10 Things Everyone Always Gets Wrong About Wonder Woman

6. She's All American

DC ComicsDC ComicsThis is actually a common misconception Wonder Woman shares with the Man Of Steel. And also understandable, what with her star-spangled underwear and patriotically coloured bustier. At first that made sense, since her main mission was returning a guy to America and then beating up Nazis along with the Allied forces; that, plus the fact she was being produced and published by and for Americans kind of explain her get up. Eventually it got retroactively explained as being part of her Amazonian roots, as Hippolyte was inspired by the stars on the night her daughter was born, a red hunter's moon and a field of stars against deep blue, and Athena's depiction as an eagle completing things. Quite the coincidence. During the Second World War she was a sort of propaganda tool in the same way as Superman which, given where she came from, doesn't actually make a whole lot of sense. Between that and the true origins of her outfit, there's not a whole lot of patriot to be found in Wonder Woman. During his seventies Diana Prince phase she even abandoned her classic costume altogether, opting instead for a series of period-appropriate jumpsuits. She's so un-American that she did without her supposedly USA, USA costume for nearly a decade! Wonder Woman is not American by any stretch of the imagination. For one thing, she's still decidedly Amazonian (or whatever the island she comes from is called this week), and thus has no claim to calling herself a Yank. She also wouldn't do that, because she's a woman of the world - an outsider who leaves her home not only to see what's up with the US, but to protect people all around the globe. The colour scheme's just kind of similar, we guess...
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Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/