and Steve Trevor lands his plane on Paradise Island. Steve then proceeds to explore the island, and that's where he finds beautiful women bathing, but while staring at the women, Diana surprises him from behind and takes him out by kicking him in his testicles. Steve is then strapped up because of Hippolyta keeping him safe until someone proves worthy enough to escort him back to the USA. Wonder Woman while covered in a helmet, wins the challenges and gets to escort Steve back home, but while the challenges were going on, a traitor in the Amazons freed Ares because she loved him. Ares is free, and he goes to Hades so he could remove the bracelets blocking his powers.Throughout being in USA, Diana also tries to stop Ares' plans as Wonder Woman, but she fails the first time, and Ares gets ahold of the power he was searching for. After calling in his army, the US finds an island that appeared out of nowhere on the map, that being Paradise Island. They set off a nuke towards Paradise Island, and Steve manages to stop it, and at the same time, Wonder Woman defeats Ares with help from her Amazonian sisters. She realizes her feelings for Steve, and she kisses him, but when being back in Paradise Island, she looked sad. Hippolyta allowed her to operate in the outside world where she shared her feelings and her life with Steve.
The modern age of the character can be tied to the reboot of the character following Crisis on Infinite Earths. In this the character became defined by the vision of George Perez in a way which the entire concept of the character was defined by his direction. As opposed to the past where the character would get retold origins which would try to make her more contemporary, now she got one which tied her much more strongly to the stories of the ancient gods. For the first time Diana enters Man’s World not knowing how to speak English already, and is forced to master the language on her own. In this period she also became much more closely related with modern female issues, and this was usually through her circle of friends – Julia and Vanessa Kapatelis and Mindi Mayer. Such issues as the cultural need for women to be attractive and thin, suicide and the sensationalization of the media as it pertains to women were all addressed. This version of the character also reimagined Steve Trevor as a father figure for Diana as opposed to a romantic counterpart. After Perez’s run on the character, she was taken over for a time by William Messner Loebs, who recast her again in somewhat more traditional superhero stories, though in this case she still explored a different aspect of humanity. After a long space voyage, when she returned home she was forced to work at a fast food restaurant to pay her bills and made friends with a number of people in her “civilian identity.” This built up to the revelation of betrayal of her mother, and of Artemis taking over as Wonder Woman for a short time, but this was soon reversed. The following writer was John Byrne, who when he was writing Superman in the post-Crisis on Infinite Earths DC universe, had hinted at a relationship between Diana and Superman. This was explored occasionally under his run, but it is probably best known for the death of Diana, and the assumption of her duties by Hippolyta. She was soon returned to life (as she had never really died, instead having been deified). This period also introduced Cassandra Sandsmark, who would go on to become Wonder Girl at a later point. The remainder of this second series is best remembered for by the writing of Jimenez and Rucka, both of whom helped define the character. The latter during the lead-in of events to Infinite Crisis had Diana fighting Superman who was being controlled by Maxwell Lord. Battered after their battle, Diana has managed to stop Superman by using her lasso of truth on Lord, and the only option which she is given to stopping him is to kill him, and realizing this is the case, she does so. This created a controversy both within comics and in the real world, as both fans and characters alike debated the morality of this decision. In comics this also led to strained relations between her and Superman and her and Batman and with the addition of the events of Identity Crisis, helped to lead to the breakup of the Justice League of America at a crucial point right before the main events of Infinite Crisis were about to begin.
The American theme of Diana's costume was explained by Pérez in the Challenge of the Gods storyline in which Diana engaged in a series of trials arranged by Zeus as punishment for refusing his advances. Diana met the spirit of Steve Trevor's mother, Diana Trevor, who was clad in armor identical to her own. Trevor revealed that during World War II she had crashed on Themyscira while on duty as a U.S. Army pilot. She blundered into an Amazon battle against Cottus, a multi-armed demon, at the portal to the underworld. Trevor was drawn into the battle, although she was armed only with her side arm. She wounded the beast before suffering a mortal blow, allowing the Amazons to reseal the portal.[37]
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]
In the 1910s, Peter was a staff artist at the magazine Judge, where he contributed to its suffrage page called “The Modern Woman,” which ran from 1912 to 1917. More regularly, the art on that page was drawn by another staff artist, a woman named Lou Rogers. Rogers’ suffrage and feminist cartoons very often featured an allegorical woman chained or roped, breaking her bonds. Sanger hired Rogers as art director for the Birth Control Review, a magazine she started in 1917. In 1920, in a book called Woman and the New Race, Sanger argued that woman “had chained herself to her place in society and the family through the maternal functions of her nature, and only chains thus strong could have bound her to her lot as a brood animal.” In 1923, an illustration commissioned by Rogers for the cover of Birth Control Review pictured a weakened and desperate woman, fallen to her knees and chained at the ankle to a ball that reads, “UNWANTED BABIES.” A chained woman inspired the title of Sanger’s 1928 book, Motherhood in Bondage, a compilation of some of the thousands of letters she had received from women begging her for information about birth control; she described the letters as “the confessions of enslaved mothers.”
A day before Whedon's departure from Wonder Woman, Warner Bros. and Silver Pictures purchased a spec script for the film written by Matthew Jennison and Brent Strickland. Set during World War II, the script impressed executives at Silver Pictures.[77] However, Silver stated that he had purchased the script because he did not want the rights reverting; while stating the script had good ideas, Silver did not want the film to be a period piece.[81] By April 2008, Silver hired Jennison and Strickland to write a new script set in contemporary times that would not depict Wonder Woman's origin, but explore Paradise Island's history.[82]
On May 31, Wonder Woman was banned in Lebanon after the Campaign to Boycott Supporters of Israel asked the Lebanese government's Ministry of Economy and Trade to block the film because its star, Gal Gadot, is Israeli.[163] The Lebanese government did not ban Gadot's Fast & Furious films which did screen in Lebanon.[164][165] On June 7, Variety reported that a Tunisian court suspended the theatrical release of Wonder Woman after a lawsuit brought by the Al-Chaab party and the Tunisian Association of Young Lawyers to have the film blocked due to Gadot's Israeli citizenship, military service, and public comments in support of the Israeli military during the 2014 war in Gaza.[166] Jordan was reportedly also considering a ban of the film and suspended screenings pending a decision,[167] but on June 11, it was reported that the government decided not to do so, as there was no legal precedent for it.[168]
Comic books were more or less invented in 1933 by Maxwell Charles Gaines, a former elementary school principal who went on to found All-American Comics. Superman first bounded over tall buildings in 1938. Batman began lurking in the shadows in 1939. Kids read them by the piles. But at a time when war was ravaging Europe, comic books celebrated violence, even sexual violence. In 1940, the Chicago Daily News called comics a “national disgrace.” “Ten million copies of these sex-horror serials are sold every month,” wrote the newspaper’s literary editor, calling for parents and teachers to ban the comics, “unless we want a coming generation even more ferocious than the present one.”
Wonder Woman's outfit has varied over time, although almost all of her outfit incarnations have retained some form of chestplate, subligaculum, tiara, bracelets, and her signature five-pointed star symbols. When Wonder Woman was first introduced, she wore a heavily patriotic skirt and red top which incorporated an American eagle and elements of the United States flag, reflecting the comic's origins during World War II. Later artists introduced what would become Wonder Woman's classic ensemble, adding an armored plate to her top whose design recalls a letter W and revealing blue short shorts, whose precise length varied from artist to artist. Other artists have experimented with different looks for Wonder Woman over the years, including an all-white mod jumpsuit, a biker outfit, a variation of her mainstream depiction featuring leather pants and a jacket, and a number of armoured battlesuits. Contemporary artists have attempted to emphasise Wonder Woman's traditional outfit as a red armored top with a blue gladiator skirt.
Superhuman Agility: Wonder Woman naturally possesses superhuman agility, dexterity, balance and body coordination, allowing her to jump up immense distances and come down in elaborate somersaults, to swiftly and easily take down many World War I soldiers, while dodging and weaving around their attacks, and to even dodge quite a few attacks from the equally fast Ares and Doomsday.
Wonder Woman had its world premiere on May 15, 2017, in Shanghai. It premiered on May 25, 2017, in Los Angeles.[146] The film's London premiere, which was scheduled to take place on May 31 at the Odeon Leicester Square, was cancelled due to the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing.[147] The film had its Latin America premiere in Mexico City on May 27. It was released in most of the world, including in IMAX,[148] on June 2, 2017, after originally being scheduled for June 23.[149][150] Belgium, Singapore and South Korea received the film first, with May 31 openings.[151][152][153] On April 17, it was announced that Wonder Woman would be released in China on June 2, the same day as its North American release.[154]
