Summary

• Wonder Woman's lasso can compel obedience, dispel evil gods, and break language barriers.
• The lasso of truth can regenerate Wonder Woman and generate destructive flames.
• It can see through illusions, break mind control, and crush a person's soul when used by Genocide.

One of the most iconic weapons in superhero comics is Wonder Woman's lasso of truth. It's been parodied for years and is instantly recognizable. While everyone knows that the lasso of truth can compel people to tell the truth, not many people know the actual extent of its powers.

Superman has dozens of powers between his super strength, super speed, flight, heat vision, and ice breath. Likewise, Batman has an unbelievable amount of gadgets that he uses for every situation under the sun. While Wonder Woman has varied powers, such as super speed and strength, most people believe her lasso of truth can only compel the truth from people. But this isn't true: the lasso of truth is just as varied as Superman's powers or Batman's gadgets, and most people don't know just how powerful Wonder Woman's lasso is.

10 The Lasso of Truth Originally Compelled Obedience

Sensation Comics #6 by William Moulton Marston and Harry G. Peter

Wonder Woman's lasso of truth is well known for causing anyone ensnared by it to tell the truth and answer questions honestly. But this only became true after Infinite Crisis. Before then, when the lasso first showed up in Sensation Comics #6, it actually compelled obedience. While entrapped by the lasso, someone would have to obey Wonder Woman's every word. This included telling the truth, naturally, but was certainly not limited to that. When Wonder Woman tries to leave Themyscira, a young Amazon wants to follow her. Using the lasso of truth, Diana orders the Amazon to stay behind, which she is compelled to obey.

It makes sense why DC eventually nerfed this power, as having a lasso that could just command anyone to do literally anything would have been an unbelievably powerful item. When Wonder Woman was just dealing with low-level criminals and bank robbers, bossing them around wasn't much of a problem, but being able to command Darkseid or Brainiac into doing whatever she wanted would've made Wonder Woman one of the most powerful characters in the DC Universe.

9 Gods and Evil Spirits Can Be Bound by the Lasso of Truth

Wonder Woman #7 by Greg Rucka, Liam Sharp, Laura Martin, and Jodi Wynne

One of the more surprising abilities that the lasso of truth has is to bind and dispel evil Gods or spirits. During Wonder Woman #7, Wonder Woman faces off against the dark God Urzkartaga. Urzkartaga has a cult of women who worship and attend to him, but Diana correctly deduces that he does this out of fear, because women hold true power over him. With this in mind, Diana tosses her lasso of truth to Cheetah and the women Urzkartaga had kidnapped.

Using the lasso together, the group is able to dispel Urzkartaga from the mortal realm, completely obliterating the dark god — at least for the time being. It's one of the more useful and unique powers that Wonder Woman's lasso of truth has. Considering just how many evil gods Wonder Woman often goes up against, the ability to simply dispel them is a major benefit.

8 The Lasso of Truth Can Translate and Break Down Any Language Barrier

Wonder Woman #10 by Greg Rucka, Nicola Scott, Romulo Fajardo Jr, and Jodi Wynne

While some characters might be okay with just jumping in and throwing punches, Wonder Woman prefers to try and solve things peacefully if possible. This method requires diplomacy, which is best achieved through talking out problems. But this isn't always easily done, especially with the massive language barriers across countries or even planets. Thankfully, the lasso of truth has the power to unify all languages. While holding the lasso, someone can be perfectly understood, regardless of what language they're speaking and no matter how forgotten or unknown the language is.

Considering just how often the Justice League goes into outer space to deal with alien races, this ability alone makes Diana an invaluable member of the team, since even Green Lantern's power ring can fail to translate a language if it's unknown. The lasso of truth, on the other hand, can do that translation work — on Earth and beyond.

7 Wonder Woman Used to Need the Lasso of Truth to Fly

Wonder Woman #98 by Robert Kanigher, Ross Andru, and Mike Esposito

One of the most bizarre and famous things about Wonder Woman is her invisible jet. While it may seem weird that Wonder Woman has an invisible jet when she can fly on her own, this is because she actually couldn't fly originally. Much like Superman could only leap tall buildings (in a single bound), Wonder Woman couldn't fly at all. She needed to either use her invisible jet or use her lasso of truth to get around.

With the lasso of truth, she'd either spin the lasso around like a propeller to try and move, or she'd lasso something that was already flying and tag along for the ride. It wasn't the most glorious way to get around, but back in the early days of the Golden Age of Comics, these were the only options Wonder Woman had.

6 The Lasso of Truth Can Generate the Fires of Hestia, Which Incinerate Most Enemies

Blackest Night: Wonder Woman #1 by Greg Rucka, Nicola Scott, Prentis Rollins, Jonathan Glapion, Walden Wong, Drew Geraci, Nei Ruffino, and Travis Lanham

Surprisingly, the lasso of truth can create the flames of Hestia. This ability ignites the length of the lasso with divine flames and is often used by Wonder Woman to create a barrier of safety. During Blackest Night: Wonder Woman, she incinerates an army of zombies with the flames of Hestia. The flames have even proved effective against divine beings, such as Hermes. While the lasso of truth has dozens of powers, the flames of Hestia are one of Wonder Woman's most outright destructive abilities. She doesn't bring out the flames often, but when she does, Wonder Woman's lasso of truth proves why it's the strongest weapon in the DCU.

5 Wonder Woman's Lasso of Truth Can Dispel Illusions

JLA Classified #14 by Warren Ellis, Jackson Guice, David Baron, and Phil Baisman

While the lasso of truth is often used to simply compel people to tell the truth, its ability to actually see the truth goes much further than this. Wonder Woman can see through all forms of lies and deception, including illusions. This was shown off in JLA Classified #14, where the Justice League was battling a robotic god known as Z, who used small drones that would force the heroes to see their worst fears. This was a truly hellish experience for the majority of the JLA, but Wonder Woman used the lasso of truth to see through these illusions, allowing her to break free in a major turning point in the battle against Z.

4 Wonder Woman Can Use the Lasso of Truth to Regenerate

Wonder Woman #4 by George Pérez, Len Wein, Bruce D. Patterson, Costanza, and Tatjana Wood

Wonder Woman is incredibly durable and has managed to fist-fight Superman and survive. It's absurdly hard to damage her, which is only compounded by the fact she can use the lasso of truth to regenerate. While fighting a being who has the power to cause decay, after Wonder Woman has the life sucked out of her, she's able to regenerate by using the lasso of truth.

Because the lasso was forged using the girdle of Gaea, just as Gaea rejuvenates the Earth, the lasso can also rejuvenate Wonder Woman. This completely heals her wounds and reverses all the damage that Decay caused, making it an absurdly powerful ability that is rarely used.

3 The Lasso of Truth Can Break Mind Control by Forcing People to See Their Truth

Wonder Woman #175 by Phil Jimenez, Brandon Badeaux, Andy Lanning, Lary Stucker, Jose Marzan Jr, Kevin Conrad, Mario Alquiza, Patricia Mulvihill, Tom McCraw, and Comicraft

The lasso of truth entirely revolves around the concept of truth: it compels people to tell the truth and breaks illusions — but not all lies are told to other people. Oftentimes, people will lie to themselves for one reason or another. The lasso can also cut through these lies, and whether a person is lying to themselves intentionally or not, the lasso can see through it.

When Superman was cursed and transforming into Doomsday, Wonder Woman used her lasso of truth to make him who he truly was. Instead of simply trying to match Superman in strength and beating him unconscious, she leads Superman to his own truth and helps him resist the transformation.

2 Wonder Woman Used to Transform Using the Lasso of Truth

Wonder Woman #212 by Len Wein, Curt Swan, and Tex Blaisdell

While it's not shown or brought up much in contemporary comics, one of the most iconic parts of being a superhero was the costume change — especially for Wonder Woman. Readers loved seeing their heroes go from civilian identity to superhero identity. There's no better example of this than Superman's iconic phone booth quick-change, but Wonder Woman's transformation is a close second.

When it was time for Diana to suit up as Wonder Woman, she'd either do the classic Lynda Carter spin to transform —or she'd spin the lasso around herself to don her iconic costume. The lasso would completely remove any clothing she was wearing and replace it with the Wonder Woman outfit. Perhaps it's time for this costume change to return to Wonder Woman canon.

1 The Most Dangerous Lasso Power Can Crush a Person's Soul

Wonder Woman #27 by Gail Simone, Aaron Lopresti, Matt Ryan, Brad Anderson, and Travis Lanham

The biggest secret Wonder Woman ever kept was just how powerful the lasso of truth truly is. While its ability to compel the truth from its "victims" is often underestimated, people generally know the extent of what it can do. Wonder Woman specifically kept hidden just how destructive the lasso can be, but unfortunately, the Wonder Woman villain Genocide had no problem revealing its destructive potential.

When Genocide had the lasso, she used it to directly attack a target's soul. She used this to instantly defeat Green Lantern and attempted to use it to dominate Wonder Woman, who was only saved by Donna Troy. This is by far the most powerful and dangerous ability that the lasso of truth has.