Always Wondering - Dead Wonder Woman Projects

[Gaius]

Forgive the portentous title.

Dead projects that were ultimately never realized are favorite topic of mine to look into and Wonder Woman's had no shortage of them in both comics and other media. So I've been going through and trying to catalogue as many as I could find and wondering if you have any particular ones that never got off the ground that you'd be interested in?

Any relation to the status of an either alive or dead Wonder Woman 3 is entirely by happenstance, I assure you.

Steve Gerber's Post-Crisis Wonder Woman Reboot - Not much has ever been shared about this one but when DC was laying the groundwork for rebooting their line, Frank Miller and Steve Gerber put together a pitch for Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman that would have rebooted all of them. From what we know Gerber's pitch was titled "Amazon" and would have focused Diana's fish out of water tendencies.

This never got off the ground as DC was accepting multiple pitches at the time and Gerber wasn't interested in that. Miller's Batman pitch from this eventually morphed into The Dark Knight Returns. From what I can tell, this is not the same the pitch prior to Perez's reboot that, according to Perez, no woman working in DC's offices liked.

Wonder Woman and the Star Riders - Unlike of some of the other ones here, this one actually saw some form of publication. "Wonder Woman and the Star Riders" was co-developed by DC and toy company, Mattel, to produce a line of WW-themed toys complete with animated series to promote it ala many other 80s cartoons. The series never got off the ground due to lack of interest from retailers and the only existence of it is a mini-comic that was packed in with a Kellogs cereal promotion.

Wonder Woman/Xena Crossover - Per Gail Simone, there's a written and drawn crossover comic between Wonder Woman and Xena in DC's archives that was never published. Written by Beau Smith, who later confirmed what Gail had to say on it's existence.

All-Star Wonder Woman - What would have been Wonder Woman's entry into the failed All-Star lineup would have been by Wonder Woman fan, Adam Hughes. This one's lack of existence seems to owe to DC's disappointment with the All-Star line's performance and for Hughes it was more financially viable at the time for him to do cover art than writing and interiors. Sadly I can't find any details about what the plot of this would have been.

Tintin Pantjoa's Wonder Woman Manga - Okay so here's an odd-tag team we almost got, there were two Wonder Woman manga-influenced pitches in the late-2000s that would have been geared towards younger girl readers. Tintin Pantjoa's would have been called "Princess of Paradise", which you can find the first pages of art for here.

Ben Cadwell's Wonder Woman Manga:...And here's the other one by Ben Cadwell, the author of the Wonder Woman sections from DC's old Wednesday Comics. His would have been more Golden Age-influenced and targeted towards younger readers. Seems DC was never interested on account of younger-focused books not doing well at the time Here's a link to his pitch art, and takes on Etta and Steve

Wonder Woman: Hands of the Gods - By Margaret Weis and Lizz Baldwin. This one actually got far enough along to where it has a listing on places like Goodreads and AbeBooks, which according to it would have seen Wonder Woman sent back in time, by the Gods to the Trojan War in place of Amazon Queen Penthiselea (Hippolyta's sister in the myths but rarely appears in actual WW comics from what I can tell). The reason this never got off the ground however is entirely understandable as the artist pegged for it is now in jail for some pretty awful reasons.

Phil Jimenez's Wonder Women Multiverse pitch - Teased and shared in tidbits on Jimenez's social media accounts, Phil Jimenez had a "Wonder Women" multiverse pitch that would have seen just about every incarnation of "Wonder Woman" team up alongside Wonder Girls and versions of Hippolyta. Unsurprisingly, the killjoys in charge of DC comics didn't go for it because they probably blacked out at the idea of a Wonder Woman elseworld where she isn't evil or someone's girlfriend.

Legend of Wonder Woman Book 2 - One of the more depressing examples. Legend of Wonder Woman was intended to get a sequel that would have seen new versions of Blue Snowman, Giganta, an amalgam of Priscilla and Barbara Minerva Cheetah, Circe, and a seemingly mystical version of Gateway City. This never got off the ground on one of the co-creators of on it, Ray Dillion, bashing Grant Morrison's Earth One series. As of now our only other LOWW content was a short story in an anniversary issue that featured Paula Von Gunther.

Dae Liz shared some art for Book 2 you can find here

Now for a man who seems to have his own subgenre of this;

Rucka’s original Amazons Attack: It's probably well-known around here that the Max Lord neck snap and Amazons Attack stories were different from what we ultimately got. Rucka's already gone into detail on this a couple of times before with stuff as Max not being the original person to be killed, a comedic failed jail breakout attempt by Superman and Batman, and what Rucka called the "world's shortest war" between Themyscira and the U.S.

Sadly the original pitched of WW snapping a dude's neck was really liked by D.C. editorial who roped it into the buildup to Infinite Crisis and made Max Lord the person Wonder Woman killed. And in exchange Wonder Woman got moralized to by two individuals I've been informed are supposed to be her friends.

You can hear his pitch here at this podcast around the 45 minute mark-ish.

Rucka’s Earth One: This is a weird one. So when the EO line was in it's planning stages, the WW: Earth One book was promised to Rucka by Didio for taking the main WW away from him following Infinite Crisis. Later however, Didio gave it to Grant Morrison (who already been working on what would become WW:EO as a separate project) which was one of the main reasons Rucka burned his bridges at DC for years following that.

Why this is a weird one is that I believe in some interviews, Rucka describes scenes that are straight out of Year One so I wouldn't surprised if Year One and parts of his Rebirth run are just transplants of what he was going to do in his Earth One books.

Diana’s Daughter - A more traditional and the most recent entry I've been able to find. When BL was launched Rucka writing "Diana's Daughter" was one of the initial launch titles but we sadly never got any updates on it until Rucka announced he couldn't make it work and shelved the project for the foreseeable future. All we know about it comes from the bio saying it would have been set in some vaguely-dystopic future centering a character who discovers she's...well Diana's daughter (an OC would have been my prediction).

[OBrianTallent]

I never knew about Hands of the Gods, although I believe the artist is now out of jail. He is however one of those artists whose work I loved.
I had also forgotten about Phil's project. That would have been such a fun and beautiful project. Same with a second volume of Legend of Wonder Woman. I adored the first run and was so looking forward to a second. Such a shame ego got in the way of it happening. I would be curious to know if it was Morrison who balked at the criticism or the editors who took up the offense for him. I can't imagine him caring one way or the other, but people can be odd sometime.
Rucka's AA would have been SO much better than what we got. So disappointed there.

And we really do need to see that Wonder Woman/Xena book. Like seriously.

[Gaius]

I never knew about Hands of the Gods, although I believe the artist is now out of jail. He is however one of those artists whose work I loved.
I had also forgotten about Phil's project. That would have been such a fun and beautiful project. Same with a second volume of Legend of Wonder Woman. I adored the first run and was so looking forward to a second. Such a shame ego got in the way of it happening. I would be curious to know if it was Morrison who balked at the criticism or the editors who took up the offense for him. I can't imagine him caring one way or the other, but people can be odd sometime.
Rucka's AA would have been SO much better than what we got. So disappointed there.

And we really do need to see that Wonder Woman/Xena book. Like seriously.

Re: LoWW Vol. 2. I don't think it was really if Morrison made a big stink but more that it's pretty poor form to speak ill of another colleague's work who you're all working under the same umbrella.

And I say that as someone who would happily scrap WW: EO for more LoWW.

It's why you'll never see me at DC, ain't no way I'm holding back my opinions on Injustice, lol.

[OBrianTallent]

Re: LoWW Vol. 2. I don't think it was really if Morrison made a big stink but more that it's pretty poor form to speak ill of another colleague's work who you're all working under the same umbrella.

And I say that as someone who would happily scrap WW: EO for more LoWW.

It's why you'll never see me at DC, ain't no way I'm holding back my opinions on Injustice, lol.

Agreed on all points.

[Guy_McNichts]

There was a project that was to be written by Michael Jelenic--writer of the '09 animated--and drawn by Drew Edward Johnson. I think it was going to be a stand-alone graphic novel, but it fell through for some reason. Don't know what the premise or plot was, but there was a brutal fight with Cheetah involved.

Johnson posted a some pages from it onto DeviantArt:

[Gaius]

Oh cool, that actually did get used as a story in the digital Sensation Comics anthology. The premise was Wonder Woman tracking down a Phoenix egg that had a connection to her and Hippolyta.

[Psy-lock]

Well, there was this thing:



Apparently Heinberg wanted to make a TV series faithful to the comics, but the network didn't appreciate that and wanted Wonder Woman to be a psycho who tortures people

[BiteTheBullet]

Well, there was this thing:



Apparently Heinberg wanted to make a TV series faithful to the comics, but the network didn't appreciate that and wanted Wonder Woman to be a psycho who tortures people

Gods no....now I can't unsee the image! My eyes, my eyes...

[Zagre]

Man, WW Earth One was a corrosive project in more ways than one wasn't it?

Sad to see someone as passioante as Rucka get the short end of the stick time and time again, I'd really like to see his (probably much better) version of the whole Amazons Attack fiasco.

[Gaius]

Man, WW Earth One was a corrosive project in more ways than one wasn't it?

Sad to see someone as passioante as Rucka get the short end of the stick time and time again, I'd really like to see his (probably much better) version of the whole Amazons Attack fiasco.

Yeah, another for Rucka that I didn't list was he wanted to go longer on his Rebirth run but he wanted to go back to monthly but DC wanted to keep double shipping.

[Phoenixx9]

Well, there was this thing:



Apparently Heinberg wanted to make a TV series faithful to the comics, but the network didn't appreciate that and wanted Wonder Woman to be a psycho who tortures people

Hahaha, yeah, I thought of this as well.

Look at that face! I think that top is about to come off.

[SiegePerilous02]

Sucks about the Hands of the Gods artist. The premise sounded cool and the artwork was great, but that's probably the only justified shelving on this list.

Ruckas Earth One series would have been better than Morrison's, but I'm glad we more or less eventually got both.

[Vordan]

Was it Morrison they criticized? I thought it was that Odyssey of the Amazons book that he spoke ill of since they apparently had a similar pitch that got rejected. Pity Dillon had to go and be an idiot on social media and screwed both himself and his wife out of a job.

[Gaius]

Was it Morrison they criticized? I thought it was that Odyssey of the Amazons book that he spoke ill of since they apparently had a similar pitch that got rejected. Pity Dillon had to go and be an idiot on social media and screwed both himself and his wife out of a job.

Hmm, looking up yeah it was Odyssey of the Amazons he got into a spat over. I could have sworn it was Earth One (or at least that was also part of it) but may have gotten my wires crossed with Rucka's fallout with DC over not getting Earth One.

[phonogram12]

I would've loved to see Ben Caldwell's and Adam Hughes' projects. And I have a feeling Miller and Gerber's takes on WW later found their way into Miller's later Dark Knight and All-Star books. While I love those as a guilty pleasure...as the mainline WW?

No.