The Wonder Woman Chronicles: Vol. One

This was a ridiculously exciting find – the first ten months or so of Wonder Woman comic stories from her debut in All Star Comics (Dec 1941) and several espionage-themed serials in Sensation Comics, through to the launch of her very own title in the summer of 1942 – all collected in graphic novel form. I was intrigued to see how Wonder Woman was established right from the beginning, as part of my ongoing quest to look at how she has been portrayed over the years, and why it seems to be so impossible to script a movie with her in the central role.

What struck me at first was that I already knew Wonder Woman’s origin story perfectly. There were no surprises in seeing it in its original form: indeed, it comes across as very much a by-the-numbers version of the story that has been repeated apparently with little changing for about 70 years.

Her entire first story takes place on Paradise Island, and begins with Steve Trevor’s plane crashing. Diana, daughter of the island’s queen, nurses the unconscious man and falls in love with him without him opening his eyes or saying a word. Yep, he’s just that hot and manly. No one is surprised by this, least of all Diana’s mother. We do rather get the impression that his gender is the only important thing about this love story, which is… well, nicely reversed, I suppose, if about as romantic as Snow White and her Prince with the creepy dead-woman fetish.

I like the way that the Amazons are drawn in this first comic. They wear halter-style bikini tops (which show off the shape of the breasts but cover cleavage) and tiny skirts, but there is an emphasis on strength and athleticism over sexuality. Our first image of Diana emphasises her shapely, muscled back rather than her butt or boobs. We also have some lovely shots of her carrying an unconscious Steve Trevor in her arms, inwhat my daughter refers to as a “princess carry”.

We are also treated to a double page text-heavy spread explaining the backstory of the Amazon society on Paradise Island. Steve’s backstory as an American spy vital to the war effort is then conveyed to us, not through the obvious narrative method of him talking to someone about it, but through Queen Hippolyte’s magic sphere. Steve cannot meet Diana properly at this point, of course, because then he would know who she is later in the story, so we are stuck from the very beginning with an awkward Lois-in-Smallville situation, whereby the love story is taken for granted rather than sold to the readers through chemistry or conversation.

Queen Hippolyte sets up a contest to choose which Amazon will take Steve back to the USA and Diana, prevented from taking part, disguises herself with a tiny black domino mask to prove herself worthy. There is so much hilarious irony in this, revelling in the rules of the superhero universe, whereby any scrap of eye-covering can hide your identity even from people who (apparently) love you. Take note, that’s gonna be handy later!

One of the key icons of Wonder Woman’s character is established here: her bullet-bouncing bracelet skills. The bracelets are indeed given more attention and justification than just about any other element of the Wonder Woman legend in these early stories, including her romance with Steve Trevor – her iconic costume is something her mother made for the winner of the contest to wear on her trip to America but the fashion choice is not actually explained (amusingly it could be interpreted that the stars and stripes mini-dress is her mother’s attempt to help her fit into American society, like sending a secret agent to London in a bowler hat and union-jack waistcoat) and the invisible plane makes an appearance at the beginning of the next story with absolutely no explanation as to where it came from or what it is for.

Overall the introduction of the character seems sloppy, as if the writer had several disparate elements to include from someone’s shopping list, but hadn’t really thought how they went together. The strength of the introductory story is in the loving detail and mostly-uncringeworthy set up of Paradise Island. The weakness is in the reliance on a love story that is entirely unconvincing, to modern tastes at least. Diana’s entire character is sabotaged from the start by the open acknowledgement that she had fallen stupidly in love with a man she has never met, and indeed it is her ludicrous love for Steve Trevor which continues to hamper her character in future issues. Hardly surprising that later writers struggle with the Steve issue and attempt to kill him off or otherwise remove him from Diana’s life.

Sadly it seems, it never occurred to anyone that the way to solve the Steve Trevor Problem was to a) make him convincingly awesome and b) let Diana play hard to get for at least ten minutes. The story would be much cooler if not driven by her sudden love for Steve, and indeed if she was even a tiny bit in denial of said love instead of constantly going on about it.

It’s very clear that this is a love story written by a man. More to the point, it is a love story written by someone who isn’t interested in romance. It’s not just the writer’s fault – after all, this is the way that romance stories were told in 1940′s comic books. But why is it that Steve Trevor and Diana are just plain boring, while Clark Kent and Lois Lane sizzle on the page? Can it be that Lois has more character in her little finger than Steve has in his entire chiselled torso? Is it just that we (or even, um, I) are more sympathetic to male unrequited love than female?

Still, at least Clark fell in love with Lois because she was awesome. Diana fell in love with Steve because he was there. It’s hard to get past that, or the fact that she allows him to have such a powerful hold over her in the months to come, merely for existing.

Lots to talk about in this one, so I will be reviewing the book in several parts. Next time: Diana steals an identity, goes on the stage, and sends girl spies to holiday college. WTF is holiday college? You might well ask!

Tags: comics, graphic novels, superheroes, women in comics, wonder woman