Abandon All Continuity, Ye Who Enter Here
Wonder Girl: “I have no idea where I’m going to be tomorrow. But I accept the fact that tomorrow will come. And I’m going to rise to meet it.”
Teen Titans/Outsiders: Secret Files and Origins
Monsters are attacking a city park. A child runs for her mother but trips over a tree root. A trio of satyrs rush up and raise their spears to kill her. Before they can strike, a lasso is thrown around one of satyr’s necks. A quick jerk snaps the monster’s neck as its companions turn to face their attacker.
They see a young woman in red armor with a lasso in one hand and a bloodied sword in the other. They scream and charge the Amazon, but are easily cut down. Wonder Girl wipes off the blood and escorts the child to her parents.
Wonder Girl has the most convoluted backstory imaginable. Her most famous stories are often about her trying to figure out her own backstory. She has also been a member of the Teen Titans, the Justice League, and briefly became Wonder Woman. So who is she? Where does she come from? How did this continuity cluster-crap begin? Let’s find out.
Scene Select
Spontaneous Superhero: Wonder Girl’s Backstory
Wonder Girl: “I don’t know, Roy. I don’t know where I’m from. I was adopted at age seven. I have no memories prior to that. I don’t even know where my powers come from.”
Titans #7
Wonder Girl debuted in The Brave and The Bold #60 in 1965. She was accidentally created by Bob Haney and Bruno Premiani.
Haney had been considering a female sidekick joining the Teen Titans. He saw an issue of Wonder Woman that showed a young girl fighting alongside the hero and figured she must be Wondy’s sidekick. Had he read the issue, Haney would have known it was a time travel story and the “sidekick” was a teenaged Wonder Woman. Yes, he actually judged a book by its cover.
Wonder Girl finally received a backstory four years after she was created. Wonder Woman had saved a girl from a fire, but couldn’t save her parents. She brought the child, who was named Donna Troy, to her homeland of Themyscira to raise her as an Amazon. Donna became a superhero and fought alongside her adopted sister as Wonder Girl.
Wonder Girl met Robin, Aqualad, and Kid Flash while on a mission. They worked well together and afterwards, formed the Teen Titans. During this era, she also fell in love with a Titan ally called Speedy.
Remember The Titans: Wonder Girl’s History
Donna: “Where there had been a thousand Earths, there was only one, with one history– and a Wonder Girl before there was ever a Wonder Woman. You see, this new universe didn’t quite know what to do with the more complicated holdovers from the Multiverse. So it improvised.”
DC Special: The Return of Donna Troy
Wonder Girl’s backstory woes began in 1985 with the release of Crisis on Infinite Earths. The DC universe suffered multiple retcons. One of the biggest was that Wonder Woman only arrived in Man’s World recently. So how had Wonder Girl been around all this time?
Writers retconned that Donna had been saved by Rhea, one of the Titans of Myth. The Titans had been banished from Earth and planned to create a new generation of Titans, taking twelve children to the moon New Cronus and training them in combat. The children were given names based on Greek cities, with Donna being named Troy. Donna Troy was later returned to Earth with her memories erased.
Wonder Girl learned this origin when the Titans of Myth came begging for help. Another future Titan, Sparta, had gone mad and began killing the Titans to absorb their powers. She defeated Sparta and absorbed the Titan’s powers, gaining a massive power boost. To honor her mentors and symbolically become an adult, Donna Troy abandoned her identity and became Troia.
Don’t think for a second this was the last of the Wonder Girl retcons. She’s been everything from a clay golem brought to life by magic to a mirror duplicate created to be a young Wonder Woman’s friend. There was even a plot by the Wonder Woman villain Dark Angel that resulted in a multiverse of Donna Troys.
I swear, every time you turn around, Wonder Girl has a new backstory that’s even more convoluted than the last. DC once even tried to combine all of her backstories into one cohesive and coherent origin. They failed miserably.
Titanic Strength: Wonder Girl’s Powers and Personality
[a villain has been monologuing]
Countdown to Final Crisis #45
Troia: “Oh, I fully intend to give you an old-school beat-down. I’m just saying, on top of it all, that you’re full of crap.”
Wonder Girl’s powers change as often as her backstory, but a few remain consistent. She has superhuman strength, speed, durability, and flight. She gained energy blasts, force fields and light powers when she absorbed the Titan’s power.
Wonder Girl wields magical bracelets that function exactly like Wonder Woman’s. She also uses the Lasso of Persuasion, which allows Donna to mind control anyone wrapped by the lasso as long as her will is stronger than theirs. When Wonder Girl gets serious, she uses enchanted armor and a sword forged by Hephaestus.
Wonder Girl began as a flighty teenybopper, but soon grew into a compassionate warrior although trauma and retcons have left her with depression and a bad temper. Donna normally hides those troubles, but watch out if she gets pushed too far.
The Actors Who Play Wonder Girl
Julie Bennet – The Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure
Grey DeLisle – Young Justice
Hynden Walch – Teen Titans Go!
Conor Leslie – Titans.
Didya Get All That? (Doubtful)
An Amazon with more backstories than the entire Justice League combined.
Image: Conor Leslie as Wonder Girl on Titans. Photo by Christos Kalohordis courtesy of DC Entertainment.
Jared Bounacos has written for Movie Rewind since 2016.
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