After the comic book witch hunts of the 1950s when Wonder Woman was accused of being a lesbian, her publishers no longer seemed sure of what to do with her. It was unwholesome of her to fight against men so she resorted to bargaining with criminals—fulfilling some impossible mission in exchange for them turning themselves in. Yeah, right. It’s nice that the criminals the Amazon princess came up against were always such great sports.

Sometimes these honorable bad guys would try to trick her into marrying her boyfriend, Steve Trevor, for as everyone knew, married women didn’t work and Wonder Woman would have to quit her super job.

There were also stories where she would fight some kind of duplicate of herself, some based on her romantic entanglements, and others about her days as a girl on Paradise Island. But she never fought directly against anyone human because that would be unladylike. Apparently, the 50s and 60s were not a good time to be a feminist icon. (Thanks to Carol Strickland for her insights.)

Illustrating one playing card a day using characters found between 1957-1967 in DC Comics. Tomorrow: The Atom!