Wonder Woman gets new origin story in advance of Batman v Superman

DC Comics will publish a new origin story for Wonder Woman this January, two months ahead of her first appearance in a DC Universe film in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.

A dozen different men have portrayed Batman or Superman in a major, official theatrical release, while in the 74 years of her existence Wonder Woman's official cinematic existence is entirely encompassed by a cameo in The Lego Movie. One of the sillier excuses that has been raised to explain that is the idea that her origin story isn't as "iconic" as her counterparts. To which one might say that it's easy enough to have an "iconic" backstory if Hollywood has been starting and restarting movie franchises about the character since the 1940s.

Regardless, as The Hollywood Reporter points out, The Legend of Wonder Woman, written and drawn by Renae De Liz, will "fill the current gap in DC's back catalog for a standalone "origin" story for the character." De Liz is an artist/writer with a number of best selling projects under her belt, including a graphic novel adaptation of The Last Unicorn and the wildly successful crowd-funded comics anthology Womanthology. It's unknown whether the new origin will be considered canon with the movie universe, or simply serve as a go-to book for the theoretical new readers brought in by the films.

Historically, Wonder Woman's origin is as the only daughter of Queen Hippolyta of Themyscira, a hidden island ruled by the immortal, all-female Amazons of Greek mythology. As the story goes, Hippolyta desired a child so strongly that the goddesses of the Greek pantheon took pity on her, and brought the clay child she had crafted to life. The child, Diana, was raised by the Amazons and eventually left Themyscira to guide Man's World to a better way.

More recently in the DC Universe, Wonder Woman's origin has been altered. The story about the clay and the goddesses was revealed to have been a lie Hippolyta told to conceal the truth: Diana did have a father, and he was Zeus, the king of the gods. This plot line, which was greeted with a certain amount of disapproval from fans, also revealed that the Amazons had been systemically capturing, breeding with and murdering sailors (and then murdering or enslaving any male babies produced by those unions) for centuries.

Hopefully, De Liz's story will hew closer to Wonder Woman's old origin. The Legend of Wonder Woman will run for nine issues as a digital-first series debuting in January 2016.