5) Her Origin Story Was Changed In The Big DC Re-Launch Of 2011
In September 2011, DC cancelled every one of their titles and re-launched them all as The New 52 – many with re-vamped origin stories, including Wonder Woman. It is important to note here that the origin stories of her male counter-parts, Batman and Superman, remained intact. Some argue that this is because their origin stories are so well-known that it would have been impossible – and poorly received – to make any changes. Wonder Woman, being less well known in popular culture, was apparently ripe for alteration. The fact that she is less well known because she has been consistently sidelined is, seemingly, irrelevant.
Previously, the accepted origin story of Wonder Woman saw her mother, Queen Hippolyta, form a daughter from the clay of the shores of Themiscyra. The Gods breathed life into her – bestowing magical gifts that would manifest as superpowers. Training with the Amazon warrior women, Princess Diana became a champion, winning the right to escort Captain Steve Trevor back to ‘Man’s World’ when his war plane crashed on their island. On arrival, she met an Army nurse, desperate to travel to South America with her fiancé. Diana and the nurse reached an agreement, and Diana gave the nurse the means to escape, in exchange for her identity. Princess Diana thus became Diana Prince – a US Army nurse with a superhero alter-ego that battles the axis of evil.
[zergpaid]Over the years, the later elements of her story were altered – erasing the relationship she developed with Captain Trevor, sacrificing her superpowers and learning martial arts instead, regaining her superpowers, becoming an ambassador between Themyscira and ‘Patriarch’s World’ and discovering her true ‘creation’ as a clay figure, given life by the Greek deities. But, the basis of her unique and beautifully told origin generally remained the same. In fact, it was embellished in later years to include the legend that the Amazons were created by the Gods using the souls of all the women that had been murdered by men – and that Princess Diana represented the last remaining soul.
The New 52 wiped all of that complexity away and replaced it with an origin that had her birth be the much simpler result of Queen Hippolyta’s relations with Zeus (or, rape, as it is in some stories) – making Princess Diana a demi-goddess. Looking back at comments from producers and studio heads over the years about why a live-action Wonder Woman movie wasn’t happening yet, it could be argued that Hollywood was deterred by her clay-based origin story. Perhaps it seemed too fanciful and unrealistic for them – though there seemed to be no such qualms about greenlighting a Green Lantern movie, in which a fighter pilot receives a magical ring from a dying extra-terrestrial. Or, indeed, Thor – also based in mythology, with added alien civilizations for good measure.
No, it took a simplification of her origin story in the source material to get her onto the big screen in her own movie – as DC have confirmed that it is The New 52 origin story that they will be using.
Published: Oct 23, 2014 02:33 pm