Wonder Woman: An American Princess
Tom King and Daniel Sampere attempt to elevate the myth of Wonder Woman, but fail to divorce perspective from story.
Wonder Woman, along side a few others, largely defined the superhero genre in the early years of the American comics golden age. Despite having massive cultural resonance, the impact of her comics, the source from which she was born, has been lacking in the modern era. Why is this? Are two white men the answer? Will I go on a long ramble about America? Perhaps. But first we must begin by investigating the central thesis of any good story about the princess of paradise.
I. Who is Wonder Woman?
It’s a question that’s existed for the better part of a century. It’s a question that has been asked and sometimes answered. It’s a question that continues to perplex the company who prints the title as well as those who seek to engage with it. But most importantly, it’s a question that is not answered in the first six issues of Tom King and Daniel Sampere’s run on Wonder Woman.
The original answer to the question is found where is always is, the beginning. Created in 1941 by William Moulton Marston and artist Harry G. Peter, Wonder Woman debuted in the All-Star Comics #8, with Sensation Comics and her self-titled series beginning a short time after. These were comics released during the rise of America’s involvement in World War Two, where America’s place and purpose in the twentieth century was an answer in progress, existing alongside the likes of Captain America Comics.
A man clad in red, white, and blue taking the fight to Germany many months before the United States would declare war on the Axis Powers, versus a woman in similar garb defending herself high above from a crowd of armed gunmen. Both existed as the politically expressive arm of the creators who endowed them with their iconic status, but that is largely where the similarities end. Whereas Captain America existed as an outward expression of force, created by two men firmly against the continued dominance of Nazi Germany, Wonder Woman existed as an inward form of critique, created by a man with a deeply distinct perspective, one that existed as radical and forward thinking. Despite her reputation today, Wonder Woman was not a story that existed in any real conversation with Greek myth. It was not written by someone who particularly cared for those myths; it was written by someone who pulled upon the iconography of those figures for his own ends. The titular character is named Diana, after the Roman goddess of the moon. Yet the amazons from which she hails are given gifts and blessings from Aphrodite and Athena, goddesses whose names hail from a more ancient, decidedly Greek lineage. The numerous examples of Marston’s conflicting interpretation of those ancient mythologies speak to the true purpose of his tale, a radical vision of where America ought to go as opposed to a tale about the Greek pantheon set in the modern day.
It was a myth built on the idea that a powerful woman from a faraway land would come to America and be better than us in every way. It was a comic set on the backdrop of World War Two that regularly depicted a blonde-haired, blue-eyed man as a helpless damsel in need of rescuing, and often illustrated American army personnel as incompetent when compared to the ever-victorious Wonder Woman. Captain America was introduced as someone who took the fight to Nazi Germany, to those who he felt needed to be stopped. Wonder Woman was introduced in front of the American flag, she was introduced facing directly towards those who she felt needed saving. Despite the story textual claiming America to be a land of freedom and liberty, Diana’s first two interactions with the world of man are a fight with violence gun-toting bandits and an entertainer who seeks to exploit the spectacle of her unique skill for money. The story does not seek to blame the actions of those horrible men on anything other than the folly of man, the folly of America. Despite existing as a vehicle in the fight against German fascism, the story was as critical of America as it was their enemy. Marston tapped into an old, yet always present American fear. The fear that someone better than America would come along and colonize it, just as America had done so terribly to so many others. But the fear was subverted. It was subverted by a man who reveled in the worship of women, and as such turned that fear on its head. Marston took this fear, this horror of someone who dared to be better than America, and presented it as someone to look up to, as someone people could call a hero, as someone who would save them from themselves. As time progressed and others took up the duty of writing the icon after Marston, more and more of this vision was lost. As America moved into an era of post-war superiority only matched by one other, the fear of a crumbling Empire moved behind the forefront of American consciousness. And as the cold war came to close, as the thought of a real challenge to “Pax Americana” seemed like nothing but a distant memory, the story of Wonder Woman shifted into a new era, as George Perez retooled the character for a new generation of readers.
From the cover alone, the purpose of George Perez’s reinvention is clear. This is less a story about America, and its relationship with its own insecurities, but instead one about taking Wonder Woman and moving her firmly into the realm of Greek myth. The first issue goes into great detail about the origin of the Amazons, firmly rooting it in the trials and tribulations of not only Heracles and a handful of once-unseen goddesses, but by emphasizing the role of Olympus, its heroes, its villains, and those who are caught in between their endless conflict. Perez and Wein emphasize the role of Ares, not Mars, above all, giving him a brand-new look that looks less like a caricature of a roman, and a lot more like the ancient god of war they intend for him to be. No longer does the story begin on the hyper advanced Paradise Island, with technology that existed far beyond that of man. Instead, the Amazonian home of Themyscira is a land rooted in the aesthetics of fantastical antiquity. Diana is no longer a great competitor who exists as the shining example of perfect feminine superiority, but instead a child just at the cusp of adulthood, who must journey to a world wholly unfamiliar, and learn what it means to truly be a hero. While Perez succeeded at making the character of Diana one with much greater mass appeal, he did so at the cost of the original thematic core of the character. Importantly, the topic of discussion is not about whether or not Marston’s original vision is better than Perez’s ideas or vice versa. Merely, it’s important to understand that Perez’s reinvention of Wonder Woman exists as an inflection point in the history of the character, a point in which the story began to not even try to emulate its radical roots. It was the inevitable result of an America who had forgotten the fear of its own failure. It was the result of a reboot created at a time when the idea of a real threat to “Pax Americana” was nothing more than an afterthought, something that existed only in the past. The only thing that could destroy America was not some foreign invader, not another nation with the capacity for war. No, the only thing that could result in the destruction of man was the physical embodiment of ancient war, the most ancient of evils. The final destination for this turn away from the classical perspective was a reboot released at the peak of the young adult fantasy craze. The legacy of Azzarello and Chiang’s 2011 reboot of Wonder Woman is the often-over-discussed change to Diana’s origin, stripping her of her godly clay, and injecting her with the blood of Zeus, a change that exists not because Azzarello thought fathers are more important than mothers. While that’s certainly an interpretation with merit, the primary intent for the change was the fact the majority of the notable heroes of Greek myth had godly fathers, it was the fact that Percy Jackson had a godly father. It’s the result of a decision to place the central conflict of the story not entirely around Diana’s fight against her wide cadre of villains, but instead center everything on the interpersonal dynamics of Olympus. The central ingredient for this most modern reboot is the existence of modern fantasy tales that treat those ancient myths as whole genres to tell stories in, not as tools for socially contemporary storytelling. But the problem with taking the story in this direction is that it inherently lacks completeness.
II The need for catharsis
All truly great myths, like the stories that they are, have endings. There is a need for some finale that makes it all make sense. The purpose of a story like Ragnarök is to deliver a complete narrative, even if that narrative is itself endlessly cyclical. Without an ending, without some final epic tale, without catharsis, the endless middle that dominates so much of modern superhero comics is the only inevitable result. While the fragmented history of ancient Greek literature means that no one story may act as this finale, the existence of our world today, a world that has moved beyond their cultural dominance does. While there may not be a singular piece of text that lays out an exact end to that world, the knowledge of a world that has moved on creates that ending implicitly. But by moving the Greek gods into the modern day, by boldly proclaiming that their influence has not disappeared, but instead only been forgotten, that implicit destruction is erased. For a story such as Percy Jackson and the Olympians, this isn’t a narrative issue, for that is a self-contained book series with a clear path forward for its characters. It’s a story that has its own prophecy that its heroes fulfill. But when a character like Wonder Woman, a character whose potential for profit in the realm of blockbusters, video games, and merchandising demands a need for continued stories, is given the same treatment, the hollowness of such an endeavor is revealed. This problem extends to almost every major mainstream superhero. It’s a problem that was understood by the likes of Gaiman and Robinson while they delivered their seminal runs on Sandman and Starman, it’s the reason they necessitated those stories have definitive endings. It is in part the reason that so many sheepishly argue Invincible to be the greatest modern superhero story. Without that final release, without that final push, there is no meaning. It’s an endless equation without a solution, a reaction in constant collision. Perhaps the only major DC character to be given this completeness is the one that popular culture seems to elevate above the rest, the one whose potential seem to garner the interest of filmmakers who wouldn’t otherwise be caught dead making a superhero film, the one who Detective Comics Comics seems to have complete and unwavering faith in.
By delivering the story of a dying Bruce Wayne undertaking one seemingly final crusade against the forces of evil that plague his kingdom, Miller solidifies Batman as a cultural myth, not just an icon. To provide the words of a man much smarter than the person writing this, here’s Alan Moore’s thoughts on this idea:
“By providing a fitting and affective capstone to the Batman legend it makes it just that... a legend rather than an endlessly meandering continuity. It does no damage to the current stories of Batman in the present, and indeed it does the opposite by lending them a certain weight and power by implication and association”
The result is clear. The endless stream of Batman minis and maxis, coupled with more than a few ongoings, and multiple film franchises illustrates that this ending, this clear completeness in the story of the Batman, provides a mythological merit to the character not often seen in others.
III Always wondering about tomorrow
While this lengthy preamble may seem like jargon, understanding both the history of Wonder Woman and this idea of completeness is core to understanding not only King and Sampere’s Wonder Woman, but also Tom King’s comics work as a whole. This idea of completeness is core to King’s entire work. His books are critical darlings and sell collected edition after collected edition in part because the American comics market is starved for finished, whole stories. For the longest time, King was largely drawn to the freedom of working outside continuity with numerous works such as Mister Miracle and Strange Adventures, or conversely the working within the loosely defined past of current continuity with works like Batman: Killing Time and Gotham City: Year One because they allow for stories that have definitive endings, free from the fear that someone, someday may come along an undo it all. However, King found true evolution in what is arguably his most popular recent work, a book that operates as the blueprint upon which Wonder Woman is molded.
With Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, King understood that in order to deliver a complete story within the context of a mainstream superhero universe, one must not operate under a standard understanding of time. In order to deliver a satisfying in-continuity conclusion, one that provides a profound release of narrative energy without also dooming future writers and editors to having to undoing this finale in a likely mess of an endeavor, the ending must be delivered at an abstract point in the somewhat distant future. It’s a recipe initially constructed by Frank Miller as previously discussed, and it’s the recipe that has had immense immediate success for the book, with its film adaptation already underway. Of note however, it’s a recipe that King continues to employ.
The parallels are clear. Both Wonder Woman and Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow are framed as stories told of the past, myths spoken of by those who have already concluded their journeys. They exist as tales of a great triumph over an ultimately masculine, seemingly unbeatable evil. They both depict women introduced as established heroes in a world that continues to underestimate them, despite their storied and heroic past.
They’re stories not told through the perspective of the character on the cover, but instead told through the perspective of those whose lives these women affected in profound ways. These are stories told in the third person. They are not the continuous actions of figures in motion, but instead the complete legends of heroes in their prime. But what is that legend? What is the myth of Wonder Woman, as told by her supposed greatest foe?
IV A return to form, but not perspective
The undeniable reality is that Wonder Woman, despite not being an American in context, is a deeply American figure. She was created by an American, and her continued cultural influence is the result of many generations of mostly American writers and artists adding to her continued mythos. Even the modern shift towards Greek mythology, despite not engaging with the American condition explicitly, still operates under a deeply western understanding of those tales. What Wonder Woman represents is not a foreign perspective on Americana, but an American perspective on what a truly foreign perspective might look like. A figure who rejects every aspect of the American ideal. A warrior who rejects violence for the sake of violence, a woman who rejects the notion that she is anything less than that who she chooses to be, a princess who rejects the prestige of the crown in favor a more noble goal, a rebel who stares down the cultural dominion of American supremacy and rather than accept the allure of that power, says no thank you.
“Every tale of the great Wonder Woman provides us with more insight into the teller than into their supposed protagonist”
Wonder Woman: Outlaw makes the inherent underlying subtext of the history of Wonder Woman explicit. The book has always been a story about woman from a land seemingly free from American influence told by people from America. It’s a story that exists to allow the west to fantasize about the nature of a people not crushed under the weight of its imperial boot. It’s a story that seeks to understand the nature of this great national fear, this fantasy of what doom may look like. However, this fantasy is seemingly much closer to reality than it’s ever been. It’s a story that does not play in the realm of Greek gods and higher planes, but one very much rooted in the King’s lived experience. The central background to the story is Washington D.C., not only the focal point of America’s power, but also Tom King’s home. Sampere’s clean, detailed style lends the story a sense of realism when combined with Morey’s bold, blocked out coloring. There is a clear effort to place the immediate story of Diana’s fight against the Sovereign in the contemporary now, grounded to the reality of an empire desperate to hold on, willing to do whatever it takes to avoid defeat, despite the glorious inevitability of that fall. This existence of a harsh present exists to build contrast between the comfort that comes with the finale. By placing Trinity’s story firmly in the future, by illustrating that Diana is alive and well, and that the Justice League and world of heroes is alive and well, while also placing the Sovereign, the ultimate embodiment of America’s evils behind rusted iron bars, the story attempts to deliver a final, comforting answer to that fear.
The fundamental issue with this approach is that while it investigates the same base ideas as Marston’s original work, it approaches those topics from a completely different perspective. Marston’s original work was based in complete and total submission. It was based in the idea in order for America to move forward, it must bow to the greatness of a power greater than itself, it must become subservient to a woman of wonder from an island of paradise. The issue with Marston’s original approach is that it is not truly free of the hierarchical thinking that dominates American imperialism. It plays into notion that there is a greater than, and therefore there must a less than. It was radical not in the way that it fully dismantled the base principles that govern imperialism and patriarchy, but instead the way it merely challenged the idea that white men are inherently deserving of being at the top. In this same vein, so too does King and Sampere’s Wonder Woman.
The difference arises in the fact that Tom King is not William Moulton Marston. While that’s a plainly obvious statement, it’s clear how much of King’s background affects his interpretation of the myth. Instead of Steve Trevor being a damsel in constant need of help, he’s the one “good” soldier against a backdrop of deluded fools. Rather than Sargent Steele, the literal hand of armed violence, being wildly incompetent, his failure is derived from his own sadistic arrogance. And rather than the Sovereign willingly engaging in the worship of this outside figure, he treats her with a bitter sense of respect, the respect you give to an enemy who bested you, a kind of politeness that masks contempt. It’s important to note that King and Sampere’s Wonder Woman is not strictly in conversation with Marston’s original vision. They are not dissecting or disagreeing or agreeing with what Marston’s tried to argue. More so, they are talking about the same root issue, but with a completely new understanding. While Marston’s stories were clearly told from a white, male, American perspective, they were still centered around the exploits of the figure born out of his love for the two most important women in his life. For this story, the final argument is not that America must give itself over in complete submission, but instead that it may only find survival in a sort of cowardly compromise. For the central issue with the run so far is that it fundamentally cannot commit to its own critique of America. It is a story that attempts to dissect the evils of the nation but does not humanize the victims of that evil. It is a story that attempts to illustrate the glory of Wonder Woman but does not treat her as a three-dimensional character. While there are certainly parallels between this run and Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, the latter benefits immensely from having the story be told by Ruthye, a character in close conversation with the titular character herself. In centering the story of Kara around an immediate companion, the story humanizes Kara and vilifies Krem to good ends. But Wonder Woman is not a story told from the perspective of the victim, it is told from the perspective of the King.
V The Hierarchy of Power has not changed
If the mode by which Wonder Woman: Outlaw is that of a self-critique, if the ultimate enemy Diana is exists to fight against is that of America, then the Sovereign is the manifestation of what America truly is. He represents all that is seemingly wrong about America, everything that needs to be fixed. The first insight we are given into Sovereign’s character is found in the simple visuals used to denote his speech. Narration in comics is presented in a variety of ways, often simply with a white box with black text. Sometimes the underlying colors are changed to signify the simple aesthetics of person speaking or to build on the tone or genre of the story being told, but it’s rare to get a color scheme that speaks directly to the character of who it belongs to.
While the colors of the American flag have conflicting thematic definitions across history, the Sovereign evokes the spirit of Ronald Reagan, so his words may provide insight:
“Red for courage and readiness to sacrifice; white for pure intentions and high ideals; and blue for vigilance and justice."
Blue for justice, the cruel arm by which America has historically enforced his oppressive ideology, white for purity and high ideals, the so called “freedoms” that only apply to those who share the color associated with it, and finally red, for courage and sacrifice. In illustrating the very speech of the Sovereign with primarily the white and the blue while marginalizing the red to the thin border that encapsulates them, Morey emphasizes the first key detail about the Sovereign: he’s a coward, he lacks the courage that his country, and by extension himself, claim to honor. Examples of the Sovereign’s cowardice are shown throughout the ongoing narrative. Despite making numerous allusions to his own power, despite making equivalences between himself and gods, he is a physically weak character, one who chooses to employ agents like Sgt. Steel to do his dirty work. He is someone who claims to be a god but makes a distinction between himself and a “true god” in the form of Grail, daughter of Darkseid.
Sovereign is almost lots of things. He is almost a god, he is almost able to defeat Diana, he is almost powerful. But in being almost anything, he is fundamentally nothing. He is like America itself, an entity that is almost a nation, but lacks any sense of national identity beyond its commitment to white supremacy and capitalism. It’s a nation that has deluded itself into believing it is the successor to Great Britannia. Sovereign claims himself to the “high emperor of Columbia”, the feminine personification of America, the daughter of Britannia, the feminine personification of Britain. But this is a lie. For America does not follow in the lineage of a monarchist empire. It is of the lineage of it’s capitalist arm, the East India Company.
America is not a nation founded by royalty. It is not a nation founded by a group of people seeking to define themselves. It is not a nation with any real sense of identity beyond whiteness and colonialism, because it was founded by a group of white colonizers. The Sovereign, like America, is a hollow entity. A shell that has not one lick of substance beyond his own pursuit of power. The entire thesis of a character is that he is built on the same lie that America is. He is not truly superior, he is not inherently powerful, he is nothing beyond what the hierarchy defines himself to be.
As previously stated, the issue with Wonder Woman’s original incarnation is that it did not inherently dismantle the very notion of a gendered or racial hierarchy, it merely replaced those who had power with those who did not. This modern interpretation likewise falls into a similar trap. Despite portraying the Amazons as the victims of the Sovereign’s fascism, the story continues to depict the Amazons as the warrior-like brutes the Sovereign claims them to be. While there is no such thing as a perfect victim, the story does not portray the Amazons as nuanced figures in the slightest, almost justifying the actions the Sovereign takes to expel them in the minds of the reader. The story venerates the perspective of evil, most likely as a result of the fact that those who are crafting it share more in common with that evil than its victims. What is the story communicating, when it overwhelmingly gives the Sovereign more of a voice than the titular character? What is really being said when the Sovereign, when members of the US Army, are given more depth, more clarity, more humanity, than the Amazons, an abstract foreign people? The story does not use Wonder Woman, or the Amazons has real characters. It’s a story whose first character, Emelie, exists more as a plot point that a realized person. Diana is not a character with goals that persist beyond those related to the plot. Diana exists as a prop, a tool used to propel the story of the Sovereign’s demise forward.
Now perhaps this is the intention, perhaps the point of the narrative, as told through the perspective of the Sovereign, routinely depicts the Amazons as brutishly violent, in an effort to sell the idea that this is a story told from the Sovereign’s warped viewpoint. But based on King’s previous work, which routinely centers the perspective of the western world and routinely dehumanizes the victims of its evil, that line of reasoning is left wanting. It’s clear that this not really a myth about Wonder Woman, but surprisingly so, it’s not really a story about the Sovereign either.
VI The Father, The Daughter, and the Whole-y Story
While not explicitly revealed thus far, the story pays heed to the idea that Elizabeth Marston Prince, otherwise known as Trinity, otherwise known the daughter of Wonder Woman, is in fact also the daughter of the Sovereign, the stories ultimate voice. In addition to this, it also implies that despite being raised by Diana, Trinity is in fact the biological child of the other major antagonizing force within the story, that of Emelie, the amazon whose actions set the story in motion, as well as the amazon who challenged Diana for the right to leave Paradise Island all those years ago and lost. While the layers of the story will most likely be peeled back, and the tale as it stands is incomplete, entertaining this running theory of Trinity’s origins is an assumption made in effort to provide insight into the union between the core elements of the story.
Three lassos, three parents, three names, the meaning behind Trinity’s moniker extends to all aspects of her character. In Trinity, there is a marriage of all three central figures: representing the legacy of Diana, the princess of Themyscira; the blood of Emelie, the one who almost was; and the power of the Sovereign, the final ruler of America. There is also the marriage of all three stories: the story of Diana, as she fights against the war against her people; the story of Emelie, and the mystery of what drives her; and the story of the Sovereign, as he recounts his final days. The myth being constructed here is not the tale Diana of Themyscira, who she is and what she stands for. The myth being constructed here is not the story of the Sovereign speaking of his great fall from imperial might. The myth being constructed here is certainly not the story of Emelie, who acts as a blonde plot device more than anything. This is the myth of Trinity, as she slowly discovers who she really is, unraveling the lies of what makes her who she is.
Trinity represents the lineage of Marston’s original work. She represents the union of the Amazons and America. There is a deep cynicism in this however. For by claiming Trinity to be America’s future, by arguing that America may only be succeeded by a legacy that meets with the legacy of the great national fear, it also likewise argues that the legacy of the great Amazon is also one stained by the mark of imperialism. It irrevocably claims that the parasitic nature of American colonialism is so great, so unmatched, that even in its defeat it still wins. That fascism cannot be defeated by bullets and brawn, for to meet fascism on its own terms is to accept that fascism into oneself. That in ultimately losing, America still wins.
Trinity’s story in her one-shot special depict a childhood seemingly filled with joy and happiness. One that is given adventurous tone by Ortega’s cheerful pencils and cartoon characters. But when looking at the actual story being told, we see a girl inherently drawn to worrying ideals. At each step of her journey, Trinity is drawn to the spirit of violence, she is drawn to the spirit of competition. When Superman was under the effect of Black Mercy, he dreamed of a world where he belonged. When Trinity was under the effect of the same parasite, she dreamt of a world where she dominates those she called her family. All of Trinity’s tales tell the story of an Amazon fundamentally poisoned by the cruel hierarchy of American ideals.
But above all else, Trinity exists as the final capstone of Wonder Woman. As an attempt to elevate Wonder Woman to a truly mythic status, she represents the resolution to the great story of the Wonder Woman. Trinity is the audience, the people left after the fall of America, after the foreign power long fantasized and feared has left it as a shell of what it once was. Trinity is the successors of America looking back on their own relationship with not only who they used to be, but who they are as a result. But in using Trinity, the union between America and America’s impression of it’s end, the story cannot answer the question “Who is Wonder Woman”, because it’s not asking that question to begin with. A troubling implication, for what is to be the mythical end to the story of the character.
Wonder Woman (2023) written by Tom King, art by Daniel Sampere, colors by Tomeu Morey, letters by Clayton Cowles.
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Oh my god. I’ve been finding the time here and there to give this the proper attention it deserved and I was floored by your analysis of the story, its implications and where it is going. Each of your dives into these comics works and how they work in tandem with the industry, the creative vision, and how they’re intertwined with American ideals from conception and how they are reflected in current work or, in some cases, fight/argue against hem have been a treat to read and oh so informative, Shu. They always give me so much to think about and reexamine about the medium and works outside of it. Thank you so much for taking the time to share this and I seriously cannot wait for the next one. You’re going to do incredible things.
Thank you for writing!