WONDER WOMAN, Continued.

Based on the Greek Goddess Artemis (Roman name, Diana), she receives an endowment by the Olympian Gods which includes the Lasso of Truth (created from Gaea's golden girdle), that is indestructible and capable of restraining Superman, himself. William Marston's creation of a systolic blood-pressure device led to the invention of the polygraph, and his experience with lie detectors convinced him that women are more honest and reliable than men.

Left: First issue of Wonder Woman's own comic book, 1942. Right: March of Dimes 1940s postcard that sold for $347.77 at Scoop auction.

"Women's strong qualities have become despised," Marston wrote in a 1943 issue of the magazine The American Scholar. "The obvious remedy is to create a feminine character with all the strength of Superman plus all the allure of a good and beautiful woman." In Maurice Horn's book Women in the Comics, he notes of Wonder Woman: "...but she also proved the bane of Nazi spies and foreign infiltrators whom she effortlessly overcame thanks to her super-human strength, her golden lasso and her bullet-deflecting bracelets. At last little American girls had found a model to rival the boys' Man of Steel."

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