VIDEO PHOTO David Arquette’s HUGE Wonder Woman tattoo

Actors David Arquette and Courteney Cox (seen above at their wedding reception) officially separated in October of 2010, eleven years after marrying in 1999, and David has admitted part of the reason for the break up was because Courteney wanted him to grow up. The couple’s divorce was finalized earlier this month, but back in April David went out and celebrated his imminent freedom by getting a tattoo of his favorite comic book character.

But we’re not talking about a little Superman on the wrist or a Spidey head on his shoulder, David went all out with a HUGE panel of Wonder Woman on his chest taken from comics’ Golden Age, complete with an extremely lengthy bit of text that seems philosophically well ahead of its time:

Here’s the full quote, penned by famed WW writer William Marston:

“It takes real character to admit one’s failures – and not a little wisdom to take your profits from defeat, but remember, this man’s world of yours will never be without pain and suffering until it learns love, and respect for human rights. Keep your hands extended to all in friendliness but never holding the gun of persecution and intolerance!”

Arquette first shared the above photo of his new Wonder Woman tattoo on Twitter on May 1, but flashed the tattoo recently while appearing on Bethenny Frankel’s new talk show:

Bethenny asks him if he has a new tattoo and David responds by laughing and saying, “I have several new tattoos, but the most recent one is Wonder Woman. And it’s a really big one!” Bethenny asks if she can see it, at which point David stands up and flashes the ink while explaining, “It’s from an old Wonder Woman comic. It’s huge.”

It is huge! I wonder if he plans on getting it colored in?

I tried to find an image of the original panel for comparison but had no luck. Any of our comic book savvy readers wanna help me out?

Top photo of David Arquette and Courteney Cox at their wedding reception: WENN

UDPATE – Thanks to the diligent researchers at MarvelMasterworksFansite.yuku.com we’ve tracked down the source for David Arquette’s Wonder Woman tattoo. It is from Sensation Comics #81 “When Treachery Wore a Green Shirt” originally published in September, 1948. Here’s the source panel in which you can see David’s tattoo artist flipped the image, but otherwise remained very true to the original:

And just in case that wasn’t enough background info for you, here is a brief plot summary for the 12-page comic from DCIndexes.com explaining what led up to Wonder Woman’s speech:

“Etta and the Holliday Girls visit Oakville where Dr. Frenzi is preaching hatred. Frenzi has formed a group of Green Shirts to take back America for Americans. When the attack a foreign born man named George Zenko, Etta calls Wonder Woman for help.

“Wonder Woman comes to Zenko’s aid and prevents a lynching. Frenzi then sets a trap for her after he captures the Holliday Girls. The Amazon’s bracelets are welded together, leaving her powerless. She does get a message to Steve Trevor who helps Wonder Woman break her bonds. The Amazon Princess then apprehends Frenzi and teaches the former Green Shirts tolerance for other people.”

It appears that there is some debate as to who actually wrote the quote as William Marston passed away a year before this issue was published. There are some reliable sources attributing the quote to him (which is where I got my initial information from) so some are speculating it was an inventoried story published posthumously.