Wonder Woman Flight of Courage at Six Flags Magic Mountain is the world’s tallest, fastest,
and longest single rail coaster. This coaster narrowly stole those records from Six Flags
Great Adventure’s Jersey Devil Coaster. These two coasters have extremely similar layouts,
but I’m pleased to say Wonder Woman runs considerably better. Find out why in this review!
Rocky Mountain Construction unveiled the Raptor model back in 2015. They envisioned this coaster
for smaller parks, but Six Flags has been one of the earliest adopters. They put the prototype at
Six Flags Fiesta Texas in 2018. This is none other than Wonder Woman Golden Lasso Coaster.
Then in 2021, they added Jersey Devil Coaster to Six Flags Great Adventure in 2021. The ride
was originally supposed to open in 2020, but it was delayed a year due to the covid-19 pandemic.
Before Jersey Devil even opened, Six Flags Magic Mountain was already planning a near-clone of
this ride. Plans for the California park’s coaster were submitted back in January 2020 and approved
in March 2020, just before the pandemic. Based on this timing, I suspect this coaster
was originally intended for 2021. But Wonder Woman Flight of Courage was delayed until 2022.
The reason this coaster isn’t an exact clone of Jersey Devil is because it reuses the station
of the former Green Lantern roller coaster. This was the atrocious Intamin ZacSpin that
ran at the park from 2011 to 2017. If you never rode this ride, consider yourself lucky. The
ride was extremely uncomfortable. Needless to stay Wonder Woman is a major upgrade.
The base layout is identical to Jersey Devil. There are two changes. One,
the station is perpendicular to the lift hill. Two, this leads to there being an extra banked
hill at the end before hitting the brakes. This puts this coaster’s entrance in the DC
Universe section. The layout then runs parallel to the midway where Tidal Wave once was.
So the far end of the ride is plopped down in front of the entrance of Riddler’s Revenge. If
you visited the park before and after Wonder Woman was added, it’s quite jarring to see a coaster
plopped onto the midway in front of Riddler. If you’ve ridden the aforementioned Golden Lasso
Coaster, the look of this coaster is nearly identical. You have golden yellow track,
bright red supports, and patriotic trains. I love how close Flight of Courage is to the
midway. You can get right up close to this ride for some great photo opportunities.
It's a stark contrast to Jersey Devil. One side butts against a backstage road. The
other has the queue line. Normally that would be a good thing, but the New Jersey park has a
strict no loose article policy so you can’t take advantage of these viewing windows.
The entrance plaza for Wonder Woman plays the heroin’s iconic theme song. It’s an epic score
that gets you hyped for your ride. The first half of the queue line is a series of outdoor
switchbacks. There isn’t anything to see here. The second half of the queue is much better. It
takes place indoors. And you have some giant posters giving information about the Roman
Gods and Themyscira. The aesthetic reminds me of the first room of the Justice League dark ride.
Unfortunately, the park decided to forego all theming once you reach the ride’s station. It’s
shockingly bare. It looks like the inside of a shipping container. There also isn’t
anything to see during the ride itself. That’s the norm for most Six Flags coasters and that’s
fine for this type of ride. The elements are more than capable of standing on their own.
Now let’s talk about this ride’s capacity. As with Jersey Devil, each train holds just 12 riders
single-file. That’s a pretty small amount for a major thrill coaster, especially one at a park as
large as Magic Mountain. The park owns 4 trains. I’ve seen Jersey Devil run with all four trains,
but from locals, Wonder Woman typically operates with just two or three trains.
While this ride’s theoretical hourly capacity is lower than most of the park’s other coasters, it
has a better shot of hitting it. This is because of the continuously moving load platform. This
is similar to the other Raptors in the Six Flags chain. move like an assembly line. It gives guests
a sense of urgency to board quickly. This keeps the line moving at a slow but steady pace.
This has two impacts on the boarding experience. First, seat selection is not guaranteed. It’s at
the discretion of the employees. Some have no issue if you wait off to the
side for a specific seat, but others ask you board the next available seat.
This can sometimes lead to parties being split across two trains.
If an employee is willing to accommodate a seating request, I highly recommend trying the back row.
This is my favorite seat on all the Raptors. But because of how fast Wonder Woman runs,
you’ll get strong airtime no matter where you end up sitting.
Second, no loose articles can be stored on the load platform. If you don’t have a zippered
pocket, the ride does have zippered pouches in front of you like Twisted Colossus. Or
you have lockers right before you board. The Flash Pass merge point dumps you in a
locker room beneath the station. You can either use these free lockers that are basically
unsecured cubbies with a door or you can pay for a secure $1 to $2 locker with a passcode.
This room can be a bit chaotic for two reasons. One, these lockers are not double-sided. So you
have people who are boarding and exiting in here. Two, some people try and cheat the system to get
an extra ride without waiting. So the employee on duty needs to watch over the area like a hawk.
From here, you just have another 5 minutes to queue as you just
have a staircase directly into the station. How much time you spend in the line as a whole
depends wildly by day. On the park’s busier days, this coaster can get 1-2 hour waits.
But if you go on a quiet day, the line should be under a half hour. But no matter when you visit,
you usually can get a few laps on this coaster early in the morning with no wait because of
how far back in the park it is. It is worth noting this ride is not available on the standard or Gold
Flash Pass. You can only skip this ride’s line once on the highest tier Platinum Flash Pass.
You can purchase a single shot skip-the-line pass, but that could
cost you $15-$20 per person depending on the day. I also had an issue with this ride’s reliability.
When I visited last month, the ride was closed for the majority of my first day at the park.
It opened late on my second day, but didn’t appear to have any problems once it opened.
Jersey Devil Coaster was quite prone to downtime in its opening year. It tended to open late for me
and it was prone to a lot of short breakdowns. The ride was much more reliable in its second year,
so I’m hoping Wonder Woman can overcome these issues in a similar fashion.
Riders are restrained by harnesses similar to the other Raptors.
You have a hard metal bar across your lap and straps over your shoulders. These aren’t the
most ideal restraints for an airtime-based ride; I’d prefer a traditional lap bar. My biggest
issue with the RMC single rails is how you need to position your legs. You keep your knees straight.
Then you need to point your legs outwards due to a hump in the center of the vehicle. It’s fine
for a single ride, but it can make my hip feel weird if you can ride multiple times without
getting off or if I get stuck on the ride. Once dispatched, you turn right out of the
station and ascend the record-breaking 131 foot or 40 meter tall lift hill.
This is a whopping 1 foot taller than Jersey Devil Coaster. This is a quick and very loud lift hill.
In general, this ride makes a lot of noise between that lift and the roar of the track itself.
Once at the top, you are thrown over the near-vertical drop.
This plunge is spectacular in the back rows. You get some extreme ejector airtime. It’s one
of the best drops on any coaster. You’ll still come out of your seat further up in the train,
but the back is where you need to be to maximize this element.
The pullout blasts riders with strong Gs. This coaster, like many RMCs,
doesn’t focus much on positive Gs, but you at least get one good instance of them.
This is followed by the first of three inversions, a dive loop. It has a very sharp crest,
so it gives airtime for all. The front gets a good burst at the apex and the back gets popped
out of their seat on the descent. Those in the middle get weaker but more sustained airtime.
But the laterals steal the show. Your body is violently thrown sideways on the twisting
drop back down to ground level. It’s especially sweet in the back row since your airtime occurs
simultaneously with the laterals. And the pullout delivers a quick surge of positive Gs yet again.
You then fly over a giant camelback. As with Jersey Devil, this offers the most sustained
airtime on the ride. But it seemed to have a bit more vigor on Wonder Woman. This was
some particularly strong ejector airtime. Next is the zero-G stall. This is my favorite
inversion on the ride. Everyone gets several seconds of hangtime. But I particularly love
the exit of this element in the back rows. You stay inverted as you drop back down to the ground.
You then snap back upright at the last possible instant. This is a tenacious transition.
You then have a great turnaround. Those up front get launched out of their seat going into it. Even
those in back start to come out of their seat on the ascent. After a quick turn high in the air,
you have a wonderful drop. It’s another instance of thigh-crushing
ejector airtime for those in the back rows. This immediately leads into a zero-G roll. You get
some more hangtime. It’s not as sustained as that of the stall and the snap out isn’t as violent,
but it’s still a really good inversion. I think this is the one element that’s better
on Jersey Devil since you take it a tad slower, so you get a bit more hangtime.
Wonder Woman then shoots into the mid-course brake run. Those up front get abruptly shot
out of their seat on the entry. Those in back get some very strong ejector airtime
on the subsequent drop. And similar to how Jersey Devil has run since late 2021, this
brake run doesn’t slow the train down one bit. So you have plenty of speed in the second half.
The second half is the primary reason I prefer Wonder Woman to Jersey Devil. On the latter,
you really need to be on the ends of the train to get airtime. This was not an issue
on Wonder Woman. Every seat had airtime on the return run. And on the ends of the train,
the airtime was considerably stronger and more sustained. Whereas Jersey Devil’s finale at best
is decent, Wonder Woman’s finale is very good. The three outward banked hills have good sustained
floater airtime on the ends of the train. Then the speed hill gives a strong burst
of ejector airtime. The airtime isn’t nearly as sustained in the middle of the train, but these
4 hills still pop riders out of their seat. After this quartet of hills, you have a banked
hill into the brake run. It doesn’t do too much in most rows, but it offers a little
lift in the back row and then you’re slammed back into your seat as you hit the brakes.
You then crawl back into the station, ending the 3300 foot or 1000 meter long coaster.
I don’t know what RMC did to make Wonder Woman run so much better than Jersey Devil,
but it’s much appreciated. The easy thing to point to may be the climate. Jersey Devil understandably
can run sluggish in cooler temperatures. But I’ve also ridden Jersey Devil on 90+ degree
days when it should theoretically run at its peak. Wonder Woman on a 60 degree day ran better than
Jersey Devil in any condition. And I’ve ridden Jersey Devil close to 80 times at this point.
The final thing I want to touch on is this ride’s smoothness.
Some of the Raptors have developed a shake in a few valleys, but Wonder Woman does not have
this issue thus far. It tracks extremely well. So what would I rate Wonder Woman? I would give
this coaster a 9 out of 10. I have always loved Jersey Devil’s first half and Wonder Woman’s is
equally as awesome. But this coaster also adds in a genuinely good finale. I was surprised how much
better the airtime was. It makes this coaster a much more complete experience start-to-finish.
I still prefer the original Raptors to Wonder Woman. That layout has more intensity and
breakneck pacing. I also prefer Magic Mountain’s other RMC in Twisted Colossus to this ride.
But Wonder Woman is a welcome addition to the park and better than a handful of other RMCs.
So those are my thoughts on Wonder Woman Flight of Courage at Six Flags Magic Mountain. What
are your thoughts on this RMC Raptor? Do you also think it runs better than Jersey Devil?
Let me know down in the comments. If you enjoyed this review, I’d appreciate it if
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roller coaster and amusement park videos here at Canobie Coaster. Thanks for watching!