Spoilers!
I like Wonder Woman because she kicks ass and looks cool while doing it, and she’s part of the DC Trinity (with Superman and Batman, of course), and that confers further awesomeness. When I saw Jill Thompson’s 2016’s book, Wonder Woman: The True Amazon, a re-imagining of Wonder Woman’s origin story, it was a no-brainer pickup. An additional fun note for me as a professional wrestling fan was learning that Thompson assisted former WWE wrestler Daniel Bryan with his ring attire design, and was the illustrator on WWE Hall of Famer Mick Foley’s children’s book, Halloween Hijinx. What’s also noticeable to me about Thompson’s book is she is the author and the artist — an artist who created her comic panels with watercolor paints, which I don’t believe is common in the medium. Admittedly, I wasn’t quite feeling the style (it came across like one of those children’s versions of the Bible with pictures), but as the story progressed, I warmed up to it. Once you realize it’s done with watercolors, it makes the smaller details more impressive, too. Thompson also shows her penciled drawings at the back, going from conception to painted, making room for Jason Arthur’s lettering. That’s rather neat. She makes a good point that when designing the “thumbnail” versions of the cover, to make sure every thumbnail you submit to editors and publishers is one you love because inevitability, if you submit one your not in love with, they like that one. Ha!
The basic Wonder Woman origin story is similar to the film adaptation and comes from her original appearance in 1941: She’s part on a secluded island of warrior women, known as Amazons, when an American Captain’s plan crashes there. Diana falls in love with him, competes to be the one to take him back to his country, and when she wins (surreptitiously, as she was forbidden from entering the contest by her mother, Hippolyta, the Queen of Amazons), she fulfills the mission while also becoming Wonder Woman.
Mariko Tamaki, a fellow comic book writer, wrote in the introduction to Thompson’s book about making Wonder Woman more relatable. In the aforementioned origin story, there is not much to go on about who she is as a person or what necessarily distinguishes her from any other Amazon. “Wonder Woman is kind of hard to get to know,” Tamaki said. But what Tamaki likes about Thompson’s story is that it, well, allows us to get to know Wonder Woman.
In Thompson’s story, men tried to conquer the Amazons because they didn’t want their daughters joining these “she-devils.” So, the King of Mycenae ordered Herakles, son of Zeus, to conquer them and steal the Golden Girdle of their queen (the aforementioned Hippolyta). Hera, wife of Zeus to mitigate his adulterous plan with Hippolyta, implored her brother, Poseidon, to escape to Themyscira, an island forgotten by the gods, with all manner of hidden treasure (and beast) to be found. Despite this newfound paradise, Hippolyta is bereft of the one thing she still desires: a child. She begins sculpting a baby out of the sand and her song so moves the gods, they cry tears which imbue the baby with life, thus creating Diana. She’s literally a goddess and effectively the Princess of Themyscira.
Because Diana is the Princess, she’s a bratty child, who gets her way with everything. She treats the help and her friends terribly. People overlook it not just because she’s the Princess, but because she’s precocious, charming, and intelligent. I did think it was interesting Hippolyta so desired a child and then disappeared thereafter when it came to actually raising her right! But she atones for that mistake at a pivotal point toward the end of the book. As I’m reading about how awful Diana is (“she took much more than she gave”), that’s exactly what I’m thinking: she’s awful! How can this be our heroine?! Patience. It should be said that while she’s being this way, she’s also capturing all of the awful beasts on the island who could threaten the other Amazons, so that’s at least a testament to the Wonder Woman we would come to know.
As a young woman, Diana meets Alethea, which fittingly is a Greek name that means “truth.” Because Alethea tells Wonder Woman the hard truth. She’s not impressed by her. She’s not impressed by Diana’s gold and jewels, her daring and skill, beautiful clothing, grand feasts, lovely music, or money. Diana doesn’t get it; everyone else is smitten with her, after all. Alethea explains she bows to nobody but Diana’s mother, Hippolyta, because she’s a leader who has earned her respect.
Then Alethea says, “… and in truth, self-importance is ugly to me. I am moved by a person’s honest actions and how they treat those around them. These are the qualities I look for in those I wish to have close tome.”
I thought for sure that was the pivotal moment. The moment in Thompson’s story where something finally broke through to Diana and she would change her ways (she does start doing more to help Alethea around the horse stables, I suppose). Instead, she takes it as another challenge to be conquered, stating, “Then I shall prove to you that I possess more of those qualities than anyone!” Alas, Diana slide further than ever. She surreptitiously enters the Commemoration of Warriors, a competition in games of skills and the art of war to commemorate the battles the Amazons fought. There will be one champion who is considered the “best of all Amazons” and to Diana, that means they also embody “all of the qualities that Alethea admires.”
When it comes down to the final competition, a chariot race through the city streets, fearing she may lose, Diana uses one of the hidden treasure items to summon all the creatures she previously captured to frighten the horses and throw the other Amazons’ chariots off track so she can win. She does win, but it’s moot. The creatures savagely attack the Amazons and harm the horses. Diana jumps back into the melee to assist and while she vanquishes the creatures, it’s not without a fatality. Alethea was killed. Diana obviously didn’t know she was in the race since they are wore masks to hide their identities, but the point stands that Diana shouldn’t have done something so heinous to win a race. In addition to Alethea’s death, other Amazons are maimed (one struck paralyzed and another “made simple”).
Upon learning of this, Hippolyta has her moment of atonement for being a mother who “indulged” Diana instead of steering her correctly. (By the way, I loved Thompson’s decision to make Hippolyta the only one who dresses in black. It makes her more regal and stand out. Thompson explains that black also represents a sort of “mourning” for all the women lost in the battles with Herakles.) “How I have failed you as a mother and a teacher!” To be fair to the rest of the Amazons, she asks them what Diana’s punishment should be. At first, still angry, they request all sorts of awful punishments including death. But they remember to be merciful. Diana’s punishment is to be banished from Themyscira forever. Before leaving, Hippolyta adorns Diana with the familiar trappings of her Wonder Woman costume.
And it is at Alethea’s funeral where Diana does have her pivotal moment of vowing to not rest until she’s undone all the wrongs she’s committed and for eternity, to serve others and use her gifts for altruism rather than gain. That’s Wonder Woman!
Thompson’s book was surely controversial when it came out and may still be, only because it’s an alternative, deeper dive take on Wonder Woman’s origins. We get to see who she was as a person and what motivated her to go beyond Themyscira into our world to fight for truth and justice. When it comes to villains, mostly in the horror genre, but sometimes in comic books, too, I tend to hold to “less is more.” But for heroes? I’m always happy to get more, if it makes sense and still holds true to the character we all know and love. Thompson achieved that with Wonder Woman. By having that emotional, climactic moment with Alethea’s death being directly caused by Diana’s foolishness, now she has an eternal motivation similar in ways to the other two in the DC Trinity. She does not always have to be defined by it, certainly, but she’s made of it. That’s a nice addition to her mythos and ethos.
Milam's Musings 
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