Wonder Woman Doesn’t Feel Like a DC Character Anymore – But There’s An Obvious Solution

Wonder Woman is, without a doubt, one of DC’s biggest and most important characters. She’s one-third of the Trinity, which is the three heroes who stand at the top of the superhero world as everything a hero should be. Diana is an inspiration to everyone, fighting for the world to understand peace, love, and the power of the truth. She’s the first superheroine to truly stick, and by that right, the greatest of them to ever do it. Wonder Woman is a pillar of the DC Universe in a way that goes underappreciated way too often, but there may be a reason for that.

See, even though she has the same level of iconicness as Batman and Superman, Wonder Woman’s comics tend to sell a lot less. There’s obviously a myriad of factors for that, far too many to speculate about in an article like this, but the one we’re focusing on today is how DC has shot themself in the foot by how they’ve presented Wonder Woman for the last forty years. Ever since her history was rewritten in the aftermath of Crisis on Infinite Earths, she has been a Greek warrior in the modern day, the past and present clashing just as much as her life on Themyscira does with Man’s World. However, that portrayal is far from all that Wonder Woman is, and restraining her to that role is making her feel like she’s not even a part of DC at all.

Wonder Woman the Warrior, Exclusively

When DC rebooted with the post-Crisis continuity, every major hero underwent extensive changes, and that included Wonder Woman. George Pérez took over her book and decided to completely revamp everything. He broke Wonder Woman from her dependence on World War II, and placed all that emphasis onto the Amazons’ history. They were given a much more in-depth and fleshed-out lore, expanding the drama and their association with Greek mythology. Wonder Woman proceeded to become a fantastical warrior who battled monsters and gods straight out of legend. She fought standard villains too, but they were always on the back burner compared to the fantasy elements that controlled her stories. That’s how she’s been ever since, but it was definitely not how she began.

Back in her pre-Crisis days, Wonder Woman was a very different character. Yes, she dealt with Greek and Roman mythology as often as she did supervillains, but her adventures didn’t revolve around her mythological roots half as much. Wonder Woman was just as likely to deal with a random mer-man suitor and babysit a dinosaur as she were a serious superhero adventure. The point being, Wonder Woman’s comics were a lot less stringent on their reliance on her history, and were a lot more willing to be weird. She was based in fantasy, but also superheroics, war comics, and romance. Wonder Woman juggled multiple genres every issue, and that has been lost in translation.

The Hero Without an Actual Foot in Heroism

Take a moment to look at all of Wonder Woman’s biggest stories and events. Without fail, you’ll find that all of them deal with either the gods or an incident revolving around Themyscira coming into danger. She’s constantly portrayed as this serious, mythological figure that’s almost meant to be revered, but while that’s great, it shouldn’t be all that she is. Without non-myth-related adventures, even weird or tropey ones, Wonder Woman doesn’t feel like a superhero. Everything we see of her is meant to sell her as a fantasy character, but so little work is done to actually let her act like a superhero in her own books. She lacks a secret identity, hardly has a civilian cast, and very rarely deals with actual crime.

Frankly, it feels like DC is afraid to let Wonder Woman do anything that would compromise this image of her as a pristine warrior princess, but as we’ve already discussed, her origins are knee-deep in stories that are just as weird as anything Superman and Batman got up to back in the day. Those two embrace the strangeness of their pasts and have adapted them into something great, but Wonder Woman’s writers keep running away from the oddities. When she’s just a warrior princess, Wonder Woman can even begin to feel painfully generic, or, at worst, like her vibe clashes with DC’s atmosphere. But it definitely does not need to.

If DC were to embrace all of Wonder Woman’s past, strangeness and all, then she could be free to act and save the day without this threat of a reputation being ruined. Wonder Woman can’t be afraid to be silly, or even a little dumb. When was the last time we saw the Holiday Girls, for instance? Updating them to the modern day would immediately give Diana a supporting cast that grounds her in the perspective of real women, which her stories have always been better with. We don’t have to go back to Silver Age weirdness, but giving Diana some of her pre-Crisis cast without tying them to the Amazons or the military would break her out of this bubble DC has trapped her in and let her spread her wings, which she needs to do to be the hero they always preach that she is.

What do you think DC should do with Wonder Woman? I say she needs to be free to do stupid, fun adventures again, instead of serious myths every other month. Let us know what you think in the comments below!