October 1943: Cheetahs Never Prosper

Batman had his Catwoman, and Wonder Woman also had hers.

The Cheetah, an enduring archenemy of the Amazing Amazon, sprang to life in Wonder Woman 6 (Fall 1943) in a story written by William Marston and drawn by Harry Peter.

Wonder Woman was created by a psychologist, so I suppose it’s not surprising she’d eventually face an arch-foe who suffered from dissociative identity disorder. 

This posed a real challenge for the Amazing Amazon, who sought not merely to stop the Cheetah from committing crimes, but to cure her alter ego, Priscilla Rich. The dilemma underlined Wonder Woman’s compassionate nature.

Overshadowed by Wonder Woman at a charity performance, the spoiled socialite Rich, plagued by feelings of inferiority, is goaded by her dark side into adopting a costumed identity in order to frame and murder the superheroine. 

In her second clash with Wonder Woman, the Cheetah controls a high-end beauty salon and a bunch of zebra-striped slave girls (because zebras are the “natural prey” of cheetahs). 

Ahem.

Later, visiting Paradise Island with a group of female athletes, the Cheetah steals the Amazons’ magic girdle. When in the possession of an enemy, this magic belt weakens the superwomen and makes them vulnerable to conquest.

Various attempts are made to cure Priscilla on the Amazons’ Transformation Island, but she proves a tough nut to crack even for the Amazons’ “loving wisdom.”

When the desperate Rich tells Wonder Woman she can’t reform, the Amazon replies, “Yes, you can! You just have to learn that destroying other people doesn’t make you any bigger! Loving people and helping them could make you a powerful, happy girl if you’d learn it!”

In addition to her many comic book clashes with the Amazing Amazon, the Cheetah also appeared in Wonder Woman’s short-lived newspaper comic strip from November 1944 through March 1945.

The Cheetah was another case of the mirror opposite theme — an enlightened, highly civilized superwoman facing off against a disturbed, savage and feline infra-woman. 

Summer 1942: The Power of a Positive Princess

He originally wanted to call her “Suprema, the Wonder Woman,” a name only one letter removed from “Superman.”

Reacting against the “bloodcurdling masculinity” of Superman and friends in 1941, psychologist William Moulton Marston — who sat on DC Comics’ editorial board — decided to create a philosophical counterweight under his pen name of Charles Moulton.

A direct challenge to DC’s flagship hero, his Wonder Woman espoused the virtues of love, not war, and argued for the equality — and frequently, even the superiority — of women.

Debuting in All-Star Comics in December 1941, Wonder Woman had the lead feature in Sensation Comics and her own title the next year.

Wonder Woman’s bullet-repelling bracelets are the remnants of shackles worn by the Amazons after their conquest by Hercules, designated by the Greek goddesses as both a check on Amazon power and a necessary condition of it.

If the bracelets are chained together by a man, an Amazon loses her superhuman strength. But if they’re broken or removed, she becomes drunk with power, losing her feminine capacity for the just, compassionate use of force.

Domination and submission are therefore symbolically represented as inescapable elements of human nature.