It's not easy being a superhero.
If we mess up, it might ruin our day.
If Wonder Woman does, then it's a complete and utter disaster.
Here are the worst things Wonder Woman has ever done.
Way back in Wonder Woman #1, written and drawn by her creators William Moulton Marston and
Harry Peter, Diana makes her humble debut by briefly joining the circus.
It's an opportunity for her to show off what she can do to a world that's still getting
to know her.
Of course this was in the old days, before most people realized what a bad place the
circus is for animals.
In the 21st century, there have been public discussions about how horses, lions, and elephants
are mistreated by circuses, as they're made to do things they were never meant to do,
like jump through rings of fire.
This has led to many circuses either swearing off the use of animals or going out of business
entirely.
But in the 1940s, nobody cared.
So there's Wonder Woman, picking up a horse by its legs.
Then she literally wrestles a lion, tossing him several feet onto his back in his cage,
while saying "I don't want to hurt him."
Yes, perhaps it's unfair to judge Wonder Woman for behavior that was considered acceptable
at the time.
On the other hand, this is Wonder Woman, who journeyed from Paradise Island to Man's World
to spread peace and teach a better way to live.
Maybe if that's your goal, don't spend your first chance to make an impression on people
throwing lions around.
A number of stories have teased a relationship between Batman and Wonder Woman, but the idea
was first raised in 1968's The Brave and the Bold #78.
In a story by Bob Haney and Bob Brown, Diana and Batgirl duke it out in the Gotham City
skies after professing their love for Batman via skywriting.
And it only gets weirder from there.
The two heroines have a contest to win Batman's heart.
Wonder Woman showers Batman with gifts from Paradise Island, while Batgirl gets him a
"groovy" new cape to cover his "brawny shoulders."
Wonder Woman responds by carving a Batman statue out of gold.
Both women get him a diamond-studded utility belt.
Then, the supervillain Copperhead attacks and Batman springs into action, revealing
that the feud between his two allies was just a ruse to make Copperhead think he was distracted.
But the issue is only half over.
Both women realize they've fallen in love with Batman for real, and the battle continues.
Both women give Batman clues to their secret identities and then they drop all pretense
and just start punching each other.
Wonder Woman has Batgirl on the ropes when everyone remembers Copperhead is still loose,
and Wonder Woman takes off to stop him.
The heroes bring Copperhead down together, which somehow cures Wonder Woman and Batgirl
of their romantic rivalry.
To quote another DC superhero:
"Hah!
Well, that was, haha, outrageous."
Wonder Woman and Superman is also a popular pairing.
However, the difference is that while Batman may have a number of women who are interested
in him, Superman is known for having one true love: Lois Lane.
Depending on the continuity of the moment, she might be his girlfriend or his wife.
Unfortunately, that's never stopped Wonder Woman from longing to be with him.
This was especially true in George Pérez's Wonder Woman Vol. 2 run in the late 1980s,
which happened to correspond to a time when Clark's relationship with Lois was particularly
strong.
Nonetheless, Diana had recurring dreams about liaisons with the Man of Steel, culminating
in an actual date between the two.
They never went farther than a passionate kiss, but it was a kiss neither ever forgot.
Unlike Batman or Superman, Wonder Woman has never really had a strict no-killing policy.
She's an Amazon warrior, and she'll kill if she feels like it's necessary.
For example, when the villainous Maxwell Lord uses his mind-control abilities to turn Superman
into a weapon of mass destruction, Diana is left with no option but to snap Lord's neck,
killing him instantly.
In Wonder Woman #219's aftermath, the execution is broadcast all over the world via Batman's
Brother Eye satellite, which Lord has commandeered.
After witnessing the disturbing footage, the public loses its faith in Wonder Woman — as
do Batman and Superman.
Brother Eye rallies its bionic soldiers, the OMACs, to extract revenge on Diana and the
other Amazons.
A group of superheroes trapped in a pocket dimension, who see the killing unfold, are
so disgusted by the state of the world's heroes that they try to rewrite reality itself, sparking
the Infinite Crisis crossover event and causing upheaval in DC's entire continuity.
In ancient Greece, hiketeia was a ritual in which a person in trouble could seek asylum
by supplicating themselves to a potential protector.
In DC Comics, it's the title of a critically acclaimed Wonder Woman graphic novel.
Written by Greg Rucka with art by J.G. Jones, Wonder Woman: The Hiketeia finds Diana granting
a young woman named Danielle Wellys asylum after the girl performs the ritual, but there's
a problem: Danielle is wanted for killing several men, and Batman is hot on her tail.
By the time Diana learns what Danielle has done, she's already accepted the girl's plea
for help, which puts her in a precarious situation.
Danielle's motivation for the killings is sympathetic, but Wonder Woman couldn't break
the promise of the hiketeia regardless, because that would both tarnish her honor and invoke
the wrath of the Furies, powerful entities who enforce such agreements.
Unsurprisingly, Batman doesn't care about any of that.
He's just trying to bring a killer to justice.
That leads to one of the most famous hero vs. hero fights in DC Comics history, in which
Wonder Woman absolutely wrecks Batman.
Wonder Woman is ready to keep fighting to protect Danielle, but the girl takes her own
life and releases Diana from the hiketeia with her dying breath.
In George Perez's 1987 reboot of Wonder Woman, Diana has a mentor named Julia Kapatelis , a
Harvard professor and expert in Ancient Greece.
Needing somewhere to stay after leaving Themyscira, Wonder Woman moves in with Julia and her teenage
daughter Vanessa.
Over the next several years, Julia becomes like a second mother to Diana, and Vanessa
becomes very much like a little sister.
However, the life of a superhero is fast-paced, and Wonder Woman eventually has to leave Boston
and have other adventures elsewhere.
Vanessa Kapatelis feels abandoned by the big sister she thought would be by her side for
life.
This leaves Vanessa open to be manipulated by some of Wonder Woman's enemies.
Building on her growing resentment of Diana, they turn Vanessa into the cyborg Silver Swan,
and send her on a path of destruction.
Using her new superpowers, Vanessa violently vents her anger at Wonder Woman, and her jealousy
of Cassie Sandsmark, another young ally of Diana's who recently became Wonder Girl.
Diana vows to save Vanessa, and eventually does, but she has to concede that Vanessa
has a point — she may have loved the girl like a sister, but she wasn't there when Vanessa
needed her, and that had dire consequences.
As part of the "DC Rebirth" event in 2016, Greg Rucka retold Wonder Woman's origin.
In this version, her first mentor and friend in the United States was not Julia Kapatelis,
but Barbara Ann Minerva.
Barbara Ann teaches Diana English and helps her adapt to the world outside Themyscira.
When Dr. Minerva leaves on an expedition to learn the secrets of the god Urzkartaga, Diana
promises to come if her friend needs help, reassuring Barbara Ann that she's only a cell
phone message away.
Barbara Ann does run into trouble, and does need Wonder Woman's help, but when she calls,
Diana doesn't come.
By the time Wonder Woman eventually finds her in the jungle, Barbara Ann Minerva has
already been transformed into the feral, bloodthirsty Cheetah.
Diana tries to explain that she never got the message, but it's too late.
Diana wasn't there when her friend needed her, and now her friend has become a monster.
Needless to say, their friendship never really recovers.
Both Wonder Woman and Cheetah eventually realize the missed call was a villain's fault, but
it doesn't solve the problem.
If a superhero can't protect their loved ones, then what's the point of being a superhero?
In DC Comics, there's no greater villain than Darkseid.
The tyrant of Apokolips isn't just another alien overlord; he's the very embodiment of
evil.
There's no doubt that Earth and the rest of the galaxy would be better off without his
influence.
Nevertheless, in Wonder Woman Vol. 2 #173, Diana gives up a part of her soul in order
to restore Darkseid's power, giving him exactly what he needs to continue his reign of terror.
It happens as part of the "Our Worlds at War" crossover, in which a team of superheroes
work together with President Lex Luthor and his secret ally, Darkseid, to fend off an
alien menace called Imperiex.
After the battle, which leaves Diana's mother Hippolyta and millions of others dead, Brainiac
13 launches an attack of its own, using the planet-sized battle station Warworld to decimate
Apokolips and destroy Earth.
In order to save humanity, Wonder Woman needs Darkseid's help — and the only way to get
it is to restore his missing powers.
The Amazons pray, while Raven of the Teen Titans helps channel the Amazon's prayers
through Wonder Woman and into Darkseid.
Before long, the god of evil's strength is restored.
That's enough to stop Brainiac 13 and Imperiex, and to make sure that Darkseid remains a thorn
in the Justice League's side for years to come.
It isn't all bad news, however.
During the transfer, a small piece of Wonder Woman's soul worms its way into Darkseid,
infecting him with one of Diana's most important powers: compassion.
The Injustice: Gods Among Us comic, like the video game it's based on, is set in an alternate
reality, but it's one that's very close to the main DC Universe.
In Injustice, DC's characters have the same origin stories as their mainstream versions.
It's just a world where everything has gone wrong.
While Wonder Woman spends the bulk of the series as Superman's ally — even as he slowly
transforms into a despot— she seems to be helping out for the right reasons.
She regards Superman's use of force as a necessary tool in the battle against evil.
She helps track down Mirror Master, who kidnapped Superman's adopted parents, but she doesn't
kill him.
She relies on diplomacy to talk Aquaman out of attacking the surface world.
However, when a superhero named Galaxor stands up to Superman's regime, the Man of Steel
and Wonder Woman break his spine, crippling him.
In order to help a band of refugees, she crushes a warlord's skull, then rounds up his armies
and lets the general's victims kill the oppressive soldiers.
Finally, when a group of rebel heroes team up to defeat Superman once and for all, Wonder
Woman leaps into action, lashing out with her lasso and snapping Huntress' neck.
After that, she's never the same.
In the reality of Injustice, Wonder Woman may be a hero gone very wrong, but in the
timeline of Flashpoint, she's a straight-up supervillain.
Flashpoint starts with the Flash going back in time to save his mother's life, but he
ends up wrecking the entire timeline, creating a violent world with no Justice League, no
Bruce Wayne, and no hope.
As a young princess on Themyscira, Diana gives in to her urge for adventure and takes to
sea on a boat.
She's attacked by a sea monster, but Aquaman rescues her.
This leads to an alliance between Themyscira and Atlantis, which is to be cemented by Diana
and Aquaman's wedding.
During the ceremony, Queen Hippolyta is murdered, and the Atlanteans take the blame, leading
to all-out war.
In a last-ditch effort to decimate the Atlantean forces, Wonder Woman and the Amazons destroy
Themyscira, killing thousands of soldiers, and flee to Britain.
When they're denied asylum, they conquer instead, renaming the U.K.
New Themyscira.
Wonder Woman, now the queen, kills Aquaman's lover Mera, and in response Atlantis floods
Europe, resulting in the death of millions.
Before long, the rest of the world is consumed by the Atlantean-Amazon conflict and the Flash
is forced to go back in time and let his mother die in order to put everything back together.
In the animated adaptation of Flashpoint, Wonder Woman's behavior is even worse.
Much of the violence committed by the Amazon army in the comics is done by Diana herself
in the movie.
In short?
Whatever reality you're in, do not mess with Wonder Woman.
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