Wonder Woman is a unique character in DC Comics and comics in general. She is an icon with a history that's as complicated as her world view; she is both an arbiter of peace and a fearsome warrior. Superman is the embodiment of the American creation story—an immigrant who is distrusted and eventually embraced by his adoptive home. Batman is the tragedy of a man who cannot cope with loss; it’s at once about noble sacrifice and a warning about obsession. As mythic as DC’s characters are, no one quite embodies myth itself quite like Wonder Woman. She is the Princess of Themyscira and the Queen of DC Comics.
By embracing, adopting, and cannibalizing Greek mythology and building upon it with Diana as its focus, Wonder Woman becomes stranger and immediately more complicated. She has to deal with the gods of Greece often, and if you know anything about the Greek gods, you know that they’re often unpleasant. This is a real problem, considering that when Wonder Woman isn’t being a well-trained diplomat, she’s usually kicking people’s heads off. She's definitely killed her fair share of people, and some of them were almighty in nature. These are 15 Times Wonder Woman had to Fight a God.
15. The First Born & War
The First Born (who was Zeus’ first child, if this wasn’t clear) wanted to destroy heaven and earth, and to do so, he raised an army of bipedal hyenas. Ares (AKA War) resurrected thousands of soldiers from across human history to fight against him. Wonder Woman showed up with her forces, and tried to take down the First Born herself. Trust us, this is about as “normal” as this list is going to get.
In the end, the necessity of killing. The First Born was then kidnapped by Apollo and Dionysus, who cooked his flanks and then mocked him. At some point, Doc Brown should come out of a DeLorean and yelled to Zeus that something needs to be done about his kids.
14. Wonder Woman vs. The New Gods
That’s right, not even Jack Kirby’s New Gods are safe from Wonder Woman’s pointed boots striking their immortal posteriors. Except on Earth-2, that is, where an alternate universe Wonder Woman was stabbed to death by General Steppenwolf (in a similar manner to Diana’s killing of Ares). On Earth-2, the General and a horde of Parademons invaded and occupied the planet. The Justice League was able to send them packing, but not before Steppenwolf kills Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman.
In the regular continuity, Wonder Woman and Orion (this time cast as a sexist for some reason), fought several times. This was part of Orion’s second-grader-like attempt at wooing Diana. You know, throw dirt at the girl you like so she’ll notice you sort of stuff. For some reason, that made sense at the time. Wonder Woman bested Orion each time; once by knocking him unconscious and the other time by threatening him with castration. Oh, you could hear those church bells chime.
13. Olympia
On Earth-3 (DC’s answer to Crisis on Two Earths, Wonder Woman’s counterpart is the drug supplier (and possible Renaissance Fair employee), Olympia. The villain isn’t developed at all—Olympia doesn’t even have dialogue—but it’s made clear that she’s physically equal to Wonder Woman, but always has a knife ready for the cheap advantage.
Their fight starts out the way you’d expect: Diana tosses an eighteen-wheeler at her. They fight mostly in the air—lots of strikes, blocks, and counters. There’s a fluidity in motion that’s well demonstrated here. After all, Wonder Woman is basically fighting herself.
It’s a short battle, but it manages to have better choreography than Man of Steel. Watch this movie if you haven't already.
12. Strife
When your name is Strife, there’s a good chance you aren’t the god of rainbows and winning lottery tickets. She’s another one of Wonder Woman's half-siblings, and, living up to her name, she literally causes strife wherever she goes. Looking like a cross between Sinead O’Connor and a raver, regular people automatically devolve into paranoid chaos around her. Also, she instigates problems for fun whenever she feels like it. From something as simple as popping a baby’s balloon to playing Diana’s team against each other and then outdoing herself by instigating a multiple kidnapping and using the Amazons as a personal chew toy, Strife is a troublemaker, even though she's actually kind of neutral, alliance wise. She just wants to see what happens when she drops a stone into a lake.
Wonder Woman doesn’t usually fight Strife physically. Rather, she has to distract Strife or offer her up a more interesting target. Considering Diana’s fighting skills are underlined more often than her diplomacy, getting to see her outsmart rather than outfight an enemy (especially one so capricious and powerful) is always a welcome change of pace.
11. Nemesis (Futures End)
In a possible dystopic future, Wonder Woman has taken over all the living and undead armies of the world to fight against Nemesis—the personification of hate, death and fear (enter DMV joke here). She targets Wonder Woman, who seeks to eradicate all war; without that, Nemesis fears she’ll cease to exist, so she decides to make the entire planet a battleground. She ravages the world and makes Diana wear really dumb-looking capris. Understandably, Wonder Woman goes off the deep-end and embraces being the God of War. She goes on to wipe lots of bad guys out, but the war never ends.
With the help of Superman wearing a polka-dot space suit (of course), Diana realizes she can’t win war with war, but with love. Wonder Woman then gets really badass angelic armor and…oh, wait…we don’t actually see the final battle? Oh. Well. That’s kind of a gyp.
Well, sorry about that. Next one’s Deimos, and that’s pretty fun at least.
10. Deimos
This handsome fellow is Deimos, the God of Terror. He has the power of persuasion that he uses to sow discord on a planetary level (he can sew buttons too, but nobody ever focuses on that because there are bigger things at stake here, guys. Deimos has incredible fighting skills he inherited from his father, Ares, and can induce fear by emitting it through his hair. Deimos is so dangerous that—in numerous continuities—Wonder Woman has had no choice but to kill him.
But the coolest thing? He possessed the Joker. Together, they caused such a colossal mess that Wonder Woman, Batman, and the Justice League couldn’t stop it. Ares, disgusted with Deimos’ actions, sent him back to the underworld.
Now, how awesome would it be if Deimos was drafted into the Sinestro Corps? Someone get their recruitment division on the horn!
9. Hercules (et al)
There have been many version of Hercules in the DCU, and none of them are good guys. This even caused a problem for Marvel when the two companies crossed over and Wonder Woman decided to tune up their Hercules, but that’s another story.
The DCU Hercules was a depraved animal. He and his soldiers raped and subjugated the Amazons; Hercules took Dian's mother Hippolyta for himself and stole her golden girdle. Herc had a particular distaste for Wonder Woman, though. She would outsmart and outfight him on numerous occasions until he finally left Earth permanently. Using one of Greek lore’s greatest heroes as a villain—and depicting him as being every bit as powerful as he originally was—is a provocative and clever way to build up your own mythic character, and it makes Wonder Woman and the Amazons look ever-stronger.
8. Grail
Grail is the daughter of Darkseid and the Amazon assassin Myrina. She can also deduce the Anti-Life Equation, which could enslave the entire universe. She’s a problem.
After obtaining the Equation, the entirety of the Green Lantern Corps tried and failed to stop her. The Justice League, who had all gone through conversions to become gods at this point, all failed. Grail even managed to enslave her own father and destroy Diana’s unbreakable bracelets with her Omega Beams.
It came down to Wonder Woman vs. Grail. God vs. God, with the entire universe on the line. Physically outmatched, Wonder Woman defeated Grail, but not by force. The strength of Wonder Woman comes from her comion. Reminded of the love Myrina gave her, Grail stopped herself, and Diana saved the universe.
7. Donna Troy
Superman IV: The Quest for Peace—take what you will from that. While fan reaction to this new version of Donna was poor (so much so that it was retconned before the trades came out), the fight between the two was some of artist David Finch’s best work...even if his facial work made characters look more like porcelain dolls than people.
When you break the fight down—the God of War versus the living weapon created solely to kill her—you want something epic in scope. It delivers. It was like it was made for comic book fans who argued which of the two would win in a fight, and while the resolution is, well, non-existent, the battle itself is worth the trip.
6. Wonder Woman vs. Thor
Strangely, this never happened in the JLA/Avengers crossover in the '90s, which has only fueled fan speculation about who would win. We do know from the crossover that Wonder Woman is capable of picking up Thor’s hammer. Both have thousands of years of combat experience. Both have ichor running through their veins (though Diana is ittedly only half-god). Both can exponentially increase their strength—Thor with his berserkergang and Wonder Woman by either embracing the power of the god of war or by releasing her bracelets. Thor’s hammer is incredibly powerful, but without it, he can’t fly and doesn’t have much access to his magical powers. Thor is a bruiser, Diana is a warrior. He’s durability, she’s agility.
It’s a tough call.
Personally, we think Wonder Woman would come out on top here. After all, Superman defeated Thor in the JLA/Avengers crossover and Maxwell Lord.
Disagree? Leave a comment and give your take.