Wonder Woman

▪ American comic-book character

      American comic-book heroine who was a perennially popular character and a feminist icon.

      Wonder Woman originated as Princess Diana of the all-female island race called the Amazons and first came to the “man's world” during World War II. Possessing extraordinary strength, speed, and fighting skills and armed with her magical Lasso of Truth, she joined the U.S. fight against the Nazis. Her star-spangled costume augmented her abilities with a boomerang tiara and bullet-deflecting bracelets. Wonder Woman kept her identity secret, maintaining a masquerade of normalcy as a nurse (or in the television series, secretary) named Diana Prince. In her original story she earned the right to become Wonder Woman, the Amazons' champion in the outside world, by winning a physical competition. In DC Comics' 1980s remake of the character, she was said to have been blessed by the gods at birth and granted superhuman powers.

      Psychologist William Moulton Marston, inventor of the lie detector test, created Wonder Woman (under the pseudonym Charles Moulton) in 1941 to epitomize female heroism. Although Marston's early stories were criticized for a propensity toward themes of female bondage, Diana always outwitted her often misogynistic foes. Years later, Wonder Woman was embraced by the burgeoning feminist (feminism) movement, and journalist-activist Gloria Steinem (Steinem, Gloria) featured her on the cover of the first issue of the seminal magazine Ms. in 1972.

      Wonder Woman appeared in the 1970s Super Friends animated television series and was memorably played by actress Lynda Carter in a live-action series from 1975 to 1979. As of the early 21st century, Wonder Woman was one of only three superheroes to have appeared almost continually in comic books since the 1940s.

* * *