Wonder Woman is one of DC's most iconic heroes, and now, thanks to the success of
her movie franchise, she's as popular as ever. But the Amazing Amazon's history is longer
and stranger than you might think. Here's what even DC fans might not know about Wonder Woman.
Wonder Woman has held a wide range of civilian jobs over the years,
from military secretary to professional diplomat, but in Wonder Woman Vol. 2 #73,
she takes on perhaps her most gruelling role yet — serving tacos for minimum wage.
It all starts when Diana returns from outer space to find the island of Themyscira and
all of its Amazons mysteriously missing. Left with no money and no purpose,
the Princess has little choice but to find a job on her own. With no formal college
degree and not much of an actual resume to speak of, Diana ends up at Taco Whiz,
serving the DCU equivalent of Fourth Meal to long lines of rude customers.
Wonder Woman can do anything, of course, so she's a perfectly capable food service
employee. But she's even better at catching bad guys, which is why, by the end of the issue,
a private detective has given her a side job beating up various criminals. Soon enough,
of course, the Amazons return, and everything goes back to normal.
Most people think of Steve Trevor as Wonder Woman's faithful, long-standing boyfriend,
but things haven't always been easy for the pair. At various times in her history,
Steve has vanished, died, or otherwise been preoccupied.
"I wish we had more time."
"What? What are you saying?"
"I love you."
It was during one such Steveless era that Wonder Woman met Buddy Baker,
the D-list hero known as Animal Man. Wonder Woman Vol. 1 #267 sees them meet in costume,
with Animal Man having to remind Wonder Woman who he actually is.
They subsequently team up to take on an international crime cartel,
and Diana realizes Buddy isn't the goofball she first took him for.
On the splash page of issue #268, the heroes are decidedly out of costume on a beach in France,
with Buddy rubbing sunscreen on the bikini-clad Amazon's back. It wouldn't be long before Animal
Man got married and had kids, while Wonder Woman was rebooted by Crisis on Infinite
Earths. But for a brief spell in Marseilles in 1980, they clearly shared something special.
DC's Silver Age comics are notoriously weird, but Wonder Woman's might be the strangest of them all.
For these stories, writer Bob Kanigher and artist Ross Andru basically went with whatever popped
into their heads. To start with, the adult Wonder Woman shared her book with her teenage self,
Wonder Girl, and her toddler self, Wonder Tot. In fact, the trio often appeared in stories together
with only the vaguest explanations of how that was actually possible.
Then there's the Glop, who showed up in Wonder Woman Vol. 1 #151. He's described
as a teenager himself, although it was kinda hard to tell, considering he was just a giant
pile of slime from outer space. But when he absorbed a bunch of rock 'n' roll records,
he started singing his own kooky songs — mostly about how much he
wanted to date Wonder Girl. It was a pretty unsettling proposition;
fortunately, the whole thing turned out to be a dream. But hey, that's the '60s, for you.
Of course, this being comics, that didn't stop the Glop from making
further appearances over the years. Because why would you waste a character like this?
Wonder Woman Vol. 1 #170 features another Silver Age adventure by Kanigher and Andru, and yes,
that means another unsettling suitor from outer space. This time it's an intelligent alien gorilla
who wants to make Wonder Woman his queen, and uses a raygun to change her into a gorilla as well.
Diana talks her way back into humanity by explaining that,
as a human, she's an Amazon of mythical beauty and grace, but as a gorilla she's just like any
other female gorilla. Then she tricks the space gorilla into using the gorilla ray on himself,
making him a human man. That enables her to use her magic lasso, which doesn't work on animals,
to compel him to leave Earth in his flying saucer. And so ends another day in DC's Silver Age.
In All-Star Comics #13, Nazi agents capture the Justice Society of America,
placing each of them inside a small rocket and launching them into space.
Each hero ends up on a different planet in the solar system, and naturally all
of those planets are home to intelligent life. Starman assists the sentient robots of Jupiter,
Johnny Thunder helps out the giant spiders of Mercury, and so on and so on.
Wonder Woman's chapter was crafted by her creators, William Marston and Harry Peter,
so naturally the Amazing Amazon finds herself on Venus, the matriarchal planet of love. However,
just before Wonder Woman arrived, Venus was invaded by hulking patriarchal "Meteor Men."
None of the Venusians are prepared to fight them, but Wonder Woman takes them down easily,
and is hailed as the savior of Venus. Queen Desira of Venus promises to return the favor whenever
she can, and goes on to become a recurring character in Wonder Woman's own line of comics.
Steve Trevor's an okay guy, but it's kind of a shame he never really got to be a
superhero himself. Except, of course, that he totally did! In Wonder Woman Vol. 1 #174,
Steve becomes the Patriot, a superhero of exceptional strength and speed,
whose All-American costume immediately brings to mind a certain other hero named Steve.
It's a good thing the Patriot is here to save the day, because by some strange coincidence
Wonder Woman loses her powers at the same time. Of course, it's not a coincidence at
all. This is all a plot by the Angle Man, Wonder Woman's greatest Silver Age nemesis.
His latest angle — sorry — is to get Wonder Woman to retire by simultaneously stealing her powers
and making her feel like Steve has replaced her. Wonder Woman doesn't give up so easily,
however, and soon enough everything is back in its right place. Even Steve himself comes to
realise that he's far more comfortable in his army uniform than spandex and buccaneer boots.
"Warriors, come out to play!"
Walter Hill's The Warriors is a cult classic now, but in 1979 it was a fresh and daring pop
culture innovation. And anyone who had seen it would recognize the shirtless,
vest-clad trio on the cover of Wonder Woman Vol. 1 #262.
It's obvious that writer Gerry Conway and artist Jose Delbo had just seen the movie,
and couldn't resist referencing it in their comic. The Warriors only appear for a few
pages of the actual story, however, in which Wonder Woman teaches them a rough lesson about
how crime doesn't pay. It's hard to say if Conway was a fan of the movie or had a problem with its
glamorization of street gangs and was simply trying to make a point. Either way, it's fun
to see a Bronze Age comic deal so directly with what was going on in other media at the time.
It seems like every super-strong hero ends up in an alien gladiatorial arena sooner or later.
And it happened to both Wonder Woman and Supergirl in Wonder Woman Vol. 1 #177.
In this comic, an armored alien conqueror named Klamos has captured powerful women from
all over the cosmos in his hunt for a bride — but none are as powerful as
the Amazon and the Kryptonian he found on Earth. Obviously,
they don't want to fight each other, but Klamos is ready to destroy the Earth if they refuse.
So the duo performs some pretty impressive wrestling moves with each other — but
it's all a setup for Supergirl to hurl Wonder Woman into the royal box where Klamos and his
ever-present chamberlain Grok are watching. Diana hurls Grok back into the arena, where
Kara reveals that he uses a wrist computer to control Klamos, who's nothing more than a robot.
A whole galaxy is freed from tyranny, and the two heroes return home to Earth.
Wonder Woman Vol. 1 #185 remains a particularly infamous story — one that hails from the period
in which Wonder Woman had given up her costume and powers to become a stylish globetrotting
adventurer. She also owned her own fashion boutique in New York City, 'cos why not?
Returning to her shop one evening, Diana finds a teenage girl named Cathy,
hiding in fear from a group she refers to only as "Them!" Cathy turns out to be on
the run from a trio of lesbian stereotypes, who want to keep her as a collared slave. Of course,
words like "gay" or "lesbian" are never used in the comic, but it's not hard to
read between the lines. Obviously, it's pretty gross how this comic portrays queer people.
Naturally, Wonder Woman makes short work of "Them," and, thankfully, the next time
gay characters appear in Wonder Woman comics, it's under far more positive circumstances.
By 1973, Wonder Woman was back in costume and had reunited with the Amazons. Meanwhile,
comics started to take more interest in Black characters, although it's
worth pointing out that they were often the somewhat clumsy creations of white writers.
So it can't have been surprising in Wonder Woman #204, when a heavily armored warrior
woman removes her helmet to reveal herself as Black, declaring herself to be Nubia, Wonder
Woman of the Floating Island. Nubia was meant as a sort of opposite to Diana. Her breastplate was
adorned with a lion instead of an eagle. Instead of a magic lasso, she had a magic sword. And
instead of the princess of an island of women, she ruled an island that was otherwise all men.
Queen Hippolyta seems to recognize Nubia, and soon enough reveals the truth:
that Diana wasn't the only daughter she'd sculpted from clay. She had
formed another child of darker clay, Nubia, who was stolen as an infant by the evil god of war,
Mars. Mars had raised Nubia to be his weapon against the peace-loving Amazons,
but Diana frees her from his influence and the two become friends. Nubia,in turn,
spreads the message of peace to the men of her island, and everything turns out alright.
Nubia was DC Comics' first Black heroine, and she's reappeared numerous times over the years.
She's even getting her own graphic novel in 2021, from writer L.L. McKinney and artist Robyn Smith.
You might remember how Princess Diana lost the Wonder Woman title in the '90s to an Amazon named
Artemis. It was after Superman died and Batman got his back broken, so being replaced was kind of in
vogue for DC heroes. But it wasn't the first time a red-haired Amazon had stolen Wonder Woman's job.
Wonder Woman Vol. 1 #250-251 told a very similar story, in which an upstart Amazon named Orana
calls for a new tournament on Paradise Island — and wins the right to become Wonder Woman.
Although she's supposed to stay with the other Amazons, Diana sneaks back to New
York as Diana Prince and keeps an eye on Orana, who has a hard time getting anyone
to accept that she's a valid Wonder Woman. She's also not particularly good at the job,
and ultimately sacrifices her life in battle against a villain named Warhead.
Diana returns Orana's body to Paradise Island, and solemnly resumes the mantle of Wonder Woman.
Almost two decades later, the Artemis narrative was essentially a retelling of the Orana story,
only longer and with a few more twists and turns along the way. That's the thing about
long-running superhero comics, though — even the strangest things often happen more than once,
because the story cycle just keeps on turning.
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