The Evolution of Wonder Woman

Comic author Grant Morrison opined about the new Wonder Woman movie franchise, wondering how the Amazonian became so warlike, when Diana Prince was always dedicated to justice and peace. The truth is, Wonder Woman has been many things. Diana Prince has gone through a lot of changes in her 73 years in comic books.

Wonder Woman was by no means the first female superhero, but she was perhaps the first who was designed to function primarily as a social message. Her creator, psychologist William Marston, intended her to be an antidote to what he had decided was "comics' worst offense... their blood-curdling masculinity." By this, he didn’t really mean that comics were too violent or stereotypically masculinized, but rather that they lacked all the elements that Marston saw as the “tender, submissive, peace-loving” feminine ideal.

But that changed, depending on the mood of the day and who was writing the stories. An article at The Daily Dot follows the many different phases of Wonder Woman’s career as a superhero, from 1942 to today.