Clad in a golden tiara, red bustier, knee-high boots and a star-spangled skirt, Wonder Woman first bounded onto the comic book pages in the fall of 1941 in a backup story for “All Star Comics #8.” From the comic’s very first words, it was clear that this new superhero would be asked to represent her gender in a way that didn’t apply to male counterparts such as Superman and Batman. “At last, in a international torn by the hatreds and wars of men, appears a woman to whom the problems and feats of men are mere child’s play,” trumpeted the comic’s introduction.
Wonder Woman wasn’t the first female comic book hero, but she quickly proved to be the most populer after appearing on the cover of the debut issue of “Sensation Comics” in January 1942. That summer it was revealed that Wonder Woman’s creator was a most unlikely figure—Harvard-educated psychologist William Moulton Marston, who is often credited as the inventor of the lie-detector test.
Marston believed women were mentally stronger than men and would come to rule the United States—albeit on a lengthy timeline. “The next 100 years will see the beginning of an American matriarchy—a nation of Amazons in the psychological rather than physical sense,” Marston told the Harvard Club of New York in 1937, according to an Associated Press report. “In 500 years, there will be a serious sex battle. And in 1,000 years, women definitely will rule this country.” The New York Times reflected the gender roles of the time by printing in a sub-headline that Marston thought “bored wives will start within next 100 years to take over the nation.”
Marston saw the need for a strong female superhero. “Not even girls want to be girls so long as our feminine archetype lacks force, strength, power,” he wrote. “The obvious remedy is to create a feminine character with all the strength of Superman and all the allure of a good and beautiful woman.” Marston thought Wonder Woman needed to be not just entertaining, but a role style as well. “‘Wonder Woman’ was conceived by Dr. Marston to set up a standard among children and young people of strong, free, courageous womanhood; to combat the idea that women are inferior to men, and to inspire girls to self-confidence and achievement in athletics, occupations and professions monopolized by men,” read the 1942 press release announcing Marston as the comic’s creator.
With an origin story drawn from Marston’s data of feminist utopian fiction, Wonder Woman was a trained Amazon warrior sculpted out of clay by her mother who lived free from men on the all-female Paradise Island until an American pilot, Steve Trevor, washed ashore after a plane crash. Reflecting Marston’s role in developing the lie detector, Wonder Woman wielded a “Lasso of Truth” that compelled veracity along with a pair of bullet-repelling bracelets. Her introduction coincided with the entry of the United States into World War II, and her pin-up girl looks and Rosie the Riveter spirit captured the mood of the country as she led Marines into battle against the Japanese and sat astride a white horse at the head of a cavalry charge against Nazi machine gunners.