The Amazon princess, blessed with god-like super abilities, Wonder Woman is one of Earth's most powerful defenders of peace, justice, and equality and a member of the Justice League. She is considered an archetype for many heroines outside of comic book. Her initial origin depicted her as a clay baby brought to life by patron goddess Aphrodite, but in recent years she has been depicted as the daughter of Zeus and Amazon queen Hippolyta.
I think there is another reason they changed the origins; lack of stories they could tell with it.
Let me run through the stories I know tie into Diana's clay origins or mention it from the post-Crisis era:
The Olympian gods are retreating from the world, pt 1. Diana and the Amazons are slowly 'drying out' returning their bodies to clay.
(Flipping) Clayface takes a swipe of clay out of Diana, 'reducing' her to Donna Troy
X amount of 'things have gotten serious with the JLA' where Diana has been depicted as dead and returned to clay.
Circe first meeting, wicked witch wishes to 'melt' Diana back into clay for interfering with her little haven.
Gail Simone's rather forced addition of Cottus to give Diana a proper monster to fight at the end of the Circle's story.
(Feel free to add more, if there are any)
If you look at these, you'll notice that all of them are either 'just there' as the way she came to be, the others are making it into a form of weakness. Plus writers have to battle that fact that Diana is perceived as having been created relatively perfect... Which makes it difficult to make her interesting as a character rather than just someone having an interesting journey.
I agree ... with SM you can always create some new threat with a tie back to Krypton ... kryptonite, doomsday, zod etc ... BM's story is really about psychological issues, thus they can always bring in some new flavor of emotionally unstable nutjob for him to "identify" with. WW has more range when you make her a "real girl" with a whole host of mythological family members.
I personally think the origin that Hades is her Father was kind of interesting. She's kind of like Raven in that sense, (actually that could potentially be a good team-up somewhere down the road.) I think there is a lot that could be done from that. Like, with her being away from Paradise Island, Hades sends powerful warriors and beasts to challenge her, or at times takes matters into his own hands with his shape-shifting abilities to put her friends and society against her.
Almost like the story of Aku vs. Jack, with a mix of Disney Hades tactics vs. the heroes.
I've always associated her with the clay origin, but I can appreciate the demi-goddess angle. Choosing Zeus as her father makes the most sense. More so because he is the most powerful.
Only 2 origins have ever been good for me. The original one by Marston with her gaining her power from Aphrodite and the Morrison one where she gains her power from a machine, though i dont like the hercules inclusion because it was a weird reasoning. I think she shouldnt be any different from any other amazon and they should all share the same abilities and similar birth. Also her powers should come from a feminine source.
@willienotwilliam: I think the Demi Goddess origin gives her another layer of potential stories that have yet to be explored and could prove immensely interesting. The Demi Goddess origin and especially her being the daughter of Zeus himself empowers her in my eyes. I have a general interest in Greek mythology (and others like Egyptian) and stuff like Demi Gods and their complicated family trees always peak my interest. Like I said though, I'm really fine with the clay origin too. I understand its strengths and merits. My preference is purely based on my own personal filters.
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