Lessons from Wonder Woman
In Wonder Woman (Rebirth) Vol. 1: The Lies, amidst the shifting sands of her own story, Diana speaks plainly: "The first casualty of war is truth." It is a line that lingers, less as an epiphany and more as a quiet recognition of something we’ve already suspected. War, whether waged between nations, within communities, or across the contested territories of identity and belief, requires distortions. It thrives on revised histories, selective memories, and the relentless erosion of what is knowable.
When
The Lies opens, Wonder Woman stands in a landscape where her past has been
tampered with. Competing versions of her origin pull against each other. What
was once certain is now obscured. The facts of her own becoming, her home, her
mission, her nature, have been rewritten. She finds herself, like many of us,
caught in the confusion of narratives, aware that something essential had been
taken or hidden away, but with no clear path back to it.
This
is not merely the predicament of a superhero within a comic book. It is the
condition of life in a world saturated with conflicting accounts. We are
surrounded daily by the mechanics of distortion and erasure. In current events,
we see the consequences. When facts become flexible, justice becomes fragile.
Accountability falters when a populace is taught to distrust its own perception
of reality. The ongoing violence in Gaza, the destruction and resilience in
Ukraine, the recursive battles over the narratives of January 6th, the
deliberate targeting of trans lives through legislation and media--these are
not only conflicts of policy or territory, but of truth itself. Who controls
the story controls the stakes.
There
is nothing abstract about this. The distortion of truth precedes real harm. A
policy built on false premises, a vote cast in fear of imagined threats, a life
endangered because someone's existence was recast as ideology- all of these
begin with the manipulation of what people believe to be real.
Each
of us may be Wonder Woman. We, too, must navigate the labyrinth of altered
histories and weaponized language. We are tasked, as she is, with the work of
discernment. Not to find "the one truth" as if it waits buried and
whole, but to piece together enough of the real to act with integrity. Diana is
not paralyzed by the loss of certainty. She moves forward, aware that truth
must be pursued, defended, and sometimes even rebuilt from the wreckage.
This
is the quiet, enduring labor of those who refuse to accept falsehood as the
price of survival. It is the work of journalists who continue to report under
threat. Of historians who insist on preserving records that others would erase.
Of individuals who choose, every day, to live openly in societies that
legislate against their existence.
Each
of us is positioned in this same responsibility in ways large and small. The
fight for truth is rarely dramatic. It happens in conversations with neighbors,
in the careful reading of headlines, in the refusal to share what feels
convenient over what is accurate. It happens when someone decides that history
is worth preserving and when another chooses to tell their own story despite
the risks of being disbelieved.
If
truth is the first casualty, it is also the most necessary restoration. Not as
an abstract ideal, but as a living practice. One that we create and sustain
together. Diana's example is not in her invincibility, but in her refusal to
stand aside as the ground shifts beneath her. She reminds us that to persist in
seeking what has been hidden or distorted is, itself, an act of defiance.
In
this way, Wonder Woman remains a figure for our moment, perhaps movement, as a
symbol of resilience and a companion in the shared struggle to remember, to
question, and to repair what has been broken.
