Wonder Woman at the Moment

At the moment, Wonder Woman is the most powerful superhero in DC Comics and, arguably, in all of comics.

In DC Comics, there are many worlds and universes; there are many versions of each superhero, e.g., Superman of Earth-1, Batman of Earth-2, et al.

The many versions got too complicated that DC rebooted its Universe in 1985 with the 12-part series Crisis on Infinite Earths.  DC Comics rebooted again in 2011 with The New 52, and again in 2016 with DC Rebirth.

For each reboot, the origin and herstory or history of each character changed.

At no time was Wonder Woman the center of DC’s reboot until last year with Dark Nights: Death Metal, a 7-part cross-over series which concluded on 5 January 2021.¹

The main villain in Dark Knights is an evil Batman called Darkest Knight who had Crisis energy powering him.  Wonder Woman, with the help of friends and her magic lasso, was upgraded to possess Anti-Crisis energy.  Crisis or Anti-Crisis energy harks back to Crisis on Infinite Earths.  Darkest Knight and Wonder Woman (now golden-clad) traded blows, hurtling them through time and space.  At one point, they landed in the time of dinosaurs.  At another, Wonder Woman shrank an Earth (already vanquished by Darkest Knight) and threw it at the evil Batman.  Marvel Comics’ Thanos (Avengers: Endgame) or DC Comics’ own Darkseid is no match for either Darkest Knight or golden-clad Wonder Woman.

While Darkest Knight and Wonder Woman clashed, Superman fought an evil version of himself, the good Batman fought against an evil Robin, etc.

Wonder Woman’s victory saved worlds and multiverses.

Wonder Woman first appeared in 1941 in All Star Comics #8, although her beginnings can be traced back to as early as the 1910s, inspired by the suffrage movement and Amazon-related works.²  She had been named “Diana” by 1937.³

Wonder Woman was created by William Moulton Marston to be the trump card for every powerful man: She was as strong as Superman, or as fast as the Flash.  No man could beat her.  When Superman survived the atomic bomb,^{4, 5} Wonder Woman survived the H bomb.⁶

Aside from being a psychologist who popularized psychology for the masses, Marston was also a lawyer, so I expect that’s the reason why he was able to have great control over his character (over how Wonder Woman was treated) at a time when comic book companies completely called the shots.

After nearly 80 years, Wonder Woman is no. 1 again.  Until when?  Until such time sexists (men or women) think they’ve had enough of woman power and start to relegate Wonder Woman to male superheroes again.  In short, we won’t have to wait a long time.

 

Notes

¹Scott Snyder (w) and Greg Capullo, et al. (a).  Dark Nights: Death Metal #7 (Mar. 2021), DC Comics.

[released on 5 January 2021]

²Jill Lepore.  The Secret History of Wonder Woman.  New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2014.  xiii, 86.

[Other works can be cited directly but Lepore summarizes them succinctly.]

³Trina Robbins.  The Great Women Superheroes.  Northampton, MA: Kitchen Sink Press, 1996.  2-14.  Excerpt rpt . in The Superhero Reader.  Eds. Charles Hatfield, Jeet Heer and Kent Worcester.  Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 2013.  53-60.

⁴“The Battle of the Atoms!”  Superman #38 (Jan.-Feb. 1946), Superman, Inc. [DC Comics]. 

[Superman was thrown a small atomic bomb to his chest.] 

 

⁵“Crime Paradise!”  Action Comics #101 (Oct. 1946), Detective Comics, Inc. [DC Comics].

[Here Superman survives a full-on atomic bomb explosion.]

⁶“Wonder Woman – The World’s Most Dangerous Human!”  Wonder Woman #95 (Jan. 1958), National Comics Publications, Inc. [DC Comics].

[This issue was written by Robert Kanigher.  Marston died in 1947 but he did make Wonder Woman perform Superman’s feats during his time like running against a locomotive, jumping high, etc.  Wonder Woman had not yet been relegated to a male superhero at the time of this issue’s publication.]