Wonder Woman Retconned Already in Her Eponymous Mag

So, it turns out that one of my main gripes about Wonder Woman's debut gets retconned in the first issue of her eponymous mag.

Instead of falling in love with a comatose Steve Trevor (for no good reason), Now Wonder Woman not only gets the chance to interact with Steve before taking him back to the States, she actually builds the "healing ray" that brings him back to life!

Yup, that's right, this time Steve dies on the table from his injuries in the crash-landing. And Wonder Woman builds a device to bring him back from the dead.

Steve is a Zombie.

Most Amusing Panel Prize:

Not only can Wonder Woman pick up "brain waves" with her handy-dandy Amazon invention, she is also psychic/intuitive enough to know when those brain waves are coming.

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I only own Sensation Comics #1 and All-Star Comics #8 (as far as early issues starring Wonder Woman go), so I'm not sure what may have transpired between those issues and Wonder Woman #1, but in this inaugural issue of her own mag, Marston and crew retell Wonder Woman's origin story making some not insignificant changes.

This time the war between women and men is writ large on the mythos of Ares' rivalry with Aphrodite. Where he would have men rule the earth through violence ("the sword"), Aphrodite would have women "conquer men with love."

UGH. Gender norms, anyone?

This presumed ongoing animosity between the genders is illustrated with a lengthier version of the Hercules myth in which he steals Hippolyta's magical girdle by seducing her or, as Marston puts it, using "woman's own weapon" against her.

More UGH.

This time, however, Hippolyta does indeed mold Diana out of clay, and the goddess Aphrodite gives her life to answer Hippolyta's prayers, and while I am happy this detail of her female-centric origin made it into this retelling, Wonder Woman as an idealized woman takes on saint-like proportions in this version of her origin.

Hearkening back to Gilbert & Gubar's analysis of the Goddess and Whore dichotomy, Diana is firmly fixed in the goddess category. She is ultra-feminine (to the 1940's standards for white Western women) and completely selfless. She is purity itself in motive and deed.








Unfortunately, these traditional feminine beauty standards are actually reinforced by the Amazons through the mocking of their larger sisters. In the competition for who will take Steve Trevor back to America, Diana's best friend, Mala, wrestles with Fatsis (Fat-sis, seriously?), mocking her about her weight.

Even Diana badgers Etta Candy into trying to lose weight so that she can "catch a man." When Etta argues with the "man motive," suggesting men find her attractive as she is (otherwise, she would "knock 'em for a loop"), Diana shifts tack to suggest Etta will feel better if she loses weight, but then Diana has to go and try to guilt her by suggesting Etta's being "unpatriotic to hoard...fat."

So, in addition to these antiquated notions of what makes women desirable/beautiful, there's some downright racist imagery of Black, Asian, and Hispanic characters in this issue. Yeah, yeah, a product of the time in which these stories were written... but, dang. They are truly awful (and so incongruous with the equality the mag ostensibly promotes through its American patriotism during WWII).

Final Notions:

There's a lot to like about this Diana Prince. She tries to rescue, not just defeat. (When Pepita, the villain in the last story in this issue, is endangered by a raging bull, Wonder Woman saves her and encourages her to reform despite all Pepita has done through her villainy.)

But these early efforts at a feminist icon stumble along unconscious assumptions about gender (it's more complicated than boy/girl) and beauty (there's more than one body type) and race (just UGH).

(And Steve is still as interesting as a cardboard cut-out. Cardboard Zombie Steve. Diana fell in love with that?)

Series: Wonder Woman (1942)

Issue #: 001

Copyright: DC Comics

Cover Date: Summer 1942

Cover Price: 10¢

Page Count:  57 pages

Print Release: 22-April-1942

Digital Release: 25-June-2011

Writer:	William Moulton Marston (as Charles Moulton)
Penciler:	Harry G. Peter
Inker:	Harry G. Peter
Colorist:	None Listed
Cover Art:	Harry G. Peter
Source Links:	comiXology / Comic Vine / Wikipedia
Story Titles:	“The Origin of Wonder Woman”; “Wonder Woman Goes to the Circus”; “The Master Plan of Paula Von Gunther”; “The Greatest Feat of Daring in Human History”

All-Star Comics #8/Sensation Comics #1: Finally, A Woman...

I have met some pretty cool classic ladies already with Lois Lane in Action Comics and Catwoman in the Batman mags, but Wonder Woman is the first to get her own gig (though not officially until her eponymous title began in 1942).

Now, I grew up believing that Wonder Woman made her debut in Sensation Comics #1 (I can't rightly tell you where I got the notion, though), so you can imagine my disappointment that this issue begins with a paragraph summary of Wonder Woman's origin instead of depicting that origin story. WTH?

So, of course, I went online to figure out what was going on. There I discovered that Wonder Woman actually made her first appearance in All-Star Comics #8 with a 9-page origin story.

Yay, I was saved. That mag was in my collection, too.

Most Amusing Panel Prize:

It can't be identity theft if you sell your credentials, but I seriously had no idea Wonder Woman bought her Diana Prince identity.

Surprising Details (or rather, More Details I Poorly Remembered):

I had forgotten that the bracelets the wonder women/Amazons wear are part of their compact with Aphrodite to remember never to allow themselves to be enslaved by men again.

Diana's mother, Hippolyta, and her "magic girdle" come straight from the Grecian myths of Hercules and the Amazons.

One reason I favor this origin story is because Diana is the composite of all the best qualities of the Greek Gods. but she is fashioned from the clay by her mother (a detail not present in this version of the story). She is a woman designed by a woman for women.

So, it is a little hard for me to embrace the fact that Diana is willing to sacrifice herself almost entirely because she has fallen in love with a comatose man.

A COMATOSE MAN!

Sure she learns a bit about him and the mission that caused him to crash-land on Paradise Island from her mother's magic spy-glass the Magic Sphere, but come on! Taking Steve Trevor back to America, we are told, will cost Diana her heritage/home, and her family, and "her right to eternal life." Talk about self-sacrificing woman-hood!

Eternal life. For a guy she's never even spoken to.

Moulton creates an interesting blend of female stereotypes with feminist premises in Wonder Woman. His Diana is endowed with the ideals of "woman-hood," both the good and the bad.

She is ultra-feminine in a skimpy uniform (designed by her mother, who knew?) who likes to "window shop" because she's a girl and that's what girls do. Yeah.







She also competes and proves her prowess, winning the right to take Steve Trevor back to the States (the "last citadel of democracy") on a mission -- given to her by two Grecian Goddesses (Aphrodite and Athena) no less -- to "fight the forces of hate and oppression."

Now that's a heroic mission, fighting the forces of hate and oppression.

Final Notions:

There is all this potential in the Wonder Woman story to depict a truly feminist/matriarchal alternative to the traditional roles for women in Western culture, but that potential is swiftly undermined by Diana's primarily romantic motivation -- not because it is heterosexual romance, but because it is romance in its most simplistic form: a woman willing to sacrifice everything for the man that she loves (for no good reason).

If only Moulton had focused Diana more on her Goddess-given mission instead of on acquiring the love of a man she barely knows.

Series: All-Star Comics (1940)

Issue #: 008

Copyright: DC Comics

Cover Date: December-January 1941

Cover Price: 10¢

Page Count:  68 pages

Print Release: 22-October-1941

Digital Release: 25-June-2011

Writer:	William Moulton Marston (as Charles Moulton)
Penciler:	Harry G. Peter
Inker:	Harry G. Peter
Colorist:	None Listed
Cover Art:	Everett E. Hibbard
Source Links:	comiXology / Comic Vine / Wikipedia
Story Title:	Wonder Woman: “Introducing Wonder Woman”

Series: Sensation Comics (1941)

Issue #: 001

Copyright: DC Comics

Cover Date: January 1942

Cover Price: 10¢

Page Count:  16 pages

Print Release: 26-November-1941

Digital Release: 25-June-2011

Writer:	William Moulton Marston (as Charles Moulton)
Penciler:	Harry G. Peter
Inker:	Harry G. Peter
Colorist:	None Listed
Cover Art:	Harry G. Peter
Source Links:	comiXology / Comic Vine / Wikipedia
Story Title:	Wonder Woman: “Wonder Woman Arrives in Man’s World”