Paradise Island - Mysterious Island seen on the fantasy action/adventure series WONDER WOMAN/ABC/CBS/1976-79. Located at 30 degrees 22' North, 60 degrees 47' West, Paradise Island was the home of Wonder Woman (Linda Carter) and her mother Queen Hippolyte (Carolyn Jones) who reigned over a race of super Amazonian women who derived their great strength from the prolonged exposure to a rare element known as Feminum which was unique to Paradise Island. Wonder Woman's bracelets (made of Feminum) could deflect bullets. The island's location was protected from the prying eyes of outsiders from light refracted over the island. Queen Hippolyte said of the island There are no men here. It is free of their wars and barbaric ways. We live in peace and sisterhood.  TRIVIA NOTE: The Wonder Woman character first appeared in Golden age comic books in All-Star Comics vol. 1 #8 (Winter 1941-42)  and later in the post golden age comic The Flash vol. 1 #137 (July 1963). According to the comic history, Wonder Woman was immortal as long as she remained on Paradise Island. She lost her immortality if she left the island and began to age, but slower that normal mortals. Everything that Wonder Woman is comes from the soil of the Paradise Island because Wonder Woman was created from the clay of Paradise Island when Hippolyte who longed for a child was instructed by the goddess Aphrodite to mold the image of a child from the island's clay. The clay form was imbued with life and Hippolyte named her child Diana after the Roman name for Artemis, goddess of the hunt. Wonder Woman received her immortality when she drank from Paradise Island's fountain of eternal youth. The one caveat of the island: No men allowed. Why? Well, according to legend some says that a huge tidal wave will engulf the island if men visits the island while another suggests that the God Zeus will reign down thunderbolts to blast the island to cinders, if a man ever set foot on the island. The true reason is revealed in issue No. 216 when Queen Hippolyte tells female superhero Black Canary (a.k.a. Dinah Lance) that men are forbidden on Paradise Island because any Amazon seeing a man standing on their island will instantly fall hopelessly in love with him. So much so, in fact, that they begin to fight amongst each other until the peaceful and loving Amazons are reduced to barbarians. When the Black Canary delivered her report to the Justice League, she left out the secret she learned

Her origin and her creator
William Moulton Marston was an educational consultant in 1940 for Detective Comics, Inc. (now known as DC Comics). Marston saw that the DC line was filled with images of super men such as Green Lantern, Batman, and their flagship character Superman. Seeing all these male heroes, Marston was left wondering why there was not a female hero.
Max Gaines, then head of DC Comics, was intrigued by the concept and told Marston that he could create a female comic book hero—a Wonder Woman. Marston did that, using a pen name that combined his own middle name with the middle name of Gaines: Charles Moulton. Marston reportedly based her physical appearance (including her bracelets) on his former student Olive Byrne, who lived with Marston and his wife Elizabeth in a polyamorous relationship.
Marston was the creator of the systolic blood-pressure test, which led to the creation of the polygraph (lie detector). From this work, Marston had been convinced that women were more honest and reliable than men, and could work faster and more accurately. During his lifetime, Marston championed the causes of women of the day.
In a 1943 issue of The American Scholar, Marston said:
Not even girls want to be girls so long as our feminine archetype lacks force, strength, and power. Not wanting to be girls, they don't want to be tender, submissive, peace-loving as good women are. Women's strong qualities have become despised because of their weakness. The obvious remedy is to create a feminine character with all the strength of Superman plus all the allure of a good and beautiful woman.

Wonder Woman latest reviews

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  Comic Reviews: Flashpoint: The World of Flashpoint Featuring Wonder Woman trade pape...
  16 Apr 2012 at 3:16pm
  To read the main Flashpoint miniseries is not to get a good sense of Aquaman and Wonder Woman's conflict. A tragic murder took place, we know, and perhaps there's some unrequited love on both sides, but the "why" of the conflict is less important than the effect it has on the Flashpoint universe and those who try to end the war.
  
  World of Flashpoint Featuring Wonder Woman therefore, is integral if the reader wants to understand what underlies this war -- allegiances and betrayals not even hinted at in Flashpoint. Wonder Woman mitigates the otherwise-severe characters of both regents; the separate stories of Wonder Woman and Aquaman are both entertaining, though complex narrative devices make each hard to navigate.
  
  [Contains spoilers]
  
  The book begins charmingly with the three-issue Wonder Woman and the Furies miniseries; Scott Clark's art looks painted (or maybe computer-generated) at times, giving a fairytale feel to Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning's re-tooling of Wonder Woman's origins. Here, a Princess Diana seeking Man's World is saved from an ocean beast by Atlantis's King Arthur, and the two arrange a romantically-charged marriage of convenience for their two people.
  
  The youthful Diana is similar to that in the beginning of the recent Wonder Woman animated movie, a more approachable protagonist than the burdened pre-Flashpoint warrior/diplomat. In the same way, Aquaman is regal and optimistic in a way we haven't seem him lately; the two joke with each other in a way that sells their relationship to the reader. I can't overstate how important the first issue of Wonder Woman is in making the reader care about these new takes on the characters, something that helps buffer the rougher parts of these books.
  
  Wonder Woman loses Clark after that first issue, and both art and story feel flatter in the second and third issues. After the Atlanteans seem to murder Diana's mother, what follows is a series of blows and counter-blows between the two people -- the Atlanteans seem to attack, the Amazons sink their island, the Atlanteans flood Europe, the Amazons destroy Britain creating New Themyscira, and so on. Wonder Woman is heavily interconnected with the Emperor Aquaman miniseries collected second in the book, and oftentimes a scene in Wonder Woman will end suddenly because it continues in Aquaman, but this makes for uneven and often confusing reading when reading Wonder Woman alone.
  
  Emperor Aquaman helps to clarify the Wonder Woman story, but writer Tony Bedard makes it difficult by telling the story through flashback. The story starts between the second and third issues of Wonder Woman, but then moves to "the present," to a time before the beginning of the issue, back to during Wonder Woman, back to the present, and so on. In two periods, Aquaman contemplates using an earth-shattering weapon, making it hard to differentiate between those times; also Aquaman and Wonder Woman almost but not quite line up, with events in one story spanning hours and the same event in the other spanning minutes. To hash it all out requires more study than I imagine most readers want to undertake.
  
  Bedard does present an interesting new origin for Aquaman, torn between two worlds, with art by Vincente Cifyentes -- though it's been so long since I've understood Aquaman's actual origin that I wasn't sure where this one differentiated.
  
  Abnett and Lanning's Lois Lane miniseries is also fun, especially again the first issue where "our" roving reporter falls in with the resistance after Aquaman floods Europe. Nothing wrong with the spotlight on Grifter, either, though again I was curious where his new origin divides from his Wildstorm one. I only wish the writers' Lois and Wonder Woman stories might've intersected more; in both stories Diana learns the traitorous actions of her aunt Penthesilea that underlie the Amazon/Atlantis conflict, but each seems a new revelation with no indication which came first or how they connect.
  
  I had high hopes for James Robinson's Outsider miniseries that finishes the book -- c'mon, James Robinson? Writing in a no-rules universe? What could be better? Unfortunately, Outsider does not amount to much; there are some fun cameos and some unlikely DC characters appear together, but it's hard to see exactly what Outsider contributes. The story reveals some behind-the-scenes workings of Flashpoint, but not to great effect; also I didn't think Robinson really made use of Outsider being set in India. The art reflects Indian dress and locations, but there was little integral use of Indian culture that would have kept Outsider from being otherwise mainly set in Metropolis.
  
  What's most frustrating about Flashpoint: Wonder Woman -- and you'll see this too at least in the Superman book -- is that all the stories end suddenly or uncertainly, in deference to the main Flashpoint book. Wonder Woman hits a screeching halt; I have no idea where in the story the end of Aquaman is supposed to meet; and the end of Outsider is strangely inconclusive. Only Lois ends well -- also on a sudden cliffhanger, but at least that one I already know finishes out in Superman; I rather hope Outsider has its conclusion in another book, too.
  
  [Includes original covers]
  
  My guess is that most readers will feel they learned enough about these characters in Flashpoint and don't need the extra information of World of Flashpoint Featuring Wonder Woman; I understand that completely. Wonder Woman or Aquaman fans, however -- especially ones who might feel either character seemed too militant in Flashpoint -- might want to give this a look. There are many forces preying on Wonder Woman and Aquaman in Flashpoint, bringing them to war -- some they don't even understand themselves -- and Flashpoint: Wonder Woman is the book for understanding what's really going on.
  
  Next up -- the end of Lois Lane and the Resistance leads right in to World of Flashpoint Featuring Superman, so that's where we're headed.  And in two weeks -- the Collected Editions review of the first DC New 52 collection, Justice League: Origin!

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  This post was syndicated from Collected Editions, the chronicles of a "wait-for-trade-er" -- the new breed of comic book book fans who forgo monthly "floppies" for trade paperbacks and collected editions -- reviews, commentaries, low price alerts, news, and the occasional scoop. Visit collectededitions.blogspot.com.

  

  
  

  
  

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