Comic Book / Wonder Woman #1

Following

A complete 64 page issue containing all new never before published adventures of Wonder Woman!

- The cover

Wonder Woman #1 is the debut issue of Wonder Woman's first self-titled series published by DC Comics (then known as National Comics) in June of 1942. All Wonder Woman stories are written by William Moulton Marston (under the pen name "Charles Moulton") and drawn by Harry G. Peter, while the "Wonder Women of History" feature is written by Alice Marble with art by Sheldon Moldoff.

The issue contains the first appearance of Greek God of War, Ares (here called "Mars", his Roman name), who would go on to be Diana's longest lasting foe and introduces the concept of Diana being born from clay which had been sculpted into a baby girl by her mother.

For the chronological debut of Wonder Woman, see All-Star Comics #8 and it's continuation in Sensation Comics #1

---

The Origin of Wonder Woman

• All Amazons Want Hercules: Despite knowing Hercules wanted to enslave her people when he propositions Hippolyta for dinner and sex after she defeated him she takes him up on the offer.
• Born of Magic: Issue one introduces Diana's famous "birth" from clay her mother had carefully sculpted into a baby.
• Cool Plane: Diana's invisible plane, which is a brand new Amazonian stealth invention and which she flies to transport Steve Trevor back to America.
• Domino Mask: Diana wears a domino mask to hide her entry into the contest and become the mysterious masked contestant number seven.
• Fat Comic Relief: Fatsis, an Amazon contestant Mala describes as a "two ton grease heap". Fatsis does briefly get the best of Mala, but she loses her breath for her efforts and is easily tossed away.
• Have a Gay Old Time: Mercury is meant to be "gay" in the happy sense, not the homosexual sense.
• Horse of a Different Color: The Amazons ride kangas- giant kangaroos, which appear to have hooves.
• In a Single Bound: According to Mala, a ten foot standing vertical leap is pathetic by Amazon standards, while forty is considered impressive. Diana sets a new record, but we're not told the exact height.
• Longevity Treatment: The Amazons drink from the Fountain of Youth in order to maintain their ageless immortality while on Paradise Island. Later stories will make it clear that drinking from the fountain without being an Amazon can be very dangerous for humans.
• Mars and Venus Gender Contrast: This tale provides the page image for a reason, and Mars and Aphrodite's comments and arguments on the conflicts portrayed give a clear dialogue of the trope.
• The Medic: The Royal Physician Althea helps Diana save Steve's life after Di and Mala pull him from the ocean. She and Di spend five days getting him stable enough to travel and rigging up healing purple ray tubes in a laboratory outside of the city as it is illegal for a non-Amazon to enter.
• Muscles Are Meaningless: Played With. During her final kanga-"fencing" bout Diana faces off against a very muscled large Amazon, who tells Diana that "You need weight for this sport." seemingly confident about her ability to unseat the "Masked Maiden," our hero responds with "Backbone's better than beef." and manages to unseat her opponent instead but it is presented as more a challenge to her than any of her other feats in the tournament.
• Perspective Flip: Of Hercules' Ninth Labor specifically and Classical Mythology in general. The Amazons were the good guys, it was Hercules who betrayed their trust, they worshiped female gods (and Hermes) rather than the generally disliked Mars/Ares, etc.
• Pygmalion Plot: The original legend is referenced but not really followed by the origin of Wonder Woman, who was sculpted from clay and had life breathed into her by her mother. The love in this instance is familial (storge) rather than romantic/lust (eros) driven as in the original.
• Retcon: Diana's origin had already been told in All-Star Comics #8 and Sensation Comics #1 but "The Origin of Wonder Woman" is where her origin as a statue modeled out of clay by her mother first appears.
  • All-Star Comics had the gods arrange for Steve Trevor to run out of fuel while pursuing the Nazi saboteur Fritz, and crash land on Paradise Island. Here Steve tracks an enemy agent an island base but gets shot down into the ocean and drifts until Diana and Mala see him off the coast of Paradise Island and swim out to retrieve his body.
  • In All-Star Comics, Hercules was a gigantic man who fought Hippolyte with a sword and was effortless bested in singles combat due to her girdle, which he knew nothing about. Here he is a man of average size who attacks with a club and knows about Hippolyte's girdle from the start. His strength initially overwhelms Hippolyte before the girdle kicks in and allows her to overpower him.
  • The original take had Aphrodite Blaming the Victim and refusing to help the Amazons until they had suffered sufficiently at the hands of the Greeks. In this case Aphrodite is kinder, and aids Hippolyte as soon as Hippolyte asks her.
  • The first telling of Wonder Woman's origin shows that she was simply known as "daughter" to Hippolyte and "princess" to the other Amazons, not getting the name "Diana" until she won the contest to return Steve Trevor to the World of Man. Here Aphrodite names the princess Diana as soon as the princess comes to life.
  • In the original story, the princess tends to Steve Trevor fourteen hours straight before Althea tattles to the queen, who forces the princess to get some sleep. This time Diana nearly dies of fatigue tending to Steve Trevor for five straight days without sleeping, inventing the purple healing ray in the process.
  • Originally it was Athena's plan to send an Amazon to the United States, protect its democratic institutions and steer the nation towards equality of the sexes. Here Aphrodite decides to send an Amazon to the United States after Mars taunts her about the world being at war.
  • Diana and Mala each win eleven contests before the tie breaker round. Before they had each won ten.
  • The first depiction of Bullets and Bracelets shows a small trickle of blood going down Mala's arm when she loses. This time Mala just has a barely visible scratch, though Hippolyte still expected there to be blood.
  • In the first take Hippolyte knew Diana was under the mask from the start, but she allowed Diana to try anyway. In this one Diana's effort to deceive Hippolyte is successful.
  • All-Star Comics and Sensation Comics showed that Wonder Woman had to complete six missions in The World of Man, return to Paradise Island and then win another contest before she was gifted the magic lasso, which Hippolyte and Metala had not even created yet. Here the magic lasso is a pre existing artifact, and Diana is awarded it as soon as she wins the tournament to leave Paradise Island.
  • The Wonder Woman costume is redesigned to have tight short bottoms instead of culottes. Diana puts it on as soon as she can and is carried around Amazon Arena by crowds of cheering athletes. Originally no Amazon had seen her in the costume until she returned to Paradise Island from "Man's World".
  • The first two victims of the magic lasso were Metala and Mala before this story gave their roles to Althea.
  • The first telling of Steve Trevor's crash has Queen Hippolyte learn of his presence on the island almost immediately and decree that his eyes be covered with bandages at all times, so that he see nothing in the event he wakes up. In this tale Diana and Mala try to keep Steve Trevor's presence on the island secret from Hippolyte. They still cover his eyes with bandages but Althea removes these bandages as soon as Trevor starts to recover, since Hippolyte never gave the order. Steve sees Diana before leaving the island, and since the purple healing ray is invented, he is in good enough shape to hold a conversation with her.
  • Instead of taking Steve Trevor back to the United States right away, Wonder Woman detours to the island base where Steve was shot down and catches the agent he failed to, who is Japanese now instead of German. This results in Steve Trevor immediately being promoted to major when he returns to The United States, while it took five successful missions to get him that promotion last time.
• Only Mostly Dead: Steve Trevor's heart stops and Althea proclaims him dead, but Diana's purple healing ray causes his heart to beat again.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Diana makes her oath to Aphrodite at 15, but she was already super human before this, being able to uproot trees at age three and outrun deer at age five.
• The Rival: Diana and Mala are friendly rivals, and become the two finalists in the contest.
• Sadly Mythtaken: Hippolyte describes Aphrodite and Athena as twin goddesses. There are stories where both are daughters of Zeus, but in these tales Aphrodite and Athena have different mothers.
• Sword and Fist: Outside of the kanga-back fencing tournament, the fighting makes it clear that Amazons do not rely exclusively on their weapons
• The Theme Park Version: Of Classical Mythology. The gods and the tales are streamlined down into the bits that are useful with large portions of their mythological backgrounds and personalities tossed out, and it's a toss up weather they ended up with their Greek or Roman names. For example here is the introduction of four of them from page one, showing just how much less skeevy they are from the originals:
  Aphrodite:

  -Most beautiful of all, Aphrodite was the Greek Goddess of Love and Beauty. Born of the sea foam near the Island of Cyprus, she inspired all mortal lovers and protected them, binding men in the chains of love and beauty, forged by her husband, Vulcan, the blacksmith god!
  Athena:

  -Born from the head of Zeus, Father of all Greek Gods, Athena became the Goddess of Wisdom. Though she carried sword and spear to protect mortals from the evils of ignorance, she offered peace as her greatest gift to mankind. Her symbol was the olive branch, representing peace and plenty.
  Hercules:

  -The God of Strength was half-mortal and half-god! When a mere child, he strangled two fierce serpents sent to slay him. He performed twelve labors requiring prodigious strength and upon his earthly death, was taken to Mount Olympus to dwell among the Gods ever after.
  Mercury:

  -Known to the ancient Greeks as Hermes, God of Speed, this gay mischievous young blade who could make himself invisible with his winged cap and transport himself in a flash with his winged sandals, always carried with him his scepter of speed, two serpents entwined about a winged shaft.
• The Thunderdome: Amazon Stadium is an arena for fighting and athletic competitions where the competition to determine the Amazon's champion is held.
• Truly Single Parent: Hippolyta created Diana with her own artistry and love.
• Willfully Weak: In addition to wearing a mask, Diana pretends to be clumsier than she really is to throw off Hippolyte's suspicion.
• Wrecked Weapon: Hercules broke Hippolyta's sword with his club in their ancient battle. She won the fight anyway.
• The X of Y: "The Origin of Wonder Woman"
• You Fight Like a Cow: In her final match of the kanga-joust Diana and her opponent exchange some quips, with her opponent comparing her to a tulip since she's so much smaller.

Wonder Woman Goes to the Circus

• Animal Disguise: Diana (along with a conscripted Etta Candy) disguises herself as a baby elephant to investigate a rash of elephant murders at a local circus. "Disguise" here meaning "took all the sawdust out of an actual taxidermied baby elephant and shoved herself inside".
• Bumbling Sidekick: The Holliday girls are helpful when it comes to the US Army benefit at the circus, but Etta Candy almost ruins Wonder Woman's plans to catch the elephant killing culprits.
• Effortless Amazonian Lift: Wonder Woman lifts what is said to be a forty ton elephant without effort
• Huge Rider, Tiny Mount: Wonder Woman jumps rope on the back of a horse, then starts carrying the horse around the tent instead, to the animal's confusion.
• Protection Racket: Mike Mulgoon of the Strongarm Protective Association is a racist bigot threatening the Circus for not paying him.
• Yellow Peril: The Burmese elephant tamers are evil racist caricatures and are for some reason actually Imperial Japanese spies. The issue ends with the protection racket being the good guys.

Wonder Women of History: "Florence Nightingale"

• All-Loving Hero
• Married to the Job: Florence rather dramatically tells her beau that she cannot marry and must dedicate her life to nursing.

The Master Plan of Paula Von Gunther

• Annoying Younger Sibling: The warden's son Freddy is an absolute menace to his older sister Mabel, whom he calls names and keeps sneaking up and lassoing while she's trying to read and go about her day since he's in a cowboy phase.
• Bad Boss: When Paula is done using Guard Swipe—the only of her minions to seem to have joined up willingly—she has him killed.
• Bullet Dancing: Diana forces the Warden to dance to avoid bullets from his own gun in order to make him lock her up.
• Cardboard Prison: Paula has had a trap door installed in her cell, and she has a whole bunch of minions in the basement room underneath.
• Disney Villain Death: Paula gets shot off a wall and falls headfirst into a rocky bit of coastline. She of course appears again later.
• Get into Jail Free: This tale provides the page image. When the warden refuses to put Diana into the cell next to Paula the Amazon tosses a trash can over the head of one of his men and forces him to dance to avoid his feet being shot with his own gun, so the put her in irons and toss her right where she wanted to be.
• Hypno Pendulum: Paula tries using hypnosis to get the captured Captain Loyal to give her the intel the Axis wants, but it doesn't work on him.
• Lie Detector: Steve tried to hook Paula von Gunther into a lie detector before questioning her in the first issue, but she managed to hit him with it so she was taken back to her cell instead. This story has the bonus of being written by one of the inventors of the lie detector, William Moulton Marston.
• Meaningful Name: Guard Swipe steals Di's lasso from Freddy, who'd taken it from her bag. Captain Loyal is loyal, what a surprise.
• Might as Well Not Be in Prison at All: Paula has a Supervillain Lair right underneath her cell, and has bribed the enough of the guards that she can leave anytime she pleases.
• Psycho Psychologist: Paula is an evil Psychologist who is able to brainwash people into becoming her slaves and acting out her plans.
• Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: Swipe betrays the US to the Nazis for a bit of cash, but unfortunately for him his Nazi contact is Paula von Gunther, who while sadistic, fatalistic and nihilistic has not forgotten that she's only working for the Nazis because they're holding her daughter hostage and already murdered her husband for her attempts to avoid them. She murders Swipe as soon as she's gotten a bit of use out of him.
• Secret Room: Following her initial arrest Paula von Gunther is able to construct a new Supervillain Lair in the hidden chamber beneath her cell.
• Supervillain Lair: After Paula was arrested and handed over to the authorities she somehow managed to construct an entire elaborate lair complete with throne and all the torture devices a girl could want in the basement below her cell, which could be accessed through a hidden hatch in the cell itself.
• The X of Y: "The Master Plan of Paula Von Gunther"
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Paula mixes in a bit of Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves when she murders "Swipe" after he steals Wonder Woman's lasso for her. She's working for the Nazis only because they have her daughter captive, though her experiences have made her so nihilistic and fatalistic that she's started enjoying torturing people, whereas he happily sold out his county to the Nazis for a bit of cash.

The Greatest Feat of Daring In Human History

• Abandoned Mine: Diana Prince, Etta Candy and Mint Candy rescue a beautiful young Mexican woman named Pepita who'd been tossed down a mine shaft.
• Blackface-Style Caricature: Such a character retrieves Etta Candy's bag on request during the train ride to Texas, complaining in broken English about the weight of it, since being stuff with sweets. The first of many that tends to get covered up with dark skinned men who have something resembling a human bone structure in reprints.
• Bridal Carry: Wonder Woman carries Pepita Valdez out of the arena this way after Pepita twists her ankle.
• Bull Seeing Red: Mint Candy's love interest is a matador/matadora and when she turns her back on a bull that's still in its pen to answer a question the bull is enraged at a red cape held by her questioner and manages to burst through the fence to try to attack her.
• Country Cousin: Diana goes with Etta from Washington DC to visit the ranch in Texas Etta's family lives on and tries to play her secret identity Diana Prince as being very inexperienced with such experiences.
• Edible Theme Naming: Siblings Etta and Mint Candy have first names that play on their surname.
• Hypocritical Humor: Etta Candy calls them men working for Pepita Valdez a bunch of fat heads
• Kick the Dog: The Japanese agents headed for Mexico decide to execute Etta Candy with a car simply because they do not find her useful.
• Love at First Sight: Mint Candy falls in love with Pepita when rescuing her from the mine shaft she'd been tossed in before she even wakes up.
• Mistaken for Afterlife: The original scene where Steve Trevor thought he died and mistook Wonder Woman for an angel has been retconned. Now it's a delirious Etta Candy who thought who goes through this.
• Phonetic Accent: To be expected from Wonder Woman's comic books at this point, but the Black Face man, white Texans who aren't Etta Candy and the Mexicans and Japanese each have their own separate written accent
• Psychic Static: Etta Candy's attempts to use the mental radio to ask Wonder Woman to help her brother come out as a bunch of gibberish about her desire to eat chocolate. Diana only figures out what Etta really wants to tell her because she's an adept psychic who can delve deeper into the broadcasted messages than most.
• Thrill Seeker: Mint Candy's desire for excitement becomes a negative thing during his stint in the military during WWII when he chose to ride his motorcycle with his hands behind his head while delivering important messages because he was bored and wanted to make it more challenging. He ends up unable to react in time to avoid a crash and Axis spies try to steal the information from him.
• Truth Serums: A truth serum hidden in a cigarette causes Pt. Mint Candy to give up classified information to a Mexican man collaborating with Imperial Japan.
• What Measure Is a Mook?: Wonder Woman doesn't try to kill anyone, from peon to officer to animal, but it is implied at least three Japanese agents and confirmed one Mexican collaborator died in a car crash, and she isn't broken up about it beyond wondering why they didn't just jump out of the vehicle.