I was reading an interview on io9 about Noah Bertalsky's book Wonder Woman: Bondage And Feminism. As I scrolled through the comments, I noticed a poster expressing frustration about how the BDSM elements and Marston weird philosophy seem to be the only things that get coverage when talking about Diana's history. Almost every interview Morrison has had has him referring to this aspect and to be honest I feel it does more damage to Diana than the Lynda Carter series. Even Azzarello ignores contributions and themes of other writers except Marston's. We don't have books published about Perez or Rucka whose work on Diana got him two Eisner Awards. All people seem to remember about the Amazons prior to the reboot was them being into BDSM a lot.

That's very true and why I'm wondering why there's suddenly so much focus of the Greek Mythology aspects of the character. Although most people remembered the BDSM, her stories rarely involves it; it would be great if Marston's stories were brought into modern times; it's been long overdue.

Because succeeding writers have failed to provide anything nearly as interesting as an island populated by women who liked to tie each other up. It was a bomb back when Marston was alive, and that it's still being talked about now when the rest of the world has caught up with him, proves that it still is just that.

The alternative for many writers have been to focus on the mythology aspect because the alternatives are either just plain worse for the character or driving the book to a place where there is nothing unique or interesting about it.

Actually this just isn't true Marston's run has been ignored more than anything and treated as a silly quirk despite being the only time the character actually worked and no one would dare treat bill finger or other golden age writers the way people treat Marston despite Marston clearly being a better writer

He still gets more mainstream attention than most WW writers.

@agent_z: well duh he created her

I think there are several reasons Marston gets attention.

1. He was her creator

2. His vision was outrageous, in fact in many ways it still is

3. He succeeded in a time where it should have been an epic fail

4. He was part of a much larger movement than people realize

5. He was already famous prior to creating WW

I'll touch on a few of these thoughts in more detail ...

The very idea that a white, wealthy, highly educated MAN in the 1940s being a vocal proponent of women's rights AND selling millions of comic books about a female superman from a women only Utopia is quite amazing when you stop to think about it. When he created WW it was a revolutionary idea for not just the comic genre, but for our society in general. At this time women barely had the right to do anything outside of having babies and cooking dinner, to suddenly have a mainstream female hero who illustrated that women could be both powerful and independent was literally decades ahead of anything else in publishing. Nothing that came between Marston and at least O'neil's de-powering was all that interesting to be blunt. Kanigher simply toned back the sexual context and wrote a very bland romantic/action comic, adapting concepts that existed in other mainstream comics such as Wondergirl/tot/family characters.

Perez was probably the biggest shake up since Marston and he gets a LOT of credit for being her "modern day creator" ... no disrespect meant to those that have followed, but there is a significant difference between quality writing and revolutionary ideas. Rucka, Simone, Jiminez, Azzarello and all the rest are pretty much derivative of what Perez created post-Crisis. Some wrote amazing stories and others not so much, but not even Perez created the cultural flash-point that Marston achieved.

Marston as an individual, quite aside from his work on WW, stood out for many reasons. He was much older than other first wave creators, he was already something of a notorious person in his day and he was heavily involved in first wave feminist circles. He had personal connections with many of the women who created the movement in the first place and was heavily influenced by these thought processes. No other WW writer has ever been "the face" of a cultural movement ... it would be like Gloria Steinem writing the comic full time or perhaps, to out it in more modern context, Christian Amanpour or Ruth Bader Ginsburg suddenly started to write WW. Marston himself is noteworthy even without creating WW.

How did the Lynda Carter series do damage to the character???

@theexile285: that tv show was the best adaptation of the character outside the comics tbh

That's generally the type of comment I hear about it which is why I'm confused by TC's statement.

@theexile285: i think they are only a fan of post crisis wonder woman which might be why but even then idk how it ruins her character since the show was made during pre cris.

When I say damage, I mean that it's what people seem to point to as it's the only WW adaptation where she's the star and it's kind of dated.

@agent_z: but that doesn't make it damaged that means DC isn't giving her enough attention