Which of the one-hit Wonder Woman villains have the most potential?

[Nyssane]

Wonder Woman has had numerous writers over the years introduce new villains into the mythos. Some have stuck, particularly the original rogues created by William Moulton Marston, but many have faded into obscurity. This is especially noteworthy for Diana's Post-Crisis villains; John Byrne, Eric Luke, Gail Simone, and others have all created a big bad that simply didn't resonate with fans and thus were never seen again.

Veronica Cale is a perfect example of a villain who didn't really work the first time around during Rucka's first run, but was elevated to a full-fledged major Wondy rogue during Rebirth.

Which of these villains also have the most potential to return as a major adversary for Wonder Woman? Do you care to see any of them again, or should they all be left in comic book limbo?

WHITE MAGICIAN
"The sorcerer Thomas Asquith Randolph made a pact with a demon in order to acquire more magical power as his previous magic began to wane with age. During his climb to power, he became stunted in his rise several times by both Wonder Woman and her fellow Amazon sister Artemis of Bana-Mighdall. Wonder Woman was finally able to destroy the evil wizard-turned-demon, but at the cost of Artemis' life."

DARK ANGEL
"Dark Angel is the spirit of an ancient demon summoned forth by the German Nazi Baroness Paula von Gunther during World War II. Finding an enemy in Wonder Woman's mother Queen Hippolyta, the two battled on several occasions. Seeking revenge, Dark Angel secretly transported herself onto Themyscira and kidnapped Hippolyta's daughter Donna Troy, mistaking her for Diana. She placed Donna in suspended animation until rescued years later by the now adult Diana as Wonder Woman. It was later revealed that Dark Angel was, in fact, the Donna Troy of the Pre-Crisis Earth-Seven, saved from certain death by the Anti-Monitor."

DEVASTATION
"The Titan known as Cronus created Devastation much the same way Wonder Woman was created: by having life breathed into a clay female figure. With his Titan children each blessing her with dark gifts, she is Cronus' champion who he hopes will defeat Olympus' champion: Wonder Woman. With almost the same powers, this demi-goddess is almost an exact copy of Wonder Woman, save for the dark twist behind her powers."

GENOCIDE
"Created by the Secret Society of Super Villains, Genocide was formed using soil samples taken from various locations on Earth where genocide took place and magically adding them to Wonder Woman's future corpse."

THE MORRIGAN
"A triumvirate of war-Goddesses who have set their sights on exterminating all of the Amazons. The Morrigan consisted of Anann, Bellona, and Enyo."

FIRST BORN
"While still an infant, the first-born child of Zeus and Hera was condemned to death by his own father, who feared a prophecy foretelling that his eldest child would slay him and the other Greek gods and become the sole ruler of Mount Olympus. Escaping death, he grew to adulthood away from Olympus and eventually conquered the world, but was imprisoned in the center of the Earth by Zeus after failing to unseat the Olympian gods. Clawing his way through the planet's crust for seven thousand years, the First Born returned to a world where Zeus had erased all knowledge of him from human memory. When he is freed him from the Arctic ice by an 'end of the world' cult, led by his evil half-sister, Cassandra, he and his hyena-men conquer London, with plans to attack Mount Olympus. He is swiftly defeated by Wonder Woman, but not before killing their half-mortal brother, the British super-soldier Lennox."

GRAIL
"The daughter of Darkseid and an Amazon named Myrina Black. After the events of the Darkseid War, Grail rescued the newborn Darkseid and kept him on hiding on Earth. She later began attacking various demigods such as Hercules in order to steal their life essences in order to restore her father to his full power. This put her in direct conflict with Wonder Woman."

[Agent Z]

I'd say Devastation and White Magician have the most going for them.

[RoamingGnome8]

I'd say Devastation and White Magician have the most going for them.

I agree. Devastation just looks really cool with her taking on the appearance of a child and White Magician had the 'hero turned villain' storyline that I think could be reworked nicely by the right writer.

I would also have liked to see more done with the children of Cronos. Desdain 's power set and physical appearance alone was really interesting.

[Koriand'r]

My choices would be Devastation, the White Magician and the Morrigan. I liked that 3 ancient goddesses worked out of a penthouse in a skyscraper, it was a nice modern touch.

[Dr. Poison]

Dark Angel is my favorite of the bunch but with DC negating Hippolyta's time as the World War II Wonder Woman, she doesn't make much sense at the moment so I went with Grail. She has a solid motivation, interesting combination of powers, and I love her snarky personality. The only other one I'd be interested in seeing return is the White Magician. The rest were all "meh" to downright generic(yes, I'm looking at you, First Born).

[WonderScott]

I voted Grail, because I like the idea of her best and think she could be redeemed as a character in the right hands. I also like that she gives Diana and the Amazons a tie to the Fourth World characters, so that it's not just a Superman thing.

My next fave would be Dark Angel, because again I like her concept and think it could be redeemed even though she's as horribly convoluted as Donna Troy at the moment. How's that for character synergy? In a streamlined reboot of the Wonder Woman title and the Donna Troy character, I think Dark Angel could be a great foe that's focused on Hippolyta and/or Donna Troy - something I'd like to see happen in the Wonder mythos. Hippolyta and Donna need some named, ongoing primary adversaries too that can be shared with Diana.

For what ever reason, White Magician has never stood out to me. He's bland, uninspired, and milquetoast to me. Whenever I think creatively about villains that should show up and challenge Diana (or Artemis), he's never even a passing thought to me. Maybe I need to reread that run, but he's a definite no to me. ::shoulder shrug::

Devastation is interesting with her Titans's connections, but I'm not sure the child/adult dichotomy inherent in her character ever resonated with me strongly. I guess I could see her in a rebooted DCU as the Titan's champion if they wanted to undue the Olympians reign and use her as an answer to Wonder Woman. My only other thought with her has been to team her up with a bunch of other 90s villains creations and see what happens when they're turned loose on the DCU. I definitely like her better than Genocide though...

Ah, Genocide. I was excited by all the Wonder foes gathering earth and clay from the sites of atrocities and using their science and magicks to create you...but I found the path to your creation more intriguing than the result. Which is odd for me, because 99% of the time, I'm onboard with what Simone is serving. I just don't think Diana needs a Bizarro + Solomon Grundy adversary in her rogues gallery.

The Morrigan...didn't excite me. I guess I'm for see some other pantheons (Norse, Egyptian, etc.) and how they interact with the Olympians, but a little goes a long way when we don't spend nearly as much time on Diana's other costumed supervillains.

First Born I'm actually okay with keeping around or bringing back. I like that he's the secret, forgotten, and disposed child of Zeus and Hera and how that might play out in dynamics and politics between them and the Olympians. (Again, in a rebooted universe, since Zeus is still dead on Prime Earth.) The begotten and discarded child versus the, arguably, most loved and supported child (Diana) in history has some themes that are possibly intriguing. He can also be a bit of a wild card in the games and capriciousness of the gods - he adds something new to mess around with with the myths. I'm keeping him a Wonder Woman Mythos thing I'm writing up and having fun with (essentially me building out the Wonder Woman world, characters, and concepts as I'd like to see them.)

These are my hot takes at least, without thinking about it too much.

Interesting topic Nyssane. Thanks for posting it.

[Bound4olympus]

I went with Dark Angel. I think she's a perfect option to explain any continuity errors and confusion. I would like to see a new motivation, once again Hippolyta related. The nice thing about multiverse characters is that if continuity changes, we can just place the original issue on another earth. IE Hippolyta was the Wonder Woman of another earth and now, having vanquished that Hippolyta, Dark Angel has vowed to destroy the lives of every version of Hippolyta. Re-introducing this character would give the writer the ability to explain inconsistencies in the history of all Wonder Woman characters and then we could finally end up with a cohesive cast that includes the core group plus Donna Cassie and Artemis.

[Mel Dyer]

The votes for Grail and Devastation surprise me. I don't want to say anything that might be taken as critical of these characters, because I don't want to unfairly influence the poll.

I voted 'First Born'.

[AmiMizuno]

I think Geniode and Devastation are interesting characters. My problem with Grail and the first born is more of not bad characters but how they are handled. I mean Zeus already has so many other children. Why not have it be the first born is actually the first born of the Titians? That he is older than most of the titans. That he isn’t the another Zeus children in Wonder Woman or maybe Hippoltya did have a son and he was reanimated by one of Diana’s enemies


Why not have Dark Angel be a goddesses who inhabits anyone involved with her cult. I would either put her with Paula or just have it be someone else

[The I.A.D.C.]

Doctor Domino! 8DFCFCB2-2CD6-4A71-BF36-5C7BD63231CA.jpg

[Gaelforce]

I think Genocide would have been great if there hadn't been editorial interference in mid-story, changing her origin/nature in mid-stream.

That being said, Devastation has a lot of possibility and would love to see her return.

[brettc1]

I think Genocide would have been great if there hadn't been editorial interference in mid-story, changing her origin/nature in mid-stream.

That being said, Devastation has a lot of possibility and would love to see her return.

Genocide was supposed to be Knockout, which I think was still pretty lame.

On the other hand, had the editorial mandate caused Gail Simone to change her identity to Devastation, that would have been awesome AND explained her special relationship with the lasso [as she was made from the same clay as Diana].

[Nyssane]

I myself picked Devastation. Her backstory resonated the most with me; I loved some of the newly created Titans that empowered her (Arch and Disdain were my faves). I really didn't care for her "child" appearance, though her adult appearance was fun. She's also one of the only characters on the list that appeared outside of the comics, in the Young Justice animated series. Though she seems to have very little to do with the comics version unfortunately.

As for the others...

White Magician had a fully developed character arc, something rare for comic book villains. Was it the best villain arc? Absolutely not. But his final battle with Diana and Artemis was pretty entertaining. I'd be completely fine either way with his character.

The Morrigan were depicted pretty inconsistently throughout Odyssey, commonly regarded as one of the worst WW stories. But I love the mythology behind the characters and I hope we do see them again at some point. As for what we got, Anann was definitely my favorite design of the three (though we never really got to see Enyo).

Grail has potential, but after Robinson's use of her I just don't know. I really don't want to see her again for quite a while.

I honestly don't care to see Genocide, Dark Angel, or the First Born ever again.

[WonderScott]

Doctor Domino! 8DFCFCB2-2CD6-4A71-BF36-5C7BD63231CA.jpg

Hahaha... OMG, I need Doctor Domino to return!

Where is this panel from? I'm trying to remember if I've ever heard of them before.

[WonderScott]

She's not really a one-hit Wonder Woman villain (as I don't this she ever appeared in the Wonder Woman title in the main continuity), but I have a love for the Earth 3 doppelgänger, Superwoman.

She always seems to be a more of a supporting character to Ultraman or Owlman in any Crime Syndicate story, but I think she has so much potential. I'd really like to (and have in my own thing I'm working on) dig into her background on the world of Earth 3 and develop some great motivation for her animosity towards Diana, Hippolyta, and the Amazons.

I'm definitely jettisoning the Morrisonian aspects of tying her into the Superman mythos with the pseudonym "Lois Lane" and making her origins wonderfully evil and Amazon-ily malevolent.

I hope whenever Doomsday Clock concludes or however the Multiverse reboots itself, we get a new Earth 3, because I think she's "mostly" dead post-Darkseid War.