- Wonder Woman made her DC Comics debut in 1942 and has become a pillar of the DC universe, but her exact age is difficult to determine due to her immortality and various origin stories.
- Throughout the years, Wonder Woman’s origins have changed, with different comic book iterations depicting her as being made from clay, one of the first children born on Themyscira, or even born from Hippolyta, making her thousands of years old in some storylines.
- In the DC Extended Universe, Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman has a classic origin story set during World War I, while Lynda Carter’s TV version of the character stated she would be 2,527 years old on her next birthday, adding to the mystery of Wonder Woman’s true age.
Wonder Woman made her DC Comics debut in 1942’s “All-Star Comics” #8, and she’s since become one of the pillars of the DC universe. Comic books play fast and loose with timelines, but after more than 80 years of fighting evil and protecting Earth, how old is Wonder Woman today?
It turns out that’s one of the most difficult Wonder Woman questions to answer. She’s an Amazon from the mystical island of Themyscira, so while she might look human, she isn’t. She’s immortal, and after reaching adulthood her body stops aging. The comics are never quite clear on how much time Wonder Woman spends living in Themyscira before coming to our world for the first time, and they disagree about when exactly Wonder Woman left her homeland. In the comics she has about half a dozen origin stories that have all been canon at one point or another.
As far as appearances go, DC’s strongest female hero is almost always depicted as being in her 20s, but she could be hundreds or even thousands of years old in reality. Like so many other things in comic book lore, the truth depends on the story you’re reading.
Wonder Woman’s many origins
There are two things that all the comics agree on about Wonder Woman: she’s from Themyscira, and her actual name is Diana. Throughout the years, though, the particulars of her origins have changed quite a bit. Readers first met Wonder Woman in the Golden Age of comics, and at the time she was notably less human than she is today: In Diana’s initial origin story, her mother Hippolyta makes her from clay and uses magic to give her life.
That origin changed after the “Crisis on Infinite Earths” crossover events of the 1980s. In the new continuity, Diana is one of the first children born on Themyscira, making her thousands of years old by the time most of the comic stories take place. After that, another reimagining came in 2011 with DC’s “New 52” reboot. In some of those stories, a young Diana interacts with Megalodons – giant, now-extinct ancient sharks that once protected Themyscira — so it’s safe to assume she’s thousands of years old by the time she joins the Justice League.
Believe it or not, there’s another, even more current iteration of Wonder Woman’s history. DC rebooted its universe again in 2016, and this time, Diana is actually born from Hippolyta. As in the classic stories, Diana leaves Themyscira with Steve Trevor, but in this version, her first adventures on Earth happen in modern times. Even in this rendering of the continuity, though, it’s likely that Diana is much older than a regular human.
Wonder Woman’s on-screen age
Wonder Woman’s on-screen presence has always more or less lined up with her comic book depiction. Gal Gadot’s version of the character had the classic Wonder Woman origin story, complete with meeting Steve Trevor during World War I. Surprisingly, after seeing her in four movies (plus cameos in two others), we still have plenty of questions about the DCEU Wonder Woman, although the abandonment of that universe means we aren’t likely to get answers to them now. Her exact age is one of the many things about the live-action character that will remain a mystery.
Lynda Carter played one of the best-known versions of Wonder Woman in a 1970s TV series, and her Diana addressed the age question head-on. During the events of “The Return of Wonder Woman,” a TV movie which aired in 1977, the eponymous superhero says that she’ll be 2,527 years old on her next birthday. That makes Carter’s Diana younger than many of her comic book counterparts — but also certainly older than she appears.
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Read the original article on Looper.
