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Sensational Comics: Wonder Woman

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In January 1942, Wonder Woman, also known as Diana Prince, made her first official cover debut in Sensational Comics, Issue #1 and continued to appear in the Sensational Comics series. For nearly eighty years, Wonder Woman served not only as a superheroine for entertainment purposes, but also as a symbol of empowerment. When creating Wonder Woman, the author, Willian Moulton “Charles” Marston, created a character that will go on to change the lives of millions of people during a time of excessive sexism. The superheroine’s cover debut provided fans with a depiction of a woman publicly doing what has never been done before. Wonder Woman recently made her first solo cinematic appearance, which reintroduced the world to who she is and what she …show more content…

In the 1940s women were prohibited from participating in armed combat due to sexist ideologies that were prevalent at this time. On the cover of Sensational Comics, Issue #1, Wonder Woman is seen deflecting bullets using her bracelets in front of the United States Capitol Building. This empowering image not only depicts a woman standing up for herself when an opposition faces her, but doing it in front of the building where the government officials who can allow change meet to make laws can see her. One month prior to her cover debut, 350,000 women began to serve in the United States Armed Forces within their own branches, which included the Women 's Army Auxiliary Corps (later the Women 's Army Corps or WAC), the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP), and the Women Accepted for Volunteer Military Services (WAVES). (Women in the Military) Although these women did not partake in direct combat positions, this milestone for women’s rights may have eventually inspired several story lines in the Sensational Comics comic …show more content…

Two months after the release of Sensational Comics, Issue #1, the National Organization for Decent Literature has banned the book because her costumes were insufficient. In addition to being banned because of her “insufficient costumes”, Wonder Woman was often seen to be bound in chains which she eventually broke free of. Many assumed that she was being portrayed in a sexual way and that those chains represented a bondage fetish, but Marston intended her chains to signify the struggles that women faced during the suffragist movement and once she freed herself, she was emancipated from men.

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