Depending on which Wonder Woman you were first introduced to she has gone from the JLA secretary(I will cite this later on in the blog put the knives and arrows away, I myself was surprised), to a pretty smile with some damn good reflexes and great lasso skills(Super Friends). Then you have the Justice League era(if there was one between it I will do more research and amend this in the piece either in this first overview or in the second my reasons why) Wonder Woman where she was the Ambassador for Paradise Island the Amazon homeland, skilled warrior, power house, with a pro female mindset. I don't want to call it hyper feminist or feminist because in a sense where she was from it's as normal as our patriarchal societal view, women were always in charge, they handled the majority of business, defense, and learning, men were around but for the most part they were for breeding. Now I am not forgetting about things that have been raised in the DC new 52(I understand that I probably need to update my former Justice League piece since the New 52 had just started and I had kind of gotten lost in it. I want to catch up and then give more details) but I will address that with other things like the Linda Carter live action TV series from the late 70's. While there are Marvel Female characters that she is similar to(strength, speed, flight) she is a lot like Captain America in the fact that a lot of her back story was heavily based in WWII. Add into that her attachment to Greek Mythology(it's still Greek Mythology even in the New 52, I wondered if they would switch it to Roman but I like that much of the adherence to her pre New 52 past). I am also fond of the new direction they have taken with Wonder Girl, and possibly Donna Troy/Troai though Donna has not shown up as of yet, but as I got through different books there are hints at a previous Teen Titans so she may be a part of that.
Origin/Back story
One of the best things about Wonder Woman is as our society has changed so have parts of her back story, most of these changes making her a better warrior, bringing higher nobility to her and her Amazonian sisters, adding mysticism and romance, as well as a certain level of unexpected tolerance to the comic book realm. Wonder Woman was created by William M. Marston and Harry G. Peter way back in 1941(thus why I mentioned the Captain America similarity). For the most part her origins have always had a basic backbone she is the daughter of the Amazonian Queen Hippolyta, she worships the Greek Gods, is from Paradise Island, and was raised in a Matriarchal society. The Amazons are warriors who are trying to spread their message of peace and strength to the Patriarchal World(or Man's World, the Male dominated/centric society we are used to). Now some of the deviations from what I remember reading originally the Amazons were the original Greek Amazons, had the normal interactions with Greece and some with the Roman empire, at some point in time were made pretty much immortal(even though Diana/Wonder Woman is shown in many comics growing from a young girl to the Adult woman we see now).
In a reboot sometime around Crisis the Amazons were the souls of women who died at the hands of men in brutal ways for no fault of their own. The were reborn into clay bodies that were formed by some of the Greek Gods and Goddesses when they were running low on followers/believers and thus were ebbing in celestial life force. Hippolyta, the queen, is the soul of a woman from the earliest beginnings of man who was killed by her spouse while she was pregnant with a child. An innocent woman, killed with an even more innocent child in her belly. She was brought back first and then later when the Gods believed the Amazons would need a champion to deal with the male world Hippolyta was put to sleep and the soul of her dead female child was put back into her to be born as one of the greatest Amazons. Each of the Gods and Goddesses involved put some of the power into the unborn soul again putting the soul into a clay body. She was raised by the Amazons and won her mantle:the breast plate, the lasso, and the Gauntlets of Hera(which can deflect projectiles. All Amazonians wear bracers in memory to a past defeat, only hers are mystically enhanced).
New 52: The main change in the New 52 is that Diana/Wonder Woman is not just the Daughter of Hippolyta the Amazon Queen she is also a daughter of Zeus(which brings even more animosity now between her and Heracles the defiler of Hippolyta, which I will get into later), which of course puts her mother in the bad graces of the Goddess Hera(and consequently the rest of the Amazons besides Wonder Woman, being a child of Zeus has it benefits one being Hera can not directly strike you down, she can send a proxy as a trial, see Heracles). Wonder Woman's first non JLA story arc is of course dealing with the wrath of Hera as well as trying to assemble lost kin, it's really interesting how deep DC is going into Amazon mythology as well as taking on some questions we were all curious about but probably didn't think to ask.
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Seeing how the original Amazon Princess is getting a movie, I will table this until her first ACTUAL trailer hits to see if I like or dislike the direction they are taking with her movie. I know Kevin Smith had a special on the CW a few weeks ago when they premiered "Legends of Tomorrow" and it does look like they took a few ideas from a couple of different Wonder Woman backstories:She is around in WW2 fighting the Nazi's, Sometimes dresses up as a lay person(aka non combatant) Diana Prince, her American Liaison is Steve Trevor(whether or not they are Romantically inclined is still to be seen), She appears to be carrying her sword and shield(which weren't always around in the olden days. But now they play it up), the lasso is there, I don't know how deep they are going to get into the Greek and Roman mythology aspects. I mean they are Amazons, Women Warriors of the Legend age it's hard to cut that out.
I know it has been rehashed a few times:The Island being magically hidden since the bronze age, The island being created by the Last of the Greek/Roman aspects of the Gods at that time to give them life by having a constant flow of immortal followers to power them along. And the current is a mix of that, since Wonder Woman still has beef with Hercules so it can't be a NEW island and yet she isn't just some magically created baby out of no where, the soul of an unborn child to a mother killed by the person who fathered said child in a rage. She also has a DIVINE origin but I'll let you read about that.
I know DC is once again rebooting it's comics I haven't finished the new 52 line yet, but I will get around to it.
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