 Paradise
Island - Paradise Island - Mysterious Island seen on the
fantasy adventure series WONDER WOMAN/ABC/CBS/1976-79.
Located at 30 degrees 22' North, 60 degrees 47' West, Paradise
Island is the home of Wonder Woman (Lynda Carter) and her mother
Queen Hippolyte (Carolyn Jones) who reign over a race of super
Amazonian women who derive their great strength from the prolonged
exposure to a rare element known as "Feminum" which is unique to
Paradise Island. Wonder Woman's bracelets (made of Feminum) could
deflect bullets.The island's location was protected from the prying eyes of
outsiders from light refracted over the island. Queen Hippolyta said
of the island "There are no men here. It is free of their wars and
barbaric ways. We live in peace and sisterhood."
TRIVIA NOTE: The Wonder Woman
character first appeared in Golden age comic books in All-Star
Comics Vol. 1 #8 (Winter 1941-42) and later in the post golden age
comic The Flash Vol. 1 #137 (July 1963).
According to the comic history, Wonder Woman was immortal as long as
she remained on Paradise Island. If she left the island, she would
loose her immortality and began to age (but at a rate slower than
normal mortals).
Everything that Wonder Woman is comes from the soil of the Paradise
Island because Wonder Woman was created from the clay of Paradise
Island when Hippolyte who longed for a child was instructed by the
goddess Aphrodite to mold the image of a child from the island's
clay. The clay form was imbued with life and Hippolyte named her
child Diana after the Roman name for Artemis, goddess of the hunt.
Wonder Woman received her immortality when she drank from Paradise
Island's fountain of eternal youth.
The one caveat of the island: No men allowed. Why? Well, according
to legend some says that a huge tidal wave will engulf the island if
men visits the island while another suggests that the God Zeus will
reign down thunderbolts to blast the island to cinders, if a man
ever set foot on the island.
The true reason is revealed in Wonder Woman No. 216 when Queen Hippolyte tells female superhero Black Canary (a.k.a. Dinah Lance)
that men are forbidden on Paradise Island because "any Amazon seeing
a man standing on their island will instantly fall hopelessly in
love with him. So much so, in fact, that they begin to fight amongst
each other until the peaceful and loving Amazons are reduced to
barbarians." When the Black Canary delivered her report to the
Justice League, she left out the secret she learned.
The issue that revealed
the secret of Paradise Island
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