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.

[Vaffrey]

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. .

Tweakable, though. Suppose Dark Angel was a demonic force Hippolyta led the Amazons against before they left Man's World for Paradise Island? That would explain Dark Angel's enmity right there and set the stage for her capture of Diana's mirror twin.

(And you don't need adult Diana rescuing the mirror twin from Man's World. Just tweak the story so that there's some other way Donna is rescued and raised on Paradise Island, and we're back in business with Donna, too.)

[marhawkman]

WHITE MAGICIAN interesting character. Not GREAT, but good enough to be worth using again.

DARK ANGEL I want to say the idea has potential, but, needs a more coherent backstory.

*DEVASTATION (my choice) Deva was really cool! Neat power set that made it so you never really knew just what she'd do to be a threat.

GENOCIDE dumb idea.

THE MORRIGAN I'd never seen them before and I like the concept.

FIRST BORN As god-tier foes go this guy was legit..... he had the personality of a cudgel though.

GRAIL neat character concept. Not all the stories she's been used in were good though. :/ But the idea of a daughter of Darkseid who wreaks havoc in her father's name is great!

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.

Yeah, that's a villain team I'd like to see return.

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'.

Wanna know what makes Deva cool? BEHOLD!

[WonderScott]

The more I think about it, I could be up for a Bizarro and Genocide relationship a la Superman and Wonder Woman. Let their love wreak havoc.

[marhawkman]

The more I think about it, I could be up for a Bizarro and Genocide relationship a la Superman and Wonder Woman. Let their love wreak havoc.

thinking about this again... re-writing Genocide to be more of a Bizarro-Wonder Woman would make the character more interesting to me.

[SJNeal]

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

These are my Top 2 as well.

Dark Angel is probably the only one on this list I never wanna see again...