Wonder Woman's Lasso of Truth Has An Unexpected Real Life Prototype
Wonder Woman and her Lasso of Truth have a much more interesting history than you might think.
In the 1940s, William Marston Doctor of Psychology at the time, became interested in comics and began a career in the entertainment industry.
It all started with the 1940 article Don't Laugh at Comics, in which Marston pointed out the high educational potential of comics.
Marston was noticed by Max Gaines, a pioneer in the creation of modern comics. In the 1940s, the comic book industry was struggling.
Male superheroes were already boring, and Max Gaines was looking for an update and asked Marston to come up with some fresh ideas. So in 1941, Marston's new creation, the Wonder Woman Diana, was born.
Marston was a pro-feminist who studied Greek literature as a young man.
He took an ancient story to illustrate the idea of women's rights and created a female superhero as strong as her male counterparts, but with the intelligence, kindness, and charm of a woman.
It was an act of courage in the '40s. No wonder Marston was afraid to publish it under his own name and chose the pseudonym Charles Moulton.
In addition to swords and other weapons, he armed Diana with the Lasso of Truth, which forced anyone caught in it to tell the truth.
This choice of weapon was no accident. Marston was interested in how people lie. For years, he has been working on a device that would be able to tell whether a person is lying or telling the truth.
The first version of the lie detector appeared in 1921, but did not work very well. Marston's final idea was inspired by his first wife, Olivia.
She once shared with him the observation that her blood pressure rose when she was angry or excited. It was then that Marston realized there was a connection between lying and blood pressure.
Marston took out a loan to conduct laboratory experiments and in 1923 introduced the first working polygraph, which is still in use today.
Inspired by the polygraph, he gave Diana her own lie detector in the form of a magical Lasso of Truth that would force anyone caught in it to tell the truth.
In this way, one man combined comics and science in such a bizarre way that Diana is still one of the most popular superheroes, and the polygraph is still used to catch criminals (though not as an evidence in court).