Paula von Gunther

Baroness Paula von Gunther
Baroness Paula von Gunther in JLA #8 (1997), art by Oscar Jimenez
Publication information
Publisher	DC Comics
First appearance	Sensation Comics #4 (April 1942)
Created by	William Moulton Marston, Harry G. Peter
In-story information
Abilities	Brilliant strategist and scientist; Amazon training

Baroness Paula von Gunther is a fictional character appearing in DC Comics publications and related media.

Created by William Moulton Marston as an adversary for his comic book heroine Wonder Woman in Sensation Comics #4, the Baroness would become the Amazing Amazon's first recurring enemy. 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. In the late 1990s, the Baroness was returned to her roots as a villainous Nazi mastermind, re-imagined by Wonder Woman writer/artist John Byrne as a devotee of the occult who placed her mystical knowledge at the service of the Third Reich.

A member of the noble class in pre-Republican 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. She murdered many individuals, kept a small group of women as personal slaves, tortured them routinely, was for a time the leader of all Gestapo operations in the United States, in her first appearance forced American female citizens into becoming Nazi spies at a spy school using drugs and hypnotism on some of them, attempted to kidnap a Colonel using an invisible ray on a ship while impersonating a high-society lady enabling a U-Boat to capture the people, stole Wonder Woman's lasso while she was in prison and tried to steal secrets from security officers after her previous attempts of hypnotism failed. She succeeded in capturing Wonder Woman with it and bound her hand and foot to a wooden pole using it. However Wonder Woman got of the pole and broke open a cage freeing a young boy. He untied her hands, but Gunther returned and stopped Wonder Woman by pointing a gun at her back. However Freddy lassoed Gunther, and Wonder Woman defeated 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. She discovered Wonder Woman's weakness in her first appearance, that if her bracelets were chained by a man she became 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 a railway truck, but freed herself.