Real Name: Diana
Occupation: Goddess of Truth, former Ambassador and Princess of the Amazons
Legal Status: Citizen of New Themiscyra (“Paradise Island”)
Identity: Publicly known
Other Aliases: Diana Prince ( former war-time alias)
Place of Birth: New Themiscyra (located somewhere in the “Bermuda Triangle” region of the Caribbean Sea)
Known Relatives: Hippolyta (mother), Antiope, Penthesilia, Melanippe, Hiera (aunts, possibly deceased), Hippolytus (cousin, deceased), Otrera (grandmother, possibly deceased),
Group Affiliation: Justice League of America, former reserve member of the Justice League Embassy, ally of the Gods of Olympus
Base of Operations: Olympus, formally Paradise Island and Gateway City, Massachusetts
First Appearance: (historical) All-Star Comics#8; (modern) Wonder Woman II #1
History: Diana is the daughter of Queen Hippolyta, Ruler of the Amazons, a tribe of warrior women who have their origins in Ancient Greece. According to Greek Myth, the Amazons were the daughters of Ares and Otrera, a daughter of Zeus. They dominated the lands east of Dardania along the south coast of the Black Sea for several centuries and were often confronted by heroes such as Theseus, Bellerophon and in later years, Xena. Hercules sought out Hippolyta on his Ninth Labor and was warmly received by him and shared her bed with him. Incensed in the ease of his labor, the goddess Hera stirred the Amazons into strife claiming Hercules was going to kidnap her as a mate. Hippolyta was erroneously reported as killed in the ensuing bloodshed and Theseus abducted Antiope, Hippolyta’s sister, as a concubine. Melanippe lead the rescue attempt on Athens to retrieve her and years later, Penthesilia lead the Amazons in battle on the side of Troy during the Trojan War.
Over the years, the Amazons split into two factions. Hippolyta continued to honor the gods of Olympus while Antiope turned against the gods and separated with another group seeking their destiny elsewhere in the African wilderness. Hippolyta and her followers renounced their previous warlike tendencies and moved far from Greece to an island beyond the regions on Ancient Greece that became known as New Themiscyra, later nick-named Paradise Island. The island ironically concealed an underground dimensional aperture into Tartarus, the region of the dead ruled by Hades, the god of the dead, which the Hippolyta vowed to protect and conceal. A third faction of Amazons has been reported in the vicinity of the Amazon River basin in South America, but this is unconfirmed.
Hippolyta, meanwhile, conceived a daughter whom she named Diana in honor of the Roman name of Artemis, one of their patron deities. Whether Diana was the daughter of Hercules is a matter of debate. According to the most documented account, while desiring a daughter, Hippolyta sculpted one out of clay and the goddesses of Olympus brought it to life with several enchantments. However, according to later Amazonian myth, all of the Amazons had been sculpted from clay and brought to life by the Olympian gods using the souls of mortal women. Diana had been restored to life with the spirit of an unborn child that existed in the womb of a woman who Hippolyta had been in a previous life during the Pre-Hyborian Age. Since the gods of Olympus would not exist until after Post-Hyborian events, these Pre-Hyborian accounts of the origins of the Amazons are conjecture and conflicting. Nevertheless, much of the modern Amazon theology and beliefs are based on these divine origins.
To explain Diana’s godlike gifts, Hippolyta and the Amazons came to believe that they were gifts from the gods. Diana turned out to be stronger, faster and possessed of more stamina that any other Amazon. Surpassing even Queen Hippolyta herself, Diana and a few other Amazons discovered one day a United States Air Force pilot named Steve Trevor who had crashed into the sea and washed up on the island during World War Two. The choice was made that one of the Amazons would have to return Trevor to the outside world, which they called Man’s World, in order to keep Paradise Island a secret. The incident was exacerbated when Athena revealed to Queen Hippolyta that Ares, long imprisoned since the days of Ancient Greece, had been released and was now influencing the course of the war. Athena dictated that whoever returned Trevor would stay in the outside world as a champion and force for good against the will of Ares. A contest was called which Diana had been excluded from due to her royal duties, but she entered against her mother’s wishes, disguising herself with a full mask like the other contestants and won all the tournaments with ease due to her godly powers. Despite her maternal feelings, Hippolyta was forced to respect the result. Diana was equipped with a costume based on the star spangled insignia of Steve Trevor. Journeying to man's world, she became known as Wonder Woman and took over the identity of a war correspondent named Diana Prince in order to work in military intelligence. She eventually confronted Ares and ensnared him with the Lasso of Truth, which was weaved for her from the Girdle of Gaea as a weapon. The mystical lasso forced him to withdraw from the war, but he continued to remain a threat to her. During her wartime activities, Wonder Woman fought not just the Nazis but also wartime Nazi sympathizers and criminals such as Doctor Cyber, Baron Blitzkreig, the Duke of Deception and the original Cheetah. She also became a member of the All-Star Squadron, but at the end of the war, believing her mission in the outside world was complete, she faithfully returned to Paradise Island.
However, during the Crisis of Infinite Earths, the timeline became altered and Wonder Woman’s wartime activities never occurred. Despite encountering her past wartime counterpart, Wonder Woman had never become involved in adventures during the war and Queen Hippolyta herself became the original Wonder Woman and carried out those events. In the altered timeline, Diana Trevor, a United States Air Force pilot had crashed on the island in recent years and became accepted by them. She died by their side fighting back the armies of the undead trying to escape the underworld and was honored by a statue in the Temple of Ares. Diana departed Paradise Island once more as an ambassador from the Amazons to fulfill the original duties set down by the Olympian gods to spread the virtues of peace and compassion to mankind. She befriended Julia Kapatelis and her daughter who took Diana in and became her mentors to the social and public issues of the United States. She also encountered Myndi Mayer, a publicist who worked to promote Diana's message across the world. It was reportedly Mayer in the altered timeline who came up with the name Wonder Woman based on the inscriptions on Diana's costume, and she launched promotional lines and merchandise to introduce her to the world. In also most no time at all, a massive media campaign had transformed Wonder Woman into one of the most recognizable names in the country to parallel the likes of accomplished costumed heroes such as Captain America, Superman, The Fantastic Four, and the Batman.
There were a few set backs along the way. Mayer eventually died of a drug overdose and a cult sprang up to Wonder Woman in Greece prompting many right wing religious groups to brand her cause pagan. Despite these consequences, a world tour and the setting up of a Wonder Woman Foundation to promote peace resulted in favorable feedback. While she became branded a superhero by the press against her will, Wonder Woman participated in the Darkseid anti-hero riots and served as a reserve member of Justice League Embassy. After a mistaken first encounter, she has grown close to Superman and both of them later recognized that in another sequence of events that they might have been lovers.
The sorceress Circe devised a plan to overthrow the various pantheons of gods into war as a means of achieving power of her own. She was eventually defeated by a collation of both the superheroes of Earth and Wonder Woman. The existence of the Olympian gods among those of the other gods of Earth became known, but the general public of Earth generally believed that they were regular superhumans paying homage to the original myths.
Queen Hippolyta found herself stricken with a vision of the future where she foresaw the death of Wonder Woman. In desperation, she declared that Diana had failed and that a new contest should be held. The Amazon Artemis (not to be confused with the Olympian goddess by that name) from the tribe of Antiope joined the contest. Hippolyta had a spell cast that when Artemis and Diana were present together; part of Diana's skill and power went into Artemis. Via this manipulation Diana lost the mantel of Wonder Woman, but she continued acting in man's world under her own name and as the leader of the Justice League of America. Eventually, however, Artemis died in battle and Diana reclaimed the idenity of Wonder Woman. She fought Darkseid in a battle that cost the lives of twelve hundred Amazons. She also battled Morgan Le Fay who sought to steal Diana's immortality little realizing that she had forsaken it when she left Paradise Island. It was only after many months while battling the Cheetah that Diana and her Amazon sisters found themselves reverting to the clay from which they were allegedly formed, but these may have been conjurations by Morgan Le Fay who found a way to make the Amazonian legends come true. With the help of Harold Champion, Diana traveled to Paradise Island where it was revealed that he was actually the god Heracles who had secretly fallen in love with Diana.
Heracles alerted the Olympian gods to the plight of the Amazons and after a debate, the gods restored the Amazons and Wonder Woman to full health. Meanwhile, Artemis had been restored to life and via the manipulations of the demon Neron sought to kill Jason Blood who was at that time assisting Diana. Via a series of events, Wonder Woman, Hippolyta, Blood, Artemis and their friends found themselves the captives of Neron. Artemis managed to wound Neron allowing them to escape, but not before be blasted Wonder Woman into a coma as revenge.
While the Justice League and the extra-dimensional race known as the New Gods battled Ares at the Source Wall to stop him absorbing the so called "God-Wave," Wonder Woman lay near death in a Gateway City hospital. Even the combined talents of Superman, J'onn J'onzz and Green Lantern could not help her. Wonder Woman's physician, Dr. Doris Zuel, however, plotted to use technological means to transfer her mind into Diana's more ideal and powerful form, but her attempt failed and seemingly killed Diana and her both.
The Olympian gods decided that they could not allow their
most trusted follower to simply die so they resurrected her as a goddess. In her
place, they passed the title of Wonder Woman upon Queen Hippolyta. Diana was
forbidden to contact her human friends for the next one hundred years, but when
her friends became trapped in a hellish dimension during a battle between Dark
Angel, Morgan Le Fay and Merlin, Diana helped her friends as by giving them
inspiration. This was enough to invoke the wrath of Zeus who revoked
Diana's transgression and returned her to her mortal form, after which Diana
once again assumed the identity of Wonder Woman.
Height: 5' 11"
Weight: 135 lbs.
Eyes: Blue
Hair: Black
Strength Level: Wonder Woman possesses superhuman strength approaching
that of Superman and Thor who have Class 100 level strength, enabling her to
lift (press) more than 100 tons under optimal conditions.
Known Superhuman Powers: Wonder Woman possesses some but not all of the conventional attributes of the Olympian Gods. She has superhuman strength, stamina, reflexes, speed, enchanted youth and a long life enchantment. She has not aged since reaching adulthood, but she is not immortal as the Olympian gods, nor is she impervious to harm. While she is immune to terrestrial disease and flame, she can be injured by conventional means such as penetration wounds by bullets or blades. She is nearly inexhaustible and can perform tirelessly for long periods of time. Her reflexes and physical attributes have been accelerated to the point that she has extraordinary gymnastic and acrobatic skill. Her reflexes are fast enough that she can deflect bullets or any thing else with stunning speed. These powers combined with her natural skills allow her to stand as an equal to such figures as Superman, Hercules, Thor and Captain America.
Wonder Woman also has limited mystical potential limited to a few abilities demonstrated so far. She can fly through the air at will, achieving speeds comparable to Thor’s use of Mjolnir, and transverse dimensional barriers, but only those boundaries with those certain extra-dimensional realms or “god-worlds” populated by the immortals worshipped as gods in Earth’s prehistory. For several years, when she used her powers of flight, the invisible and impenetrable aura of an “invisible jet” would appear around her, especially when she was carrying something in addition to herself, but since she has learned the true nature of this power, the aura of this plane has ceased to exist. It is also believed she has a mystical link with her golden lasso enables her to mentally guide it in its use and prevent it from being used by others of malevolent intent.
Weaponry/Paraphernalia: Wonder Woman’s foremost weapon is her Golden Lasso of Truth, which has the mystical ability to force anybody ensnared by it to tell the truth. Its extent of control can tap into the sub-conscious to the point that it can lift mind control effects such as hypnotic trances or the most complex brainwashing techniques. However, it is ineffectual against people or beings of significant mystical or cosmic potential, such as the Grandmaster. In the past, Wonder Woman has also used its additional enchantments to change from her civilian or public identity to her regular bustier or costume. It is virtually indestructible, capable of stretching or expanding whatever volume it needs to hold. It also seems to decrease the weight of objects for Wonder Woman to more better handle them without taxing upon her superhuman strength. When in use, it sometimes glows by virtue of its Olympian origins.
Wonder Woman also wears bracelets that she can use to deflect bullets. A symbol of their imprisonment in the days of Ancient Greece, the bracelets are composed and constructed of a mysterious ore dubbed feminum in one alternate reality, possibly some version of iron native only to Paradise Island. On some occasions, she can use the Sandals of Hermes to pierce the veil of distortion that separates and protects Paradise Island from being discovered.
Comments: Created by William Moulton Marston, Wonder Woman is a character from DC Comics; she was revamped by George Perez for the Post-Crisis version of the DC Universe.
Wonder Woman was played by actress Lynda Carter in the 1978-1980 Wonder Woman TV-series and by Cathy Lee Crosby in a much earlier 1974 Made-For-TV movie. Adrianne Palicki played her in a recent rejected TV-pilot by David E. Kelly.
This bio pretty much describes the Wonder Woman of the DC Universe incorporating some actual mythology that may not be canon with DC Comics. It also describes her as a character from the perspective of the Marvel Universe in order to better collaborate her multiple incarnations in the cycles of rebirth and destruction of the DC Universe timeline.
Clarifications: Wonder Woman is not to be confused with:
Last updated: 10/22/12