Promotional cover art for Wonder Woman v3 # 6. Art by Terry Dodson, pictured with Thomas Tresser.
Diana Prince is a fictional character created by Charles Moulton and Harry G. Peter. She serves as the civilian and secret identity of the superhero Wonder Woman.
Overview[]
Through the popularity of her Wonder Woman alter ego, the personality, concept, and name of Diana Prince have become ingrained in popular culture as well, becoming synonymous with secret identities and innocuous fronts for ulterior motives and activities.
First written in the earliest Wonder Woman comics, Diana Prince's role was multifaceted. Unlike the Superman alter-ego of Clark Kent, who was originally little more than a front for Superman's activities and who adopted a passive "mild-mannered" persona to conceal his underlying strength, the Diana Prince identity functioned both to position Wonder Woman so that she could learn of situations requiring her intervention and to allow the character to embody feminist and other ideals espoused by Charles Moulton in more identifiably real-world contexts than the fantastic situations into which Wonder Woman herself was written. For example, Diana Prince was originally a nurse and then an officer in military intelligence, starting in the typical woman's role of secretary but gradually earning more autonomy, including the authority to interrogate espionage suspects, eventually becoming an intelligence officer in her own right and, over the years, rising from Lieutenant to Major. Although Diana Prince was frequently told not to accompany Trevor at pivotal moments of adventures because it was no place for a woman, Diana was actually the most competent person to tackle a crisis, whether by exercising her knowledge or her power as Wonder Woman, riding in with an all-girl cavalry of Etta Candy and the Beeta Lambda sorority. In fact, for a period of time in the 1960s, Wonder Woman lost her powers and functioned exclusively as a non-powered Diana Prince who nonetheless experienced high adventure as a Modesty Blaise-type character.
Character history[]
Golden Age[]
Diana Prince was originally the name of an Army nurse who provided the primary alias for Princess Diana (Wonder Woman) of the Amazons. In January 1942, Princess Diana met Diana Prince, who was sobbing. When Wonder Woman asked her what was wrong, Prince explained that her fiance Dan White was in South America, and she lacked the funds to go be with him. Noticing how similar they were in appearance, Wonder Woman paid Prince a large amount of money she had just earned from Al Kale's promotion of her bullets and bracelets routine; in exchange, Prince gave Wonder Woman her credentials and name.[1]
Wonder Woman encounters Dr. Poison while caring for Maj. Steve Trevor as Nurse Diana Prince.
When Steve Trevor had fully recovered from injuries sustained in his crash landing on Paradise Island and returned to duty at military intelligence, Wonder Woman followed him, pursuing a job as secretary. Maj. Trevor already had a secretary of his own, Eve Brown, but Diana Prince successfully obtained a job as Col. Phil Darnell's secretary. Darnell noted that Diana, as an Army nurse, had the rank of Lieutenant. For a while, Eve was suspicious of Lt. Diana Prince, who did not seem to use any known system of shorthand when taking dictation (because Diana was actually relying on her own superior Amazon-trained eidetic memory) and did not seem to operate as a normal secretary would. Diana learned, to her dismay, that although she was now working alongside Steve Trevor, he only had eyes for Wonder Woman.
The real Diana Prince returned in September 1942, seeking out Wonder Woman. She asked for her identity back so that she could find work to help out her inventor husband Daniel White and their infant child. Wonder Woman agreed, but soon after, Nazi spies kidnapped Diana and forced her to give them one of her husband's inventions. Wonder Woman rescued Dan White and apprehended the spies. When the invention proved successful, Diana Prince relinquished her legal name and began referring to herself by her married name Diana White, and Wonder Woman resumed using the Diana Prince identity.[2]
Diana Prince continued to work in military intelligence, eventually rising to the rank of Major. She eventually was forced into the difficult situation of working alongside her true love, Steve Trevor, while Darnell fell for Diana Prince.
When the DC Universe adopted the convention that the Golden Age adventures took place on the parallel world of Earth-Two, it was learned that Wonder Woman eventually gave up her secret identity, married Steve Trevor, and became the mother of Hippolyta "Lyta" Trevor, who became the superheroine Fury. Although she had given up her immortality by marrying Trevor, this Wonder Woman was still aging at a much slower rate than her husband.[3]
Golden Age redux[]
When the Wonder Woman television series debuted, with its first season set in World War II, the comics followed suit, shifting adventures back to that time. Although the DCU multiverse conventions had been set, the parallel world in which the comic adventures took place deviated significantly from the Golden Age stories that had been retroactively set on Earth-Two, following instead the setting of the TV show. The Diana Prince identity, notably, was not an Army nurse-lieutenant but, instead, a WAVES yeoman, who was secretary for Maj. Trevor and not the commanding officer (Gen. Blankenship, replacing Col. Darnell).
Silver & Bronze Ages[]
Later retellings of the origins of Wonder Woman, of dubious continuity for the Earth-One Wonder Woman, excluded the story of Wonder Woman purchasing credentials from a real Diana Prince and, instead, showed her creating the identity from scratch. In some versions, the Diana Prince identity was created to become a military intelligence officer, winning the opportunity after competing against several women in a contest of skills, but in others Diana Prince was first a nurse who then followed Steve to military intelligence.
Diana Prince, the New Wonder Woman[]
Powerless Diana Prince trains with her mentor I Ching.
A significant turning point came in the 1960s, when the Amazons claimed they needed to leave this world for another dimension in order to "renew their magic," and Diana renounced her powers and Wonder Woman identity in order to remain with Steve. Now operating full-time as a nonpowered Diana Prince, she gave herself a "mod" makeover in order to go undercover when Trevor was accused of being a double-agent. She earned an enemy in Doctor Cyber, international terrorist, who kidnapped Trevor. During this adventure, Diana Prince met and befriended blind martial arts expert "I Ching," who trained her in Asian martial arts, which Diana as a trained Amazon quickly mastered. When one of Cyber's henchwomen killed Trevor, Diana continued to work with Ching to bring down Cyber.
Diana left the military, opening a "mod" boutique in New York City. After rescuing runaway Cathy Perkins, who had been captured by a weird dominatrix gang, she hired Cathy to be her assistant and run the boutique when Diana was called away for adventures. One such adventure saw her being forced back into military service for one case.
The non-powered Diana Prince era ended abruptly when a sniper terrorized New York City. A shot killed a motorist, whose car crashed into a restaurant in which Diana and Ching were enjoying lunch. Ching was killed, and an enraged Diana set off to stop the sniper. Along the way, she suffered a head injury, and the dazed Diana started operating on subconscious urges that compelled her to steal a military aircraft and head for the Bermuda Triangle, where she crashed. When she woke up, she was suffering from amnesia, and she found herself on Paradise Island, where the Amazons restored as many of her memories as possible, although her time as a non-powered adventurer could not be restored completely.[4]
DC Comics embarked upon the powerless Diana Prince stories because, according to writer/artist Mike Sekowsky, "the sales on the old WW were so bad that the book was going to be dropped. The new Wonder Woman was given a chance -- (a last chance for the book) and it worked!" The restoration of the superpowered Wonder Woman was inspired, at least in part, by complaints from feminist advocate Gloria Steinem about the de-powering of the character.[5]
Modernizing the Classic Concepts[]
Wonder Woman returned to man's world, adopting the Diana Prince identity again and finding work at the United Nations, first as a translator and guide[6] and then as an agent for the UN Crisis Bureau, under Morgan Tracy.[7] When Steve Trevor was restored to life mystically[8] (later revealed to be the infusion of the hardy life force of Eros, the love god), he found work at the UN-related Spy on Spy service under the alias Steve Howard.[9] Steve and Diana lived and worked together until Steve was kidnapped[10] and slain[11] by a man obsessed with reviving a demon. Diana eventually left the UN Crisis Bureau and briefly served as a NASA astronaut in Houston,[12] where she dated fellow astronaut Mike Bailey (later revealed to be operating as Ace of the Royal Flush Gang[13]), before returning to a different UN program.
Still grieving the second death of Steve Trevor, Diana returned to Paradise Island, where her memories of Steve Trevor were erased in a misguided attempt to heal her emotional distress.[14] When a Steve Trevor from a parallel world crashlanded off Paradise Island,[15] Aphrodite altered the memories of all the world to allow him to be accepted as the Steve Trevor of this world.[16] Wonder Woman erased all traces of her previous life as Diana Prince and established a new Diana Prince identity, becoming an Air Force captain (eventually major) serving in the Pentagon as adjutant to Col. Trevor in the Special Assignments Bureau, a special military intelligence program designed to interdict global crises before they develop.[17]
For a while, Diana found herself torn between Steve and Maj. Keith Griggs, who was in love with Diana Prince.
This Diana Prince identity was ended during the Crisis on Infinite Earths, when an office meeting was interrupted by Hermes, demanding Diana's service to save Paradise Island and Olympus itself. Diana and Steve were married by Zeus himself, before all of history was rewritten by the events of the Crisis on Infinite Earths.
Post-Crisis[]
Diana creates the persona Diane Prince. Art by Jill Thompson.
Diana reveals to reporters that she uses the civilian identity of Diana Prince while working at a museum.
Art by John Byrne.
After the Crisis on Infinite Earths storyline, the history of all DC Comic's characters were erased and re-started anew. When the Wonder Woman comic book was rebooted "Post-Crisis", the Diana Prince identity was not revived, although references to it were occasionally made as a possible name to use for legal purposes.[18] Instead Wonder Woman was simply referred to as "Diana of Themyscira" when not in costume. Thus, she had no secret identity and lived openly as an Amazon in everyday life. There were a few times where Wonder Woman did adopt a secret identity but only for undercover operations, such as when she worked beside the assassin Deathstroke. During that adventure in the Balkan country of Pan Balgravia Diana created the false persona of Diane Prince to hide herself from the country's government spies while trying to rescue a kidnapped Barbara Minerva.[19] Later when Diana worked at the Gateway City Museum with Helena Sandsmark she did publicly use her well-known alias during an on-camera interview with a reporter.[20]
She also briefly donned a civilian identity while working at Taco Whiz, as well.
When Hippolyta assumed the role of Wonder Woman and traveled back to World War II, she stayed in the home of a Nurse Diana Prince.[21]
After Wonder Woman was broadcast world-wide killing a villain named Maxwell Lord, the Amazon went into a year's exile. This exile ended the viability of her initially intended mission of being an ambassador and teacher of Amazon principles. Once she returned to public life, Diana realized that her life as a full-time celebrity superhero and ambassador had kept her removed from humanity. Because of this she again donned the persona of Diana Prince and became an agent at the Department of Metahuman Affairs. During a later battle with Circe, the witch placed a spell on Diana leaving Wonder Woman powerless when in the role of Diana Prince.
In other media[]
Stills from the pilot presentation 1967.
The Diana Prince identity has been a feature of almost all significant appearances of Wonder Woman in other media.
The first effort at a pilot presentation for a television series was based on a comedic conceit that the homely Diana Prince saw herself as a gorgeous Amazon whenever she becomes Wonder Woman -- although no one else sees such a change in her looks.
Cathy Lee Crosby as Diana Prince in the pilot movie 1974.
The first TV pilot movie, starring Cathy Lee Crosby, was modeled primarily on the mod Diana Prince era and featured Crosby as Diana Prince, secretary to military intelligence officer Steve Trevor, but secretly operating on her own as an agent known to some as "the Wonder Woman." The SuperFriends cartoon included at least one episode featuring Diana Prince spinning to become Wonder Woman.
The most significant appearance to date has been the Wonder Woman TV series, starring Lynda Carter. Diana Prince was in the first season the bespectacled Yeoman Prince, WAVES secretary to Maj. Steve Trevor in the military intelligence headquarters in Washington, DC. In the second and third seasons, set in the modern day, Diana Prince was an agent of the Inter-Agency Defense Command (IADC), operating at first from Washington and, in the final episode, from the Los Angeles field office.
The Lynda Carter TV series had a significant impact on the comic book. During the first season, DC Comics decided to set the comic book in World War II to match the series, using the parallel worlds conceit to explain that the Wonder Woman of Earth-One accidentally travelled both back in time and to a parallel world, where she encountered her multiversal counterpart. When the Earth-One Wonder Woman returned to the present day, the comic book remained behind in World War II to follow the adventures of that Wonder Woman.[22] This experiment lasted a year, until the May 1978 issue returned to the present day.[23] Once the comic returned to the present day, the comic art by Jose Delbo continued to reflect aspects of the TV series, notably the fashion-forward Diana Prince with a long ponytail which became a feature of the TV series starting in the middle of the second season. Other aspects of the TV series, most notably the "Wonder spin" transformation and the convention that Diana Prince is powerless until she transforms into Wonder Woman, became incorporated in the 2005 restart of the comic book.
Secret identity transformation[]
In the Golden Age, Diana eventually learned the benefits of keeping her Wonder Woman costume under her military uniform, instead of leaving it at her apartment or in a desk drawer. Her transformation often involved her running out of a room, changing clothes at superspeed, and returning to a room as Wonder Woman. Occasionally, panels would show her in mid-transformation, pulling off stockings and revealing her Wonder Woman costume under the uniform.
A Bronze Age tweak gave her a new method of transformation using the magic lasso. The explanation was that Amazon scientists treated Wonder Woman's clothes with a special chemical that would respond to the vibrations of the magic lasso; whenever Diana stepped into the lasso loop and brought it up and down, her Diana Prince clothes would transform into the Wonder Woman armor.[24]
The most iconic transformation sequence was created by Lynda Carter in behind-the-scenes decisions for the Wonder Woman television show: a spinning transformation. As the spin was refined, it involved Diana Prince making a counter-clockwise quarter turn and then a series of clockwise turns, with a mystical explosion of light, leaving her as Wonder Woman. Eventually, it was revealed that Diana Prince was powerless, until she executed the spin and became Wonder Woman. A couple of episodes would have Diana Prince attempting the spin, only to be interrupted by muggers or having to stop the process due to fear of exposing her secret identity; in which she would not have turned herself into Wonder Woman, implying the process must be completed for her to do so.
In one episode of Challenge of the Superfriends, a reverse of the spin was shown, although ironically not by Diana Prince. Cheetah and Lex Luthor use a time machine to conspire to alter history and prevent the rise of some of the Superfriends. Cheetah travels back to the tournament of the amazons; the winner of which will become Wonder Woman. She uses a ray to stun Diana, allowing her to win the tournament and have Queen Hippolyta transform her into Wonder Woman, wearing the same style leotard except she had blonde hair instead of Diana's dark hair. When Luthor and the other villains commend Cheetah for the successful identity theft of Wonder Woman, she remarks "There will never be a Wonder Woman", and spins around, transforming her outfit once again into her usual Cheetah costume.
The spin was featured infrequently on Super Friends , whenever Diana Prince needed to leave her civilian job and attend to the various crises which she and JLA teammates faced throughout the show.
The "Wonder spin" was copied briefly into the pre-Crisis comics during the period in which the comic book returned to World War II in order to correspond with the first season of the TV series, but Wonder Woman never lost her strength as Diana Prince. The spin returned a few times in the post-Crisis comic book, before the post-Infinite Crisis reboot of the series which brought the spin back as a primary feature, along with the TV show convention that Wonder Woman loses her powers in the Diana Prince identity.[25]
Notes[]
- ↑ Sensation Comics #1.
- ↑ Sensation Comics #9.
- ↑ Wonder Woman #300.
- ↑ Wonder Woman #209 (January/February 1973).
- ↑ Carol A. Strickland, "Truly, Modly, Deeply: The Diana Prince Era," Fanzing, issue 37, available at http://www.fanzing.com/mag/fanzing37/feature7.shtml
- ↑ Wonder Woman #204 (January/February 1973).
- ↑ Wonder Woman #212 (June-July 1974).
- ↑ Wonder Woman #223 (April-May 1976)
- ↑ Wonder Woman #225 (August-September 1976).
- ↑ Wonder Woman #247 (September 1978).
- ↑ Wonder Woman #248 (October 1978)
- ↑ Wonder Woman ## 251-256
- ↑ Wonder Woman #256 (June 1979).
- ↑ Wonder Woman #270 August 1980).
- ↑ Wonder Woman #270 (August 1980).
- ↑ Wonder Woman #271 (September 1980).
- ↑ Wonder Woman #272 (October 1980).
- ↑ Wonder Woman (vol. 2) #7
- ↑ Wonder Woman Special #1 and Wonder Woman Vol. 2 #63
- ↑ Wonder Woman Vol. 2 #118
- ↑ Wonder Woman (vol. 2) #185
- ↑ Wonder Woman (vol. 1) #228 (February 1977).
- ↑ Wonder Woman (vol. 1) #243 (May 1978).
- ↑ Wonder Woman #212 (June-July 1974).
- ↑ Wonder Woman (series 3) Annual #1.
See also[]
- List of Wonder Woman enemies
- List of Wonder Woman supporting characters
- Wonder Woman