History of Wonder Woman - Part 4
Friday, November 30, 2007 at 01:08AM This is the conclusion of the History of Wonder Woman, continued from Part 3.
This essay is part of my Wonder Woman Files covering Diana's full history.
INFINITE CRISIS
The DC universe was in a bad state. In a couple of instances, heroes betrayed those who thought they were trusted comrades, believing they were working for a greater good. Batman, having grown steadily more paranoid over the past few years, created an artificially intelligent satellite called Brother I (which later renamed itself as “Brother Eye”) as a monitoring system to keep watch on all heroes in case they ever went rogue. But Maxwell Lord, formerly an ally to the Justice League, turned out to be a power-hungry madman and took over Brother Eye for his own means. In an effort to prove that superhumans were too dangerous to be trusted, Maxwell Lord took hypnotic control of Superman and forced the hero to go rogue, hospitalizing Batman and then attacking Wonder Woman. In Superman’s mind, he didn’t see Diana but rather Doomsday, his old enemy who was back and had just killed his wife Lois. Afterwards, Lord planned to unleash Superman on the world.
Knowing she couldn’t break this delusion and fearful of what Superman would do if he couldn’t be stopped, how many lives he would take, Wonder Woman wrapped Maxwell Lord up in her lasso and demanded answers. She asked if there were a way to completely free Superman from his control. Forced to tell the truth, Maxwell Lord simply said, "Kill me."
And Diana snapped his neck.
Superman was free from his hypnotic spell but was shocked at what Diana had done, despite her argument that it was the only sure way to end things. Batman, valuing life as highly as Superman, considered Diana’s action a betrayal. As if the disappointment of her friends was not bad enough, Brother Eye had actually broadcast footage of Diana’s actions across the world but without sound. The human race saw Wonder Woman tie up a well-known businessman and then snap his neck in cold blood without any context to help them understand why.
Wishing revenge for the death of Maxwell Lord, its leader, Brother Eye sent OMACs (soldiers designed to take on superhumans) to Themyscira. An army of such beings came down on Themyscira and many Amazons died. Seeing that they were going to lose, the Amazons appealed to their gods. It turned out the gods and goddesses were going to leave Earth’s plane of existence, due to events during the Infinite Crisis crossover (such as the fact that magical energies all over the universe were now more chaotic thanks to the actions of the Spectre, who’d been manipulated into trying to destroy all magic from the universe). The gods and goddesses offered to take the Amazons with them, away from Earth’s dimension. The Amazons agreed, but Wonder Woman chose to stay. Her place was on Earth.
With her people gone and her friends still distrustful, Diana wasn’t sure how she was to help fight the chaos that was consuming Earth and the universe. And then she was visited by the strangest of people: an older version of herself.
Remember how at the end of The Crisis On Infinite Earths, it was said that the Wonder Woman of Earth-2 went to live on Olympus since her universe was gone? Turned out she’d still been there the whole time, hiding out in her own little corner of the place. But now with all the chaos, she’d come to make sure Diana got her life back on track. The Earth-2 Diana told our Wonder Woman that for too long she’d been unable to decide what she was. She’d been torn between being a diplomat or a super-hero or a warrior or even a goddess (which was a very nice criticism of how the title had had little consistency for years with each writer having a different view of what they wanted Diana to be). The Earth-2 Diana said, “The one thing you haven’t been for a very long time … human.” She reminded her younger counterpart to stop questioning herself so much and be true to her instincts and her nature and then told her she had to join in the battle, to help her friends.
Diana joined the battle and found her confidence restored. At the end of Infinite Crisis, the day was saved and what’s more, reality was altered somewhat again. Some of Diana’s Silver Age history came back. For instance, she and the rest of the world now remembered her as one of the founding members of the JLA, which was how it had originally been Pre-Crisis. What’s more, Donna Troy’s original origin (an orphan raised on Paradise Island who became Diana’s sidekick) was also mostly restored. One major retcon involved Steve Trevor, who now apparently was much younger again and once more the flirting hotshot pilot that readers had known before the original Crisis had altered him.
However, Diana wasn’t about to just go back to business as usual. To ensure she didn’t lose touch with herself again, and believing she’d tarnished the reputation of Wonder Woman by killing Maxwell Lord in cold blood, she decided to start a new life as a human being. With Batman’s help, she established the cover identity of Diana Prince and, taking an idea from Clark Kent, took to wearing tinted glasses and altering her hair and voice while in this disguise. For a year, most people didn’t know where she was, including her friends and loved ones. Only Batman and his own troops knew Diana’s whereabouts.
Without Diana to provide guidance, Cassie fell into a deep depression. After the death of Donna Troy, who'd been a role model, Cassie had continued her career as Wonder Girl as a member of the newest version of the Teen Titans. And while on that team, she and Superboy (Connor Kent) finally admitted their feelings to each other and began dating. Connor provided strength for Cassie, especially because her life got more complex when Ares gave her her own version of the lasso, this one empowered by anger to release power energy bolts. Having never known her father, she wondered if this was evidence that Ares was in fact her father. Later, she'd found it she was actually the bastard child of Zeus himself, making Ares her brother.
When Infinite Crisis occurred, Cassie found her powers going haywire due to the Greek gods leaving Earth's dimension. With the chaos all around, she looked for comfort in Connor. The two spent the night together and the next day Connor went into the battle with Earth's heroes, where he sacrificed himself to help preserve the universe.
Superboy's death affected Cassie greatly and that, along with Diana's disappearance (which she took as abandonment), 
caused Wonder Girl to desperately search for a way to bring Connor back from the dead. Eventually, she came to grips with the fact that her lover was gone and she had to move on. She ditched her costume and adopted a simple Wonder Woman t-shirt and jeans, emulating Superboy's own outfit which had been a Superman t-shirt with jeans. She later rejoined the Teen Titans, though still held resentment towards Diana for simply leaving her and towards Robin when she found out that the teenage detective had been aware of Diana's activities and her general whereabouts around the world and hadn't told her (out of respect for Diana's privacy).
Months later, Diana visited the mystic city of Nanda Parbat, where Batman was spending a spiritual retreat. There, Diana was visited by the spirit known as Rama Kushna and she told the heroine that in having now known failure, shame and regret in their truest sense for the first time in her life, she had truly come to understand human nature better. Soon after that, Diana met with a mystic named I-Ching, but what happened with that is unknown. Around the same time, the World Court dropped the charges on Wonder Woman for the killing of Maxwell Lord, unless any evidence was brought to the contrary.
ONE YEAR LATER ...
Months later, almost one full year after Diana had vanished from the public eye, Donna Troy took on the role as the new Wonder Woman, donning a more armored version of the costume. And several weeks after that, Diana finally made 
herself known to Donna and Cassie, revealing that she was now working for the Department of Meta-human Affairs as Agent Diana Prince and was partnered with DC espionage hero Nemesis. Batman had helped set her up with the false identity and it had been Clark's idea that she wear tinted glasses and alter her hair and clothing to help with the disguise.
In an Manhunter, Diana had Kate Spencer AKA Manhunter find a video tape that proved Maxwell Lord was controlling Superman when Diana killed him. But Diana requested the tape not be used, for fear it would not clear her name so much as it would cause suspicion to fall on Superman (who’s certainly gone rogue under mental control more than once).
The tale of Diana’s return, entitled "Who Is Wonder Woman?" was done by Allan Heinberg. Some criticized it for not being layered enough, but I found it quite fun and full of adventure (as comics should be more often). Sadly, Heinberg wasn’t allowed to finish the storyarc within the Wonder Woman title itself. DC made him stop before the last chapter and told him he could publish that as a separate spin-off one-shot, since they wanted to bring on new writer Jodi Picoult, whose run is supposed to tie-in to the upcoming Amazons Attack cross-over (in which the Amazons are to return and attack Washington D.C.).
Heinberg was doing a decent story and I found the interruption (especially after a cliffhanger ending) unwarranted. Worse, it made many fans not care about the final chapter when it did come out months later, which is a shame becuase it was quite fun and brought back several old Wonder Woman villains such as the near-forgotten Duke of Deception, updating them so that they were definite threats (becuase a hero's only as good as the villains they fight, dontcha know?).
During Heinberg's adventure, Diana stepped back into her role as Wonder Woman, wearing a slighlty altered version of her outfit (new WW belt and an outfit that now seemed more like leather than cloth). She stopped Circie and fought her old enemy Hercules, as well as the afore-mentioned small army of classic villains. To help her out, several super-heroes showed up. When the dust had settled, Diana held a press conference so she could explain to people where she'd been and why she'd felt the need to leave. Now that she was back, she would do her best to re-establish the trust people had had in her before and to prove herself worthy of it. Afterwards, she rejoined her fellow agents in the D.M.A., ready to hunt down super-human threats as Diana Prince, a woman with only some fighting skills, her wits and her partner to count on for protection rather than any powers or magical items.
At the end of Heinberg's story, the witch Circe decided to make Diana's desire to connect more with humanity into a tangible
reality. She cast a spell on Diana so that now, whenever she's out of her uniform, she is biologically human with no superhuman abilities whatsoever. Cassie remarked this was obviously a curse, but Diana chose to look on it as a gift, a way for her identity of "Diana Prince" to be a real part of humanity and not just a facade.
Picoult came onto the title and seemed to not understand Diana. Diana has been walking among us for years and her history as one of the first super-heroes of the modern age has been restored. What’s more, she spent a year between Infinite Crisis and her return to super-heroing as a “normal human being”. Yet in her first issue, Picoult showed that Diana had no idea how to work a subway turn style or how to order coffee at a Starbucks. This would’ve made sense if the story took place many years ago. Also, when talking to Nemesis about the distrust the public feels towards Wonder Woman, Diana sheds a tear. This is not the strong, confident hero who learned to stop doubting herself during Infinite Crisis.
And then DC did a story called Amazons Attack written by Will Pfeiffer. Basically, Themyscira came back (which really kills the whole epic event of them leaving Earth's dimension during Infinite Crisis) and Hypollyta had been resurrected. Angry that Diana was being brought in for her crime of killing Maxwell Lord, Hypollyta (influenced by Circe) led an attack on Washington D.C. itself. Circe was hoping to start a war where the Amazons would be killed. Wonder Woman and Cassie tried their best to chill out the Amazons and calm down Hypollyta, but it seemed absurdly hard to do so. Various super-heroes ran around trying to stem the battles and chaos.
The story finally ended with Athena holding Hypollyta responsible for an unwise, unwarranted attack on humanity and exiled her to return to Themyscira alone, where she would be queen over an empty island. Diana was let off the hook, but all the Amazons who had participated in the attack were scattered across the Earth, their memories wiped of who they truly were.
The story was lame. Don't believe me? Go check out the reviews. Words like "ill-concieved" and "lackluster" are pretty abundant. Honestly, what was the point of this story? You resurrected Hypollyta (who had a good death and good-bye scene) and made her an irrational battle-crazed woman. You brought back Themyscira way too soon after it left Earth's dimension, not giving us a chance to really miss it. You brought back the Amazons only to then scatter them and give them all amnesia. What was accomplished by this story?
Oh, well.
Anyway, now that she was back in action and had proven herself a hero to the world, willing to protect humanity even from her own sisters, Wonder Woman met with Batman and Superman and together they recently reformed the Justice League of America. So once again, Diana is at the forefront of DC’s premiere super-hero team.
Writer Gail Simone came on board with Wonder Woman #14 and I couldn't be happier. I dig her work very much and think she will bring us back a version of Diana who is feminine but also very strong, iconic yet relatable, a character who more than deserves her place as one of the DCU's big three along with Batman and Superman. Gail Simone is also, I should note, the first woman to be named as a regular ongoing writer on Wonder Woman (which is rather absurd, as this is a character who's been around in late 1941).
In her first issue on the title, Simone already did a wonderfully fun thing in that her first issue featured Diana and Nemesis stumbling upon the Captain Marvel villain Capt. Nazi and his white supremacist cult. That's right, Diana is fighting Nazis again! Sweet!
Also, just as Steve Trevor was retconned back into a hotshot pilot in the prime of life, Etta Candy has been recently re-introduced. Still a full-figured woman, Lt. Candy seems to be the same version of the character we've known since the initial Post-Crisis days, a capable and intelligent friend who Diana regards as a sister. To help Diana keep up her cover identity, Etta Candy had accepted an assignment from the DMA to find out the truth behind the strange absences of agent Diana Prince. Simone has also begun fleshing out some more history of some of the Amazons on Paradise Island. Most surprising though was Diana's recent change of allegiances. When her mother Hypollyta was in trouble, Diana asked the Greek gods to help her out but they refused. So, she turned to gods of other pantheons. Exactly what consequences she may have to pay for this in the future have yet to be revealed.
In her initial story-arc, Simone did two things I applauded. One, she put Diana in a situation where, for a few minutes, she had to fight Captain Nazi in her human non-powered guise of Diana Prince and our girl proved she was definitely not easy prey even for a guy who could give Superman a nice work-out. Secondly, as Wonder Woman, our Amazon hero put the lasso of truth around Captain Nazi and we saw the experience from his own eyes as he was suddenly confronted with images of his childhood. Despite the evil he'd done, Diana offered him sympathy and expressed a wish for his redemption. That is Wonder Woman, folks.
And that’s all for now. Hope you enjoyed this review of Wonder Woman and her complex (and sometimes sad) history. Sorry it took so long. :-)
Reader Comments (6)
FYI - I found this track on myspace and it's so obviously inspired by the 70s Wonder Woman TV show theme tune that I wondered if it's going to be the theme to either the animated movie or some other project?
It's by Denise Pearson, who fronted 80s super-group Five Star.
Check it out here http://www.myspace.com/denisepearsonofficial
KISTLER'S RESPONSE:
I've heard and read nothing that's led me to believe that song will be involved in a genuine Wonder Woman project, but damn if that wasn't a catchy tune that surely someone out there has on their "workout" playlist.
And thanks very much for your kind words on my work. They're greatly appreciated. I hope you enjoy the other articles and essays as well.
KISTLER'S RESPONSE:
Thanks so much for your kind words.