Wonder Woman’s symbolic death: on kinship and the politics of origins

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the wholesale rewriting of Wonder Woman’s origin story in a run written by Brian Azzarello that started in 2011 and finished in 2014. The new origin story made Diana the daughter of Zeus and did away with her matriarchal birth and lineage that was the cornerstone of the character. The paper argues that Wonder Woman was an explicitly feminist intervention from the beginning and that this piece of retroactive continuity completely undermines the political possibilities of Wonder Woman as a character. It also considers this move in light of the current context in superhero comics in which great advances have been made in the representation of gender and in the employment of women writers and artists. The paper concludes by arguing there is a tragic inevitability to Wonder Woman’s demise in that anything that truly threatens an alternative to patriarchy must in the end be tamed. Finally, the paper makes use of Greg Rucka’s Hiketeia to illustrate the problem of Wonder Woman representing an alternative law.

KEYWORDS:

• Superheroes
• Wonder Woman
• feminism
• patriarchy
• origin story

Acknowledgements

Written with support of an AHRC Fellowship: AH/I022198/1.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. It should be pointed out, however, that the veracity of Lepore’s study has been called into question by William Moulton Marston’s daughter, Christie Marston, on Facebook, so it should be read with an awareness of possible ‘fictionalising’ of key scenes of family history (https://www.facebook.com/ChristieMarston/posts/820509504680695). Also, for an excellent discussion of the pros and cons in claiming Wonder Woman comics were 'feminist' from the start, see Finn (2014).

2. Most notable in the early days were Gardner Fox and Robert Kanigher. Kanigher did, however, go on to write the longest run of Wonder Woman when it was at its most popular. For a very good discussion of this in relation to Cold War anxieties see Ormrod (2014).

3. The story appears in Wonder Woman, volume 1 #105 and presents the idea that Diana had been born prior to the Amazons arrival on Paradise Island, a journey precipitated by the loss of all the (previously non-existent) Amazonian men in a war. Joan Ormrod’s article (2014) also offers a very good analysis of how this attempt to overrule Marston’s origin was related to the post-Wertham move to present superheroes in the context of a family. However, according to Tim Hanley, Kanigher later claimed to be ignorant of his own attempt to give her a father, saying that she never had one (2014, 105).

4. A further effect of this revision is to present the feminine in terms of deception, trick, ruse, cunning, pretence, or mere appearance, in contrast to male truth. Although Mitra C. Emad (2006) notes Lori Landay’s argument that Wonder Woman’s dual identity is a necessary strategy where women’s power, at least in the context of the Second World War, needs to be exercised covertly (965), and it can also be a component in the practice of ‘masquerade’ where the ‘Plain Jayne/Mad Molly split’ is central to queer readings (Peters 2003, 3), these are quite distinct from deception and lying.

5. While Finn (2014) is correct to argue Wonder Woman’s feminism was limited by her whiteness, virtue and attractiveness (Marston thought it essential his character be ‘alluring’), these were also compromises that enabled the character to be published and gave him some defence against the pernicious moral panic comics faced throughout the 1940s and 1950s. Her origin signalled something far more radical.

6. In a new comic, The Legend of Wonder Woman (2015), Renae de Liz reintroduces the creation of Wonder Woman from clay, although Zeus remains her father in the main title.

7. The interview with David Finch can be found here: http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=53783.

8. Alex De Campi who has written for DC and for the more feminist orientated run of Sensation Comics that wasn’t controlled by the Superman office, had this to say about the situation there: http://alexdecampi.tumblr.com/post/129003838049/you-can-only-find-the-best-version-of-wonder-woman.

9. Aside from Fantomah and Amazona, there was Black Fury, later Miss Fury, who was also notable for being created by a woman, June Tarpé Mills. She pre-dated Wonder Woman’s first appearance by several months, but Miss Fury had no superpowers and remained very much part of the crime genre. While Fantomah was the first female superhero, and fits Peter Coogan’s definition as a character requiring powers, a mission, and a clear identity expressed in a costume (2006, 90), it was Wonder Woman that brought all these together on the streets of the city, the setting that Richard Reynolds (1992, 18) argued became an essential part of the genre’s emergence.

10. Post-crisis this marriage is written out of continuity.

11. For a discussion of how the gender politics (and wider cultural politics) of this era are played out in the Pérez run see Hammontree (2014).

12. After the war, when women are encouraged to make way for the returning men, Wonder Woman comics increasingly focus on her love interest and turn her into a ‘romance consultant’ (Emad 2006, 966). When the second wave of feminism gains ground she is then presented in the comic as having too much power (968).

13. The ‘manly’ nature of Wonder Woman was evident, for example, from her first appearance in Sensation Comics #1 (Marston and Peter 1942a, 2) where she is shown rescuing the prone, passive and incapacitated Steve Trevor, and was depicted carrying him to hospital. Wonder Woman is actually shown to carry Steve Trevor another two times in this first comic. This reversal of gender roles would have been so shocking to the comic’s contemporary readers that Marston felt the need to gratuitously ‘feminise’ her on the next page by having her delight in ‘window shopping’ (3) before his ‘brazen’ heroine leapt a car to halt a gang of gun-wielding bank robbers. For an interesting discussion of how Wonder Woman’s disruption of gender norms is managed see Knaff (2014).

14. Hippolyte’s name, which literally means ‘untamed horse’ or ‘untamed mare’ is a clear marker of the Amazonian threat to patriarchal civilisation.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council [AH/I022198/1].

Notes on contributors

Neal Curtis

Neal Curtis is Associate Professor in Media and Communication at the University of Auckland. His most recent books include Idiotism, Pluto Press (2013) and Superheroes and Sovereignty, Manchester University Press (2016).