When Marston shows Amazons tying each other up, as in the second image from the comics above, the lesbian connotations are absolutely intentional, and intended to appeal to women. This is especially the case since Marston lived in a polyamorous relationship with two almost certainly bisexual women: his wife, Elizabeth Marston, and their lover, Olive Byrne. Marston was always aware, and appealing to, a female viewer as well as to a male one. In the first Marston/Peter image above, for example, the guy tying Wonder Woman up is showing more skin than she is male bodies in Marston are often as sexualized as female ones. But in this case, Cho’s sexy and Marston’s sexy are inflected in very different ways. You could argue that sexualized Wonder Woman is sexualized Wonder Woman, whatever the intentions. He’s just flipping up her skirt as a fan service reveal. Cho is not (I’m pretty sure) flipping up Wonder Woman’s skirt in order to usher in the feminist utopia. In the first place, obviously, Cho’s intentions are a lot different than Marston’s were. So, Frank Cho’s butt shot is the true essence of Wonder Woman, while Greg Rucka has betrayed her creator? Well, not exactly. For Marston, erotic play with the lasso replaced violence, just as peaceful rule by female love leaders would eventually replace violent male patriarchy. It symbolized woman’s erotic power … and allowed for lots of kinky bondage imagery, of course.

Wonder Woman’s lasso – an obvious and quite conscious yonic symbol – was originally a lasso, not of truth, but of control.

Marston saw Wonder Woman as a prototype of female “love leaders” who, through erotic oomph, could institute a peaceful matriarchal utopia. Men, he believed, exercised power through violent subjugation women exercised power through erotically tinged persuasion. He believed that women were superior to men. Marston was a psychologist with very particular, idiosyncratic views on sexuality. In his eyes, kink was the pathway to a utopian pacifist matriarchy. Upskirt: the Frank Cho cover for Wonder Woman.

Wonder Woman by Greg Rucka