Wonder Woman’s powers are a result of the blessings she received from the gods (or presumably in the modern version by her divine ancestry), but originally came from her "brain energy" training. Her abilities in large part come from her upbringing in the martial society of the Amazons. She is one of the most powerful superheroes in the DC universe.
Nick Pumphrey stated that Wonder Woman stands as a non-violent beacon of hope and inspiration for women and men.[239][240] Grant Morrison stated "I sat down and I thought, 'I don't want to do this warrior woman thing.' I can understand why they're doing it, I get all that, but that's not what [Wonder Woman creator] William Marston wanted, that's not what he wanted at all! His original concept for Wonder Woman was an answer to comics that he thought were filled with images of blood-curdling masculinity, and you see the latest shots of Gal Gadot in the costume, and it's all sword and shield and her snarling at the camera. Marston's Diana was a doctor, a healer, a scientist."[241][242][243][244][245]
In August 2011, the third volume of Wonder Woman was cancelled along with every other DC title as part of a line-wide relaunch following Flashpoint. The series was relaunched in September with a #1 issue written by Brian Azzarello and drawn by Cliff Chiang. Wonder Woman now sports another new costume, once again designed by Jim Lee.[60] Azzarello describes the new Wonder Woman book as being darker than the past series, even going so far as to call it a "horror" book.[61]
John Byrne's run included a period in which Diana's mother Hippolyta served as Wonder Woman, having traveled back to the 1940s, while Diana ascended to Mount Olympus as the Goddess of Truth after being killed in issue #124. In addition, Wonder Woman's Amazon ally Nubia was re-introduced as Nu'Bia, scripted by a different author.[40] Byrne posited that Hippolyta had been the Golden Age Wonder Woman. Byrne restored the series' status quo in his last issue.[41]
The "Year One" storyline retells Diana's origin growing up on Themyscira. She lives an idyllic life and harbors interest for the outside world, and the first connection to it comes in the form of Steve Trevor, who crashes on the island and is the sole survivor. A contest is held to determine which Amazon is the best candidate to take Steve home, with Diana volunteering despite knowing the cost to leave the island is to never return. Diana wins the contest and departs with Steve. Once arriving in America, Diana is taken into custody by the government to discern her origins. She meets Etta Candy and Barbara Ann Minerva along the way. While incarcerated Diana is visited by the gods in animal form and bestow upon her powers of strength, speed, agility, durability, and flight. She discovers Ares, the god of war, is working to destroy humanity. Accepting her new role in Man's World, Diana, with the help of the gods in animal form, subdues Ares with the lasso. Now called Wonder Woman, Diana becomes one of the world's greatest heroes.
“As to the ‘advanced femininity,’ what are the activities in comic books which women ‘indulge in on an equal footing with men’? They do not work. They are not homemakers. They do not bring up a family. Mother-love is entirely absent. Even when Wonder Woman adopts a girl there are Lesbian overtones,” he said. At the Senate hearings, Bender testified, too. If anything in American popular culture was bad for girls, she said, it wasn’t Wonder Woman; it was Walt Disney. “The mothers are always killed or sent to the insane asylums in Walt Disney movies,” she said. This argument fell on deaf ears.