Wonder Girl
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| Wonder Girl | |
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 Three of the Wonder Girls: Donna Troy, Wonder Woman, Cassandra Sandsmark, from the cover to Wonder Woman Vol. 2 #186, by Adam Hughes. |
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| First appearance |
Wonder Woman #124 (1961)
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| Characters | |
Three fictional characters named Wonder Girl have appeared as superheroines in DC Comics. The original was a younger version of Wonder Woman. The second and third are protégés of Wonder Woman, and members of different incarnations of the Teen Titans.
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[edit] Characters
[edit] Diana
Wonder Girl was originally introduced in the Wonder Woman comic as a teen-aged Princess Diana of the Amazons. An additional character, Wonder Tot, (Wonder Woman as a toddler), was also featured.
From Wonder Woman #124 (August 1961) onwards, all three versions frequently appeared together in stories that were labelled "impossible tales," presented as films made by her mother, Queen Hippolyta, who had the power to splice together films of herself and Diana at different ages. However, by the time the Teen Titans made their first appearance, the characters of Wonder Girl and Wonder Woman had begun to diverge; Haney began writing Wonder Girl stories that took place in the same time period as those of Wonder Woman.
[edit] Donna Troy
Donna made what is generally considered her first appearance in The Brave and the Bold #60 (July 1965), and was portrayed as a member of a junior Justice League consisting of Robin, Kid Flash and Aqualad. The young heroes joined together to battle wrong-doers as the Teen Titans.
(There is some disagreement among fandom as to whether this should be considered the first appearance of the character Wonder Girl as a distinct "little sister" rather than merely Diana's younger self. As mentioned in the previous section, the characters of Wonder Woman & Wonder Girl had already begun to diverge in the Wonder Woman title. The well-regarded Wonder Woman fan/historian Carol A. Strickland considers some stories from as early as 1962 to be, in hindsight, about Donna after all.[1])
The relationship between this Wonder Girl and the younger version of Wonder Woman was not fully explained at the time. In fact, Wonder Girl was referred to by the other Titans as "Wonder Girl" or "Wonder Chick" rather than by any other, more "personal" name, until Teen Titans #33. In that issue, the mystery of Wonder Girl's background was finally addressed in a story by Marv Wolfman and Gil Kane, in which it was explained that Wonder Girl was actually a non-Amazon orphan, rescued by Wonder Woman from an apartment building fire. Unable to find any parents or family for her, Wonder Woman brought her to Paradise Island, where she was eventually given Amazon powers by Paula's Purple Ray. The origin story ended with Wonder Girl making a new costume for herself, one unrelated to Wonder Woman's, & taking the civilian name "Donna Troy."
This origin was expanded and modified in later issues of The Teen Titans. From the late 1960's to the mid-1980's, Donna rarely appeared or was mentioned in the pages of Wonder Woman, & came to be thought of as part of the Teen Titans family of characters.
In the 1980's, due to the relaunch of Wonder Woman as a new character in a new series, & under the theory that Donna was more a Titans character than a Wonder Woman character, Donna was retconned into a character with no direct ties to the Amazons. In the story-line "Who Is Wonder Girl?", the Titans of Myth enlist Donna's aid, & tell her that they raised her after the Titan Rhea rescued her from a fire. Following victory in a cosmic battle, Donna gained new powers, growing into her role as a "Titan Seed." Since by this time she was a married woman, Donna changed her nom de guerre from Wonder Girl to Troia.
In the 1990's, Donna was reattached to the Wonder Woman mythos. In the new version of her origin, Magala (an Amazon sorceress) animated a mirror image of young Princess Diana, creating a mystic identical twin for Diana to play with. A few months after, the mystic twin was kidnapped by Dark Angel (who thought she has taken Diana). Dark Angel dispersed the girl's spirit across the multiverse, condemning her to live multiple lives, each one cut short by the Dark Angel at a moment of tragedy.
In at least one of these variant lives, Donna would become a superhero & encounter her grown sister, now Wonder Woman, & their mother Queen Hippolyta, without realizing who she really was or how she was related to them.
After that timeline ended with the death of her son, Diana & Hippolyta intervened to find what happened to their friend Donna. Donna finally deafeated Dark Angel, destroying the evil entity and regaining her original Amazon powers, then returned to reality to continue her life from that point.
The 2005 mini-series The Return of Donna Troy revealed that Donna is actually an amalgam of every Donna Troy, who remembers all of her other incarnations.
After the events of Infinite Crisis, Diana passed the mantle of Wonder Woman to Donna Troy. However, Diana continued to be the star of the book, & reclaimed the title of Wonder Woman in the first story arc of Wonder Woman vol. III.
Donna still has an extremely complicated history and origin.
[edit] Cassandra Sandsmark
Cassie Sandsmark is the daughter of Dr. Helena Sandsmark, an archaeologist; her father is Zeus. She has been a member of both Young Justice and the Teen Titans. Initially, her powers were derived from ancient Greek artifacts. Later, Zeus granted her the boon of actual powers. Her powers are similar to Wonder Woman's, though she carries a lasso that expels Zeus's lightning which was given to her by Ares, (the Greek god of war).
When the Greek gods left the mortal plane during Infinite Crisis, Zeus stripped Cassie of her powers. However, she was granted powers by Ares in exchange for becoming his champion.
After Superboy's death she quit the Titans for a time to be an independent vigilante. She was mourning the loss of her lover superboy and bitter from the abandonment from Robin and Wonder Woman in the missing year 52. Though she later rejoined the group, after a battle with the Brotherhood of Evil and return of Cyborg. At the moment Cassie was on her way to inform Robin of her decision, she discovered that he was trying to clone Superboy. As the two mourned their lost friend, they unexpectedly shared an awkward (yet passionate) kiss.
[edit] Wonder Girl in other media
[edit] Wonder Woman
In 1976 a version of Wonder Girl appeared in the Wonder Woman TV series, played by Debra Winger in one of her first roles.
Although the pilot episode revealed that Wonder Woman's alter-ego, Princess Diana of Paradise Island, was Queen Hippolyte's only child, later episodes featured Diana's younger sibling, Drusilla.
Drusilla first appeared in the two-part episode titled "The Feminum Mystique". In that episode, Queen Hippolyte (Carolyn Jones) sends Drusilla to America in order to bring her sister home to Paradise Island. (It should be noted that Queen Hippolyte is never referred to by name in any of the televised specials in which she appeared.)
Drusilla gets tangled up in a Nazi plot to discover the secret of Wonder Woman's magical bracelets, and in the process masters the spinning transformation used by her older sister. Although Drusilla creates the persona of Wonder Girl, the distinction is lost on the Nazis, who believe her to be Wonder Woman and abduct her.
Drusilla appeared again in the final episode of the first season, "Wonder Woman in Hollywood".
A figure resembling Winger's Drusilla made a cameo appearance in Infinite Crisis #6, as the Wonder Girl of Earth-462.
[edit] Late Night with David Letterman
In 1993, Debra Winger promoted her new movie Wilder Napalm on The Late Show with David Letterman. David enjoyed engaging Winger in a discussion of her first major role as Wonder Girl after showing the audience a clip of her on the Wonder Woman series. Winger, obviously prepared for this, then burst out of her "civilian" clothes and sported the Wonder Girl outfit that she hadn't worn in 17 years, running out of the studio in costume saying she was late for something she had to do.
[edit] Teen Titans
Wonder Girl's first animated appearance was in the Teen Titans segments on The Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure in 1967.
Wonder Girl once worked with the Boy Wonder and Batman, but was fired for not following Batman's directions.
Wonder Girl had long been rumored to appear on the Teen Titans animated series. In Homecoming (part two) and Calling All Titans a character resembling Donna Troy appeared in several brief scenes, though she was not named.
[edit] Teen Titans Go
Wonder Girl appeared in "Troy," issue #36 of the series, acting as if she has been on the team for some time. Below is a link to an interview with artist J. Torres, giving an advance look at the story. http://www.newsarama.com/forums/showthread.php?t=76247
[edit] Justice League Unlimited
Wonder Girl makes an appearance of sorts in the Justice League Unlimited episode "Kid Stuff". Superman, Batman, Green Lantern and Wonder Woman are reverted to eight-year-olds by Morgaine le Fey in order to re-enter the world from which her son Mordred wiped out all adults. Diana is still referred to as Wonder Woman but fits the original concept of Wonder Girl. She mentions that she enjoyed the time as a child and flirts liberally with the younger version of Batman in some humorous scenes. She is voiced by Dakota Fanning.
