WONDER WOMAN: ROLE MODEL/FEMINIST ICON?

Wonder Woman in her more "traditional" look.

Wonder Woman in her more recent "conservative" look.

Wonder Woman is the brainchild of writer and psychologist William Moulton Martin--yes, a MAN--who made her first appearance in the comics back in 1941. For those few of you who don’t know who Wonder Woman actually is, she’s an Amazonian-esque princess who lives on an island called--you guessed it!--Paradise Island devoid of men who decides to go to Man’s World to help fight the good fight with the help of her “magic” lasso--which forces villains to tell the truth--and bullet-stopping bracelets and Invisible Plane and whatnot (or something like that!). Wonder Woman, like many superheroes, has gone through various changes throughout the years. At one point, she even “loses” her superpowers and becomes a more “normal” superhero. For some reason, feminists who’ve long regarded WW as some sort of feminist icon--Gloria Steinem’s Ms. Magazine even featured WW on the front cover of the first issue--weren’t too happy about this and pestered the producers of the WW comic to change her back, which, of course, they eventually did. Quite frankly, I never understood the whole “feminist icon” thing since Wonder Woman is scantily-clad AND big-bosomed, which, of course, are two things feminists normally don’t care all that much for. They [the feminists] insist that Wonder Woman is a good role model for young girls by somehow showing them [young girls] that they can do anything . . . so long as they have magical powers and wear the American flag as underwear! (It kind of reminds me of when the feminists lauded the movie Thelma & Louise as the ultimate feministic film when, in reality, it was a blatant rip-off of a B-movie called--wait for it!--Assault Of The Killer Bimbos!) Anyway, I have to admit I’ve never been the biggest Wonder Woman fan. As a kid when I was heavily into comics, I was always more into the lesser-known superheroes and that, of course, included the superheroines, including Wonder Woman-esque Valkyrie, Hellcat (both from The Defenders, which was one of my favorite comics growing up), Scarlet Witch and Madame Masque (who was Tony Stark a.k.a. Iron Man’s girlfriend and who is probably regarded in Comic Book World as more of a villainess than an actual superheroine). I don’t even remember watching the much-ballyhooed seventies TV series starring the voluptuous Lynda Carter as the titular (pardon the pun!) title character, although I, of course, did definitely watch it in reruns in later years. In recent years, Wonder Woman has gone through yet another change when she was given a brand new--and more “conservative”--outfit much to the reported chagrin of her diehard fans (and I’m sure that includes the feminists!). As for Wonder Woman being some sort of role model, feminist or otherwise, to paraphrase the late great George Carlin, if your kid needs a role model and you ain’t it, then you’re BOTH, well, screwed (and, of course, GC used another word for screwed!)! Oh yeah, one thing I've kind of wondered about Wonder Woman's celebrated Invisible Plane is, what good is having an "invisible" plane WHEN YOU CAN STILL SEE THE DANGED PILOT?! Just asking!