In a way the Wonder Woman story starts in Medford, Massachusetts, at Tufts University, in the 1920s. William M Marston, a young progressive and unorthodox psychology professor, teaches his own DISC theory＊ to his students. One particular female student takes a shine to Marston’s DISC ideas and to the professor himself. Next thing we know Marston immerses himself in a ménage a trios with the student (Olive Bryant) and his (initially quite reluctant) wife Elizabeth. The polyamorous relationship◵ allows Bill to explore a latent interest in BSDM and arrive at the conclusion that women are the “love leaders” of society, predicting that women would “take over the rule of the country, politically and economically, within the next hundered years” [Tim Hanley, Wonder Woman Unbound: The Curious History of the World’s Most Famous Heroine, (2014)].

(Source: www.money.org/)

⍋ 1st sighting of  the pioneering super-heroine: Marston uses the pseudonym “Charles Moulton” for the Wonder Woman comic books

Marston over the years tries his hand at many things in addition to psychology —inventing a systolic blood pressure test (which contributes to the development of the polygraph); writing screenplays for early silent films; authoring self-help books—without ever really attaining a measure of lasting success in any. Marston’s venture into creating comic books in 1940 turns that trend around. Always looking for a new business opportunity, especially after finding himself on the outer in academe, Marston finds a new way to champion his faith in female superiority by creating Wonder Woman, the first super-heroine in comics.

⍒ Wonder Woman on the lie detector

 

Marston’s ‘superwoman’
Having successfully pitched the idea to DC Comics boss Max Gaines, Marston’s Wonder Woman debuts in 1941 in All Star Comics #8, with cartoonist HG Peter supplying the pencilling which have a touch of art nouveau about it. Marston embodies WW with all the attributes and values that added up to his idea of perfect femininity (based seemingly on an amalgam of the brace of women in his life, Elizabeth and Olive). The make-up of WW’s character reflects Marston’s fascination with Greek mythology. She is depicted as an Amazonian princess◘ , as “strong as Hercules”, “wise as Athena” and “beautiful as Aphrodite”. Garbed in a sexy but patriotic suit of star-spangled red, white and blue, her accoutrements are distinctively martially potent – including the “Lasso of Truth”, a device to compel people to tell the truth (an idea germinating from Marston’s lie detector prototype). WW wears indestructible bracelets which deflect bullets, a golden tiara which doubles as a projectile and an ‘invisible’ jet to whisk herself away from danger [Wonder Woman Psychology: Lassoing the Truth, edited by Travis Langley & Mara Wood (2018)].

Wonder Woman, a comic book gender transgressor
In the comics of the 1930s prevailing cultural norms are reinforced,  superheroes are male by gender and violent in method – the stereotypical depiction of women was commonly restricted to evil seductresses, the girlfriends of heroes (eg, Lois Lane) or their ‘helpmates’. Wonder Woman represents a radical departure from the norm, her shtick is fighting fascism in America wherever she finds it – using her brains rather than the heavy-handed brawn exhibited by Batman, Superman and co. [‘A Psychologist and A Superhero’, (Margarita Tartakovsky), Psychology Central, updated 15-Mar-2019, www.psychcentral.com].

Wonder Woman, “deer-hunting” ⍋

Comic bondage and a moral backlash
Marston is able to indulge one of his most cherished psychosexual beliefs through Wonder Woman, that “women enjoyed being bound”. In the comics it appears as a standard contrivance, we find WW being tied up by villains as some point or other in the story line. Sometimes WW herself ties up women, and to accentuate the kinkiness  of her character, dresses them in deer costumes for a mock cervid hunt through the forest⁌ [‘Wonder Woman (comic book)’, Wikipedia, http://en.m.wikipedia.org]. The BSDM preoccupation reflects a personal fetish of Marston’s but also can be linked back to the powerful influence the suffrage, feminist and birth control movements has on him (pioneering birth control activist Margaret Sanger was Olive Byrne’s aunt) ⌖. Wonder Wonder is an instant hit for the comic book-reading public (eventually reaching a weekly readership of five million), drawing the opprobrium of America’s moral guardians who object to the torture motif running through the stories, also considering WW’s outfit to be far too skimpy [‘The Surprising Origin Story of Wonder Woman’, (Jill Lepore), Smithsonian Magazine, October 2014, www.smithsonianmag.com].

 ⍒  Justice Society of America

At DC Comics Wonder Woman is invited to join the Justice Society of America (DC’s superhero team in the “Golden Age of Comic Books” as the period was known). WW’s elevation is hardly a step forward for gender advancement however as her designated role in the JSA is that of secretary for the male superheroes, while the ‘boys’ get on with the heroics of protecting the world from the designs of global criminal masterminds [‘The Truth About Wonder Woman’, Robert Kirkman’s Secret History Of Comics, (US documentary)].

Marston doesn’t get to appreciate the success of Wonder Woman for long, he contracts a form of cancer and dies in 1947, still in his early fifties (for the last two to three years he has an assistant, Joye Hummel, who helps ghost-write the WW stories when he is too ill). With the reins of the Wonder Woman comics passing from its originator to new hands, the iconic super-heroine’s persona and fortunes would undergo a number of transformations over the decades to follow.

Initial sketch of WW by HG Peter (1941) ⍒
(Source: Smithsonian Libraries)

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＊  Marston believes that the behavioural expression of emotions could be divided into four primary types – Dominance, Inducement, Submission and Compliance [‘William Marston’, www.discprofile.com/]

◵ Elizabeth and Olive each have two children to Bill and everyone live under the same roof

◘ like Superman, Batman, etc, WW has a civilian alias – Diana Prince

⁌ such scenes may also have inspired by Byrne giving Marston a window into the activities of her sorority at Tufts University – “baby parties” where dominatrix women bind and discipline submissive sorority members [‘Curious Traditions of Times Past: Baby Parties’, (Yim Walsh), Tufts, 18-Sep-2014, www.dca.tufts.edu]

⌖ from this exposure Marston learns that the breaking of chains is “a powerful feminist symbol of emancipation” [‘A look back at Wonder Woman’s feminist (and not-so-feminist) History, (Michael Cavna), Independent, 30-May-2017, www.independent.co.uk].

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