Part Two: The Silver Age Wonder Woman
I mentioned last time that it’s a bit difficult telling where the adventures of the “Old” Wonder Woman end and the “New” one’s begin, because they were featured on the same comic and changed gradually over the decades, rather than having clear cut off and start points like most other DC characters. Well, as I researched this section, I realized that determining were the second version ends as well isn’t that clear, either.
Oh, sure the Wonder Woman comic was cancelled in 1985, to be relaunched the next year as part of DC Comics’ 50th Year celebrations (more on that later), that’s certain enough. The thing is, there’s evidence that there were TWO versions of the character between these periods!
The end of the Silver Age, you see, is not very clear in DC comics. The reason is that, thanks to those pesky Marvel Comics, a whole new approach to superheroes- less silly, more dynamic, and more realistic- was in vogue since the 60s. DC took its time to catch up, but by the 70s, Superman and Batman’s adventures were no longer goofy (as seen in sites like Superdickery.com) but became their better known, modern versions. This certainly applied to Wonder Woman as well.
The thing is, despite having a storytelling device that could have been used to justify such changes (the Parallel Earths concept mentioned above) DC never officially separated the Silver Age characters from their modern versions, and in fact, continuity between old and new stories was upheld. So technically, those wacky heroes from the 50s and 60s WERE still the stars of their comics- as if they just woke up one morning and decided to be more serious from then on!
Therefore, officially, while it would make more sense to split this section into “Silver Age” and “Bronze Age” versions of the character, I cannot do so. But the differences are obvious. Let’s see:
WW’s adventures in the late 50s and 60s gravitated from the original’s more, err, bondage-oriented stories to more fantasy (and Sci-Fi) oriented ones. For example, it was established that (apparently due to being situated in the Bermuda Triangle) Paradise Island was close to some rift in time and space, which allowed Diana to have adventures in other dimensions, meet mythological creatures, etc. Not being content with this, the writers at the time decided to start featuring “imaginary” stories, where Diana’s mother, Hyppolita, started dreaming up how her daughter’s life would have been different if she’d always been Wonder Woman all her life. This was, of course, a storytelling device to introduce teenage and even infant versions of the character- Wonder Girl and Wonder Tot! Yes, seriously!
That wouldn’t have been too bad- except the writers took it TOO far. Soon Hippolyta was “imagining” all three versions of Wonder Woman meeting, perhaps in imitation of similar “Superhero Families” in other comics. But remember: it was all in her head (I guess she had a lot of free time as Queen of a Perfect Society! 
)
…And then came the big goof: when it was decided that the sidekicks of all the major current superheroes would join together and star in their own series (as the Teen Titans), the heroes selected were Robin, Aqualad, Speedy (Green Arrow’s partner), Kid Flash- and Wonder Girl! Uhh, apparently, nobody sent the TT writer a memo to remind him that the character was IMAGINARY!
Thus, a Wonder Girl, who was exactly like Diana except for being a teenager, was introduced to the DC Universe- and nobody caught this goof for years! And then -in what was only the first example of Wonder Woman’s poor handling- somebody eventually wrote an origin for Wonder Girl. They established she was a little girl whom Diana had rescued from a burning building. Now an orphan, Diana decided to take her to Paradise Island to be raised, were she eventually became a second Wonder Woman. Not that bad an origin- except for one detail: this would mean that Diana had been WW for over a decade at the time, making her older than the rest of her fellow superheroes. Oops!
This mess was eventually resolved when it was decided that it had been the Titans (the gods who preceded the Olympians) who had rescued the girl, and empowered her; thus she was no longer directly connected to Diana except for using the same costume and name. Even these were later changed, and she became “Troia.” This event alone hints of the earlier and later Silver Age WW tales being incompatible, but as I said, it’s not official.
Hey, at least we didn’t have to suffer with having Wonder Tot brought into continuity!
Let’s look at the later, “Bronze Age” Wonder Woman now:
She became a true superhero by then. Powers better defined; more respected among other heroes (the Golden Age Wonder Woman joined the first superhero team, The Justice Society, as their SECRETARY!) It was this version that influenced all the ones that came later. She still, unfortunately, dragged some of the goofy concepts from earlier times behind her: she still lost her powers when bound -which led to lots of (non-sexual) bondage scenes); she still had some loser villains (more on those in a second) and worst of all, she still had Steve Trevor for a boyfriend.
Trevor is probably the best example of a PATHETIC superhero love interest ever. First, he had no personality; second, for a military man, he got captured a LOT, just so Diana could rescue him (though that was typical of such characters at the time). Worse, he was actually KILLED once or twice (!) only to be revived later (obviously, this was a case of writers wanting to get rid of him only to be countered later.) And at one point, he was turned into a male Wonder Woman. Yes, a MALE WONDER WOMAN. You see, one of Wonder Woman’s enemies, Dr. Psycho, had the power to (effectively) turn other people’s wishes real, and he turned Trevor into his ideal hero- Captain Wonder! (Not Wonder Man, probably because Marvel Comics already had a character under that name.) He looked ridiculous, though not as much as you’d think. Ultimately, Trevor was a boring character; even Lois Lane, who at the time was a *itch, constantly trying to learn Superman’s identity to force him to marry her, was at least funny in her absurdity, but when Trevor was gone, only Diana missed him.
Speaking of enemies, let’s take a look at Diana’s and see why they work (or don’t). In the WWII days, as you can imagine, she had plenty of Nazi foes; Her main enemy was Mars, the Greek god of war, who was supposedly behind the Axis powers, and his minions; however, most of her enemies were female, kinda dikeish, and had attitudes designed to be reprimanded by WW, so she could sermon them to death about what a woman’s role should be. This included The Cheetah, a Catwoman rip-off who became a villain out of sheer jealousy towards Diana (!), Clea, a Queen of Atlantis (not the same underwater Atlantis that Aquaman came from); Giganta, a female gorilla transformed into a woman (!) and the Silver Swan, an ugly girl granted beauty, wings, and powers by Mars, but only if she battled Diana. A male villain from that era was Dr. Psycho, a midget with the power to hypnotize people and extract “ectoplasm” from their minds, creating creatures from their imagination. As you can see, most of these really worked well only in their original period (though all except Clea were reintroduced later.)
The Silver Age brought few memorable new villains. If anything, it added the absolute WORST one ever: Egg Fu, who was a Chinese Communist villain who happened to look like a GIANT EGG WITH A FACE, and who attacked with his mustache! (Groan) Not only was this ridiculous, but it was also a terrible racial slur. Thankfully, he was not used more than a couple of times. An almost-passable villain was Dr. Cyber, a female Mad Scientist who wanted revenge on WW for (accidentally) scarring her face. I say almost because, if the concept sounds familiar to you, it is because it was totally ripped-off from Marvel’s DOCTOR DOOM! Where they getting desperate for ideas, or what?
Ironically, one minor villain that would come back (in a later version) to become much more important in Diana’s life was Circe, the sorceress from Greek myth who turned men into animals. (see the Post-Crisis section.)
Also ironic was the fact that, technically speaking, Hercules was a villain in this series. Shown elsewhere in DC as a hero (even starring in his own series once) the demigod was reminded in this comic that Hyppolita had beaten him in combat when he tried to take her Belt of Strength (as in the actual legends) and he had to resort to treachery to steal it (which in turn led to the Amazons being enslaved as mentioned above). He tried to regain his “honor” by beating Diana once, and got his ass handed very much deservingly to him.
Ok, before we move on to the next section, I have to mention a period of this WW’s career that was truly unusual: what we fans call her “Emma Peel” period. (Emma Peel was the female co-star of the British TV action series The Avengers, and the very personification of the “Mod Girl” type from the 60’s.) When Superman and Batman were reworked to be more serious in the 70s, somebody decided that what Diana needed was a “New Direction” and that she should become more modern. Thus came the first of WW’s arbitrary direction changes: Paradise Island was lost in another dimension, which somehow caused Diana to lose her powers, and she took a blind Chinese Man named I-Ching as a martial arts teacher, and became a hip, modern (for the 70’s) woman, even dropping her costume and wearing contemporary fashions. In short, she was Wonder Woman in name only! Now, I’m not saying the stories in this period were bad –at least they weren’t goofy anymore- but she was for all purposes a new character. Ironically, she was restored to normal when the publisher of a famous women’s magazine protested to DC over the change, pointing out (rightly) that all they had done was make her less powerful than her peers. So Paradise Island came back and so did Diana’s powers and identities.
I should also mention that this Diana eventually changed her costume’s bustier (that had always been in the form of a golden eagle) to be in the shape of a double-W, making her more easily distinguishable from her Golden Age version (whom she met in a number of occasions.)
Next: The Post-“Crisis on Infinite Earths” Wonder Woman- a good reinterpretation that was soon messed up.
Ok, next time: the Post Crisis Wonder Woman, for real!
) who wanted to give Diana a more logical origin and a more definitive mission. Sit down and grab a drink, folks, because this is going to be LONG (and this time it isn’t my fault!)
