WONDERLAND • The Ultimate Wonder Woman Site

	Wonder Woman is the only female comic book character to be published continuously since her debut in All Star # 8 in 1941. She quickly got her own strip in Sensation comics, and her own magazine in 1942. She was "created", with Athena's help, by Hyppolite, Queen of the Amazons, from a statue embued with the breath of life, but her real creator was "Charles Moulton." Moulton was the pen name of William Moulton Marston, a psychologist who invented the lie detector. Marston put all his knowledge of human sexual psychodynamics into his stories, which were heavily into "bondage and discipline." Children responded to the stories on one level; adults on another. An undeniable homoerotiscm permeated the stories, as well as the all-female society on "Paradise Island." A "girl-roping" contest in Sensation # 6 is particularly blatant. But the aspect of the series wouldn't be dealt with, let alone admitted, until several decades later. Wonder Woman often grappled with Gestapo agent Paula Von Gunther (changed to Paula Von Gunta in the sixties), and her primary artist was Harry G. Peter.

	As the emphasis shifted from Paradise Island to "Man's World" in the fifties and sixties, Wonder Woman stories became wilder and more outrageous. Typical tales would have the Amazin' Amazon tied up in Oriental archfoe Egg Fu's mustache or battling Giganta, the gorilla Girl. Flagging sales and the popularity of TV spies necessitated a drastic change in 1969: Diana Prince (Wonder Woman) was stripped of her Amazonian abilities and turned into kind of Girl From U.N.C.L.E. Writer-artist Mike Sekowsky teamed her up with a blind Oriental named I-Ching and pitted them against an inspired villainess, Dr. Cyber. For several issues (# 179-188), Wonder Woman would do her best to block the heinous plans of Cyber and her murderous henchladies. It all came to a head in a two-parter entitled "Earthquaker," in which an accident costs Cyber her beautiful looks. True to form, Cyber blames Diana for her disfigurement and chains her up in her

headquarters (shade of 1940s Wonder Woman), while her earthquake machine lays waste too much of Hong Kong. Although the concept was a far cry from Marston's original idea, Sekowsky did supply some entertaining stories chock full of female-female catfights and a lot of sadistic action. During his run, Sekowsky also had Diana square off against a bitchy witch, Morgana, and a butch trio of S&M streetwoman called "Them."

The first Wonder Woman telefilm, which aired on ABC in 1974, combined both Marston's and Sekowsky's vision, and featured former athlete Cathy lee Crosby as a specially endowed secret agent. Very little from the Amazonian heritage. Wonder Woman's star-spangled one-piece "bathing suit" was traded in for more traditional uniform with stars on the sleeves.

The story line has WW trailing a spy named "Mr. Evil" (a moniker as corny as "Egg Fu," if not more so), played with usual suave assurance by Ricardo Montalban. The proceedings are never more than dreary under prolific Vincent McEveety's pedestrian direction, which misses some opportunities for outlandish excitement provided by the script. Anitra Ford offers some sizzle as Wonder Woman's archrival, and the other performances are adequate. "Cathy Lee Crosby," wrote critic Robert L. Jerome, "appears a bit green and ill at ease in a role which calls for more pizzazz than poise. Yes, she can throw a javelin with skill, yet she can't quite hurdle the banalities of a Saturday morning script which goes from A to B in routine fashion." It didn't matter; this Wonder Woman never went to series."

Still, ABC wasn't ready to give up. Maybe it would be a good idea to go back to the basics. In 1975, they tried again with a telefilm so christened as to make it clear -or utterly confusing- to everyone: The New, original Wonder Woman. This second attempt was far superior to the first.

The setting is the 1940s, and Wonder Woman is back in her red, white, and blue bathing suit. As portrayed by voluptuous Lynda Carter, the Amazin’ Amazon is a knockout, and Cloris Leachman makes fine, if unexpected, Queen Hippolyte. The script sticks very closely to the origin and concept of the super-heroine, although too much of it borders dangerously on camp; the best scenes are the ones played straight. An amusing sequence has Carter playing ‘bullets and bracelets’ -knocking bullets aside with the metal bands on her wrists, a carryover from the comic. There is also a creatively executed fight sequence between Carter and Stella Stevens and a hilarious scene featuring a little old lady with a submachine gun. Lyle Waggoner is an okay Steve Trevor, and Leonard Horn’s direction is more than adequate. Stanley Ralph Ross was the writer.

The telefilm's ratings were high enough to prompt a series, with Carter and Waggoner retaining their roles. Stories still took place back in the forties, although the period atmosphere was always distinctly limited. Cartoon Nazis and cardboard characters were in abundance, but the series wasn't much worse than others. Debra Winger made a perfect "Wonder Girl" with her deep voice and forceful manner. After two years, a ratings dip necessitated a move from ABC to CBS -and into the present time. Now WW traveled the world to take on cases of nuclear sabotage and other late-seventies concerns. The programs lasted a year or two more.

Lyle Waggoner had been a second banana on the Carol Burnett Show before taking the part of government agent, Steve Trevor (and later; Steve Trevor, Jr.) on Wonder Woman. According to him, the statuesque, gorgeous -if minimal talented- Lynda Carter had "the biggest boobs in Hollywood." Waggoner thought, however, that the program lost "all of its charm and humor" when it went from the forties to the seventies.

The Wonder Woman comic plodded along throughout the seventies and eighties. There were occasional spurs of interest -several 1982 issues written by Roy Thomas and drawn by Gene Colan, for instance -but basically the Amazin' Amazon was duller than Superman. DC had to do something about the number-one heroine in the world, a character that had been featured on the cover of Ms. magazine and which had become a symbol of feminine strength and women's rights (Lyle Waggoner notwithstandings). When Superman and Batman were "streamlined" in the mid-eighties, it was decided to do the same to Diana Prince.

The new Wonder Woman debuted in February 1987, and was written by Greg Potter and George Perez, with artwork by Perez and Bruce Patterson. The first tale is a complex and inspiring story that presents the "birth" of Diana and casts the Amazons as the lost souls of women wronged by man's "fear and ignorance." Vivid sequences show how creepy Hercules betrays the women and rapes and kills their queen, Hippolyte. A bow to the "old" Wonder Woman has Diana being tested by playing "bullets and bracelets" (not referred to as such, however). Issue # 2 began a five-parter in which Wonder Woman saves the world from the bloody machinations of the war god Ares.

A far cry from the ludicrous series of old, the new Wonder Woman shows a rare intelligence and maturity (and has one of the most literate "letters" pages in comics). The characterizations of the supporting cast, both new and old, are excellent, and the stories generally combine action with some other thought-provoking aspect. Although the naïve and inexperienced WW seems inclined toward men (a relationship with Superman went nowhere, however), the thorny question of the Amazon's sexuality has been answered: some abstain, some please themselves, and other have relationships with other Amazons. Or as one of them puts it when questioned by a minister who has visited Paradise Island in Wonder Woman # 38: "[Some have sworn themselves to Artemis, the virgin hunter, and Athena, the chaste warrior. Other choose the way of Narcissus, But most of us find satisfaction in each other -three thousand years can be a long time, Reverend." ("Oh" said the Minister)].

You can bet when and if Hollywood gets around to making a major motion picture about Wonder Woman, this particular aspect -which is highly realistic for an al-woman society- won't make it past the cutting-room floor. Here is another example of how comic books can be more "adult" than their big screen counterparts.