Baroness Paula von Gunther is a fictional character appearing in DC Comics publications and related media, commonly as a foe of the superhero Wonder Woman. She debuted in 1942's Sensation Comics (vol. 1) #4, written by Wonder Woman creator William Moulton Marston and illustrated by Harry G. Peter, and holds a distinction as Wonder Woman's first recurring adversary. Though in her earliest appearances she was a cold-blooded Nazi spy and saboteur, the Baroness would reform into Wonder Woman's ally (albeit one who occasionally lapsed into villainy), appearing in Wonder Woman stories throughout the Golden, Silver and Bronze Age of Comics. After DC Comics rebooted its continuity in 1985 (in a publication event known as the Crisis on Infinite Earths), Wonder Woman, her supporting characters and many of her foes were re-imagined and reintroduced. Though initially absent in this revised set of storylines, the Baroness would eventually be reintroduced to the continuity in 1998 by Wonder Woman writer/artist John Byrne who returned the character to her roots as a villainous Nazi mastermind. Re-imagined by Byrne as a devotee of the occult who placed her mystical knowledge at the service of the Third Reich, she became a vessel for the malevolent supernatural entity Dark Angel.
The Baroness has been adapted into several Wonder Woman-related television projects. She was played by Christine Belford in 1976 on the live-action ABC TV series Wonder Woman, and voiced by Eliza Schneider in the 2011 Warner Bros animated series Batman: The Brave and the Bold.
Fictional character biography
Pre-Crisis
Golden Age
A member of the noble class in pre-National Socialist Germany with the rank of Baroness, Paula von Gunther first appeared as a foe of Wonder Woman. She battled the Amazon numerous times as an agent of the Gestapo. Her many crimes include murdering many individuals, keeping a small group of women as personal slaves and torturing them routinely, was for a time the leader of all Gestapo operations in the United States, forcing American female citizens into becoming Nazi spies, attempting to kidnap a Colonel using an invisible ray on a ship while impersonating a high-society lady and stealing Wonder Woman's lasso while trying to steal secrets from security officers. She succeeded in capturing Wonder Woman with it and bound her hand and foot to a wooden pole using it. However Wonder Woman got off the pole and broke open a cage freeing a young boy named Freddy. He untied her hands, but Gunther returned and stopped Wonder Woman by pointing a gun at her back. Freddy lassoed Gunther, and Wonder Woman stopped her plan. She once tried to monopolize America's milk supply and charge high prices for it so that its people would have weak bones and fall before the stronger-boned Nazis after buying all the milk of a company for five years with seven million dollars. In her first appearance she discovered Wonder Woman's weakness, which is if her bracelets were chained by a man she becomes as weak as an ordinary woman. While monopolizing milk, her men lassoed Wonder Woman and bound her hand and foot with chains. She was bound to railway tracks, but was able to free herself.
Von Gunther was finally captured and revealed that she had worked for the Nazis because they held her daughter Gerta captive. Von Gunther reformed and pledged her loyalty to Wonder Woman after Gerta was rescued. Von Gunther even put her own life in peril to save Wonder Woman from a burning munitions plant, suffering third-degree burns and a horribly scarred face.
Von Gunther went to trial, but Wonder Woman acted as her defense and got her off. Murder charges had to be thrown out on double jeopardy, because Paula had previously been tried, convicted and executed for that crime in the electric chair, but her henchmen had revived her with an electrical machine she had invented after the Doctor gave her body to them (Sensation Comics #7). Von Gunther later escaped by tying up a guard and stealing her uniform, but was later recaptured by Wonder Woman. While in custody, Von Gunther risked her own life to stop a bomb from going off inside a munitions factory, and was burned as a result. Wonder Woman revealed Paula's scarred face to the jury, which was moved by Paula's heroic self-sacrifice and acquitted her of the remaining espionage and sabotage charges (Wonder Woman #3).