Since I’m not a comic book reader, I’ve shied away from profiling Wonder Woman. Without being versed in all that’s been already written about her, I wasn’t sure if I could do her character justice.

Then SciFiChick wrote her Thursday Thirteen on “13 Things I Learned from Watching Wonder Woman,” and I knew what I had to do. While I may not have read the comic, I did watch the TV series as a kid and lived vicariously through a female character who could deflect bullets with her shiny bracelets, make people tell the truth with her lasso and fly her own plane. Wonder Woman was the ultimate Girl Power, except she wasn’t a girl. Nope, she was full grown woman, an Artemis in full kickass mode.

In writing this profile, I didn’t want to ignore the comics, since they are the basis for the TV series, and any true Wonder Woman fan would have read them. So, I did some research and found Michael May’s Adventureblog, who has a whole category on Wonder Woman. If you want an overview of WW’s progression as a character throughout her comic book years, May seems to have read it all.

While giving a great overview of the character’s changes over the years, May makes the point that not everyone gets what WW is supposed to be all about. Of Phil Jimenez’s stint at the WW story helm, May says:

Jimenez was on the right track. His Wonder Woman was a strong, confident woman and in hindsight I think a lot of my opinions about what Wonder Woman should be were formed by the way he portrayed her. He gave her a love interest in Trevor Barnes and had her do all the pursuing at first. Trevor initially turned her down, but came to his senses later and asked her out.

This is the kind of character I hope we see in the movie version. I don’t want to see a “little girl lost” character who goes from a female-centered island to live in the big bad “Man’s World.” There should be an innate confidence in Wonder Woman that compels others to acknowledge her abilities. I want to see her struggle against the bad guys who are trying to destroy something good, but I don’t want to see her dealing with the same struggles real women deal with all the time.

May also includes a great quote by Lynda Carter:

“Wonder Woman is not impressed with herself. She doesn’t think her abilities are a big deal. She does what she’s capable of, and expects others to do the same.”

Wonder Woman is a classic “super” kind of character in that she fights against the forces of chaos and expects the same out of each of us.