Wonder Woman as Last Hero Standing

[Guy_McNichts]

Read superhero comics enough, you know this story. The apocalyptic, "all is lost" story where the good guys have all been decimated by the villain(s), everything is grim and bad, but then one emerges as the last hero standing and last hope who proves to be the critical force for saving the day and rallying the other fallen heroes to keep fighting.

The upcoming animated movie Apokolips War looks like it's going to follow this arc. Allegedly, Zack Snyder's Justice League sequels would've done something similar. Final Crisis. Various DC crossover events. Marvel's done plenty of its own.

We've all seen some variation of this, and in DC, it's often Superman who plays the part of "last hero standing." But I've seen Batman cast in this role. I'm pretty sure Green Lantern and Flash have done it at least once respectively.

But you know who I'm almost certain never has? Wonder Woman.

Often, she's cannon fodder--among the first heroes to fall to demonstrate how dire everything is. In Final Crisis, she's enslaved by Darkseid so that Superman, when he returns to save the day, can look sad and say, "Diana...not you."
I recall there was a dystopian future story (Futures End?) where Brother Eye takes over the world and turns the heroes in cyborg abominations. And sure enough, one of the first ones we see, is Wonder Woman.
Apokolips War looks like it's going to follow the same pattern. If reports are to be believed, Snyder's Justice League sequels would've (allegedly) involved Diana getting murdered by Darkseid or an evil Superman. Even back in Crisis on Infinite Earths, Diana gets devolved back into clay. She dies in Alex Ross's Justice series.
Plenty of other examples, I'm sure.

Even the recent Deceased series, where Diana is explicitly positioned as the last, best chance of fighting an infected Superman, she fails miserably to reinforce how hopeless everything is.

Has Wonder Woman ever had a chance to be the proverbial "last hero standing" and go on to actually prevail? Legitimately asking, because I'm pretty sure she's never gotten that even in her own book. Certainly never in any major event story.

I do hope I get to see Wonder Woman be the "last hero standing who prevails" in some big apocalyptic comic event in my lifetime. Granted, these stories tend to be trite exercises in grim-dark misery porn, but it would be nice if Diana got to have a turn at least once.

Kinda messed up she hasn't, in my opinion.

[Frank]

She was the last hero standing in JLA: League of One, but that was through her own machinations, and that was a book that DC ended up branding a JLA book because they thought it would sell better that way.

In JLA #200, she was the last of the founding JLA members still standing, and iirc, the narrative line as she was taken down was something like "Against one she would surely prevail, and likely against two, but three?" or something like that. Conway almost always pumped up Diana in his JLA run. Other than those instances, I can't think of one, but I could be not remembering something.

On a side note, Diana was "devolved" in Crisis at the request of Perez so he'd essentially have a tabula rasa to work with. Originally, she was going to be transformed into a clay statue, presumably keeping much of her pre-crisis continuity, and she was going to be freed from that state and the first hero shown in the mini-series Legends. That changed because of the devolution. And I'm certainly not saying it would've been better - all said and done, I'm glad we had Perez, though I'm not sure pre-crisis WW was so very "un-salvageable."

[Vordan]

Dead Earth is the book you want. Batman is explicitly shown to be dead, and the rest of the JL is presumably not any better. Next issue will have Diana visit the Fortress of Solitude so we’ll find out what happened to Supes. But it’s an apocalyptic story with Diana as the last hero remaining.

[Largo161]

On a side note, Diana was "devolved" in Crisis at the request of Perez so he'd essentially have a tabula rasa to work with. Originally, she was going to be transformed into a clay statue, presumably keeping much of her pre-crisis continuity, and she was going to be freed from that state and the first hero shown in the mini-series Legends. That changed because of the devolution. And I'm certainly not saying it would've been better - all said and done, I'm glad we had Perez, though I'm not sure pre-crisis WW was so very "un-salvageable."

Really?

Do you have a source for that? I’ve read that someone named Greg Potter was supposed to write WW after Crisis and Perez volunteered at the last minute. And by “last minute” I mean well after Crisis had been written.

[Frank]

The John Ostrander bit is something I read in an interview with him a long time ago. I could do a deep dive to find it, but I don't have the time right now.

However, this interview with Kurt Busiek about his WW mini w/ Trina Robbins from Gail Simone's old site "Five Questions With..." confirms that Diana was originally supposed to be a statue at the end of Crisis, not reverted to clay:

Anyway, he wanted something nostalgic, something that celebrated the past rather than built anything for the future, and all we had was Wonder Woman as a clay statue (we started our project before CRISIS was finished, and I’d been told Diana would be turned back into a clay statue, which is why she appears as a statue in our first issue; the scene where she got turned into a pile of clay in CRISIS hadn’t been drawn yet, and we’d been misinformed as to what it would contain.), so I came up with an opening about Amazons looking at the statue and thinking back, and then talked to Trina about what she’d most like to draw.

Greg Potter was indeed supposed to write the post-crisis WW series originally, but the editor at the time, the fabulous Karen Berger, was unhappy with Potter's plot, which, iirc, had Diana as the victim of rape on her first foray into the outside world. Potter's credited in the first issue or two of the series, but the issues are most Perez and the changes he made when he joined.

[Gaelforce]

The John Ostrander bit is something I read in an interview with him a long time ago. I could do a deep dive to find it, but I don't have the time right now.

However, this interview with Kurt Busiek about his WW mini w/ Trina Robbins from Gail Simone's old site "Five Questions With..." confirms that Diana was originally supposed to be a statue at the end of Crisis, not reverted to clay:




Greg Potter was indeed supposed to write the post-crisis WW series originally, but the editor at the time, the fabulous Karen Berger, was unhappy with Potter's plot, which, iirc, had Diana as the victim of rape on her first foray into the outside world. Potter's credited in the first issue or two of the series, but the issues are most Perez and the changes he made when he joined.

[Aegisbearer's site ]

[Frank]

Oh! I didn't know that; I just assumed it was Gail's because she was asking the questions. Good to know!

[Gaelforce]

Oh! I didn't know that; I just assumed it was Gail's because she was asking the questions. Good to know!

Gail did the majority of interviews, but Aegisbearer hosts the site itself (miss the big guy!)

[lotchj]

The John Ostrander bit is something I read in an interview with him a long time ago. I could do a deep dive to find it, but I don't have the time right now.

However, this interview with Kurt Busiek about his WW mini w/ Trina Robbins from Gail Simone's old site "Five Questions With..." confirms that Diana was originally supposed to be a statue at the end of Crisis, not reverted to clay:




Greg Potter was indeed supposed to write the post-crisis WW series originally, but the editor at the time, the fabulous Karen Berger, was unhappy with Potter's plot, which, iirc, had Diana as the victim of rape on her first foray into the outside world. Potter's credited in the first issue or two of the series, but the issues are most Perez and the changes he made when he joined.

Good thing the editor at the time, Karen Berger was unhappy with Potter's plot. Don't get why anyone wants to read a story about WW are any woman being raped!! To me that's crossing the line!!