MAPACA

Mid-Atlantic Popular &
American Culture Association

Superhero origin stories are a key component of the hero. Grant Morrison famously broke down Superman’s origin into eight words across four panels, while Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman intentionally subverted audience expectations with its Crime Alley opening. The origins of these characters have remained largely intact across various adaptations, unlike the third member of DC’s Trinity, Wonder Woman.

William Marston does not give Wonder Woman a detailed origin. She is simply an Amazon princess who encounters a downed pilot, and rejoins the world of men. Wonder Woman may have been an adventurous princess, a paragon of Amazonian femininity, a champion of her people, a representative of the smoldering embers of first wave feminism, but she was not yet a mythical hero. The Silver Age revision to the character, as written by Robert Kanigher, saw her blessed by the Olympian Gods, marking her as a more mystical hero, though this period would also see her lose her powers for a time. The Post-Crisis version of the character was further entrenched in the world of mythology, including the origin of being sculpted out of clay. The idea that Wonder Woman was born of woman alone was elaborated upon by Gail Simone (notably in the arc “The Circle”), and further entrenched the character as an emblem of feminism. Naturally, the New 52 reboot instead recast her as the daughter of Zeus, shifting the origin of her powers to her divine father.

I would explore this evolution through a lens of adaptation. Wonder Woman is a transmedia figure on the same level as Batman and Superman, yet her origin shifts wildly in a way that the others do not. Her current origin hews closer to her Greek mythological background, while creating a problematic reading, wherein her powers are granted by the (literal) patriarch.