Wonder Woman's Past Is Darker Than You Realized

Wonder Woman is one of comics' most enduring, positive examples of heroism and equality,
and she's a proven box office smash.
But beneath that red and gold gear lies a surprisingly dark history.
Ever since Wonder Woman left the island of the Amazons on a mission of world peace, the
violent Patriarch's World has had nothing but pain and death for the superheroine.
Here's a glimpse at Princess Diana's dark, depressing past.
Origins
After pilot Steve Trevor crashes his plane on Paradise Island in 1941's All-Star Comics
#8, all of the ladies on the all-girl island get into a tizzy.
They have a competition to see who'll be allowed to escort Trevor off of the property, and
Diana, the future Wonder Woman, sneaks into the contest.
She ultimately wins the honor of leaving the peaceful utopia, much to the disappointment
of her mom, Hippolyta, the Queen of the Amazons.
When she gets to America and meets the Justice Society, despite the fact that she vastly
outmatches lightweights like Hourman and Starman… they make her the secretary.
What an honor.
"What is a secretary."
"I go where he wants me to go and I do what he wants me to do."
"Well, where I'm from that's called slavery."
"I really like her."
"Fantastic."
Medical malpractice
Princess Diana stumbles upon the conveniently-named Diana Prince in 1942's Sensation Comics #1.
Prince is a nurse who looks exactly like her and wants other things in life — mostly
to be with her man in another country.
Despite a total lack of medical training, the two switch identities and the real Diana
Prince leaves her life behind.
While the comics don't explore the accidental casualties of Princess Diana's ignorance of
any medicine that doesn't involve dirt, leaves, and gryphon tears, it's presumed that her
Amazonian brain, which is superior to any male brain, just knows stuff.
Still, we wouldn't trust her with anything more than a bedpan.
Doctor Psycho
Wonder Woman fights a lot of bizarre bad guys during her early adventures, including the
Space Giants of Planet G, an Easter Island statue version of herself, evil leprechauns
with rayguns, and a few unfrozen dinosaurs.
But none are more awful than Edgar Cizko, aka Doctor Psycho.
Originally appearing in Wonder Woman #5 in 1943, he's a short psychopath and occultist
who obsessively hates all women because he was once snubbed.
His original goal?
To remove all women from the war effort.
The villain tortures his ex-fiancee repeatedly and uses her as a conduit to summon ghostly
energies, at one point pretending to be the ghost of George Washington, back from the
dead to warn the world about how women are ruining war for men.
Psycho would return to fight again and again, but having hate-crime based villains attack
you from year one sounds like a pretty miserable life.
Powerless
Because the Amazons have totally run out of magic after ten thousand years of babysitting
mankind, they're forced to retreat to another dimension in 1968's Wonder Woman #179.
Diana decides to remain behind to continue to protect the hapless Steve Trevor.
As a result, Wonder Woman loses all of her powers and reverts to the lowly Diana Prince.
Fortunately for her, she immediately meets a blind martial arts master named I-Ching,
who prepares her for the next four years of powerlessness, fancy fashions, and fighting
Frankenstein robots.
Flip-flopping feminism
Feminist, novelist, and political activist Gloria Steinem got angry in 1972 when she
realized that Wonder Woman had lost her super-abilities, seeing it as just another way that men were
stripping women of their power.
Steinem had already chosen a costumed and extremely outdated version Wonder Woman to
be on the cover of her magazine, Ms. , so she fought against the character change.
Failing to see that DC was making Diana a total badass even without her powers, and
that progressive plot lines were intelligently exploring women's issues, Steinem's vocal
disapproval prompted DC to return Diana's powers in 1973.
Ironically, Wonder Woman's sudden, forced return to her roots cut short a politically
relevant story arc about the heroine saving an abortion clinic and fighting for equal
pay.
In an especially dark move, DC decided to assassinate the fictional editor of a women's
magazine in the very next issue.... which is a pretty mean way to flip someone the bird.
They even put a sniper bullet right through I-Ching's heart to close the storyline.
Thanks a lot, Gloria.
Crisis
For a short period, Wonder Woman finally finds domestic peace and marries Steve Trevor, the
guy she's been saving for decades on end.
But all of that is erased by 1985's Crisis on Infinite Earths, a comic book event that
messed with DC Comics' many decades of stories.
One version of Wonder Woman is turned back into mud.
Another version of Diana gets to live on Mount Olympus with Steve Trevor, but that's not
the version we get to live with.
As a result of the Crisis storyline, Wonder Woman's entire history with Trevor is stripped,
and he's re-introduced as an older dude who marries someone else.
And unlike most DC heroes, Wonder Woman's new peacekeeping methods in the Patriarch's
World end up killing a few bad guys, because Greek gods do not mess around with that mercy
stuff.
War of the Gods
In 1991, the Amazons make themselves known to mankind during Wonder Woman #50, but they're
quickly framed for murder by the evil Circe, an Amazon who was banished from Paradise Island
to the planet Sorca because she was turning too many people into animals.
Circe orchestrates a war between many different pantheons of gods, culminating in Circe reverting
Wonder Woman back into clay, effectively killing her in the process.
She doesn't stay very dead for long, though.
You know things are messed up when Lobo gets involved.
"(Smooch.)
I love you too."
Almost dead again
After having visions of Wonder Woman's death, Hippolyta decides to play a trick on fate.
She bestows the title of Wonder Woman to another Amazon, Artemis, in 1994's Wonder Woman #92,
so that Artemis can die in Wonder Woman's place.
And of course, Artemis does die.
During a fight against the demon-possessed villain, White Magician, Artemis bites the
big one and the prophecy is fulfilled.
Understandably, Diana is upset that her mom made someone else unknowingly take a bullet
destined for her — and that she had to wear a buckle-on bra and a cutoff jacket during
the downtime.
Dead again
Even though Diana evades death, she ends up in Hell battling a demon named Neron in Wonder
Woman #124.
Right before being obliterated, Neron zaps Wonder Woman to death with his demon powers.
For a few issues, DC's heroes try to bring her back to life, but she eventually ascends
to Mount Olympus to hang out with the gods while Hippolyta takes her place as Wonder
Woman, still trying to bring peace to man.
It...doesn't go well.
Dead again... again
During 2001's Our Worlds at War event, we meet a villain so scary that even other world-conquering
bad guys ask Superman for help.
Imperiex , the destroyer of galaxies, is attempting to kill everything everywhere, so both Diana
and Hippolyta don the Wonder Woman armor for the ensuing battle.
After Diana is badly burnt in a fight, Hippolyta goes a little nuts and rips off the head of
Imperiex with the Lasso of Truth, resulting in a massive explosion.
In one of the goriest and saddest scenes ever published, Hippolyta is reduced to burnt Amazonian
bacon, dying in Diana's arms.
The murder of Maxwell Lord
DC's Countdown to Infinite Crisis story arc in 2005 reveals that wacky, kind-of slimy
business tycoon Maxwell Lord, who had been instrumental in various Justice League doings
for years, is actually a criminal mastermind, using his proximity to superheroes to gather
information, quite possibly to kill all of them.
When Blue Beetle finds out, he's promptly shot in the head.
Eventually, it all leads up to Wonder Woman breaking Maxwell Lord's neck on live TV, which
pretty much destroys the credibility of superheroes worldwide.
Blackest Night
Maxwell Lord returns to life in 2010….
kind of.
Seeking revenge on Wonder Woman during DC's Blackest Night event, he gives Black Lantern
rings to a ton of corpses at Arlington National Cemetery, creating an undead army to fight
her.
Lord taunts Wonder Woman, who chops off his head completely and later disembowels and
burns him.
Even after the battle is over, Lord is seen reforming from the ashes.
And then Wonder Woman also becomes a zombie and tries to eat Aquaman's wife, but she's
totally cured by a make out session with Batman.
Why?
Because he's Batman.
"I'm a boy I'm a real cool boy."
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Wonder Woman's Past Is Darker Than You Realized

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