October 21, 1941: All-Star Comics #8, with a cover dated January 1942, is published by the company now known as DC Comics. Although the main feature is the superhero team the Justice Society of America, and includes the introduction of JSA characters Doctor Mid-Nite and Starman, the issue is best remembered for a separate story, which features the introduction of a new superhero: Wonder Woman. (She was neither shown nor mentioned on the cover.)
The character proved popular enough to make her the featured character in a new series: Sensation Comics #1, also dated January 1942, was her 1st cover. But the character proved so popular that she was taken out of Sensation Comics, and given her own series: Wonder Woman #1 debuted in October 1942.
As created by psychologist William Moulston Marston and drawn by Harry G. Peter, the classic origin is that she lived among only women, the Amazons, on Paradise Island. She was the daughter of Queen Hippolyta, who, longing for a child but not wanting the mess of a relationship with a man, fashioned her out of clay, which was given life by the Greek gods.
The Island, based on ancient Greek culture, was long hidden from the eyes of men, until an American pilot, Major Steve Trevor, crash-landed there. He tells her of World War II, the great conflict beyond the island, and she goes with him to fight for the Allies, turning her title of Princess Diana into the secret identity "Diana Prince" so she can openly work for the U.S. government; until it becomes necessary for her to put on the star-spangled costume, complete with bulletproof bracelets, a tiara that she used as a boomerang, and the Lasso of Hestia, a rope that compels anyone caught in it to tell the truth.
Like a lot of superheroes in the early 1940s, she fought saboteurs, some of them with superpowers (or at least gadgets), working in the cause of the Axis. When World War II ended, her enemies, and thus her stories, became a bit more pedestrian, like gangsters, although there would still be the occasional international spy thrown in.
As the Swinging Sixties wore on, and people expected different things from their heroes, the approach to the character changed. In 1967, with the TV show Batman being a success, executive producer William Dozier wrote a pilot for a Wonder Woman series. But the 5-minute test clip, with a Diana Prince played by Ellie Wood Walker as so meek and mild-mannered she made Superman's alter ego Clark Kent look like an '80s action hero, and a Wonder Woman played by Linda Harrison, tanked with test audiences.
Linda Harrison
In 1968, with secret agent stories led by James Bond and Mission: Impossible all the rage, Wonder Woman's character was largely changed: Stripped of her powers in Wonder Woman #178, she became a secret agent, with nothing but her wits, her martial arts skills, and whatever gadgets she could get her hands on. This change proved divisive, and in 1973, with Wonder Woman #204, she got her powers and her classic costume back: Lasso, bracelets, tiara, all of it.
Also in 1973, she became a featured character on the ABC cartoon Super Friends, with fellow Justice League members Superman, Batman and Robin, and Aquaman. Shannon Farnon provided the voice of the character, who was shown with the ability to fly under her own power for the first time, although her invisible jet from the comics was included as well.
Still, there was no live-action release. Finally, on March 12, 1974, a Wonder Woman movie aired on ABC. The problem was, it was based on the non-powered secret agent version, starring Cathy Lee Crosby as a blonde version of the Princess of Paradise Island. It was not well-received.
Cathy Lee Crosby
But ABC wouldn't give up. They brought in Stanley Ralph Ross, one of the writers from the 1966-68 Batman series. This time, they got it right: On November 7, 1975, The New Original Wonder Woman premiered as a 90-minute movie, with former Miss USA Lynda Carter in the right costume, with the right backstory, and the right mission: Fighting Nazis, alongside Major Trevor, played by Lyle Waggoner. It was picked up as a series for the 1976-77 season, and was a roaring success.
Lynda Carter
But getting World War II-specific clothes, cars and equipment proved expensive -- the war had been over for 30 years -- so ABC canceled it after the 1st season. CBS offered to pick it up, on the condition that the action be moved to the present day.
The catch was that, at some point between the end of World War II -- or, perhaps, during it -- and 1977, Steve Trevor died, leading Diana to go back home. His son, Steve Trevor Jr., also played by Waggoner, was working with an intelligence agency (not the CIA, but one made up for the show), and he crash-landed on Paradise Island, starting the process all over again. This lasted for 2 more seasons.
In DC Comics' "Earth-One" and "Earth-Two" concept, the original versions of the superheroes were on Earth-Two, where they were older, and some had married and had children. The Earth-Two Wonder Woman married Steve, and they had a daughter, Hippolyta Trevor, named for Diana's mother. "Lyta" inherited her mother's powers, and became the hero Fury.
The Earth-One versions of Diana and Steve kept their relationship ambiguous. As a result of this, people have wondered whether, on an island populated only by women, Wonder Woman and the other residents were lesbian. Canonically, some have been, but Diana has always been depicted as straight.
When Crisis On Infinite Earths was issued in 1985, and everything was consolidated on a single Earth, the Earth-Two Wonder Woman was erased from existence. The biggest change in the Earth-One version was minor, but noteworthy: Her home island now had a Greek-sounding name, Themiscyra (pronounced "THEM-iss-KEER-ah").
In 2011, the Flashpoint storyline rewrote the DC Universe, creating "The New 52." This changed Wonder Woman's origin significantly: Now, she was born of a liaison between Hippolyta and Zeus, king of the Greek gods. The various heroes were also shown as being younger and earlier in their careers, meaning things like Superman's marriage to Lois Lane was no longer fact, thus giving some comic fans something they'd always wanted: A romance between Superman and Wonder Woman.
Some fans -- but not very many. Most fans hated it, and many of those who approved of the idea hated how it was carried out. Indeed, most comic readers who wanted Diana to romance a superhero didn't want it to be Superman, they wanted it to be Batman: There were far more "shippers" for "WonderBat" than for "SuperWonder."
The 2016 Rebirth event rewrote the DC Universe again, restoring the pre-Flashpoint stories. Example: Not only were Superman and Lois together again, but they had a son, Jon Kent. And, like all the other New 52 storylines, the SuperWonder storyline was rendered an alternate Earth story, or, as DC puts it, "Elseworlds."
Unlike Superman, Batman, and some other heroes, it had been a long time since there was a live-action Wonder Woman. Megan Gale had been cast in a Justice League film, but the project was killed by the 2008 scriptwriters' strike. In 2011, NBC tried a pilot with Adrianne Palicki as Wonder Woman, but, as with ABC in 1967, it didn't test well, and it never aired.
Adrianne Palicki
In 2016, Gal Gadot, an Israeli actress -- and, like Lynda Carter, a former national beauty queen -- was cast as Wonder Woman in Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice. It was one of the worst movies ever made, and she was just about the only good thing in it. She has since starred in Wonder Woman (2017), Justice League (also 2017) and Wonder Woman 1984 (2021).
Gal Gadot
But this Diana's story opened a huge plot hole, big enough to fly an invisible jet through. She debuted as Wonder Woman in 1918, at the end of World War I, then kept herself under the world's radar for 98 years, never aging, having to adopt new versions of the Diana Prince identity, until the arrival of Doomsday represented too great a threat to ignore.
But if World War I was enough of a reason to leave Themiscyra behind, why wasn't the even deadlier World War II enough of a reason? This is one of so many reasons the DC Extended Universe, a.k.a. the Snyderverse, is unacceptable.
While her name has been mentioned in The CW's Arrowverse, and her adoptive sister Donna Troy, a.k.a. Wonder Girl, has been featured on the related series Titans (played by Conor Leslie), Diana has not been shown on any Arrowverse show. (A young Debra Winger played Wonder Girl opposite Lynda Carter, except she was named Drusilla.)
But Wonder Woman remains the greatest female superhero, and a symbol of feminine power, and of feminism itself. The fact that her Justice League teammates Superman and Batman -- the three of them, together, are known as the DC Trinity -- both admire her over all other superheroes speaks volumes.
In a 2016 episode of the YouTube series Epic Rap Battles of History, Indo-Canadian comedian Lilly Singh played Wonder Woman, while rapper T-Pain played Stevie Wonder. The battle only made sense because both had "Wonder" in their stage names, and I find it hard to believe that, if Wonder Woman actually existed, she and Stevie wouldn't have been big fans of each other.
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October 21, 1941 was a Tuesday. The World Series had ended 15 days earlier, with the New York Yankees beating the Brooklyn Dodgers. Football was in midweek. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. And the NHL season didn't start for another 11 days. So there were no scores on this historic day.
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