Who is the Amazing Amazon?: The Wonder Woman of Justice League

Iconic, but indistinct, the creators of Justice League nonetheless fashioned a Wonder Woman to stand the test of time.

She is a woman of numerous contradictions. A feminist icon (she appeared on the cover of the first “official” issue of Ms. Magazine, in June 1972) created by an admirer of the women’s suffrage movement, her early Golden Age appearances were full of suggestive scenes featuring bondage, submissive play, and other racy fetish material. A prominent member of the original Justice Society of America (and easily one of the most powerful), she nonetheless served as an “honorary member” and team secretary for the duration of their adventures. Claiming to be an ambassador of peace, she is a warrior from a xenophobic, matriarchal culture who—unlike her contemporaries, Superman and Batman—has no problem killing an opponent in combat. And, despite her reputation as a classic, iconic character in the history of comic books, she is also an unfocused, hard-to-pin-down figure with no definite interpretation. Add to that the complicated tangle of the character’s rights and licensing, and the creators of Justice League had their hands full in adapting Wonder Woman for their animated series.

Of course, creators who have written Wonder Woman are well aware of the enigma of her character, as Greg Rucka—who has written Princess Diana of Themyscira off and on for over twenty years—recounted in a January 2004 interview with Comic Book Resources:

[I]t’s hard to draw a bead on her.  She doesn’t define easily in one sentence—Superman does, Batman does, Spider-Man does.  Those sort of iconic characters where, in the course of a half of a page, you can get them; explain what they’re about.  But Diana is far more complicated so that different writers focus on different aspects.  That doesn’t mean any one writer is right or wrong, just that they gravitate to different things about her character.  Every writer looks for an “in” with the character—some people have found the “in” with this sort of naïve virgin, some have found it in the über warrior, and some people have found this in the sex symbol.  Those didn’t work for me—doesn’t mean that those who came before are wrong, but that was their take; this is mine.

[…] Diana’s always been an amazing character to me, for so many reasons. [For example], she is an exile from her own world, in a way—she can’t really go back to Themyscira and live there happily ever after.  She’s the only Amazon to have left and have spent a substantial amount of time in the Patriarch’s World.  […]  The other element is that she’s the only Amazon to have been born on Themyscira […] Diana is the last soul the patron goddesses were harboring, and Hippolyta said, “I want a child,” so Diana is absolutely unique.

The mandate is just—all these paradoxes in the character.  She’s an Amazon.  Amazons are warriors; they’re a martial culture.  They can promote belief in peace in part because they’ve been living in absolute seclusion and isolation for so long and also because, if you mess with them, they’ll kill you.  It’s easy to dictate peace when you’re the baddest motherfucker on the block.  Diana comes from this culture where she’s bred for war, but [she] is able to reap the rewards of 3,000 years of peace—the art, the science, the philosophy.  Add to that these divine elements, like the wisdom of Athena and so on, and you’ve got this person who has all these ingredients, and they are—in many ways—pulling her in different directions, but she somehow manages to unify them all for a single direction.

She’s not going crazy, she’s not neurotic—you look at every other superhero ever, and they are all malfunctioning in some way.  [LAUGHS.]  In some way, they are internally malfunctioning—Diana really isn’t, even with all the paradoxes and conflicts; she may be the most well-adjusted superhero out there.  At least, when I look at her, that’s what I see.  She’s somebody who knows what she’s about and has absolute conviction in what she believes and is willing to fight for those things she believes, be it with words or swords.  I love the character, and the more I work with her, the more I love her. (qtd. in Singh)

Unfortunately, while Wonder Woman’s comic book writers have had the luxury of unpacking such a complex and multifaceted character over years of published storylines, the animation writers of Justice League and had to do the same job in twenty-two minute episodes that also featured six additional lead characters. In a 2006 / 2007 interview (released posthumously in 2011) with Anime Superhero (formerly Toon Zone), writer and Producer Dwayne McDuffie revealed the complications he discovered when writing the Amazing Amazon:

I used to say Wonder Woman was the hardest character to write, because Wonder Woman isn’t really a character.  She is a bag of bits.  She’s an Amazon.  She wears the flag.  She has an invisible plane.  She’s an ambassador.  She’s a great warrior.  Just a bunch of crap in a bag. She doesn’t have that clean line. She’s unusual for a DC character, because DC characters are usually boiled down to something really simple in a way that Marvel doesn’t.  [For instance], Flash—he runs fast.  I get that.  Green Lantern?  Space cop.  Totally get it.  Aquaman?  Breathes underwater.  Get it, right?  Wonder Woman?  [PAUSE.]  She’s an Amazon, she’s … it’s like a whole bunch of weird stuff, and because she has all the status, she tends to end up stiff.

And the problem is if you pick a personality for her, exactly half of her fans will hate it.  You do better giving her no personality!  And I can’t write like that, so I decided who she was and, when I wrote her, I wrote her that way.  I just decided, “Okay, half of you are all just gonna be angry.  You’re just gonna be pissed.  We can’t just have her standing around—great hero!” (qtd. in Weitzman)

Of course, as revealed in a July 2005 exchange between McDuffie and Wonder Woman writer Gail Simone on his now-defunct message boards, “half the audience” may actually dislike the character for a more unfortunate reason:

DWAYNE McDUFFIE: First, Wonder Woman is more of a symbol than a character.  Even more than Superman, if you give her the slightest bit of personality, you’ll grievously offend a significant portion of her fans.  More importantly, she’s female.  A large percentage of superhero fans just don’t like competent heroines.  There’s something about the genre that attracts those kinds of fans.  Think about all the people who “hate” Hawkgirl, Wonder Woman, Vixen, even Supergirl.  How can anyone hate Supergirl?  The male characters, including the ones who aren’t very nice, don’t inspire the ire that even the most likable female characters do.  Anyway, just a theory. (Maestro)

GAIL SIMONE: It is also a sad fact that a significant number of big-name writers don’t care about Diana at all, which baffles me.  Great gimmicks, great origin, great character.  I don’t get it. (GailSimone)

DWAYNE McDUFFIE: A lot of that is the same reason.  A fair number of guys who write this stuff are either disinterested in women with power or [are] actively opposed to it. (Maestro)

It was against this backdrop that the Justice League creative team, much like Hippolyta in the initial origin story, fashioned their own version of Diana out of clay, and considering the complexities and issues surrounding the character, they put forth a Herculean effort to answer that age-old question that has haunted writers since the publication of All-Star Comics #8 back in December 1941 / January 1942: who is Wonder Woman?

Oh Muse, Tell Me of the Superhero Who Was Made to Wander Far and Long…

Of course, it is worth recounting the story of Wonder Woman’s long, long journey into the DCAU, and it begins with the family of her creator, William Moulton Marston. As previously discussed, DC Comics has held a long-standing arrangement with the Marston family that allows them the rights to the character, but—among other things—the family must approve of how Wonder Woman is used in terms of comics, merchandise, and multimedia. And, as we shall see in these subsequent paragraphs, this may have caused issue with the DCAU creative team’s attempts to bring her into the fold.

Wonder Woman first came up as a DCAU possibility during pre-production of what would eventually become Superman: The Animated Series (STAS). As I have mentioned in preceding essays, an early pitch would have featured a Superman team-up show, with the Man of Steel accompanied by a rotating cast of additional heroes (Brick 20-22; Gross 3). DCAU Producer Bruce Timm discussed the pitch further in the 2004 book Modern Masters, Vol. 3: Bruce Timm:

At a certain point, we toyed with the idea of opening it up and having the show—instead of being just Superman—kind of a prototype Justice League show, where it would be Superman and a rotating supporting cast of other super-heroes. I actually did a couple of development drawings along those lines and [then-President and Editor-in-Chief of DC Comics] Jenette Kahn was the one who put that to a stop. She met with us and said, “You know, I just don’t think you guys should do this. You should give Superman the respect that he deserves and give him his own show, the way you did Batman, before you get into the Justice League.” Right away, we said, “Yeah, you’re right.” (qtd. in Nolen-Weathington 54)

That said, there is some question as to the level of Diana’s potential involvement, as Timm has previously stated—in an interview with RetroVision CD-ROM Magazine—that “Wonder Woman wasn’t in it” (qtd. in Gross 3), but this statement is thrown into question by the existence of an STAS-era Wonder Woman design produced during this period, as revealed in the 1998 Wizard JLA Special (reproduced above), as well as the above production cel art, retrieved from an eBay auction (also reproduced above). Of course, the point is moot since the pitch was abandoned, but it could provide some information as to her availability.

It was during this time that Bruce Timm worked with Wonder Woman on another project: the 1995 DC Comics Christmas card. In a March 22, 2005 post on the Anime Superhero (formerly Toon Zone) message boards, Timm provided the background of the project, which initially came up as a favor to then-DC Editor / Art & Design Director Mark Chiarello:

Here’s the skinny:  Mark calls me up, tells me he’s been assigned by DC [President] Jenette Kahn to put together that year’s Xmas card.  Seems Jenette has a very specific idea of what she wants (what, you think I would have chosen the subject matter on my own?  I can’t draw animals to save my friggin’ life!), but he can’t find anyone who’s willing to draw the thing.  I hem and haw, “Gee, Mark, I’d like to help you out but, y’know, I just don’t get it.  Couldn’t she be like, I dunno, sitting on Santa’s lap, or holding mistletoe over Steve Trevor’s head, or … oh … but … but … but what does the Serengeti Plain have to do with the holidays?  Is this like a Kwanzaa thing or … isn’t there anyone else … but … but … for Godssake, man, have a heart, I CAN’T DRAW ANIMALS TO SAVE MY FRIGGIN’ LIFE,” etc. etc.  Mark politely reminds me I owe him a big favor (never you mind what for, not pertinent to the story), then adds that he’ll see if he can’t get someone to draw the animals for me.

So, I draw the thing [above top left].  Jenette says she looks too girlish and spunky, should be “more serene.”  Also, the hair isn’t Pérez curly enough. So, I redraw the hair, take out the spunk, add the serene [above bottom left].  Good to go, I ink Diana.  Ty Templeton pencils and inks all the animals and the background; Mark colors it [above right]. I still don’t know what the animals or the Serengeti Plain have to do with either Wonder Woman or the holidays, but Jenette’s happy, so Mark’s happy, and I’m happy that they’re happy.  The end. (b.t.)

Top: “Earth’s Mightiest Heroes,” a limited edition cel issued in 2000 and sold in the Warner Bros. Studio Stores; illustrated by storyboard artist and character designer Tommy Tejeda. Bottom row, left to right: two examples of Bruce Timm’s Wonder Woman illustrations from the time period, and Timm’s turnaround sketches for the 2000 exclusive Wonder Woman maquette, which was also available at the Warner Bros. Studio Store.

Bruce Timm would continue to utilize the Amazing Amazon as subject matter, but this unfortunately did not translate into an STAS appearance, despite her name being floated during initial press for the series (Allstetter, “Men” 48). In the end, she was only offered a casual mention in the two-part episode “Blasts from the Past,” when Lois Lane sarcastically referred to herself as “Wonder Woman” while listening to Kryptonian ex-con Mala talk about her alleged reform, despite the fact that, within the DCAU chronology, Diana had not yet left Themyscira. Perhaps Lois would remember the moniker and reuse it following the Amazon’s debut in the Justice League episode “Secret Origins” (she did, after all, name Superman himself in the STAS episode “The Last Son of Krypton”).

Bullets and Bracelets Beyond

Wonder Woman’s next near miss occurred during the development of the Batman Beyond episode “The Call,” which introduced a Justice League via their near-future counterparts: the Justice League Unlimited. Comprised of a future version of Superman and a collection of second- and third-generation heroes, there was apparently talk of using the Amazing Amazon in this episode, but Timm shot that down in a 2000 interview in Comicology, where he stated that “[w]e couldn’t use Wonder Woman at the time [for licensing reasons]” and, during the promotion for the episode’s premiere, fans learned that she was replaced by New Gods warrior Big Barda (qtd. in Lamken 24). This was then followed, months later, with an August 7, 2000 interview with Comics Continuum, where Batman Beyond Producer (and co-creator of the episode’s original outline) Paul Dini expanded on Diana’s absence and substitution:

There’s kind of a licensing problem.  If we wanted to do Wonder Woman as a series, we could do that.  If it was a guest-shot, it was a little more problematic.  I don’t really understand it; it just turned out to be easier all the way around.  With Barda being a full-time member of the League [in the comics at the time], we figured Barda’s from Apokolips and nearly immortal too, so let’s put her in there, and it has a link to the contemporary book.

We all love Wonder Woman.  Bruce [Timm] did that great design of her, which is now a maquette at the Warner Bros store.  At some point, we’ll do Wonder Woman.  We just need to fight that battle when we get to it. (qtd. in Allstetter, “Justice”)

Now, before I continue, please bear in mind that, the above aside, I am probably as much in the dark as you are in terms of copyright and licensing in regard to DC Comics and their properties; I can only speculate based on the evidence I have gathered. That said, I must call Timm and Dini’s above comments into question, considering how Wonder Woman, while not as accomplished as Superman and Batman, is no slouch in the animation department, having made appearances in multiple shows over the years. For example, she made her cartoon debut on The Brady Kids—a Filmation animated spin-off of the popular sitcom, The Brady Bunch—in a December 2, 1972 episode titled “It’s All Greek to Me.” This was immediately followed up by a twelve-year stint as a regular on the multiple Super Friends series, which ran from 1973 to 1985. Finally, she made an appearance on the 1988 Ruby-Spears Superman animated series in an episode titled “Superman and Wonder Woman vs. The Sorceress of Time” (click here for an episode clip). All things considered, it seems that, historically speaking, the Marston family has been open to Wonder Woman making appearances in animation in both leading and supporting roles for decades.

Of course, the issue at hand may not have been the Marston family itself, but a glut of competing Wonder Woman television projects, the first involving an aborted Mattel toy line called Wonder Woman and the Star Riders. Described as crossing “She-Ra with Wonder Woman by way of Barbie” (Mangels 80), the franchise pitch was showcased in Mattel’s 1993 toy catalogue (in preparation for that year’s Toy Fair; Mangels 76) and, as part of the product line’s initial push, an animated special was being developed to be released either as a half-hour stand-alone and / or as a direct-to-video release (Mangels 80). Among the creative team was Batman: The Animated Series (BTAS) alumni Boyd Kirkland, who discussed his experiences in a June 2006 interview with Back Issue! magazine:

I got involved with it as we were just kind of wrapping up the initial Batman: The Animated Series run. This project, I guess, had been kind of kicking around the studio that had one or two other guys messing with it a little bit. And they brought it to me and asked me to produce and direct it. […] I was working with [writer Marty Pasko], coming up with the story and, in the meantime, starting doing artwork, character designs, and model sheets, all of which had to go through both DC and Mattel. And Mattel was really calling the shots, I mean, to a large extent on all this stuff, on how they want[ed] it to look, and that sort of thing, even to the point of color keying. Like most of these kinds of toy-motivated projects, they want stuff to look as much like their actual product as they can get, and colored the same way.

[…] The whole toy line, and approach to the project, was to appeal to girls of a certain age group, which is why it incorporated things like flying ponies with the long manes and tails, and all centered around magic jewelry, emblems of jewels, and that sort of thing. So, the girls would have that kind of stuff to play with. And there was a sort of a headquarters, like a floating castle in the sky. It was going to be a playset that these heroes operated from. So, the Wonder Woman thing, essentially, was just kind of borrowing—from my perspective, at least—a well-known character and tacking her on to this whole scenario, and she was going to be the leader of the group. (qtd. in Mangels 79)

(For those of you quick to point out that this project would only have been a done-in-one special, rather than a full series, you apparently do not understand the intricates of marketing and corporate synergy in terms of media assets. Needless to say, if the toy line went forward, there would have been an accompanying, 52- to 65-episode animated series.)

Unfortunately—or maybe fortunately?—retail disinterest put a kibosh on the project, and—according to Kirkland—that put a stop to the animated special, which was already well into production at Japan’s Studio Junio (Mangels 79):

[It] was practically all animated. They were about to the point, overseas, of starting to paint cels on the show, So, they were within, probably, a month of production overseas of having a finished show, when Mattel made the decision to not move ahead with the toy line and stopped the production. It was never shot. (qtd. in Mangels 81)

As for the existing material, Kirkland maintains—in an August 4, 2004 post on the Anime Superhero (formerly Toon Zone) message boards—that “none of it exists on film, except for a short promotional piece that I had animated in L.A. [NOTE: this 30-second promo was only shown publicly once at a San Diego Comic-Con; Mangels 81]. All of the original artwork was shipped back from Japan and, the last I saw of it, it was in [Warner Bros.’] warehouse” (Boyd Kirkland).

After the demise of Wonder Woman and the Star Riders, Boyd Kirkland attempted to pitch a more traditional Wonder Woman animated series independent of BTAS and the soon-to-be STAS continuity. According to the aforementioned message board post, Kirkland recalled how then-President of Warner Bros. Animation “Jean MacCurdy asked me to develop Wonder Woman as a series, keeping it closer to the comic book roots than the Star Riders show, which I did. In addition to creating promotional art [seen above], I wrote a feature length treatment for the pilot, as well as outlined the series format and story arcs” (Boyd Kirkland). According to Kirkland, he pitched the series three times in the late 1990s, but Kids’ WB! turned it down each time (Boyd Kirkland; Mangels 81). The reasoning, he mused, was “due to a lack of faith in the idea of a female lead carrying a kids’ action show” (Boyd Kirkland). In regard to the proposed series, he had this to say:

Jean MacCurdy […] really wanted it to happen. I mean, she wanted a female action hero on the air for girls. The one that I was developing was more of just the hardline, hardcore action-adventure-type approach. It wasn’t completely the old Wonder Woman; it wasn’t completely George Pérez or even John Byrne. I wanted to take it back a little bit, kind of like with Lynda Carter, where she was powerful and strong, and she could jump long distances and all of that, but couldn’t launch and fly like Superman (qtd. in Mangels 81).

Now, considering Boyd Kirkland’s timeline post-BTAS via his IMDb page—producing, co-writing, and directing Batman & Mr. Freeze: SubZero (1998) being a particular stand-out—it stands to reason that the licensing for Wonder Woman could have been tied up due to his ongoing attempts at securing a Wonder Woman project … especially if it was being championed by the president of Warner Bros. Animation. In fact, it’s possible that it remained in play until potentially as late as 1999 or 2000, when Kirkland began working as producer on X-Men: Evolution. All things considered, I would go so far as to say that this is the strongest argument for Wonder Woman’s total absence from both STAS and Batman Beyond.

That said, even without this being an obstacle to her DCAU debut, an appearance on either series would have been difficult. In the case of STAS, one must remember that “lower than hoped-for numbers” led to Kids’ WB! reducing their order of episodes from 65 to what would eventually become 54 (Berkowitz 55), though those 11 episodes were actually transferred to the episode count of The New Batman Adventures (TNBA). Stripped of his fourth season, the Man of Steel lost the momentum towards forming the Justice League a few years earlier: according to STAS Producer Alan Burnett in a 1998 interview, “[w]e were toying with the idea of introducing all the characters that would be in the JLA one by one in Superman, then the last episode ever would be the formation of the JLA” (qtd. in Brick 23). Had they the extra time, it’s possible they could have fought that proverbial battle to have Diana make an STAS appearance.

As for Batman Beyond, it was—again—theoretically possible to fit Wonder Woman into “The Call,” but to do so would have been an even greater headache than with STAS. After all, as previously discussed, the development of the episode (presumably occurring in late 1999 to early 2000) coincided with a script shortage (Lamken 25) that forced Timm to break his previous rule about having guest stars for the sake of guest stars on this series (Allstetter, “Batman”). This, coupled with the ongoing production of Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker and the fact that—according to Bruce Timm in a January 26, 2005 post on Anime Superhero (formerly Toon Zone)—“[w]e were just so far behind schedule” (b.t.), it is easy to see how taking the time to deal with DC Comics, the Marston family, and Warner Bros. Animation to clear Wonder Woman for a two-part episode would have been another hassle they could simply avoid.

We must also grapple with the fact that, had the creative team successfully jumped those hurdles and cleared Wonder Woman to appear, would it have made “The Call” a better episode? Consider: this episode—one that the creative team, at one point, hoped would air as an unofficial series finale (Lamken 24)—is, at its heart, one that 1) challenges the new Batman to go next level; to deal with threats beyond the average Neo Gotham supervillain, and 2) provides a team-up and a victory lap for Superman, who kinda got short-changed by Kids’ WB! and by Batman himself (after stealing eleven episodes from STAS, making guest appearances in five, and co-opting the series into The New Batman / Superman Adventures, it was the least he could do). Simply put, the main players here were the new Batman and the old Superman; the rest of the League were, at best, supporting players and, at worst, set dressing.

With that in mind, we must then ask whether there would have even been room to establish Wonder Woman in her first DCAU appearance and give her the introduction she deserved? Compare this to the 2016 feature film Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice—a film intended to provide world-building for the then-ongoing DC Extended Universe (DCEU)—where the Amazon warrior was reduced to a glorified cameo in somebody else’s story. Would it have been worth jumping through those hoops to add Diana to what was, ostensibly, the end of the DCAU (Justice League would not be greenlit for at least another year)? To paraphrase Jenette Kahn, such a move would not provide her with the respect that she deserves. Better to pass the role to Barda, who had cameoed previously in the STAS episode “Apokolips…Now!, Part 2,” and make Diana wait for a more opportune time.

A League of Her Own

With the dawn of the new millennium came changes to both Warner Bros. Animation and the DCAU creative team. After the nadir of the Kids’ WB! era, Bruce Timm and company relocated to Cartoon Network to create a Justice League animated series—something that they would never, ever have been able to do on their previous network. Boyd Kirkland was hard at work producing X-Men: Evolution, and Jean MacCurdy—while still president of Warner Bros. Animation—was winding down her tenure, as she would soon be replaced by newcomer Sander Schwartz in April 2001 (Allstetter, “Schwartz”). Recognizing that, for the new series to work, he would need the “big guns” to fill out the League’s roster, Bruce Timm spoke to then-DC Comics Vice President Paul Levitz about his requirements, and—as detailed in a 2001 interview with Cinescape—Timm stated how “[Levitz] was behind us all the way.  He said right off the bat, ’It’s going to be hard to get the rights to all of these characters, but you have to have Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman.  And whatever it takes, we’ll make that happen’” (qtd. in Moro 61). Finally, the time had come to fight for Diana.

However, even if MacCurdy and Kirkland’s Wonder Woman series was off the table, there was still the matter of the Marston family, who needed to approve of Wonder Woman’s presence on the series. Now, based on what had come before, I suspect that the approval part would be easy (let’s face it: if they were willing to endorse Wonder Woman and the Star Riders, they’ll endorse anything), so what it really came down to was money (as Marston’s granddaughter Christie Marston stated in an April 11, 2014 Twitter post, the family still receives compensation for Wonder Woman’s use; @ChristieMarston). And, according to Director Dan Riba during the October 2, 2023 installment of the Justice League Revisited podcast, it was touch-and-go for a while:

DAN RIBA:  We had just, like, from when the show was approved to go to getting all the characters signed, and the way DC had the licensing for each character it was difficult to … you know, it was like, I remember, “Okay, we got Superman, we got Batman; those guys are in, but we have to, like, figure out our roster based on how the licensing deals with DC went.”  And Wonder Woman was the holdout.

JAMES ENSTALL:  Oh, really?

DAN RIBA:  Yeah, yeah, yeah.  The Marston estate was—you know, there was a certain kind of deal that DC had to have to pay for her, so we almost had Big Barda.

JAMES ENSTALL:  Oh, wow.

SUSAN EISENBERG:  Wow.

DAN RIBA:  Yeah.  And it was, like, we really needed Wonder Woman.  It was, like, “Come on!   We gotta have Wonder Woman!”  This is crazy; we wouldn’t have a Justice League—it wouldn’t feel right without Wonder Woman.

SUSAN EISENBERG:  Okay, where else are people going to hear stories like this?  I mean, can I just say that?  This is the inside scoop, folks!  This is the real deal!  You know, this is amazing; I never heard these—I didn’t know about that.  That’s fantastic!

JAMES ENSTALL:  Now, Susan, weren’t you the last—if I remember, [Voice Director] Andrea [Romano said] you were the last person to be cast too.  You were the last role—so this was basically … this was all held up because of Wonder Woman, one way or another, is what you’re saying, Dan.

SUSAN EISENBERG:  [LAUGHS.]

DAN RIBA:  Exactly, exactly.

SUSAN EISENBERG:  Yeah, well, I wouldn’t know about that.  I mean, I think you’re right about the casting, and I know that they … I can’t really speak to the whole casting thing because I’m not—I wasn’t in those rooms, except for the room I was in when they had me there.  So, I don’t really know the story of the casting of Wonder Woman. (qtd. in Eisenberg and Enstall)

Much like the Batman Beyond team-up episode before, Big Barda was once again used as an alternate Justice League member should an agreement between DC Comics and the Marston family not be met. Again, I suspect that it was more a matter of negotiating a price than anything else—after all, Wonder Woman is one of DC’s flagship icons and thus irreplaceable. By comparison, consider the case of a second- or third-tier DC hero like Black Lightning, who was prevented from appearing in animation for decades due to contract stipulations requiring DC Comics to pay his creator, Jenny Blake Isabella (aka Tony Isabella), royalties for licensing (Isabella). As a result, the character was frequently replaced by alternate Black heroes with electrokinetic powers, such as Black Vulcan (The All-New Superfriends Hour; 1977-1978), Soul Power (Static Shock; 2003), and Juice (the Justice League Unlimited [JLU] episode “Ultimatum”; 2004). Fortunately for the Justice League creative team, however, a deal was struck, and Wonder Woman became the seventh, and final, member of the original team.

As stated above, veteran voice actor Susan Eisenberg was cast as Wonder Woman, beating out other contenders such as Vanessa Marshall—who, according to Bruce Timm in a 2010 Anime Superhero (formerly Toon Zone) interview, was a close second for the role (so much so that she would eventually be cast as Diana in 2010’s Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths (Liu)—and Kristen Bauer, who would later be cast as the Atlantean Queen (and Aquaman’s wife) Mera in “The Enemy Below” (“Commentary on ‘The Enemy Below’”). Already a known talent for performing the character of Viper on Jackie Chan Adventures (2000-2005), the role of Wonder Woman brought her to a new level of prominence, and she would go on to build a formidable resume performing voices both in animation and video games (including the voice of the Sorceress in Masters of the Universe: Revelation; 2021-2024). In a 2022 essay published on Popverse, Eisenberg reflected on her audition for Wonder Woman:

I had first auditioned for the part at my agent’s office, and then got a callback at Warner Bros. with the legendary writer, artist, [and] creator Bruce Timm and the equally legendary casting and voice director, Andrea Romano.  It was there that Andrea gave me insight into Diana’s iconic roles as both a princess and a warrior.  She was layered, complicated, and had a worldview unlike any of the other Justice League heroes.  I had to convey her strength and vulnerability in every word and every scene.  Bruce showed me his sketch of Wonder Woman to help me “see” the character.  My inner princess and warrior were unlocked that day, and on the way home, I felt I succeeded.  Several weeks later, I got the call that I’d booked the job, and I was over the moon.  Thank Hera!

And, in an interview with the aforementioned RetroVision CD-ROM Magazine, Voice Director Andrea Romano discussed Eisenberg’s performance as the Amazing Amazon:

Wonder Woman is, obviously, such a known character, and we again cast a huge net out there to find just the right person, which we did in Susan Eisenberg.  She’s an actress with a really nice voice quality that’s fitting for the character.  We joke about her because Wonder Woman’s such an action figure, and she figures so prominently in the action sequences.  As a result, there’s a great deal of, for lack of a better term, impact she has to do, whether it’s “oofs” or “ughs” or “whoas.”  The poor thing has a hard time with those, but over the years she’s gotten better and better with it.  It’s been quite a learning experience for her. (qtd. in Gross 13)

In terms of Eisenberg’s Wonder Woman, Bruce Timm later reflected on the performance, praising her for her “vulnerability” and how it led them to “not play her to type, which ultimately played very well” (qtd. in Liu). As for her own thoughts on the role, she revealed in a 2005 DVD special feature how Diana is “a mixture […] she’s got both the tough, really strong woman, and then the sweeter, gentler side of her” (qtd. in “Voices”).

When it came time to design Wonder Woman for this new series, the creative team jettisoned Bruce Timm’s previous creations, electing instead to craft a new look for the Amazon warrior. According to character designer and Producer James Tucker in an August 2005 interview, both he and Timm divided the labor, with Timm designing her body and Tucker designing her face (kyerkes98). Much like Superman, the Season One Diana possessed pronounced cheekbones that would later be removed from her design starting in Season Two. Later, Tucker explained, in a now-deleted January 2022 post on X (formerly Twitter; fortunately, it can still be found quoted in a Watchtower Database video), how “[s]mall little details like […] cheekbones (in WW’s case) just don’t animate well going through as many hands as TV animation does,” adding how “Diana’s cheekbones in S1 just made her look too severe. [It was e]xtraneous detail that wasn’t needed, so [we] ditched it in S2 going forward” (qtd. in “What’s”). I should end this section with the confession that, much like with the Man of Steel, I did not much care for her added cheek lines, and I usually edit them out of screen captures with Photoshop to match her Season Two look.

When asked about Wonder Woman’s new design in a January 2002 interview with Starlog magazine, Bruce Timm offered the following commentary:

There was no special trick to designing Wonder Woman.  Over the years, I’ve gotten pretty good at designing female characters.  She’s pretty straightforward.  There wasn’t any previous comics version that I used as a template, but I tried to simplify some of the details on her costume for animation purposes.  She’s your typical Bruce Timm gal, a little taller and broader in the shoulders, but what you would expect. (qtd. in Jankiewicz 30)

He later added, when interviewed in a 2003 DVD special feature:

Most of the female characters we’ve designed for the various animated shows have been very petite, but Wonder Woman is a very strong and powerful character, so we needed to kind of beef her up a little bit, but not go into that bodybuilder mode, which they sometimes do in the comics.  We tried to infuse her with a little bit more power just in the visual than some of the other characters.  She’s taller, she has longer legs, smaller head.  We tried to keep her feminine but very, very strong. (qtd. in “Look”)

With her voice and look defined, there was, finally, the matter of her personality. As stated above, historically-speaking, Wonder Woman is a character that is not easy to define. Unlike Superman or Batman, there is no definite interpretation from comics or film that fans can look to and find consensus. Recognizing these complications, Diana began the series leaning into the “stranger in a strange land” trope, as detailed by Producers Rich Fogel and Bruce Timm during their appearance at the Justice League panel at the 2001 San Diego Comic-Con:

RICH FOGEL:  She’s a little bit younger and more innocent than we’ve seen her in the past.  She is literally the princess who is fresh off the island.  She’s never been off Themyscira before.  And so, she has a shock of culture coming out into a man’s world, and her expectations of how people should behave towards her are different.  It makes her a lot of fun to deal with because she’s haughty, but she’s also innocent.  And she also has issues with her mother.

BRUCE TIMM:  She was probably the most challenging character of all of them in this show.  Everyone else we kind of figured out who they were pretty easily, but we had a lot of discussions about Wonder Woman.   With Batman, you could easily say Batman:  Year One; that’s the Batman we want to do.  But, with Wonder Woman, we couldn’t really point to any previous version of Wonder Woman and say, “Yeah, that’s Wonder Woman.”  We had to say, “Well, is she Lynda Carter?  Is she the George Pérez Wonder Woman?  Is she Xena?”  And none of those things worked exactly for what we wanted to do with the show, so the personality as just described by Rich is kind of what we came up with. (qtd. in Davis)

Timm would later expand on this in the aforementioned January 2002 interview with Starlog magazine:

What we keyed in with Wonder Woman is that she’s a Princess and from a completely different culture.  In a weird way, she’s more of a fish out of water than the rest of the League.  In the first episode, we introduce her to man’s world.  That really forms her whole personality and how she deals with this culture that’s radically different from the one in which she was raised.

[She is] not haughty or imperious, but she is a Princess and is used to being treated with a certain amount of deference.  She doesn’t quite get that from the League, so Wonder Woman is a little taken aback by that.  It makes for interesting conflicts. (qtd. in Jankiewicz 31)

While Timm is correct in that this incarnation of Wonder Woman was not directly pulled from any one source, it is obvious that it does owe a considerable debt to George Pérez’s post-Crisis on Infinite Earths revamp, which wiped the slate clean of over forty years of back continuity and allowed the artist to craft an entirely new take on Princess Diana. Presented to the audience as a totally new character, this incarnation was notable for its closer ties to Greek mythology, the retooling of her Rogues’ Gallery into more formidable threats, and the removal of Steve Trevor as her ongoing love interest, which was just as well, considering how the creative team also removed the League members’ other supporting casts from Season One to force them to better “interact with each other” (qtd. in “Inside”).

Also, considering the “fish out of water” motif that the creative team decided upon, one could also interpret that they took some notes from another classic, Golden Age hero known for wearing the red, white, and blue: Captain America. Now, obviously the two heroes come from different backgrounds (a World War II vet unfrozen from ice versus an Amazon warrior leaving her homeland), but the concept of a patriotically-themed hero from the past discovering a strange, new world certainly resonates with both. And while they would move Diana away from this angle as the series progressed, it was particularly noticeable in Season One.

With her character complete, it was now time to promote this new incarnation of the Amazon princess. Reproduced below is Cartoon Network’s original character profile for Wonder Woman, officially released on October 19, 2001:

Wonder Woman was born Diana, Princess of Themyscira.  The daughter of Hippolyta, Diana was blessed by the gods with amazing speed and strength.  She also possesses the power of flight, silver bracelets that can deflect bullets, and an indestructible golden lasso spun from the girdle of [the] Earth goddess Gaea. Diana was raised among a fabled race of Amazons who trained her to be the ultimate Amazon warrior.  Now, for the first time, she has ventured out into Man’s World.  Her sheltered existence on Themyscira hardly prepared her for the greed, cruelty, and oppression that she finds among the human race.

Accustomed to being treated like royalty, Wonder Woman has the aristocratic bearing of a goddess.  With her deep sense of honor, she is easily offended when she is not accorded the respect that she feels she deserves, and she does not suffer fools gladly.  Yet, underneath this imposing exterior, she has a sly sense of humor. (qtd. in Allstetter, “Justice League Characters”)

As the day of the series’ premiere drew closer, fans everywhere were excited to see Bruce Timm and company finally check off one of the last major pieces of DC Comics arcana from their checklist. At long last, Diana would rejoin her comrades in animation.

“All the World is Waiting for You…”

For many decades, Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman have been considered the backbone of the DC Comics universe. It’s easy to see why, considering how they are the company’s most iconic characters, as well as the ones that they have published continuously since the Golden Age of Comics (by comparison, characters like Green Lantern, Flash, and Aquaman have experienced numerous starts and stops over the decades). This positioning as the greatest and most influential heroes of their coalition solidified with the publication of Batman / Superman / Wonder Woman: Trinity (2003), a three-issue miniseries that presented their “first” team-up. Since that series, the term “Trinity” has become the go-to nickname for this heroic trio, much like “The World’s Finest” is used to reference only Superman and Batman. However, in the world of the DCAU, this World’s Finest had already had years of superhero experience on their own shows while Wonder Woman, who made her debut in “Secret Origins,” was a novice costumed hero that was considered a “rookie in a tiara” by Green Lantern. True, she was Amazon born and a formidable warrior but, having spent her entire life on the hidden island of Themyscira, she had no practical battlefield experience. With that in mind, the original Justice League series can be considered her orientation period—a crucible meant to temper Diana into a stronger hero worthy of her character’s legacy.

In regard to her origins, we are able to glean bits and pieces from both episodes and ancillary quotes from the creative team. We learn in the JLU episode “The Balance” that she was sculpted from clay and brought to life by Hippolyta, as it was in her classic comic book origin (the addition of Hades assisting her, making him Diana’s unofficial father, is an addition native to the series). As for her age, there is some discrepancy: according to Dwayne McDuffie, in a March 2, 2006 post on his now-defunct message boards, Wonder Woman is “a year or so younger than Flash […] Flash is maybe 23 or 24 […] I think she was sculpted long ago but only brought to life a little over 20 years ago.  I think she was 18 in “Secret Origins,” explaining her naïveté,” though he admits that there is “nothing official; just my opinion” (Maestro). However, this is contradicted by writer and Producer Stan Berkowitz, who claims that “I’ve always heard that she is supposed to be a couple thousand years old, dating back to the age of the Greek gods” (qtd. in “Justice”). And, as for voice actor Susan Eisenberg, she volunteered the following to the Watchtower Database in 2025:

I never think of Diana as having an age. For me, she feels eternally young-ish, but also mature. […] I was never given, like, “You have to play her at 33.” [LAUGHS.] Thank God. […] There’s a certain sophistication to her, and a certain naïveté. She’s really contradictory in a lot of ways. (qtd. in “Justice”)

Regardless of Eisenberg’s neutral stance, it is possible that McDuffie and Berkowitz could both be correct, as in Wonder Woman #159 (January 1966) we learn that, at age nineteen, she was allowed to drink from the Fountain of Eternal Youth, a spring of magical water that allows the Amazons immortality as long as they remain on the island. With that in mind, it stands to reason that Diana may present as 18-22, but in reality she may be thousands of years old, depending on when Hippolyta “breathed life” into her. After all, in “Paradise Lost,” it was revealed that Hades was condemned to Tartarus 3,000 years ago, so she obviously had to be sculpted before that time.

A recipient of J’onn J’onzz’s telepathic call for help, Diana defied her mother and travelled to Man’s World to join the rebellion against the Imperium and its army of Alien Invaders. As stated above, she was seen as a new hero by the other members of the Justice League (much like the post-Crisis Wonder Woman was in early crossover events like Legends), and the rest of the team recognized her mix of experience and inexperience. Her background afforded her incredible combat skills and an understanding of a royal mindset (her insight into Aquaman’s actions in “The Enemy Below,” for example), but her complete lack of familiarly with the world outside of her mother’s kingdom marked her as an ingénue—sort of like a tourist in New York City who stops in the middle of the sidewalk to gawk at the immensity of the buildings. By comparison, Green Lantern—who also made his first DCAU appearance in the pilot—was presented as having ten-to-fifteen-years of experience as a hero (in addition to his years serving as a U.S. Marine) prior to joining the Justice League and, as a result, he often served in a leadership role when Superman and Batman weren’t around. This dynamic—John Stewart dismissing her as a rookie, and “Princess” resenting him for his dismissive attitude—would fuel many of their early interactions.

Unfortunately, aside from her tête-à-tête with Green Lantern and the Flash’s attempts at flirting with her, there wasn’t much to Wonder Woman at first. Much like the writers, Diana herself was searching for her personality and, as a result, she came off as “generic good guy” in many of her early appearances. Because of this, her Season One spotlight episodes, “Paradise Lost” and “Fury,” relied too much on Themyscira and Queen Hippolyta as plot points, which Bruce Timm recognized as a problem:

Hippolyta is a good character, and Susan Sullivan plays her with great acting chops, but I don’t want to overuse that aspect of Wonder Woman.  I want to explore different facets of Wonder Woman’s personality.  The two Wonder Woman story arcs we’ve done this season probably had too much to do with her Amazon past.  They’re both good stories, but we’ve put a moratorium on Hippolyta and the Amazons for the time being. (qtd. in Jankiewicz 31)

While correct in that regard, it is worth denoting what the above two episodes brought to the table. Already absent from Themyscira for eight months at the beginning of the episode, “Paradise Lost” ended with Diana banished from its shores for the crime of bringing men onto the island (never mind that it was an emergency that saved humanity from being overrun by the forces of the underworld; this decision would later be reversed in the JLU episode “The Balance”). While a cruel, downbeat ending, it was necessary story-wise to prevent Wonder Woman from having the option of running back home whenever she wanted. As previously stated, the creative team needed her to rely on her teammates / found family in the Justice League. And, as for “Fury,” it served as a chance to force Diana to challenge the beliefs that had been taught to her by her mother. Fully indoctrinated by the Amazon’s dismissive attitudes towards men (if not outright hatred), she was forced to reevaluate while opposing her “dark mirror” counterpart, Aresia. As stated in the aforementioned RetroVision CD-ROM Magazine interview, writer Stan Berkowitz recognized how, aside from the mass murder angle, the loss of all men “doesn’t matter to [Diana].  She was raised in an all-women society, so it doesn’t seem like that much of a loss to her.  The only way it begins to seem like a loss is that her colleagues might die; her brothers-in-arms” (qtd. in Gross 13). However, through Hawkgirl and seeing Batman fall, she began to reconsider, and this is amplified when she heard the true story of how Aresia arrived on Themyscira…

Diana and Aresia learning of how the sea captain died to ensure Aresia’s survival, and Hippolyta burying his remains on the island, was a poignant moment, akin to the scene in Black Panther (2018) when T’Challa discovered that his father abandoned his cousin, who would grow up to become Killmonger, to the outside world after murdering his father, despite the fact that he had Wakandian blood. Just like with Killmonger, Aresia was “a monster of our own making,” and their origins were the result of the poor judgement of their nations’ rulers. By stopping Aresia, Wonder Woman had to challenge her peoples’ beliefs about men and open herself to the possibility that, despite their many faults, they have value to contribute.

Fortunately for Diana, after the events of “Fury,” she proved to be a quick study, and she even began to realize that there were other, more subtle ways to engage in combat with men. For example, in “A Knight of Shadows,” Wonder Woman was able to find the Philosopher’s Stone at the Hickman Mansion by using charm and guile, rather than just showing up and trashing the place. Also, through interactions with others like the Justice League and Steve Trevor (in “The Savage Time”), she learned more than battlefield improvisation and grace under fire—they also taught her more about how to be human.

Of course, Diana learned something else from Steve Trevor, something that caused her to look at Batman in a new light as the series progressed.

WonderBats in the Belfry

Of the connections made in “Secret Origins,” one of the most immediately noticeable (aside from Green Lantern and Flash, of course) was the link between Wonder Woman and Batman. Their scenes were limited, but you could tell that there was something there, from the way that Batman held back to watch how Diana held herself in a fight (“Let’s see what she can do”) to Wonder Woman’s declaration to the others after believing he was slain in battle (“He was a true warrior”). Then came the events of “The Brave and the Bold,” where—as recounted by Bruce Timm in a 2004 DVD special feature—the Dark Knight’s concern for the Amazon’s well-being led to a scene that set the Internet aflame:

We did this little throwaway bit in “The Brave and the Bold” where, it was literally at the eleventh hour, I was looking at the storyboard with Dan Riba, the director, and we got to the end sequence where Batman was trying to save Wonder Woman from underneath the missile, and he’s digging through the rubble trying to find Wonder Woman, and then, you know, she comes out, she’s all safe and sound, and I just thought it would be kind of neat if we just had this little bit where, you know, she looks over to him and sees that his hands are all burned from digging through, you know, the smoking rubble, you know, it’s like, “Aww, you tried to save me!  That was really sweet!”  And she leans over and gives him a little peck on the cheek.

And it was just a cute little bit; that’s all it was, right?  But the minute that show aired, the Internet was all abuzz, like, you know, “Oh, wow, there’s something going on between Batman and Wonder Woman!  What’s this all about?”  And it’s just, like, “C’mon, there’s nothing going on between Batman and Wonder Woman!  What are you guys talking about?  It was just a little throwaway bit!  It was just a little bit!  It was just cute, you know?”  And then, we started thinking about it, and it’s, like, “Well, okay, maybe there’s isn’t anything going on between Batman and Wonder Woman now, but it would be kind of fun to explore it.” (qtd. in “Behind”)

Originally intended as a minor character moment—one that Timm initially had second thoughts about, but Dan Riba insisted remain in the episode (@susaneisenberg1)—this soon blossomed into a ship known as “WonderBat,” and while this pairing was not something that they were going to make a major part of the series, the creative team had no problem teasing fans with it. For example, according to Timm in a 2004 interview, in “Twilight,” they returned to this partnership when another combination didn’t quite pay off:

I don’t want to hit it too hard because it’s not a big, huge romance or anything.  It’s just a way to keep it interesting. […] In “Twilight,” […] in the original script, the way the groups were paired off, we had Wonder Woman teaming up with [J’onn J’onzz] in part of the story.  And then, for a number of logistical reasons, it wasn’t quite working, and—on a character level—I realized those two characters don’t really play off each other well; they’re like brother and sister.  When you get them together, they get bland.  But, going back to Batman and Wonder Woman, when you get the Homecoming Queen and the Bad Boy together, then suddenly you’ve got something.  So, we made that switch in that story, and it really improved the story.  So, it’s just a matter of finding the right mix of chemicals to get a reaction. (qtd. in MacDonald)

Top row, left to right: from “Maid of Honor,” Bruce and Diana’s first dance and Batman and Wonder Woman share a knowing look; middle row: from “Hereafter,” Wonder Woman notices Batman watching Superman's funeral procession from the rooftops; bottom row, left to right: Bruce and Diana’s first kiss in “Starcrossed,” and Batman and Wonder Woman share another knowing look in “Divided We Fall.”

While the simmering attraction between the two heroes never reached the same levels as the one connecting Green Lantern and Hawkgirl, their relationship was a welcome, original twist to the series, though it was one that would soon be adapted into the comics during Joe Kelly’s JLA run. Despite all his defenses and emotional barriers, Wonder Woman got the Dark Knight in ways that the rest of the League simply couldn’t, such as the realization that “he doesn’t handle loss very well” in “Hereafter.” And as for Batman, while he could never let himself fully accept her into his world, you could feel his angst in scenes like in “This Little Piggy,” when he confided his feelings to Zatanna and later, at the episode’s climax, when he surrendered his dignity to have Circe remove her curse (according to Dwayne McDuffie in an August 13, 2004 post on his now-defunct message boards; Maestro). In an interview in the aforementioned RetroVision CD-ROM Magazine, Susan Eisenberg gave her thoughts on their connection:

There’s been some serious flirtation between them.  That’s great and fun to play, because that’s a flirtatious side of Diana, but even the friendship and the “getting” of each other—I love to play those opportunities.  It may not be this full-blown romance, but certainly they’re exploring the friendship between them.  And an understanding of each other. (qtd. in Gross 13)

While “WonderBat” would taper off in later seasons, their connection would only get stronger, and perhaps that's the best endgame people like Diana and Bruce could ask for. After all, they could never be lovers but, sometimes, those unrequited romances blossom into the deepest and most intimate friendships that two people could have. Until the end of the series, they would remain as allies, friends, and comrades-in-arms.

Dirty Diana

Her “will-they-or-won’t-they” romance with Batman was one of many additions to Wonder Woman’s character, as the creative team sought to distance her from her Season One trappings, such as her culture shock and Themyscira-related storylines. In an interview in the aforementioned RetroVision CD-ROM Magazine, Bruce Timm outlined some of the changes to Diana in Season Two, which started appearing in “Maid of Honor”:

We’d kind of done the naïve, new to man’s world princess for the first season, and realized that would get old real quick.  So, we wanted to take that to the next step.  We thought of different possibilities—giving her a secret identity or a job, but none of that stuff was really jelling.  But then, taking a cue from the comics where they kind of play her as this ambassador to the world, we thought it would be kind of cool to get her out of her Amazonian armor and get her all dressed up really nice, elegant and explore a different aspect of her. (qtd. in Gross 22)

(Speaking of which, “Maid of Honor” brought up the now-familiar question that plagues superhero fiction these days: where did Diana get the money for the fancy dresses and hotel rooms, as she has no discernable income? As it turns out, while she may have been banished from Themyscira, apparently Hippolyta had no problem financially supporting her, as Dwayne McDuffie alluded to in a 2006 interview, saying how the room Batman surprised her in “was a hotel, which I assume is what she lives in when she was traveling around being a princess, a rich person’s daughter, enjoying the world” [qtd. in Wilson].)

Thanks to the tireless work of the creative team—particularly Dwayne McDuffie who, according to Producer James Tucker, “really helped make her a better, well-rounded character” (qtd. in kyerkes98)—the personality of Wonder Woman began to take shape. Much like Superman, she was quiet and slow to anger, unless provoked (see “Eclipsed” and “Hawk and Dove” for scenes featuring Diana losing her cool). Much to the presumed relief of her voice actor, Diana developed a sense of humor (Gross 13), but unlike someone like the Flash, her jokes were often dry and understated (note her reaction to Princess Audrey’s praise over destroying a helicopter in “Maid of Honor”: “It was my first time”). Bereft of her own solo animated adventures, Diana functioned as a sort of modern-day Heracles, a freelance adventurer fighting evildoers and monsters. And while she was generally open and trusting of others, she did not forgive easily (for example, her ongoing tension with Shayera Hol following her betrayal during the Thanagarian invasion in “Starcrossed,” which lasted until “The Balance”).

Speaking of which, the Thanagarian Invasion had an additional benefit, as it truly afforded Wonder Woman the opportunity to cut loose, fight dirty, and showcase this new incarnation. As previously stated, Diana began the series as a new hero, one that had experience but was still rough around the edges. There were scenes and episodes that showed her evolution (fighting Nazis in “The Savage Time,” the Kasnian military in “Maid of Honor,” and Aquaman in “The Terror Beyond”), but it wasn’t until “Starcrossed”—in scenes like the one above, where she led a jailbreak on the Thanagarian prison ship—that she took command and truly showed her mettle. In the DVD commentary for “Starcrossed, Part 3,” co-writer Dwayne McDuffie revealed that “this is the thing nobody ever notices:  in big battles, Wonder Woman is the toughest Justice Leaguer.  She always takes out ten people for every one person everybody else takes out” (“Commentary on ‘Starcrossed’”), and this is something that McDuffie would reference again during his tenure writing the Justice League comics as, in Justice League of America #13 (November 2007), Batman refers to Wonder Woman as “the best melee fighter in the world” (McDuffie). I would argue that, prior to this, she was already worthy of the Justice League, but with “Starcrossed” she proved herself worthy of the Trinity.

Of course, by then, the DCAU Trinity was set as Superman, Batman, and Green Lantern, so the addition of Wonder Woman transformed it into more of a Quadrinity. Now, this statement is not meant to denigrate the other members of the Justice League, who are collectively considered to be the best superheroes ever (according to Steel in “Panic in the Sky,” at any rate), but take a moment to consider the remaining three. J’onn J’onzz, for all his seniority, preferred a less visible role in the League, choosing to remain on the Watchtower performing administrative duties for the majority of JLU. Shayera Hol’s superhero career carries an asterisk due to her betrayal, as Hawkgirl, during the Thanagarian Invasion. And as for the Flash, while he is a public hero (and a very popular one in Central City), he still largely presents as comic relief (even he recognizes that he often gets seen as nothing more than a “teenaged sidekick,” as he put it in “The Ties That Bind”). Finally, don’t forget the fact that—particularly during Season One of Justice League Unlimited—Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman, and Green Lantern each were frequently presented as team leaders when the Justice League went super-sized, so it’s difficult to see them as anything less.

Far from the wide-eyed ingénue of Season One, the Amazing Amazon was now considered one of the most significant, powerful, and influential members of a rapidly-expanding Justice League. And there was nowhere else to go but up from there.

“Whosoever Holds This Lasso, If She Be Worthy—”

As Justice League transitioned into Justice League Unlimited, the more prominent Wonder Woman moved further away from her Captain America-ish, “stranger-in-a-strange-land” origins and, in doing so, segued into a role closer to another of the Avengers: the Mighty Thor. Continuing her turn as a larger-than-life, mythological hero, her adventures began featuring larger-than-life, mythical themes, such as when the witch Circe transformed her into a pig (instead of a frog) in “This Little Piggy,” her battle with the Legion of Doom over the body of the Viking Prince in “To Another Shore,” and the multi-part arc (from “Hawk and Dove” to “The Balance”) featuring her confrontations with the Annihilator armor, which was literally based on the Destroyer from Thor comics. In addition, her costume and arsenal received an upgrade, and she even acquired a new job, after a fashion.

Her first acquisition came in the form of her Invisible Jet, which debuted in “For the Man Who Has Everything.” While it is true that she can fly, it has been shown previously that she prefers to use vehicles for long-distance travel (such as her use of the Javelin-7 to return to Themyscira in “Paradise Lost”). A part of Wonder Woman lore since her earliest adventures—specifically Sensation Comics #1 (January 1942)—her jet just appeared to little fanfare and no explanation, but that was not intended to be the case, as it was to be featured in a cancelled Justice League direct-to-video film, which was intended to be a “bridge” between Justice League and JLU (Renaud). In an August 9, 2004 message board post on Anime Superhero (formerly Toon Zone), Bruce Timm spilled the beans on its intended origin:

[Okay], here’s the deal on the Invisible Jet:  while it’s an obvious nod to traditional [Wonder Woman] lore, it’s an invisible jet; not necessarily the invisible jet.  And, no, it’s not just a cloaked Javelin. There actually is an origin story for it:  the currently “on indefinite hold” [Justice League] DTV explains where it came from.  It’s a particularly clever idea of [Dwayne McDuffie’s], so I’m not gonna spoil it now, just in case the DTV ever gets back on track. (b.t.)

Fortunately, the “on indefinite hold” DTV was eventually retooled into Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths (2010), a movie intended to be distinct from the DCAU, but it still feels like it’s in-continuity if you want it to be (just pretend that Hal Jordan is John Stewart, and it’s fine). As it turns out, the jet belonged to Owlman, the “evil Batman” counterpart of the Crime Syndicate, which Diana stole from him during their escape from the alternate universe’s Justice League headquarters. With its “chameleon system” burned out in battle, the plane remained stuck in cloak, and Wonder Woman brought it back to her universe as “spoils of war.” Possessing a “custom ride” only added to her mystique, and it put her on equal footing with Batman, who frequently used his own Batwing on League missions.

Diana’s next major upgrade occurred during “The Balance” when, tasked by the gods to return Hades to the throne of Tartarus, she returned to Themyscira to enter the underworld through their subterranean portal. Seeking to protect her daughter from what was to come next, Hippolyta “unlocked” the magic features of Wonder Woman’s armor, which had been denied to her previously (she did steal the outfit in “Secret Origins,” after all). Of the upgrades received, her golden lasso became the Lasso of Truth, which allows Diana to force anyone ensnared within it to tell the truth. In addition, she gained other abilities, such as the ability to transform into her uniform via a “magical girl transformation” similar to Lynda Carter’s spin change from the 1970s television series:

It is unknown whether the armor can transform into regular clothing, or if it merely holds each outfit in some kind of status until needed. Again, it doesn’t matter, but these kinds of things do keep me up at night.

The final major addition to her armory would come thirteen years after the end of Unlimited in the form of a sword. Though teased in “The Balance” (above top left), the blade (or one very much like it) would not make a full appearance until Justice League vs. The Fatal Five (above top right; 2019). Most likely included to better mirror her appearance in the live-action Wonder Woman film (2017), it does not specifically resemble the blades used by Diana in the DCEU, such as the God Killer or the Sword of Athena, but it certainly is an accessory used by the post-Crisis Wonder Woman on multiple occasions … and it certainly came in handy during her duel with the Persuader’s Atomic Axe at the film’s climax.

The final major change to her character occurred in “To Another Shore,” where Diana—already considered an emissary and ambassador to Man’s World in the Post-Crisis continuity—became a literal ambassador for Themyscira, much like during Greg Rucka’s Wonder Woman run, beginning in Wonder Woman #195 (October 2003). Attending a global conference on climate change, Diana managed to not only unintentionally suggest that her mother might force the world’s governments to comply, but—according to Special Agent King Faraday—she also read “the riot act” to the American vice president (considering that, at the time of airing, the vice president was a notorious oil man and climate change denier, I would have paid to see that). Sadly, this story thread would not be pursued further following the show’s cancellation, but one would assume she would grow into her new role.

The Adventure Continues…

Unlike her iconic contemporaries, Wonder Woman exists as a contradictory enigma. In her way, she is similar to Mattel’s Barbie doll in that her appearance, values, and adventures change according to the eras in which she is published. Diana is constantly in a state of flux, as she reflects society’s attitudes towards women in relation to sexuality, feminism, and gender equality. As a result, she can be the submissive, lady-like heroine of the 1940s, the feminist, “New Woman” character of the 1960s, the aggressive, grrl power champion of the 1990s; and the politically-charged activist of the 2000s … as well as whatever is to come next. Sure, it prevents her from having a definite interpretation; but it also prevents her from going stagnant, as it allows her to change and evolve with the tenor of the times. Not surprisingly, her weakness here is also her strength and, in that context, the Wonder Woman of Justice League and Justice League Unlimited is a snapshot of a moment, a version of the Amazon warrior that could not exist in any other time in the character’s history.

As the DCAU creative team has done numerous times before, they selected the highlights of what was Princess Diana’s then-sixty year history and distilled it into an iconic take, one that fit into the framework of the television series while respecting the broader range of her character. It may have angered some long-time fans but, in the end, it was as equally valid as the interpretations created by William Moulton Marston, George Pérez, John Byrne, Greg Rucka, Gail Simone, and Zack Snyder. And, despite their differences, they all contain the same immutable similarities, as described by Susan Eisenberg in a 2014 interview:

She’s utterly beloved for reasons that are tangible and intangible.  Clearly, she’s a woman of high moral standards with an unflinching determination to stand up for what she believes in.  I think in all times, but especially darker times, there’s a great need for characters like her because it gives people a sense that there is some goodness in the world.  Goodness and morality.  And with that, comes hope.  And if she can embody that for people, well, that’s a magnificent gift that Mr. William Moulton Marston gave to us.  She was not created without purpose, and so I believe the more purpose she has, the more powerful she is.  If she can be a beacon for other women, that’s a gift.  If she can be a hero for someone who’s being bullied, that’s a gift.  And if she’s beautiful and sexy and smart in her pursuits, well, that’s a gift from the Gods. (qtd. in Pantozzi)

All things considered, the adaption of Wonder Woman into the DCAU was a challenge on multiple fronts, but the results were a wonder worth waiting for.

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Images courtesy of Warner Bros. Discovery, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment, Warner Bros. Animation, DC Comics, Marvel Comics, and Mattel, Inc. YouTube videos courtesy of the THX1968 and DC channels.