Wonder Woman was born in 1941 in the mind of a psychologist, William Moulton Marston, who conceived her as a living manifesto rather than as a simple comic book character. Its first appearance takes place inAll Star Comics#8 (October 1941), followed by its first cover inSensation Comics#1 (January 1942) then its own title,Wonder Woman#1 (summer 1942). Since then, the character has gone through the golden age, the post-Crisisby George Pérez, the New 52, the Rebirth and, more recently, the Absolute line – an editorial trajectory which has a direct impact on the rarity and price of old copies.
There are few comic book characters whose origins are as much an intellectual project as spontaneous creative inspiration. Wonder Woman belongs to that rare category: before she was a superhero, she was conceived as a theoretical answer to a specific question — what would an ideal of strength look like that is not based on domination, but on truth and persuasion? Understanding this genesis changes the reading of everything that followed, from the redesigns of the 1980s to the current series at DC.
This article focuses on the editorial and cultural trajectory of the character: its birth in the mind of its creator, the major breaks in continuity that have redefined Diana Prince over the decades, and the way in which screen adaptations have influenced the perception – and sometimes the rating – of paper copies. For an overview focused on the key issues to collect and their complete publication chronology, head to our dedicated article onthe story of Wonder Woman in comics. And if your goal is to know which runs to read as a priority for the quality of the scenarios, our selection ofbest Wonder Woman runsanswers this specific question.
To find all of our content dedicated to the character — factsheets, guides and collection news — thepage dedicated to Wonder Womancentralizes everything we publish on it.
Wonder Woman was born in the mind of a psychologist, not a newsroom
William Moulton Marston was not a designer, nor even a truly trained screenwriter: he was an American psychologist, known for having developed, with his wife Elizabeth Holloway Marston, the systolic blood pressure test - one of the founding principles of the modern lie detector. It is directly from this work that Wonder Woman's golden lasso was born, supposed to force anyone found entwined in it to tell the truth. The character's signature weapon is therefore not a simple storyline gadget: it is the literal transposition of scientific research into a fictional object.
Marston had also theorized, in 1928, a four-axis behavioral model — Dominance, Inducement (influence), Submission (submission) and Compliance (conformity), which would later become the basis of the DISC model still used in occupational psychology today. He saw in comics a vector of mass dissemination for his ideas, and in particular for a conviction that he defended publicly: society would benefit from valuing figures of power based on persuasion and empathy rather than on constraint. Wonder Woman had to embody this counter-model to the muscular and dominant heroes who already populated the comics of the time.
The genesis of the character also owes a lot to two women who remained in the editorial shadows for a long time: Elizabeth Holloway Marston, his wife and scientific collaborator, to whom we attribute the idea of making the character a woman rather than a man, and Olive Byrne, their life companion in the context of a polyamorous household unconventional for the time. Diana's bracelets, like certain visual elements of the character, owe part of their inspiration to this unique family dynamic — a fact now widely documented by Marston's biographers rather than an insider legend.
The character makes his very first appearance inAll Star Comics#8, published on October 21, 1941 (dated December 1941 on the cover), in the form of an eight-page story at the end of the issue, distinct from the main plot devoted to the Justice Society of America. Diana does not appear on the cover of this issue, which is entirely dedicated to the male members of the JSA. The story, drawn by Harry G. Peter and inked by Marjorie Wilkes, features pilot Steve Trevor crashing on Paradise Island after a mission in the Atlantic — the classic starting point for the Amazonian origin.
The success of this discreet introduction was immediate: in January 1942, Wonder Woman obtained her first cover withSensation Comics#1, which also sets up Diana Prince's secret identity and introduces her invisible plane. This issue is today among the most sought-after titles of the Golden Age, ranked 20th on Overstreet's list of the hundred best comics of the period — a useful benchmark for situating its relative importance compared to stalwarts likeAction Comics#1 orDetective Comics#27. Six months later, in the summer of 1942, the character received his own title withWonder Woman#1, which picks up the origin in greater detail — the creation of the Amazons in clay by Aphrodite, the birth of Diana shaped by Hippolyta under the direction of Athena — and introduces Ares (Mars) as the founding antagonist, the embodiment of all the destructive emotions that Diana is supposed to fight.
From World War II to Crisis on Infinite Earths: a heroine shaped by her times
Wonder Woman's early years are inseparable from the war context. The character is thought of as a positive propaganda figure for the American readership, embodying an allied force capable of standing up to the Axis powers without ever resorting to cruelty. Marston wrote all of the screenplays under the pseudonym Charles Moulton until his death in 1947, with Harry G. Peter drawing for almost the entire period - a rare creative continuity for a character of this importance at the time.
After Marston's death, editorial management of the character changed hands, and the following decades saw Wonder Woman lose part of its original symbolic charge in favor of more conventional storylines, under the leadership of editors like Robert Kanigher. The character goes through the establishment of the Comics Code of 1954, which imposes a more polished narrative framework on the entire industry, then the various reinventions of the Silver Age and the Bronze Age, without ever quite rediscovering the conceptual ambition of the origins.
The next turning point comes afterCrisis on Infinite Earths, the event that resets all of DC continuity to 1985-1986. In 1987, a brand new seriesWonder Womansees the light of day, led by George Pérez as drawing and co-writing, with Greg Potter then Len Wein on the screenplay. The opening arch,Gods and Mortals, redefines the origin of the character with a much more assertive mythological ambition, anchoring Diana in a coherent and detailed Greek pantheon. Pérez, initially hired for six months, remained on the title for almost five years, laying the foundations for what many readers still consider to be the benchmark version of the character. This series would last a total of 226 issues, from 1987 to 2006 — one of the longest and most stable continuities in the character's history.
The turning point Infinite Crisis: when the pacifist icon kills
Between the long Pérez continuity and the New 52, an episode remains regularly cited as one of the most discussed of the character's entire editorial career. InCountdown to Infinite Crisis#1 (2005), ahead of the eventInfinite Crisis, Diana confronts Maxwell Lord, a longtime Justice League ally unmasked as the mastermind of Project OMAC, a network of cyborgs designed to neutralize superheroes through the Brother Eye surveillance system. Using her golden lasso to extract the truth from Lord, Diana discovers that the only way to free Superman from his mental grip is to kill him — which she promptly does, the scene being broadcast live around the world by Brother Eye himself, sparking a lasting distrust of superheroes within the DC Universe.
This episode had a lasting impact on the critical reception of the character: seeing the supposed incarnation of truth and compassion resort to summary execution fueled a fundamental debate, still revived today, on the coherence between the founding pacifist ideal imagined by Marston and the script choices made by successive authors. Unlike comparable missteps in Superman or Batman at the same time, Wonder Woman's killing of Max Lord continues to be regularly recalled in subsequent story arcs, a sign of its impact on the long-term perception of the character.
Modern Remakes: New 52, Rebirth, and the New Absolute Era
The 2010 decade marks a new break in continuity with the launch of the New 52 by DC Comics in 2011. The Wonder Woman series is then entrusted to Brian Azzarello for the screenplay and Cliff Chiang for drawing, with a major change of origin: Diana is no longer shaped in clay but becomes the biological daughter of Hippolyte and Zeus, a half-goddess in the literal sense. This choice, which breaks with nearly seventy years of internal mythology, remains one of the most discussed in the editorial history of the character, hailed for its visual ambition and its almost horrific atmosphere, but criticized by some readers attached to the classic Amazonian origin.
In 2016, the DC Rebirth relaunch partly corrected this trajectory. The new series, written by Greg Rucka with Liam Sharp, Matthew Clark and Nicola Scott writing, reintegrates much of the pre-New 52 continuity by presenting the events of the previous period as an illusion caused by an enemy of Diana. The Rucka run, often cited alongside that of Pérez as one of the most accomplished on a narrative level, reweaves the link between Diana and her Amazonian past while modernizing her relationship with Themyscira and the Greek gods.
More recently, the main series has been taken over by Tom King, the first issue of which appears in September 2023; he retains the reins of the title until today, with a one-off interruption entrusted to Stephanie Williams on issues 29 and 30, before a return planned for March 2026 for a new arc entitled “The Wonder War”. At the same time, DC launched in October 2024Absolute Wonder Woman, a radical rereading of the character written by Kelly Thompson and drawn by Hayden Sherman as part of the new Absolute Universe editorial line: this version presents a Diana raised in Hell rather than on Themyscira, more of a tormented mythical warrior than a symbol of peace. The series received acclaim in its first year, winning the Eisner Award for Best New Title in 2025 — a strong signal that the character continues to generate critical and commercial interest seventy-five years after its creation.
The impact of adaptations on the rating
The screen adaptations have had a measurable, if uneven, effect on interest in the character — and in turn on demand for his original comics. The movieWonder Womanfrom 2017, directed by Patty Jenkins with Gal Gadot in the lead role, is the clearest illustration of this. With a domestic opening of $103.3 million – a record for a superhero film led by a female director – and a worldwide total exceeding $822 million for a budget of $149 million, the film marked the history of the genre by becoming the biggest success of summer 2017 in the United States. This breakthrough had direct repercussions in stores: several American specialist booksellers, including Midtown Comics in New York, reported at the time a tangible increase in new readers and readers returning to the character, in particular a female audience hitherto little represented in comic book shelves.
The sequel,Wonder Woman 1984, released at the end of December 2020 in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic with simultaneous broadcast on HBO Max, conversely illustrates the limits of this ripple effect: the film only grossed $169 million worldwide for a budget of $200 million, penalized by the closure of a large number of theaters and by its immediate availability for streaming. This contrast between the two films is a useful reminder for any collector: a successful adaptation may create a one-time spike in demand for recent prints and film-related covers, but it never replaces the structural rarity that makes Golden Age copies valuable. For the founding numbers —All Star Comics#8,Sensation Comics#1,Wonder Woman#1 — the population counted in the high gradations remains extremely low on the CGC censuses, regardless of current film news.
Conversely, the recent critical success of the comic itself—the Eisner for Best New Title forAbsolute Wonder Womanin 2025, or the stability of Tom King's run since 2023 — maintains a collector's interest independent of the cinematographic calendar, driven this time by editorial quality rather than by studio marketing.
Buying guide
- Check the distinction between the three historical beginnings:first appearance in backup (All Star Comics#8, October 1941), first cover (Sensation Comics#1, January 1942) and first proper title (Wonder Woman#1, Summer 1942) are three different milestones, with very distinct levels of rarity and researchability — never confuse these three numbers when making a purchase.
- On Golden Age numbers, require an up-to-date graduation certificate:pulp paper from the 1940s is particularly prone to acidification, pinholes and brittle stapling; an ungraded example from this era deserves expert inspection before any significant purchase.
- Beware of undeclared restorationson the most sought-after Golden Ages: spine recoloring, staple reinforcement or page replacement are common on issues over 80 years old and must appear clearly on the gradation label.
- Wonder Woman #1 (1942) is identifiable by the first appearance of Aresas a recurring antagonist: a useful benchmark to distinguish modern reissues and facsimiles from period copies, often offered at misleading prices due to ignorance of buyers.
- For a more accessible budget, look to recent editorial milestones:first prints ofWonder Woman#1 (New 52, 2011), from the Rebirth series (2016) orAbsolute Wonder Woman#1 (2024, Eisner Award-winning) — solid entry points for a thematic collection without the budget required by the Golden Age.
- Systematically cross-check your informationwith the Grand Comics Database or the Overstreet Price Guide before a major purchase: the attributions of inking artists and writers sometimes vary from one source to another on the very first issues.
- Track actual sales rather than displayed prices: isolated classified ads do not always reflect the market; compare several transactions concluded over a recent period to get a reliable idea of the current rating of a given number.
- Distinguish between comic book collections and cinematic derivative products: the reissues and variant covers published on the occasion of the films (2017, 2020) do not have the same rarity as the original issues from their time of first publication; do not confuse them in your purchasing budget.