Wonder Woman

In myth, technically, *all* Amazons are the daughters of Ares and somebody else. The most likely mother is Harmonia – the nymph, not the goddess ; the two Harmonias are different persons. Another possible mother is an obscure daughter of Ares named Otrere – but this incest scenario is unlikely to be seen in the comics.

Another myth tells us that Aphrodite is the mother of Amazons, which would make their various other children (more on those later) brothers and sisters for all Amazons. However, given the origin of Amazons in the DCU, it is likely that Ares and the nymph Harmonia are the parents of only Hippolyta and Antiope, and not all of the Amazons — who are mortal souls in artificial bodies.

So this leaves Ares as Diana’s grand-father and the nymph Harmonia as her grand-mother.

Ares has numerous children with Aphrodite. Phobos, Deimos and Eros have all been seen in the DCU, as well as Harmonia (not the nymph), who is now deceased. Other children of Ares, who have yet to be confirmed as existing in the DCU, are Anteros, Enyo, Kyknos (aka Cycnus), Diomedes king of Thrace and Lykaon.

However, Ares and Aphrodite were technically not married, so technically those folks are not Diana’s cousins. But since *everyone* knows they are the children of Ares and Aphrodite, Diana could refer to them as cousins were she not busy fighting some of them. Ares *was* married to Sterope, however – one of the Pleiades.

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Ares also had a bazillion mortal children (Meleagros, Oxylos, Dryas, Portheus…) but let’s not get into that. Ares has also fathered Circe’s children – but Ares wasn’t in his original body and Circe then thought herself to be Donna Milton, so…

Ares also has a sis, Eris (yes, the goddess of discord) who is confirmed to exist in the DCU and is thus Diana’s grand-aunt. In the DCU Eris has been listed has both Ares’ daughter (the most common version), but also as is sister.

It is worth mentioning her on her own as she is routinely referred as “Eris, sister of Ares” – meaning “discord sister of war”, reminding everyone that feuds are likely to get bloody if left unsolved.

Eris has a bunch of children – I’m not certain which exist in the DCU, but most would make great villains so we can assume they exist. Those cousins of Diana are :

• Ponos (Toil).
• Lethe (Forgetfulness).
• Limos (Starvation).
• the Algea (Pains), full of weeping.
• the Hysminai (Fightings).
• the Makhai (Battles).
• the Phonoi (Murders).
• the Androktasiai (Man-slaughters).
• the Neikea (Grievances).
• the Logoi (Lies).
• the Amphilogiai (Disputes).
• Dysnomia (Lawlessness) and Ate (Ruin), who share one another’s nature.
• Horkos (Oath, and, more precisely oaths leading you to ruin and despair).

OK, now Ares has two other sisters, who are Diana’s grand-aunts. Hebe is the goddess of youth (who later married Heracles – one of the various familial links between Diana and him), and Eileithyia is the goddess of childbirth. They have various kids, but since they’re pretty obscure I’ll drop it. No offence.

As we all know, the mom and pop of Ares, Hele and Eileithyia are Zeus and Hera, who are Diana great-grandfather and great-grandmother. Well, they are more than that since Hera and Zeus are not only wife and husband but sister and brother, but this is complicated enough already damnit.

Hera is also the mother of Hephaistos (the god-smith, and I don’t mean The Cure ) and Typhaon (a seriously big monster). Both of those were conceived without a father.

Zeus is, of course, the father of what feels like half the Greek pantheon. I’ll just mention the most famous in passim. Athena was conceived without a mother. With his wife Themis he gave birth to the Horai and the Moerai (Klotho, Lachesis and Atropos, all three key figures in both the Greek mythology and the DCU cosmology).

With his sister Demeter he had Persephone ; with Mnemosyne all of the Muses ; with Leto he had Artemis and Apollo. With Maia he had Hermes (whom, I’ll note, is also the grandfather of Odysseus), and with Penelope (not Odysseus’ wife but another person), Pan.

Now we are getting close to the beginning ; Zeus’ bros are Poseidon and Hades (who are thus Diana’s great-grand-uncles), and his sis are Hera Hestia (who forged Diana’s lasso) and Demeter, who are Diana’s great-grand-aunts. Thus, all of the gods who gave Diana her powers are her relatives via Zeus.

Zeus, Poseidon and Hades are well known for having killed their father Cronus, the previous father-god. Cronus exists in the DCU, and is an opponent of Wonder Woman. In the DCU, he has various other children : Slaughter, Titan, Arch, Oblivion, Harrier, Disdain and Devastation. His wife and sister is Rhea, the mother of Zeus, Poseidon, etc.

Cronus is thus Diana’s great-great-grandfather, and Rhea her great-great-grandmother, with the same note as for Zeus and Hera.

Cronus’ mom is Gaia, and his father is the father-god/sky-god from before the Titans, Ouranos – who was overthrown by Cronus. The Titans of myth, as well as various river-gods (former major gods who were more or less forgotten), are sons and daughters of Ouranos – which bear mentioning as they have appeared in the DCU.

And Gaia comes from primeval Chaos, so you could consider Diana is related to the whole of creation anyway.

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Powers and Abilities

Princess Diana has been bequeathed great powers directly from the Olympus Gods.

• Aphrodite gave her great beauty and a loving heart.
• Athena gave her wisdom.
• Hestia gave her INF and AUR to communicate her message of peace.
• Demeter/Gaia made her so strong as to be comparable to Superman.
• Hermes gave her fantastic swiftness and the gift of flight.
• Artemis blessed her with all the talents of an huntress, plus the ability to soothe the heart of the wildest beasts.

Wonder Woman is also fantastically gifted in all the martial arts and weapons known to the Amazons. Her skill, dexterity and knowledge more than enough to outfight even Batman.

Her Lasso of Truth, forged by Hephaistos and given to her by Hestia, is practically indestructible. Wonder Woman uses it often to catch objects, hold objects together, Wrestling at a range (using her Weaponry skill as AV and her STR as EV), etc.

The lasso also forces anyone in its bonds to tell the truth, and laying it in a circle on the ground and stepping inside the loop is protection against the fiercest predators.

Diana’s champion bracelets are extremely hard, and she routinely uses them to Block even the fastest attacks, such as machinegun fire. Her razor-sharp tiara is occasionally used as a thrown weapon – but this is uncommon, as it is a deadly weapon (Killing Combat). When on the path of war, a rare event, Diana wears a suit of eagle-shaped body armour, as well as shield and (usually) longsword.

Oh, and she can change into her costume by spinning on herself.

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History

Diana’s story actually began 30,000 years ago.

In this era, a caveman killed his pregnant mate. The woman’s spirit, and that of her unborn child, were the first to be taken into the Well of Souls – a reservoir created by the primeval goddess Gaia to preserve souls on their way to whatever awaits them after death. The souls placed there all had two things in common. They were all women and they had all been unjustly killed by the hands of a man.

Several thousand years later, the Olympian goddesses created the Amazon race from this well of souls. Thousands of women were reincarnated as warriors to bring peace to Patriarch’s World and renew faith in their gods ; their souls were hosted in bodies made of clay from the bottom of a lake, which magically turned into superhuman flesh.

The first two to emerge, Hippolyta and Antiope, considered to be sisters, were designated as leaders. They established a city of women in Asia Minor : the first Themyscira.

One soul was left — that of the unborn child — for the gods had a different intent for that one.

From the beginning, the war god Ares had insistently objected to the creation of this race of women. His view was that proper resurgence of worship should be done through fear and war, and he launched his own plan to demonstrated the superiority of his views.

Ares also arranged to hinder the mission of teaching and inspiration that the gods had entrusted the Amazons with, and the women were increasingly rejected by the cultures of their time.

Dejected, the Amazons eventually withdrew within the walls of Themyscira and gave up. This led to tension between Hippolyta, who wanted to keep trying, and Antiope, who considered that Patriarch’s World was intrinsically hopeless.

Though they were a people without men, the ranks of the Amazons grew a bit during their years of isolation. They took in abused women and exiles within their ranks, occasionally making raids to free poorly-treated slaves. The most famous of these adopted Amazons was Phthia, princess of Lemnos, whom Antiope adopted as her daughter.

To further his ends, Ares then enlisted the help of the chauvinistic and easily-manipulated demigod of strength, Heracles. As a part of their labour, Heracles went to confront the Amazons in their stronghold of Themyscira, but was defeated by Hippolyta in a duel and declared a truce. During the stay of the Greeks, Hippolyta had a relationship with Herakles and Antiope with Theseus.

They should not have trusted Greeks bearing gifts. After they were allowed inside and, uh, partied with the Amazons, Heracles and his men drugged and bushwhacked them. Heracles took a sacred artefact, the Girdle of Gaia, from Hippolyta. This robbed the Amazons of much of their power.

Pillage and rape ensued, and Hippolyta herself was bound in chains until Athena heard her pleas and freed her.

Hippolyta freed her sisters and they fought off those men who hadn’t left with their loot. Athena told Hippolyta to move closer to the Aegean and thus Greece, rather than stay isolated in the wilderness. Antiope and her followers refused to heed Athena’s word, seeking vengeance against Heracles, and the Amazons were sundered.

Paradise Island

The goddess decreed that the Amazons’s penance would be to guard against a great evil beneath the shores of an island. As long as they did their duty and remained on the island, they would be immortal. As a reminder of their errors they were commanded to forever bear the symbols of their previous captivity around their wrists.

And so it was that for 3,000 years the Amazons of Themyscira were left to their own devices on the lost island of Themyscira. They built a nation and over the millennia carved out a truly remarkable civilization under the guidance of their Queen, Hippolyta.

Outside the peaceful shores of Themyscira (aka Paradise Island), global war came to flare – it was the 1940s by Western reckoning. An American aviatrix, Diana Trevor (née Rockwell), crash-landed on Themyscira.

The foreigner soon demonstrated great courage by sacrificing her life to defeat the hecatoncheire Cottus, who had broken through Doom’s Doorway, the aperture guarded by the Amazons. The Amazons honored her by fashioning a ceremonial coat-of-arms from her symbols, thus adopting some of the features of the American flag.

(After those events, a time-travelling Queen Hippolyta came from the future to fight alongside the Allied forces as the first Wonder Woman, from 1942 to 1950 – but that is another story.)

A short time later, a mother’s prayers were answered. Every day, for one thousand years, Hippolyta had prayed to the goddess to grant her a child. Her original life had ended 30,000 years before while she was pregnant.

The Olympians finally saw it it to grant her a child, and allowed the last soul in the Well — that of the unborn child — to be released and infused within a clay statue the Queen formed with her own hands.

Several Olympian gods (Demeter, Aphrodite, Athena, Artemis, Hestia and Hermes) blessed the child to be their champion, endowing her with great power, and she was named Diana after the aviatrix who had saved so many Amazons.

Sweet child of mine

The princess was the first birth on the island in 3 millennia, a momentous event for an entire population of women – many of whom had been pining for motherhood on an island where no man was allowed. Using ancient texts in child-raising since it had been so long since such skills had been needed, the Amazons arranged for the childhood of Diana to be as positive as possible.

Little Diana, who grew up much like a human, proved to be a voracious and exceptionally gifted student. She also quickly became a mistress of arms and combat, with Queen Hippolyta and General Phillipus training her. Phillipus was worried about the difficulties the child was having to control her enormous strength and speed, and proved her point by sending a band of soldiers for a mock ambush.

Those Amazons were battered and wounded by Diana’s reaction. This led to, as Phillipus had hoped, prayer and meditation to get in touch with Artemis and Demeter. This helped little Diana to better understand the divine gifts within her, and to fully control these powers.

Being the only kid on the island, Diana occasionally felt very lonely. The mystic Magala came up with a solution, using an ancient spell and a mirror to create a doppelgänger  of the princess. A mystical twin that was literally Diana’s reflection brought to life.

Diana, then aged 12, greatly enjoyed the company of her double, who in childhood looked exactly like her. She and Magala kept the double a secret. The double eventually vanished ; though it was assumed that the spell had just ran out, the truth was more sinister – but this is another story, that of Donna Troy.

Hippolyta sensed the disappearance of the double, though she assumed that something had happened to her daughter. Though she soon saw that nothing was wrong Diana, these uncanny maternal instincts would only be exacerbated from then on, with Hippolyta becoming so overprotective, possessive and solicitous as to occasionally border on the obsessive.

While this chiefly meant teenage embarrassment at this stage, this would later result in far more serious problems.

When Diana was a young woman, in the early 1980s, an augury foretold that Ares would try and destroy the world in his glee for war. The Amazons had to pick from among themselves a champion and once again re-enter the world of man, the Patriarch’s World.

A contest was organised to pick a champion but the overprotective Queen Hippolyta, fearing to see her precious daughter fight such deadly dangers, forbade her from participating. The goddess Athena spoke to Diana, however, telling her to participate anyway.

This was possible since the Amazons were taking part to the contest masked, so millennia-old friendships would not spoil the competition. Even though she did not use her divine gifts, Diana prevailed against her sisters. She unmasked after she had won, and the distraught Hippolyta had little choice but to acknowledge her victory.

Diana was awarded the special coat of arms inspired by the heraldry of Diana Trevor’s uniform (and the uniform her mother wore as the first Wonder Woman), and the silver bracers crafted for the champion.

The princess then passed the final test. She used the bracers to deflect every bullet fired at her by General Phillipus, using Diana Trevor’s .45 handgun. A short time later, the gods gifted her with the lasso of truth – forged by Hephaistos and hurled from Olympia to land at her feet.

The World of Man

After meeting with US military pilot Steve Trevor (son of Diana), Diana defeated Ares’s conspiracy, even convincing him to give up since if Ares was to devastate mortals all gods would die for lack of worshippers, including him. It was then that Diana officially took her place in Patriarch’s World.

Thanks to publicist Myndi Mayer she became an overnight star. Another important friend she made was the elderly professor Julia Kapatelis and her daughter Julia – though Hippolyta would come to resent the elder Kapatelis’s motherly attitude toward Diana.

Wonder Woman also started associating with other great heroes, such as Superman (with whom she briefly shared a mutual attraction) and encountered one of her major foes, the sorceress Circe.

When Diana returned to her island home, she was immediately confronted by the King of the Olympians himself, Zeus. As often during the mythic past, it was his intention to begin his notion of a relationship with the princess, which she categorically refused. This naturally did not go over well. In retaliation, he sent Diana on a quest.

During the Challenge, Diana came face to face with the woman she was named for and even freed Heracles from his punishment for his transgressions against the Amazons. It was revealed that he had been carrying the Amazon’s island on his shoulder during all those millennia. He came to Themyscira’s shores as he made apologies to the Amazons for what he had done ; by making amends, he ascended to godhood.

Also during the Challenge, Diana destroyed Doom’s Doorway. After 3,000 years of guardianship, the Amazons were freed from their burden.

It wasn’t too long afterwards that the Amazons learned that Mt. Olympus, home of their patron gods, had been attacked by Darkseid. Darkseid failed to usurp the power of the Olympians due to Superman and Wonder Woman, but they were too late in preventing the dark god from destroying Olympus.

The Olympians left for a new safe haven and essentially left the Amazons on their own for the first time.

As the gods left, there was an unforeseen side effect. Their magic left with them and all Amazons, including Diana, were suddenly turned back to clay. Gateway’s city newest hero, super-powerful reclusive billionaire Harold Campion, intervened and restored the Amazons to flesh.

However, Campion was revealed to actually be Heracles – who had petitioned the other gods to fix the Amazons. His apologies to the Amazons were but lies, and he was plotting to submit Diana to his will with a potion similar to the one he had used against her mother.

He couldn’t follow through his machination, however, as he fell in love with Diana as they shared adventures. Diana rejected him and his devious ways, breaking his heart.

Far from the gods

With the departure of the gods, Themyscira revealed its existence. They even allowed visitors, usually as part of summits and conferences to promote peace and understanding. One such conference was derailed by the goddess of discord, Eris, but she was defeated.

Wonder Woman encountered what would become another of her classic opponents, the Cheetah.

Trying to recover her lasso from the villainous, Wonder Woman left for Egypt where she discovered the Bana-Mighdall – the hidden Amazons headed by her aunt Antiope. Diana fought the Shim’tar, the Bana champion.

Some time later Wonder Woman met Donna Troy (the former Wonder Girl, and Wonder Woman’s childhood playmate) and the two women immediately became friends, though it would be some time before they truly understood why the felt so familiar with the other.

With Hermes as their guide to Patriarch’s World, the Amazons launched a nationwide tour of the United States that began in New York City. Hippolyta herself led the dignitaries and a huge celebration was launched in their honour. However, things went less than smoothly from there.

War of the gods

The event later known as the War of the Gods was kindled by Circe, determined to cause as much trouble and mayhem as she could for the Amazons. Circe even turned Hippolyta into the masked warrior queen Shim’tar, and reverted Diana back to clay. Though the witch seemed invincible, Hippolyta freed herself and rebuilt and reanimated her daughter with the help of the gods. Diana then defeated Circe.

Circe then allied herself with Antiope’s tribe. She even schemed to frame the Amazons for murder. The attack of the Bana-Mighdall warriors greatly damaged the reputation of the Amazons, and their ambassadors were forced to retire to Themyscira due to the confusion and resentment in the wake of the attacks.

Diana remained in the Patriarch’s World, fighting other deadly menaces such as the Red Panzer.

Darkseid, still wanting to conquer Olympus, captured Wonder Woman and her ally, Detective Schorr. He handed them over to his torturer Desaad. Diana and Schorr escaped, but in the meanwhile Darkseid had attacked and devastated Themyscira, forcing the Amazons into hiding.

Diana fought off an entire parademon army in the ruins, and was soon joined by the Amazon warriors emerging from their hiding places.

Despite the arrival of combat spaceships from Apokolips, the severely outmatched Amazons fought on. Darkseid eventually relented. Still, his troops left behind 1,200 dead Amazons and an island reduced to smoking ruins.

Disasters continued to strike. Circe apparently destroyed Themyscira, leaving Wonder Woman the last of her kind and subject to strange visions and nightmares. Despite this enormous mental stress she soldiered on, and it was eventually revealed that Themyscira had actually been cast into another dimension by Circe. Diana fought her way in and discovered what had happened in her absence.

Back to Themyscira

In Patriarch’s World, the island had disappeared for a mere span of months. However, 10 years had passed for the Amazons.

Circe had arranged for a new clash with the Tribe of Antiope and civil war had ensued in the streets of Themyscira. Both sides were evenly matched, despite the Bana-Mighdall’s modern weaponry and soon Circe took advantage of the condition of both tribes of Amazons. She banished them all to another dimension and had them beset by daemons.

Antiope’s people and Hippolyta’s joined forces against their common foe and fought side by side for 10 years until they at last won their way free. In gratitude, Hippolyta granted her sister’s tribe sanctuary and gave them a portion of the island.

However, that half was more desolate than the rest, near the plains where purple fires once appeared. The Amazons from Bana-Mighdall resented this.

Tension still remained between the two tribes as Diana soon found out all on her own when she met the warrior Artemis. In the Bana village, Diana discovered that she was the spitting image of the long-since dead Antiope, and was told about certain facts about her mother’s life, which had previously went unmentioned.

Still determined to get her daughter outside of the line of fire, Hippolyta decided to organise a new Contest to designate a new Wonder Woman, arguing that Diana had failed in her mission. Hippolyta also arranged to rig the Contest to have her daughter fail, even if that means considerable risks for other contestants.

Diana still prevailed against all contestants, and the Queen resorted to last resort spells, diminishing Diana’s power by half and giving the other half to the most powerful contestant after Diana, the Bana-Mighdall Amazon Artemis.

Artemis

Even that was not quite enough. Diana had to spend time to rescue several constants from traps and beast attacks, but she nevertheless found herself neck-to-neck with Artemis in the last leg of the race. At the last second, Diana saw her mother at the finish line, stumbled and lost by a hair.

Diana then confronted her mother with what she had learned with Antiope’s tribe, such as her own resemblance with the late Antiope or her knowledge of Hippolyta’s dalliances with Heracles. For a while Diana even suspected that Heracles might be her father. Diana then left for Patriarch”s World, considering that at this point it was more her home than Themyscira was.

Back in the US, Diana associated with Micah Rains and became a partner in his detective agency. No longer being Wonder Woman since Artemis had won, Diana made a black costume for herself. Meanwhile Artemis started her Wonder Woman mission in Patriarch’s World, encountering great success.

Artemis’s successes as the new, far more violent and aggressive Wonder Woman were essentially a fraud. Many of her victories had been arranged by a third party manipulating her opponents without her knowledge.

Artemis, on her end, grew frustrated with the cold shoulder Diana’s allies gave her due to her methods, and started blaming Diana for that. Not only did confronting Diana not help, but the princess produced proof that Artemis’s victories had been faked, to the dismay of the warlike Bana-Mighdall champion.

Diana determined that the machination been engineered by her mother. Once back on Themyscira to confront her she learned that the Queen was thought to have gone mad. Hippolyta was living alone in the woods, dressed in rags and flagellating with birch rods.

Diana eventually learned that Hippolyta was haunted by prophetic visions of her daughter meeting her doom in Patriarch’s World, and was desperate to cheat fate by arranging for Artemis to die in Diana’s stead. This was about to work, too – Artemis had gone to fight the White Magician, in a fight that was fated to kill her.

Diana managed to reach Artemis in time to assist her in her fight against demon. A further monkey wrench was that Donna Milton, one of Diana’s friends, turned out to be the witch Circe – though she didn’t know it herself, as the Circe self had been buried deep under the Milton consciousness.

Though Circe/Milton’s help turned the tide and made victory possible, Hippolyta’s plan still worked and Artemis was killed, fulfilling the oracular visions. Refusing to have an Amazon sister die in her stead, Wonder Woman plunged into Hades to bring Artemis back among the living. Diana freed Artemis from her new status of unwilling bride to a demon lord, and they both went back to Earth.

Return of Wonder Woman

Cassandra Sandsmark, the daughter of one of Diana’s friends, then became the new Wonder Girl after confronting Zeus himself and amusing him with her gumption and tenacity. Diana entrusted Artemis to teach her fighting skills and the ways of the Amazons.

Some time later, Diana was killed. The demon lord Neron, knowing that the Wonder Woman power was still shared between Diana and Artemis, struck at her in that moment of weakness.

Many super-villains had been empowered by Neron’s infernal puissance in exchange for their soul. When a coalition of heroes tried to put an end to that by confronting Neron in Hell, the demon tried to claim Captain Marvel’s pure soul.

Wonder Woman saved him – at the cost of her life. As is often the case, Hippolyta’s schemes had led to the very end that she was attempting to prevent.

The distraught Queen, however, had refused to believe the gods would abandon the Amazons and prayed fervently to Hera so her daughter would live despite everything. Her prayers were heard, and Diana was brought back to life – as a goddess, the Olympian goddess of Truth.

Goddess of Truth

Hippolyte’s machination to keep her daughter safe and have Artemis die in her stead were revealed to other Amazons, and the Council of Themyscira condemned her to step in as the new Wonder Woman, fighting to atone for her deeds and replacing the now ascended Diana.

Chronologically, Hippolyta wore the costume of Wonder Woman for a short time. In absolute time she was an adventurer for years, but most of her feats as a hero happened when she time-travelled to World War Two.

There, as Wonder Woman I and a member of the All-Stars Squadron, she adventured from 1942 to 1950. During this period she also came to be considered as a surrogate mother by Helena Kosmatos, the first Fury. She came back in the present mere moments after having left.

On her end, Diana struggled to continue making a difference for mortals despite the rules and covenants binding gods such as herself. One of the truths revealed during Diana’s godhood was the nature of Donna Troy, both as Diana’s magical doppelgänger and as a woman cursed to reincarnate in ever-tragic lives.

A coalition of Troy’s friends (including Hippolyta and the Flash, who both had time travel experience) was backed by the goddess of truth to oppose the Dark Angel, responsible for Troy’s fate. This worked, at the cost of Diana being banished from both Olympus and Hades.

As she became mortal again, Diana received the garb of Wonder Woman as her mother stepped down from that role. She was also granted the invisible alien vehicle that her mother had been given during her travels in the past.

This gift quickly proved problematic as Oblivion uses Diana’s newly formed mental link with the invisible plane, having her recede into an imaginary world based on her secret dreams and desires. This imaginary world started invading reality and causing considerable damage to Gateway City, but this was eventually stopped by Superman and Batman.

Considering that she was too much of a danger, she decided to isolate herself – and the alien technology responded to that by creating a flying base, the so-called Wonder Dome.

Diana then clashed with the Titans and in particular Cronus, who had created the child-monster Devastation as his agent on Earth. Cronus’s terrible plan to have mankind abandon the gods and revert to worshipping the Titans led to the near-destruction of the Greek and Hindu Pantheons, but Wonder Woman and Rama, backed by the angels serving the Presence, defeated Cronus.

More divine manipulations followed when the children of Ares possessed many of Gotham’s freaks. Phobos possessed Batman and turned him into even more of a creature of fear. With Nightwing, Cassie and Donna Wonder Woman foiled the Gotham invasion by the descendants of war.

This marked a renewed friendship between Diana and Batman, after the split caused between the JLA and Batman when they discovered his contingency plans – including those designed to kill them. Furthermore this case marked an alliance of Wonder Woman and Ares, who came to beat his children up as they denied him in their hubris.

Wars

A civil war erupted on Themyscira, a traumatic event orchestrated by an ancient evil named Ariadhne who had killed Antiope and possessed the sorceress Magala. In the wake of the sororicidal fighting, Hippolyta dissolved the matriarchy, stepping down as Queen to let the Amazons rule themselves.

Diana resented this. She realised that this seemingly selfless decision was largely caused by her mother’s wish to be free of her responsibilities and be an adventurer again, as she had been whilst wearing the Wonder Woman uniform. Though no longer a princess Diana was asked to leave, as a symbol of the fallen order.

While she continued her mission of peace it was now difficult, as the civil war among her sisters greatly undermined her message.

When the hyper-powerful entity Imperiex launched a war of universal annihilation, it was Earth that made the fiercest – and ultimately victorious – stand. The Amazons decided to put their land right in harm’s way and mystically transported Themyscira in Earth orbit so it would serve as the main base for the planetary defence.

The paradisiacal island was eventually destroyed in the fighting, but this sacrifice was invaluable in buying time to destroy Imperiex’s master weapon before it would ravage the entire universe.

Imperiex was not alone. His allies included Brainiac (now the commander of Mongul’s Warworld) and the forces of Apokolips. As the defenders based on Themyscira delayed the destroyers, this alliance swiftly degenerated into backstabbing, and Brainiac struck first, destroying the arsenals of Apokolips.

Diana managed to convince Darkseid to ally with her against Brainiac, and the Atlantean sorcerer Tempest used their joined spiritual and mental might to power a spell that ripped Brainiac from the present and catapulted him right into the Big Bang. As she left, Diana revealed that she had left a tiny peace of her own peace-loving soul in Darkseid’s dark mentality as a seed.

Despite this triumph, though, Wonder Woman very nearly died wrecking a planet-destroying Imperiex Probe before it could reach the Earth. Superman found her and brought her to her sisters before it was too late. Though they stabilised her she was unable to fight anymore.

Armed with her daughter’s lasso and other Amazon artefacts, her mother fought in her stead, saving a space ark full of refugees from Imperiex’s previous devastation.

Hippolyta then did her best to save Greece from an Imperiex Probe, but was about to fail when Diana flew in, slowing the Probe long enough for Hippolyta to detonate it prematurely using the lasso. Though Greece was saved, the former Queen of the Amazons died in her daughter’s arms.

Paradise regained

The Amazons established a new Themyscira. It was an archipelago of floating islands, upon which Diana had her alien technology build a series of advanced, crystal-clear buildings similar to the Wonder Dome. General Phillipus was elected President.

Meanwhile, Circe proposed an alliance and a marriage to Lex Luthor after he had been elected President of the USA. Luthor refused her, and the witch scorned turned the whole of New York City’s male population into bestiamorphs. Conventional intervention proved impossible as every male hero or soldier entering the city was also transmogrified.

Wonder Woman assembled and led an army of heroines to retake the Big Apple, and met Superman (who had been turned into a sort of Doomsday-like beast) in combat, felling him. Luthor was also saved from Circe’s wrath.

Diana continues to work, as Wonder Woman, as an ambassador upholding the Amazon ideals in Patriarch’s World.

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Description

Illustrated here is, of course, the classic WW costume.

The black costume with the biking shorts and blue belly jacket is the one she worn when Artemis was the “official” Wonder Woman. The red robes with blue trim are her full official garb as an ambassador. The golden armour is the eagle armour, and the blue body glove is her diving suit.

The shot of Diana with short hair and glasses was an alternate look adopted during a period of amnesia to throw her enemies off her trail.

Many of the sketches in the right-hand column come from the Wonder Woman Day charity event . Unfortunately, as of this writing the site is down and we can no longer point toward it for artistic credit information, links, etc.

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Personality

Wonder Woman II is not a super-hero – she’s a princess from a highly advanced civilisation, a champion, and an ambassador on a mission. Her work is not to repeatedly hit super-villains very hard in spectacular battles but to promote peace and understanding through the world.

Part of this mission is to act as an exemplar. Diana is Wonder Woman 24/7, and all her words and deeds should, ideally, bring peace to troubled hearts, whether that is preventing unjust wars or putting a street punk back on the straight and narrow.

Diana does not fight if she can help it. She only uses violence as a last resort, and will attempt to defend herself and those around her by peaceful means if at all possible. She is a diplomat, and even against vile enemies will always act without scorn or contempt and make it clear she treat her opponents as respected equal with whom she would rather negotiate than rumble.

Hers is the extended hand of peace, though even she has been known to lose her temper.

Likewise, Wonder Woman is not a crime-fighter. Criminality and social ills are certainly a terrible thing, but Diana’s work is much greater than stopping bank robbers. She has to convince Patriarch’s World that peace, empathy and negotiation are viable and durable solutions.

Still, she is regularly a front-line fighter in major catastrophes, and often defend the Earth or parts of it against tremendous disasters, invasions, rampaging monsters and the like – whether solo, with her own allies or with the JLA. She will always fight very hard to save lives, to the point of sacrifice whenever it is necessary.

Personality-wise, Diana is strong but obviously caring, loving and trusting. She wear her heart on her sleeve and expresses her emotions without reservation, which can create awkward situations for more emotionally repressed persons.

She has learned to moderate her emotional display, particularly toward men, the reactions of whom she was obviously unfamiliar with previously – but is still rather outgoing and very honest about how she feels. In general, she is very truthful and does not believe in lying, which can complicate her embassy.

Even in situations where the truth will cause grief and anger — or even sunder friendships — Diana will prefer to face and tell the truth. She’s confident in the virtue of this and is sure that it is always better in the long term.

Diana is not solely a warrior and ambassador. She is also very pious, praying daily to her gods – the pagan nature of whom has generated tensions with adepts of more modern religions.

She is also a serious scholar, believing in the power of knowledge. As the sole occupant of the Themysciran Embassy, she spent a lot of time reading and in solitary introspection – as the champion of her people’s best value, she must spend time with herself and any doubt or weakness.

Due to her roots, Wonder Woman is a feminist, making it clear that women are as good as any men and bring their own strengths and values to civilisation. She also tends to be a traditionalist – but in the traditions of the somewhat unchanging Themyscira.

Although she will probably never be truly familiar with modern technology, she has successfully adapted herself to the world’s rapid pace. In fact, her struggle to understand Patriarch’s world made manifest a remarkable intelligence, empathy and sense of adaptation.

Although Diana is most famous for being a driven, courageous and decisive warrior in the cause of love and peace, she also as a wicked sense of humour that is perhaps not as well known than her other qualities.

Diana is not all sweetness and light, however – she is quite competitive and might find it hard to pass an occasion to prove she is the best (which, she feels, add weight to her assertions that the ways she offer to the world are successful). A Mediterranean, she has something of a temper, and does not always stay as calm and dispassionate in a fight as she is supposed to be.

Likewise, due to her honesty and lack of inhibitions about her emotions, she can also come across as moody and stubborn, like many proud women around the former Mare Nostrum.

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Quotes

“You are bound in the lasso of Hestia. You’ll never break its bonds. So stop trying and listen to me.”

“There’s a piece of me inside you now, Darkseid.”

(Hugging a badly shocked Superman) “I know. It’s going to be okay. We’re going to be better. We’re going to heal. And everything’s going to be okay.”

(The raging Wonder Woman is holding Circe by her throat and is about to crush her skull in front of Circe’s shocked daughter. Circe hatefully challenges her to do it and kill her. Diana slowly unclench her trembling fist and offer one of her worst enemy her open hand)

“We have a saying, my people. ’don’t kill if you can wound, don’t wound if you can subdue, don’t subdue if you can pacify, and don’t raise your hand at all until you’ve extended it.”

“To your feet, Danielle Wellys. You have made hiketeia, and I am justly supplicated. My home is yours, and you’re welcome under my care.”

(Facing a berserker alien Green Lantern who misunderstood her alliance with Khunds)
Diana: “Take my hand, Lantern. It is open. Will you fill it with your own ?”
Alien Green Lantern, savagely mauling Diana: “Ally to murderers ! Collaborator to genocide ! Fall, friend to demons, fall ! Fall !”
(The bleeding and badly tumefied Wonder Woman is wobbly but still standing with her hand extended)
Alien Green Lantern, unable to continue hitting her: “You shame me.”
Diana, spitting some blood: “That is not my intention, Green Lantern. Corpsman… will you fill my hand ?”

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By Sébastien Andrivet based on Mayfair (Mayfair’s 3^rd edition version being v1).

Source of Character: DC Universe.

Helper(s): Eric Langendorff, Kal El, Sean MacDonald, Jay Myers, Elias dosSantos, Michael Andrew, Roy Cowan. The history was originally from braveandthebold.com  (a pretty good DCU site) but has been through a lot of editing, rewritings and additions – only a few fragments remain of the original. Original stats for the Invisible Plane by Orion and Eric Padua. The relatives boxed section was based in part on this personal page  and on Nadia Julien’s classic Dictionnaire des mythes. Sketch by Matthew Clark from his blog.