Wonder Woman Lied While Using the Lasso of Truth And Now We’re Questioning Everything

Wonder Woman’s Lasso of Truth is one of, if not the most iconic weapon in all of DC. This golden thread, uncurled from the very harp of Hera herself, is an unbreakable fiber that can bind anyone and anything it is wrapped around. The Golden Perfect has the power to extract the truth from whoever is bound by it, and none are able to resist its order to recite the objective, irresistible truth they believe. It’s even been shown to have the power to break people from mind control and return people to their true forms when altered. Nobody can resist its power. And yet, somehow, Wonder Woman lied while wrapped in the Lasso.

There’s Been a Murder on Olympus

It all started in Wonder Woman volume 6 #20, when Diana received a call that the War God Ares had been murdered, and her mother was the prime suspect. Naturally, Wonder Woman didn’t believe her mother was the one to do it, but his body was found in her bed, with her dagger sticking out of his back, so it’s fairly hard to argue. Needing help solving what really happened, Diana called in the World’s (second) Greatest Detective himself. Wonder Woman and Batman traveled to Olympus, and although Zeus initially refused to allow them to investigate, saying he saw no point in dragging this out, Batman made a deal with the king of the gods. If they could not prove Hippolyta didn’t do it in 24-hours, Batman will be sacrificed in Zeus’s honor.

With the threat of Batman’s death hanging over them the two began their investigation, looking into which gods would have motive to get rid of Ares. Their investigation led them to learn Ares was last seen leaving with Aphrodite, but questioning her only told Batman that she didn’t do it. Unfortunately, before they could continue Batman was struck down by a bolt of lightning. Zeus claimed it was stolen, but refused to extend their time limit, leaving Diana to puzzle it out alone. Issue #21 provided the answer, when Aphrodite told Wonder Woman that her and Ares were not sleeping together, but rather that he would come to her to be held as he cried. With this final piece of the puzzle, she confronted the person who would have the biggest problem with their emotional closeness.

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Wonder Woman marched to Hephaestus’s forge, where she told him she knew what he’d done. Aphrodite had gossiped to Dionysus about Ares’s tearful visit, which Dionysus told Hephaestus. The god could not stand the thought of his wife comforting another man, and passed the information along to Zeus, who slayed his son for the crime of showing weakness to a woman. Of course, Hephaestus refuses to be exposed so readily and revealed he could control Diana’s Lasso of Truth, given he forged it. He gloated how she would be choked out by her own artifact, only for Diana to smile and say Batman was behind him. Hephaestus whirled around, finding no one, and Diana brought the god down. Batman was never there. Wrapped in the Lasso of Truth, Diana lied.

The Lasso of Truth Isn’t All Powerful

While the fact that Diana managed to overpower her own Lasso is utterly baffling, there is some precedence for this. Earlier on in this very run, Wonder Woman overcame the Sovereign’s Lasso of Lies, resisting its attempt to override who she is with a false image. Similarly, in issue #20 Wonder Woman noted how she was unsure if it would work on the gods, as it was their power from which it originated. There is logic in assuming that, given her only nature as a daughter of a goddess and being forged from the clay of Gaia herself, Diana wields some natural resistance to the power of the Lassos. It could also be that her will grew so strong in resisting the Lasso of Lies that no artifact has the ability to alter her mind in any way she doesn’t choose. When Batman questioned her about it, she said the Lasso was more powerful than Olympus, but not more powerful than her.

However, I still find anyone resisting the Lasso of Truth really weird, and I’m not the biggest fan of it. Wonder Woman resisted the Lasso of Lies because she is the champion of truth. She overwrote the Sovereign’s distorted story with a truth that could never be challenged, and even then she had the assistance of her godly mother. Wonder Woman isn’t a liar, so her being able to do so while bound in an artifact that represents the physical nature of the very thing she stands for feels wrong on some levels. Also, as a side note, why was Hephaestus scared of Batman being behind him? Sure, I’d be scared of that, but Hephaestus is a god. Regardless, Wonder Woman has shown that her Lasso has no impact on her, which means we’re in all new territory. Either the Lasso of Truth is less powerful than we thought, or Wonder Woman is on a whole different level than anything we’ve seen before.

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