CW Ties Up "Wonder Woman" TV Series

CW, home of DC Comics' Vancouver-lensed live-action TV series, that includes "Smallville" and the upcoming "Arrow" is developing a new series about 'Wonder Woman'.

Allan Heinberg, writer of DC's "Wonder Woman" comics and the CW TV series "Gilmore Girls", will write the pilot teleplay to be titled "Amazon."   Heinberg is reportedly taking the character back to the beginning with a retelling of the origin, focusing on 'Wonder Woman' as a young, budding superhero.

The best known adaptation of the 'Wonder Woman' character was the three-season live-action series in the 1970's, starring actress Lynda Carter as the 'Amazon Princess' and her alter ego, 'Diana Prince'.

DC Comics previously rebooted the character with a new costume and origin backstory, different from the established 1940's character.

The original 'Wonder Woman' was created by pyschologist William Moulton Marston, ('Charles Moulton') who saw the “great educational potential of comic books” and was hired, in 1941 as an ‘educational consultant’ for "National Periodicals/All-Winner Comics" (forerunners of DC Comics),  before creating his female superhero, in a field dominated by male characters.

The character was inspired by Marston's lover Olive Byrne, who lived with him and his wife in a ‘polygamous, polyamorous’ relationship. Having 2 children with both women, Marston said that both women continued to serve as independent exemplars for his character, that was illustrated by 'Harry Peter'. "Wonder Woman is psychological propaganda for the new type of woman who should, I believe, rule the world," Marston wrote at the time, defending his character’s look and depiction of sado-masochism, with every story highlighting women tied up by a ‘magic lasso’ (of truth), chains, ropes, etc, in order to 'force obedience'.

"Not even girls want to be girls so long as our feminine archetype lacks force, strength, and power", said Marston. "Wonder Woman satisfies the subconscious, elaborately disguised desire of males to be mastered by a woman who loves them".

For Marston, Wonder Woman was not primarily a role model for girls, but the vehicle through which he could get young boys familiar with the idea of 'dominating' women. "Women are exciting for this one reason — it is the secret of women’s allure — women enjoy submission, being bound," Marston said. "This I bring out in the 'Paradise Island' sequences where the girls beg for chains and enjoy wearing them". Virtually all the early "Wonder Woman" stories included a full-length bondage panel. In one 1948 story, there were no fewer than 75 panels depicting bondage. "The only hope for peace is to teach people who are full of pep and unbound force to enjoy being bound," said Marston. "Only when the control of self by others is more pleasant than the unbound assertion of self in human relationships can we hope for a stable, peaceful human society.

"Giving to others, being controlled by them, submitting to other people cannot possibly be enjoyable without a strong erotic element…"

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