We’ve been over it a million times: Jews invented comic books. And yet Wonder Woman is curiously the only major surviving property from the Golden Age without a Jewish creative team. Neither original writer William Moulton Marston nor artist H. G. Peter were Members of the Tribe (though publisher Max Gaines was).

And yet, Wonder Woman was as virulently anti-Nazi as, say, Superman or Captain America (granted, she debuted only weeks before the attack on Pearl Harbor, when it became less politically controversial to decry the Axis). Unfortunately, this often manifested itself as pretty egregious anti-Asian racism with a dose of general phobia of immigrants (ironic, since Wonder Woman herself is one). Still, the comic’s heart was the in right place, and Wonder Woman can punch Nazis with the best of them. The new Wonder Woman film plays a bit liberally with time; it introduces Diana of the Amazons to the world of men over twenty years before her first comics appearance– at the end of World War I.

And now Jews are very present in Wonder Woman’s big screen debut. Of course, everyone is talking about Gal Gadot as Diana, and it is fascinating to watch an Israeli woman in WWI-era London, when one of the results of the War is the birth of the British Mandate of Palestine. But it should be noted that the screenwriter, Allan Heinberg, is Jewish, too. And the war story he has written is free of Jewish content, but not of foreshadowing.

(Serious spoilers ahead, but if you want to go spoiler-free, we have a piece for you, too.)

In a chilling plot thread in the new film, Wonder Woman and the gang must curtail German efforts to develop a terrible poison gas that not even a gas mask can prevent. A villain, as a demonstration, attacks a local village with the new weapon. Diana rushes in to save them, but it’s too late. The film is sensitive enough to not show us the carnage, but Diana reports that everyone is dead. The scene has obviously drawn comparisons to modern-day Syria, but seeing a Jewish woman lament over the civilian gas deaths in the first half of the twentieth century also has undeniable echoes of the Holocaust.

In this movie, Diana is convinced that Ares, the God of War, has been influencing mankind to fight the Great War. When she finally is face-to-face with him, he tells her that while he inspired new weapons (especially, yes, chemical ones), he did nothing to encourage their use. Humanity did that on their own, therefore, it is inherently corrupt, and deserving of its own destruction. Diana, based on her limited experience in the world, decides that while mankind is flawed, they are also capable of great complexity, and worth saving. So, she kills Ares, and as she had hoped, the War ends shortly thereafter.

In the end of the film, it’s insinuated that Diana is near-immortal and eternally young; when we see her present-day, she’s working (both in and out of costume) in Paris. So this begs the question… what was she up to during World War II? What does it mean that Ares is gone and war only grows more deadly, in technology, and arguably in cruelty? What would it have meant to see a Jewish Wonder Woman fight through World War II onscreen… but will we still have that chance?

Director Patty Jenkins claims that the Wonder Woman sequel will take place in the United States, so even if it is a World War II film, Diana is likely to be more removed from atrocities this time around. While WWI was rooted in political discord and tensions between nations brought to a violent head, WWII was a more clear-cut case of good vs. evil– the sort of black-and-white morality that Diana just spent an entire movie learning seldom exists in the real world.

We’ll wait and see. Honestly, as long as Gal Gadot gets to punch a Nazi, the rest will be a cherry on top.

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Poor Wonder Woman. Not poor Diana of the Amazons; she can take care of herself. But seldom does a commercial film carry so much weight of larger significance as the new superhero(ine) flick. Every aspect of what the movie says about gender, and what it means for women in the media, has come under scrutiny.

And on top of it all, there’s the political aspect of its star, Gal Gadot, as an Israeli. Political, as in, the entire country of Lebanon has banned the film because of the background of its star. But on a smaller scale, Gadot’s social media posts about Hamas, the IDF, and her national identity have also sparked debate and controversy, often linked to her very visible position playing the female embodiment of justice.

But the point of the Wonder Woman film is that no humans are pure, that no adult has all the answers. The film is a coming-of-age story for Diana, princess of the Amazons, as she has to grapple with the monstrosities that occur in a human world that also fascinates her.

In the film (and the comics, more or less) Diana comes from a society that’s defined by the notion of self-defense and survival, but hasn’t had to actually had to take up arms in an obscenely long time (possibly millennia?). As their princess, Diana considers war an abomination, but also loves the idea of getting a chance to kick some ass. And whaddya know! World War I happens to be raging, and the Amazonian gets her chance to leave her island for the first time and join the fray. But of course, of all the wars in human history, the Great War is known as being particularly brutal and bloody, as well as morally and politically complicated.

Diana quickly assumes that Germany is under the corrupting influence of Ares, the god of war. But as someone raised with war as an abstract, she begins to become confused by even hints of moral relativism or nuance. Why are some British officials resistant to the Armistice? What is the point of trench warfare? Why can’t she stop and save everyone she encounters along the way to her ultimate goal of ending the war? While the film mostly avoids the trope of a physically mature woman with childlike intellect, Diana’s questions sound like a child learning about present-day conflicts, like Syria, or yes, Israel-Palestine.

Eventually, disillusioned, she comes to the conclusion that Ares is not only influencing the Central Powers, but the Allies as well. As an independent agent representing only peace and justice, how can she ally herself with either cause?

Without spoilers, you might argue that the film is a bit muddled in its resolution of the matter, but it’s fascinating that it brings them up in the first place. And seeing a former Israeli soldier at its center is poignant; now, 50 years after one of Israel’s most significant, and controversial wars, grappling with unimaginable complexity remains at the heart of political discourse about Israel-Palestine.

Every person involved in a real-world conflict would like to be Diana, and would like to be a hero facing a villain, as if the battle is no longer worth fighting without moral purity. But even Diana, through the mouth of an Israeli, comes to see that situational simplicity is, at best, a luxury.

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