What could Pre-COIE Earth-1 Diana (1948-1986) do?

[daBronzeBomma]

What were her best and worst feats, post-Marston but pre-Perez?

I know she lacked the crazy feats of the Golden Age Diana (1941-1947), and had none of the consistency of the post-COIE Diana (1987-2010), but this is basically 40 years of Wonder Woman we're talking about here.

I never read any of this extended period of hers (I just remember her in COIE and Alan Moore's FTMWHE), so I legit don't know firsthand.

Good or bad, what did she do?

Scans and links would be appreciated.

[bat39]

One thing that always confuses me about this version of Wonder Woman is the question of how long she's been around, and whether she was active during WW2 or not.

She rescued Donna Troy when Donna was a toddler. Donna is around the same age as Dick Grayson. When Dick Grayson was a toddler, Bruce had probably only recently lost his parents. So does this mean Wonder Woman existed around a time when Bruce was still a teenager, and Clark was still Superboy?

Then there was all kinds of weird temporal and multiversal shenanigans involving Steve Trevor...

[Tzigone]

She rescued Donna Troy when Donna was a toddler. Donna is around the same age as Dick Grayson. When Dick Grayson was a toddler, Bruce had probably only recently lost his parents. So does this mean Wonder Woman existed around a time when Bruce was still a teenager, and Clark was still Superboy?

See, that's the timing issue that keeps me from accepting Donna's original origin, like so many others do. Though I think Bruce's parents would have died before Dick was born since they died 15 years before he became Batman, but that depends on how long you think he was Batman before Robin joined him (only a year like real-time or more) and how old you think Dick was at that time. Diana didn't premiere until after Dick was Robin, so the "found Donna and took to island" doesn't work for me, just on the timing of events in relation to each other.

I think that's one of WW's problems. Time-slide is so much more difficult with her than Batman or Superman. Her original origin story and her early adventures were directly tied to WWII, whereas a mugging or a planet exploding can happen at any time in history. So her entry into the wider world and early motivations get tweaked with more than theirs.

[Artemisfanboy]

What were her best and worst feats, post-Marston but pre-Perez?

I know she lacked the crazy feats of the Golden Age Diana (1941-1947), and had none of the consistency of the post-COIE Diana (1987-2010), but this is basically 40 years of Wonder Woman we're talking about here.

I never read any of this extended period of hers (I just remember her in COIE and Alan Moore's FTMWHE), so I legit don't know firsthand.

Good or bad, what did she do?

Scans and links would be appreciated.

A small correction. Earth 1 Diana's adventures began in Wonder Woman #98, Cover Date 1958. Yes Kanigher took over in earlier, but until #98 the stories are still considered to be part of the Earth 2 continuity.

See, that's the timing issue that keeps me from accepting Donna's original origin, like so many others do. Though I think Bruce's parents would have died before Dick was born since they died 15 years before he became Batman, but that depends on how long you think he was Batman before Robin joined him (only a year like real-time or more) and how old you think Dick was at that time. Diana didn't premiere until after Dick was Robin, so the "found Donna and took to island" doesn't work for me, just on the timing of events in relation to each other.

I think that's one of WW's problems. Time-slide is so much more difficult with her than Batman or Superman. Her original origin story and her early adventures were directly tied to WWII, whereas a mugging or a planet exploding can happen at any time in history. So her entry into the wider world and early motivations get tweaked with more than theirs.

While acknowledging the oddness with Diana implicitly having to quite a while for Donna's original exact origin, I'm in the camp that Donna's origin can be easily fixed while keeping her as Diana's adopted sister. The simplest change would be to have it be one of the gods such as Athena or Aphrodite be the one to rescue her and drop her off on Themyscira. Rhea could be another choice. If editorial hadn't insisted on Diana making her first appearance during the time of Legends, Perez could have made her a child brought to Themyscira by the Naiads. Or she could just be a young girl who shipwrecked on Themyscira, like Aresia's backstory in JLU, and was where it looked like they were going to go near the beginning of rebirth with Donna saying she had no memories before age seven and being adopted by Amazons before they shifted and started doubling down on the Finch origin. Depending on how old you want Diana to be and what the age difference you want between Diana and Donna, this may mean that from a certain age Diana wasn't "the only child growing up on Themyscira". But most people who I've talked to usually mean it as an argument against Azzarello's sex raids and are willing to make an exception for Donna. And in any case I feel that what you gain by having Donna exist with her proper origin easily is worth the concession of Diana growing up with Donna.

[JackBNimble]

What were her best and worst feats, post-Marston but pre-Perez?

I know she lacked the crazy feats of the Golden Age Diana (1941-1947), and had none of the consistency of the post-COIE Diana (1987-2010), but this is basically 40 years of Wonder Woman we're talking about here.

I never read any of this extended period of hers (I just remember her in COIE and Alan Moore's FTMWHE), so I legit don't know firsthand.

Good or bad, what did she do?

Scans and links would be appreciated.

Her lasso featured in many of her best feats.

https://www.cbr.com/wonder-woman-the...asso-of-truth/

CBR is a fun collection of craziest lasso tricks. Several are from the Silver Age like containing nuclear detonations.

At the time, the 1977 comic Superman Vs. Wonder Woman was a special feature.

For me, the worst feats from the Silver Age for Wonder Woman were the memory manipulations she was subjected to by Hippolyta--which tied in with the Steve Trevor shenanigans.

[DrNewGod]

Pre-Crisis WW had an almost-ludicrously amazing array of abilities:

• She could speak every known human language fluently.
• She was an inventor who created the Purple Ray, able to heal almost anything ailment or injury (not sure if that was introduced pre-or post-GA).
• She had superhearing (I can't recall if her other senses were similarly enhanced).
• She was a low-level telepath, although principally for communication rather than memory probing or enthrallment (it was never clear how much of that was her, and how much was amplified by her tiara and other devices)
• Her telepathy enabled her to remotely control her invisible robot plane.
• She could glide on wind currents.
• She had some sort of special empathy with animals (I can't recall of she could actually communicate with and control them or not).
• Through her Magic Sphere, she was both clairvoyant and post-cognitive.

There's a bunch more, but those are the ones I immediately recall.

[WonderScott]

It had to be the late 70s or very early 80s that I have a memory of having a Wonder Woman card with some kind of stats on it that said she could lift Mt. Everest.

I don't know if I'm misremembering that or if it was part of some DC role-playing game as D&D was just starting to get big.

[bat39]

See, that's the timing issue that keeps me from accepting Donna's original origin, like so many others do. Though I think Bruce's parents would have died before Dick was born since they died 15 years before he became Batman, but that depends on how long you think he was Batman before Robin joined him (only a year like real-time or more) and how old you think Dick was at that time. Diana didn't premiere until after Dick was Robin, so the "found Donna and took to island" doesn't work for me, just on the timing of events in relation to each other.

I think that's one of WW's problems. Time-slide is so much more difficult with her than Batman or Superman. Her original origin story and her early adventures were directly tied to WWII, whereas a mugging or a planet exploding can happen at any time in history. So her entry into the wider world and early motivations get tweaked with more than theirs.

But was it every explicitly stated that Diana became Wonder Woman after Dick became Robin?

I mean, theoretically, there's nothing stopping Diana from having been Wonder Woman for a long time before Bruce ever put on the cowl. Well, except Steve Trevor's age possibly...

[Tzigone]

But was it every explicitly stated that Diana became Wonder Woman after Dick became Robin?

Beats me. Absent other evidence, I think anything that happens in the "present" in comics happens in the present, and events need to be kept mostly relative to other events happening the comics at the same time. Wonder Woman's debut and Robin's were both written in the "present" when they happened (hers more explicitly by WWII), and his happened first. If they ever said it was the other way around, I'd call that a retcon.

And yeah, I like pre-COIE with Superman the world's first super hero.

Now I'm wondering when the first story that WW and Robin were both in was published....

Anyway, did the lasso of compulsion last all the way to COIE? I know the hands-bound-no-powers bit still held true in the bronze age.

EDIT: Of course, Speedy also technically debuted before she did, too, but that one's close enough to fudge and say she came first if you like, IMO. But still at close to the same time.

[bat39]

Beats me. Absent other evidence, I think anything that happens in the "present" in comics happens in the present, and events need to be kept mostly relative to other events happening the comics at the same time. Wonder Woman's debut and Robin's were both written in the "present" when they happened (hers more explicitly by WWII), and his happened first. If they ever said it was the other way around, I'd call that a retcon.

And yeah, I like pre-COIE with Superman the world's first super hero.

Now I'm wondering when the first story that WW and Robin were both in was published....

Anyway, did the lasso of compulsion last all the way to COIE? I know the hands-bound-no-powers bit still held true in the bronze age.

EDIT: Of course, Speedy also technically debuted before she did, too, but that one's close enough to fudge and say she came first if you like, IMO. But still at close to the same time.

But we know that's not always the case. It certainly isn't now for sure.

I'm also not sure if it was ever established that Superman was the first hero on Earth One. It was established that he was on Earth Two.

Theoretically, if we assume that Diana came to Man's World at a time when Clark was Superboy, then he can still be the first.

How's this for a rough chronology - let us assume that on Earth One, Superman and Batman debuted in a particular year. Call it X. Dick becomes Robin, say, the following year - X+1 - at around the age of 10. Roughly three years later, the Teen Titans form, in year X+4. Say, Donna is also around Dick's age, 13. And assume she was rescued from the fire by Wonder Woman when she was about 3, so ten years ago. That puts it in the year X-6...i.e. six years before Batman and Superman debuted.

But, if we assume Superman started at the age of, say, 21, then 6 years ago, he would have been 15 and active as Superboy. And if rescuing Donna was one of Diana's earliest adventures in Man's World, then she'd still be debuting after Clark became Superboy...even after Bruce lost his parents.

[Tzigone]

I consider that a retcon, since, to me, the early stories of Diana and Bruce and Ollie were clearly meant to be contemporary. Diana had tons of WWII stuff. Ollie and Roy had some, too. I think Bruce did, but couldn't pull an issue out for an example right now. Retcons happen all the time, of course, but there are plenty I don't care for. But that, to me, was not at all how it intended to be interpreted at the time. But that's the thing about comics, we can all take our own versions.

[kjn]

Donna can be rather easily solved in other ways. She might have been rescued from a fire and brought to Themyscira by one of the Patrons (and here I'd go for either Artemis or Hestia, as respectively the protector of girls and the goddess of fire), a few years before Diana left for Man's World. Or the fire was on a ship, and thus Diana could save her from that fire while she still was on Themyscira.

No need for any weird time shifts or tying stuff to the timelines of other heroes that way.

[bat39]

I consider that a retcon, since, to me, the early stories of Diana and Bruce and Ollie were clearly meant to be contemporary. Diana had tons of WWII stuff. Ollie and Roy had some, too. I think Bruce did, but couldn't pull an issue out for an example right now. Retcons happen all the time, of course, but there are plenty I don't care for. But that, to me, was not at all how it intended to be interpreted at the time. But that's the thing about comics, we can all take our own versions.

Well, obviously they were all contemporary to each other when originally published in what passed for Golden Age continuity. But we're talking here specifically about Silver Age/Bronze Age continuity or 'Earth One' continuity.

The DCU as a shared universe was a pretty loose concept before COIE, though it did start to develop a bit in the Bronze Age. So something like Wonder Woman being around longer than Batman wouldn't really be a huge deal and wouldn't really impact her status in any way.

Pre-COIE, who debuted first and who inspired whom was never an issue. The only time it was ever mentioned was this one panel that stated that Kal L was the first hero on any earth - which is a neat meta reference but actually doesn't make much sense in the context of an infinite multiverse.

[Stanlos]

What were her best and worst feats, post-Marston but pre-Perez?

I know she lacked the crazy feats of the Golden Age Diana (1941-1947), and had none of the consistency of the post-COIE Diana (1987-2010), but this is basically 40 years of Wonder Woman we're talking about here.

I never read any of this extended period of hers (I just remember her in COIE and Alan Moore's FTMWHE), so I legit don't know firsthand.

Good or bad, what did she do?

Scans and links would be appreciated.

Those early stories had her have super pretty much everything. So it would be easier to catalogue what she could not do.

[Gaelforce]

It had to be the late 70s or very early 80s that I have a memory of having a Wonder Woman card with some kind of stats on it that said she could lift Mt. Everest.

I don't know if I'm misremembering that or if it was part of some DC role-playing game as D&D was just starting to get big.

Mayfair Games produced DC Heroes in 1985 using the Mayfair Exponential Gaming System (MEGS). I won a copy at its debut at GenCon that year playing Wonder Girl (Donna Troy) in an immensely fun two round Teen Titans event.

This stands out in my mind despite the years because my fiance and I were talking with the game designer afterward. Every boxed game came jam packed with stuff, including write-ups for all the major DC Heroes.

Wonder Woman was listed as one strength level below Superman, and we asked why. We were told that a lot of research had gone into the game with people looking up feats and such, and that DC had final say over the game.

They originally listed Diana as having a strength equal to Superman, but DC knocked her down one level.