Wonder Woman is getting a radically different costume, putting her more in line with the fighting togs worn by male superheroes.
The story is so monumental that it’s getting treatment in the NYT (“Makeover for Wonder Woman at 69“):
Wednesday is a good day for Wonder Woman. This 69-year-old superheroine, published by DC Comics, will don a new — and less revealing — costume and enjoy the publication of Issue No. 600 of her monthly series.
The costume ties into an alternative history for the character devised by J. Michael Straczynski, the new writer of the series, and into a quest by DC to shine a critical and creative spotlight on the heroine, who stands with Superman and Batman in its primary triumvirate of superstars, despite her series’s modest sales.
In the reimagining of her story, Wonder Woman, instead of growing up on Paradise Island with her mother, Queen Hippolyta, and her Amazon sisters, is smuggled out as a baby when unknown forces destroy her home and slaughter its inhabitants.
Mr. Straczynski, who created the television show “Babylon 5” and wrote the screenplay for “Changeling” in 2008, starring Angelina Jolie, said in an e-mail message that he wanted to address “the wardrobe issue” as soon as he took the job.
“She’s been locked into pretty much the exact same outfit since her debut in 1941,” Mr. Straczynski wrote. “If you’re going to make a statement about bringing Wonder Woman into the 21st century, you need to be bold and you need to make it visual. I wanted to toughen her up, and give her a modern sensibility.”
He added, “What woman only wears only one outfit for 60-plus years?”
Ha!
Alex Segura, for DC’s The Source (“Unveiling Wonder Woman’s new costume, direction“):
Starting with their story in WONDER WOMAN #600, which is in comic shops today, JMS and Kramer will begin a run that is both forward-looking and true to the legendary character, planting her firmly in the modern era.
[…]
What we also haven’t seen before is her new look, the first significant change in her appearance since the character debuted in 1941 (not counting the mod look used briefly in the sixties, about which the less said the better). It reflects her origins in both the outside world and the world of Amazons: tough, elegant…a street-fighter’s look which also incorporates elements of her classic design. It reflects the two sides warring for ultimate victory, and underscores the path she must take.
It’s a look designed to be taken seriously as a warrior, in partial answer to the many female fans over the years who’ve asked, “how does she fight in that thing without all her parts falling out?”) She can close it up to pass unnoticed…open it for the freedom to fight…lose the jacket or keep it on…it has pockets (the other fan question, “where does she carry anything in that outfit?”, it can be accessorized…it’s a Wonder Woman look designed for the 21st century. The bracelets are still there, but made more colorful, tied on the inside and over the hand, with a script W on each of them that form WW when she holds them side by side…and if you get hit by one of them, it leaves a W mark. This is a Wonder Woman who signs her work…letting her enemies know that she’s getting closer.
This is Wonder Woman reborn, literally and metaphorically: fast, elegant, tough, smart…the savior of her people, their guardian and protector…avenging the fall of Paradise Island, searching to discover why Paradise Island was abandoned by the gods. In the end, what she discovers will change her life and the world forever…and she will come face to face with a decision that will mean life or death for the entire human race.
More lightly, as Kotaku puts it, “Wonder Woman Costume Modified So That It Makes Sense?”
Wonder Woman is the most popular super-hero no one seems to like very much. She doesn’t get movies, can barely sell a comic book. Today, she’s been given a new outfit.
Tapping into the fact that one of the most loved elements of Wonder Woman lore is the fact that she sometimes flies an invisible plane, her DC Comics makeover artists have decided that, darn it, her costume, at least, needs to make sense.
And, more nobly, it needs to be less trashy.
Indeed.
Although, I must say, Lynda Carter’s career would have gone in an entirely different direction if this were the Wonder Woman costume in the 1970s.
