I am neither knowledgeable nor a big fan of comic books, largely because in my youth, the impressionable years, I was in Sri Lanka where comics were expensive and hard to get. So while I had read the odd issue of Superman and Batman, all the others were unknown to me, although I had heard the names.

So I was not sure if I wanted to watch the interview that Stephen Colbert had with Harvard historian Jill Lepore about her new book that looks at the history of Wonder Woman and her creator. But I am glad I did because I found it quite fascinating, dealing as it does with the mixture of the life of the creator of the character and the suffrage and birth control movements.

(This clip aired on October 29, 2014. To get suggestions on how to view clips of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report outside the US, please see this earlier post. If the videos autoplay, please see here for a diagnosis and possible solutions.)