Five Great Wonder Woman Villains No One Ever Talks About?

[Mel Dyer]

'The Five Most Promising' might have been a better title for this. There may be some super-villains that I missed, here, but, I did try...here is the article.

[Mel Dyer]

The five super-villains were:

Doctor Cyber
First Born
The Adjudicator
The Queen
Bushmaster

Meredith Finch tweeted me her appreciation for my commentary on the Queen, which I explained was originally 'Termite Queen', in the article. So, it's settled; Meredith's insectoid alien, ..as I suspected, a few months ago, ..is a revival of the Golden Age villainess, Termite Queen.

[Dr. Poison]

The five super-villains were:

Doctor Cyber
First Born
The Adjudicator
The Queen
Bushmaster

Meredith Finch tweeted me her appreciation for my commentary on the Queen, which I explained was originally 'Termite Queen', in the article. So, it's settled; Meredith's insectoid alien, ..as I suspected, a few months ago, ..is a revival of the Golden Age villainess, Termite Queen.

Thanks for confirming Mel.

[Stanlos]

'The Five Most Promising' might have been a better title for this. There may be some super-villains that I missed, here, but, I did try...here is the article.

Adjudicator! I had to get rid of my comics a few years ago and am in the process of reacquiring volume 1 of Wonder Woman again. The first ones on my list are 288 (and the DC Presents prequel where she soundly demonstrates the veracity of her legend) and JUDGMENT IN INFINITY with that entity as the antagonist. EXTRAORDINARILY POWERFUL but its origins may be problematic as it doesn't really fit the GL color spectrum origin of the DCU.

[Mel Dyer]

Adjudicator! I had to get rid of my comics a few years ago and am in the process of reacquiring volume 1 of Wonder Woman again. The first ones on my list are 288 (and the DC Presents prequel where she soundly demonstrates the veracity of her legend) and JUDGMENT IN INFINITY with that entity as the antagonist. EXTRAORDINARILY POWERFUL but its origins may be problematic as it doesn't really fit the GL color spectrum origin of the DCU.

The Adjudicator might not be Galactus or Darkseid, but, he's hardly a lightweight on the cosmic scale. He's on a power and awareness scale, beyond the reach of almost any DCU character, but, the SPECTRE - in a comic with sales, as chronically low, as WW's, ..what is he doing in a file cabinet?! Does Adjudicator or Doctor Cyber even come up in a planning meeting? I'm guessing not, because Joss Whedon clearly didn't know about either one of them and dismissed WW's rogues gallery as virtually unusable and uninspiring.

And before anyone here tells me that the Adjudicator would be better suited to a Green Lantern or X-Men comic - that Wonder Woman should be hacking her way through an endless column of witches and fairies - let me remind you that, at the height of her popularity, Wonder Woman regularly traveled to alien planets and other dimensions, where she toppled empires and liberated entire civilizations of people, who had nothing to do with Greek mythology. Even the Greek gods were portrayed as cosmic beings, with elaborate citadels, lairs and armies on other planets, and Wonder Woman made nothing of piling up her Invisible Plane with immortal Amazons, cowgirls, hotshot Navy pilots and sorority chicks...and beating the hell out of every testy mythical personage, Bullfinch ever scribbled about.

I'll ask those same fans to show me a better super-villain, created for use in Wonder Woman comic, in the last thirty years - NOT Darkseid, the Joker, Doomsday, Sinestro, Neron, Poison Ivy or any antagonists from other comics - that comes close to approaching the scope and level of development on the Adjudicator. Show me TWO, created for use in WW. Why is this comic constantly borrowing villains from other comics, perpetuating the myth that Wonder Woman has no rogues gallery, worth writing about?

I'd pay money to be a termite on the wall in one of these infamous editorial meetings, we're always hearing about in interviews. I do not understand how this comic is put together - how the stories are conceived and what list of characters, supporting regulars and villains, that the creators are working from. For a character, like the Adjudicator - a first-class supervillain, if there ever was one - to go unused and left to obscurity seems entirely inexcusable...

And thank you, all of you, for keeping this discussion up front and fresh in our minds.

[Stanlos]

The Adjudicator might not be Galactus or Darkseid, but, he's hardly a lightweight on the cosmic scale. He's on a power and awareness scale, beyond the reach of almost any DCU character, but, the SPECTRE - in a comic with sales, as chronically low, as WW's, ..what is he doing in a file cabinet?! Does Adjudicator or Doctor Cyber even come up in a planning meeting? I'm guessing not, because Joss Whedon clearly didn't know about either one of them and dismissed WW's rogues gallery as virtually unusable!

And before anyone here tells me that the Adjudicator would be better suited to

That's an interesting position as he would from his origin be far beyond the both of those and yes even Spectre, at least as they have been previously characterized. The Adjudicator and the . . . was it Overseers? . . . whatever they were their operational levels were universal. I would liken him more to the Cronus from JL/Avengers. Given how the DCU's cosmology has pretty much been rewritten as Green Lantern Rainbows I don't know that the Adjudicator and the Whatever-they-were would translate. I am set to receive those issues shortly and will check the origin carefully to see if I am misremembering.

[Mel Dyer]

It would be so embarrassing to see the creative teams of Green Lantern or JLA borrow the Adjudicator or Cyber and do something interesting with him, ..while WW writers are boating about another upcoming Cheetah story. I Ching, Doctor Cyber, Steve Trevor...you name it. The Time Masters, who first appeared in a 1950s WW comic, are now in a CW TV show, called Legends Of Tomorrow, ..while Wonder Woman, it seems, is barely in a Batman v Superman flick. For a Wonder Woman fan, this is embarrassing.

Why are WW fans forced to watch this happen, over and over again?

And, for my money, Bushmaster doesn't look any sillier than Lex Luthor, Metallo, Magneto, Doctor Octopus, the Riddler, the Green Goblin, Black Manta or any OTHER major super-villain, when these characters started out - characters, who are presently celebrated in comic books, as classics. Classic villains don't create themselves, but are made by writers, artists and editors, who actually care about the comic, they're putting their names on. Please don't anybody tell me that Bushmaster, - basically Boba Fett, with zombie-creating technology - couldn't have been a Deathstroke, a Batroc or a Winter Soldier, with the right writer and competent editorial development.

How can Wonder Woman, barely holding its own shelf-space from year to year, have a badass, zombie-creating super-assassin - one created for use in WW - and justify NOT using him, with zombies and variations on zombies popping up in hit TV shows and blockbuster movies?

Classic villains start with writers and editors, who actually give a damn.

[Dr. Poison]

This habit of ignoring the majority of Wonder Woman's rogues gallery has been going on since the Post-Crisis reboot. Since then, it's been a revolving door of Cheetah, Circe, and the Olympians with a sprinkling of Dr. Psycho, Silver Swan, Giganta, Angle Man, and Dr. Poison from time to time. Queen Clea got a great revival under Jimenez and then was only seen in cameo form after that. Many of Diana's other rogues from before Crisis such as Baroness Paula Von Gunther, Minister Blizzard, Osira, Duke of Deception, Kung, Gudra, The Mask, Red Dragon, Sharkeeta, and Zara have been only seen in cameo form or not at all since Perez's reboot. Most of the writers who have written for Diana in the last few decades want to create new characters for her world instead of modernizing and building up the existing characters. Diana doesn't need public domain or constant new characters to help her carry her book. She needs a creative team who values her history and wants to work with it instead of against it.

[Mel Dyer]

Deleted post

[Mel Dyer]

This habit of ignoring the majority of Wonder Woman's rogues gallery has been going on since the Post-Crisis reboot. Since then, it's been a revolving door of Cheetah, Circe, and the Olympians with a sprinkling of Dr. Psycho, Silver Swan, Giganta, Angle Man, and Dr. Poison from time to time. Queen Clea got a great revival under Jimenez and then was only seen in cameo form after that. Many of Diana's other rogues from before Crisis such as Baroness Paula Von Gunther, Minister Blizzard, Osira, Duke of Deception, Kung, Gudra, The Mask, Red Dragon, Sharkeeta, and Zara have been only seen in cameo form or not at all since Perez's reboot. Most of the writers who have written for Diana in the last few decades want to create new characters for her world instead of modernizing and building up the existing characters. Diana doesn't need public domain or constant new characters to help her carry her book...

It's as if someone decided that Wonder Woman was ridiculous, should never be taken seriously and that her enemies were Cheetah, Psycho, Giganta, Angle Man and Mars. Pay no attention to Paula Von Gunther, Queen Clea, Atomia, Kung, Conquest and the rest.

The cover of Wonder Woman #40 suggested that Diana might psychically join the Termite Queen and use their combined power to defeat Donna Troy. Everything seemed set-up for an alliance to be made between them. Why else would she let the Queen go, after her mutant swarm killed all of those people? That would have been AWESOME...

And, I think, ..a better ending, than what we got.

[ducklord]

The five super-villains were:

Doctor Cyber
First Born
The Adjudicator
The Queen
Bushmaster

Meredith Finch tweeted me her appreciation for my commentary on the Queen, which I explained was originally 'Termite Queen', in the article. So, it's settled; Meredith's insectoid alien, ..as I suspected, a few months ago, ..is a revival of the Golden Age villainess, Termite Queen.

Maybe it's my inner 12-year-old speaking, but I'm not sure that Wonder Woman fighting the telepathic commands of someone calling himself "The Bushmaster" would fly outside of a Garth Ennis comic.

[Frank]

The Adjudicator might not be Galactus or Darkseid, but, he's hardly a lightweight on the cosmic scale. He's on a power and awareness scale, beyond the reach of almost any DCU character, but, the SPECTRE - in a comic with sales, as chronically low, as WW's, ..what is he doing in a file cabinet?! Does Adjudicator or Doctor Cyber even come up in a planning meeting? I'm guessing not, because Joss Whedon clearly didn't know about either one of them and dismissed WW's rogues gallery as virtually unusable and uninspiring.

It's been quite awhile since I read those issues - I think I re-read them when PJ did his "all-heroines" issue - but I don't recall the Adjudicator having any character development, and didn't the story conclude with him being whisked away by his caretakers, who deemed him mentally unfit for anything? My only point is that there wasn't much in the one story arc he's been in to make much of a lasting impression, so I can see why he remains in the dustbin of obscurity. The thrill of those 3 comics had to do with the heroines, not the villain.

The absence of Dr. Cyber from WW, however, has always bewildered me. Post-crisis, she's only been around a wee bit, and it seems like she's been anywhere but in WW, from Kurt Busiek's peculiar re-imagining of her in Power Company to JLU cartoons to Joe Kelly's awesome Enginehead. I would have much preferred a re-vamped Cyber from Rucka than Veronica Cale.

[LifeIsILL]

Many of Diana's other rogues from before Crisis such as Baroness Paula Von Gunther, Minister Blizzard, Osira, Duke of Deception, Kung, Gudra, The Mask, Red Dragon, Sharkeeta, and Zara have been only seen in cameo form or not at all since Perez's reboot.

Duke of Deception is an interesting villain with lots of potential.

But King Fisherbird is a good one too, he's a crazy villain that can create all sorts of great stories if done right.

When you read Thor comics, they fully embrace the crazy mythological lore of Asgard, I just don't understand why DC don't do the same for WW.

[OBrianTallent]

Why? Two main reasons...one, the editors dont really have much of a knowledge of Wonder Woman and as such, dont really push the creative teams to have much knowledge of her as well. The main evidence of this being the current run on Wonder Woman by the Finch family. Meredith, in an interview with Newsarama stated she didn't have any knowledge of WW's classic foes outside of what Azzerello did and let her husband pick the main villain simply because she didn't care who she used.

Nrama: We talked briefly last month about Aegeus. But can you tell us why you chose him to kick off the story and be Wonder Woman's initial nemesis?

Meredith: We knew we wanted to bring someone from her rogues’ gallery into this next arc and start to flesh that out. And I really left it up to David, because I didn't care. I didn't have an attachment to any of the villains in her past.

That is something an editor should be well aware of before they let anyone on a book especially one of the supposedly biggest stars of the DC Universe.

Mainly, DC needs to give the book to an editor that actually has an investment in the character as well. Something she has not had since Karen Berger. An editor's job is to provide guidelines and ground rules and constructive criticism. These are the characters you can pick from, no one has used these characters in a long while pick from them...here is background material on them. From what I can recall, Gail Simone was specifically instructed to not use anything from the Rucka run.

Wonder Woman has some amazing villains that can be used (and some pretty lame ones that shouldn't ever be again...blue snowman...really?) Renea De Liz appears to be updating one particular villain in her Legends of Wonder Woman series in a fairly smart way. Before the New 52 hit, Allen Heinberg at least brought a bunch of characters back to the table at the end of his run. Phil Jiminez dug a few out of obscurity for part of his run. Wonder Woman needs an editor that sees the worth not just in her character, but in her supporting characters and her villains...but before all that can happen, she needs someone in charge at DC to see that as well.

[Mel Dyer]

It's been quite awhile since I read those issues - I think I re-read them when PJ did his "all-heroines" issue - but I don't recall the Adjudicator having any character development, and didn't the story conclude with him being whisked away by his caretakers, who deemed him mentally unfit for anything? My only point is that there wasn't much in the one story arc he's been in to make much of a lasting impression, so I can see why he remains in the dustbin of obscurity. The thrill of those 3 comics had to do with the heroines, not the villain.

The absence of Dr. Cyber from WW, however, has always bewildered me. Post-crisis, she's only been around a wee bit, and it seems like she's been anywhere but in WW, from Kurt Busiek's peculiar re-imagining of her in Power Company to JLU cartoons to Joe Kelly's awesome Enginehead. I would have much preferred a re-vamped Cyber from Rucka than Veronica Cale.

I don't understand the logic behind creating Wonder Woman, anymore.

How this comic can continue to ignore a supervillain, named Doctor CYBER, in an age of internet, virtual reality and artificial intelligence, just ASTOUNDS me. Seriously...it's the Information Age, and Wonder Woman is consigned to hack her way through one column of witches and krakens, after another! Has anyone on WW's creative team seen the Terminator films or the Resident Evil films, which have been so immensely popular in recent years? Can leaving a zombie-creating super assassin and a cybernetic mastermind - basically, a female Doctor Doom - be justified, in a comic that's struggling as hard, as WW has been, since WWII? Just Doctor Cyber and Bushmaster, alone, represent powerful trends in popular fiction that go completely ignored by the WW comic.

Again, the logic...who needs Doctor Cyber and Bushmaster, when we have a library of obscure goddesses and witches for Wonder Woman to tangle with? I want so much to understand the reasoning here, but, I just can't. Lord Of The Rings and Xena are great, commercially successful fiction projects, but, Wonder Woman doesn't belong in either of them, ..because she's not Xena or Perseus and she isn't Aragorn or King Arthur.

I'm not saying the creative team should get rid of the mythical, magical elements, like the Island and the Amazons and the witches and the gryphons and the obscure Greek gods, ..but, it should be understood that these, like Diana's myth-inspired origins, are incidentals. The authentic Wonder Woman story, if we're to go back to her pulp fiction roots in the Golden Age, is how she uses her myth-inspired stuff to save the world from the conquest and destruction created by supervillains, like Barbara Minerva, Doctor Cyber, 52 Circe, Cassandra the Mad and the Termite Queen. When the Greek gods and the magical threats surface, her battles with them should be allowed to play out in the modern, mortal world, and the consequences of them getting the upper hand should threaten that same mortal world that Wonder Woman has sworn to protect.

The First Born conquered London with his hyena-men, but, what threat did he really pose to London or any other quarter of Man's World? Basically, he took over London and sat around in a cathedral, waiting for Diana and her Army to hand him his backside on a platter...and so what? He conquered Olympus and Paradise Island, and it was horrific, but, what was the big, unspeakable threat to Earth, when he did these things? All of his villainy unfolded in a magical, invisible bubble, without mussing a hair on our mortal heads. Shouldn't there have been some tangible, terrific adversity inflicted upon the world, as is the case with Darkseid and the other big bads, when the First Born seized power?

Wonder Woman's supervillains have to be shown to be a relevant threat to humankind, and, too often, ..they aren't. Even Wonder Woman's battle with Darkseid played out, without any threat to Earth, whatsoever. The whole story unfolded on Paradise Island and...POOF, it was all gone...and this was her battle with Darkseid?! No threat to the Mortal Coil, at all. Can you imagine that happening in Justice League?

Problem...