CHAPTER 13: The Wonder-ous Truth: The Workings of Wonder Woman’s Lasso

This chapter explores the iconic weapon of DC Comic’s iconic super heroine: Wonder Woman’s ‘Lasso of Truth’. An unbreakable golden rope of infinite length, this magic rope will make anyone it captures submit and reveal their true motivations and answer faithfully the questions of the Lasso’s master (usually Wonder Woman herself). The Lasso is an important plot device to many Wonder Woman comics from the ‘golden age’ (c. 1938–1947), all the way to modern renderings of the Wonder Woman character. The Lasso of Truth is not only representative of the uncertain and conflicting histories that surround Wonder Woman’s mythology and history, but it also reveals much about the nature of dominance and submission (by playing into the bondage allegories that so fascinated Wonder Woman’s original creator), and the lasso also helps us explore what truth really is and how we can define it both socially and ‘scientifically’. This chapter will propose a playful answer to the question ‘How might the Lasso of Truth work?’ and in what situations might this ‘unbreakable’ device fail or become broken?