Wonder Woman’s Lasso Of Truth Has Even More Powers Than You Know

Anyone even vaguely familiar with Wonder Woman knows that probably her most iconic weapon is her Lasso of Truth. The lasso’s primary function is to ensnare her enemies and, well, compel them to tell the truth (it’s a fitting name). But in Wonder Woman 1984, the lasso is seen catching bullets in midair and allowing her to thwip off of lighting bolts like she’s Spider-Man. But what is the lasso capable of doing in comics? The answer is a lot and some of it is pretty weird.

The lasso made its first appearance in Sensation Comics #6 in 1942 and was gifted to Diana from her mother, Queen Hippolyta. The lasso is made out of the chain links of a magic girdle belonging to the Greek goddess Aphrodite. It’s, according to Hippolyta, “flexible as a rope, but strong enough to hold Hercules!” In its debut appearance, the lasso not only forces its captors to speak the truth, but also casts a sort of obedience spell on them, forcing them to follow all of Wonder Woman’s commands. But that was only the beginning of the lasso’s capabilities.

Early on in her comic book career, Diana Prince would swirl the lasso around herself, which, somehow, changed her street cloths into her famous star spangled costume. The comics explain it away as her clothing being coated in a “special solution” that reacts to the lasso’s vibrations. It doesn’t make much sense, but it’s better than ruining all your shirts like Superman. Just like in WW84, in Wonder Woman #225,  the titular hero actually does catch a bolt of lightning… kind of. The bolt was actually a weapon being utilized by a business tycoon who was looking to drain Diana of her powers and charisma to inject them into himself, because comics were even more insane back in the day than they are now. In an issue that would be incredibly cringey by modern standards, Steve Trevor gets hold of the lasso in Wonder Woman #167 and compels Diana into agreeing to marry him (luckily it didn’t play out that way).

All of this is really just scratching the surface of what Wonder Woman’s lasso has done over the decades. She’s used it to move Earth when it fell out of orbit in JLA #75, she lassoed the sun in Wonder Woman #21, and even once used it to brainwash the DC equivalent of… Judy Garland? Basically, the limits of what the Lasso of Truth is capable of seems to be bound by nothing but the writers’ imagination.

So while it may have been a little bit jarring for casual fans to see Wonder Woman using her signature lasso to propel herself from one lightning bolt to another in her latest movie, viewers can rest assured that that’s probably pretty much the least weird thing she could have used it for.

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