| Publisher: | DC Comics |
| Creators: | Robert Kanigher |
| Cvr Image: | Wonder Girl 1.jpg |
| Cvr Caption: | Wonder Girl #1 (November 2007) Featuring the Cassie Sandsmark version of the character. Art by Sanford Greene and Nathan Massengill. |
| Schedule: | Monthly |
| Limited: | y |
| Superhero: | y |
| Pub Series: | DC Comics |
| 1Stishyr: | 2007 |
| 1Stishmo: | November |
| Endishyr: | 2008 |
| Endishmo: | April |
| Issues: | 6 |
| Main Char Team: | Donna Troy & Cassandra Sandsmark |
| Cat: | super |
| Limsub: | DC Comics |
| Altcat: | Wonder Woman characters |
| Hero: | y |
| Sortkey: | Wonder girl |
| Sort Title: | Wonder girl |
Wonder Girl is the alias of multiple superheroines featured in comic books published by DC Comics. Donna Troy, the original Wonder Girl, was created by Bob Haney and Bruno Premiani and first appeared in The Brave and the Bold #60 (June/July 1965). The second Wonder Girl, Cassie Sandsmark, was created by John Byrne and first appeared in Wonder Woman (vol. 2) #105 (January 1996). Both are protégées of Wonder Woman and members of different incarnations of the Teen Titans. The alias has also been used in reference to a younger version of Wonder Woman as a teenager. In the 2020s, DC introduced a third Wonder Girl in Yara Flor, who hails from a Brazilian tribe of Amazons and was shown in a flashforward to one day succeed Diana as Wonder Woman.
An original version of Wonder Girl named Drusilla appeared in the Wonder Woman television series, played by Debra Winger. Donna Troy makes her live adaptation debut in the DC Universe series Titans, played by Conor Leslie.
A teen-aged Princess Diana of the Amazons first appeared in a backstory in Wonder Woman #23 (May/June 1947), written by William Moulton Marston and designed by H.G. Peter.[1]
Wonder Girl first appeared in The Secret Origin of Wonder Woman, written and edited by Robert Kanigher, in Wonder Woman #105 (April 1959). In this revised Silver Age origin, it is established that Diana had in fact not been created from clay, but had been born before the Amazons settled on Paradise Island. Following this issue were several Wonder Girl adventures, and years later an additional character, Wonder Tot—Wonder Woman as a toddler—was also featured. Kanigher restored the character's made-from-clay origin in 1966.
From Wonder Woman #124 (August 1961) onward, Wonder Woman, Wonder Girl, and Wonder Tot frequently appeared together in stories that were labeled "impossible tales", presented as films made by Wonder Woman's mother, Queen Hippolyta, who had the power to splice together films of herself and Diana at different ages. The characters of Wonder Girl and Wonder Woman then began to diverge, as Bob Haney wrote Wonder Girl stories that took place in the same time period as those of Wonder Woman.
The last significant appearance of Wonder Woman as a child Wonder Girl was in November 1965. In the tongue-in-cheek Wonder Woman #158, Kanigher broke the fourth wall by having Wonder Girl and the rest of the supporting cast he had created (Wonder Tot, the Glop, Bird-Boy, Mer-Boy, Birdman, and Manno) come to the office of a "certain" editor. Protested by fans for ruining the character, Kanigher tells Wonder Girl that he does love her, along with all of his other daughters, such as Black Canary, Star Sapphire, and the Harlequin. Even so, with mounting pressure, he has no choice but to declare her retconned. Wonder Girl stoically accepts her fate as she and the others turn into drawings on Kanigher's desk. Soon after, Wonder Woman enters and is shocked to see her younger self "killed".
Regardless, Diana as a child Wonder Girl was never completely rejected. Reprints of Wonder Girl stories were occasionally included in the comic book. In issue #200, Wonder Woman, in her Diana Prince identity, is shown walking past children at play whereon she flashes back to when she was a fourteen-year-old Wonder Girl with a crush on Mer-Boy.
See main article: Donna Troy. While the characters of Wonder Girl and Wonder Woman were diverging, Haney was developing a new group of junior superheroes, whose first informal appearance featured a team-up of Robin (Dick Grayson), Kid Flash (Wally West), and Aqualad (Garth). During their next appearance in The Brave and the Bold #60 (July 1965), they were dubbed the Teen Titans and joined by Wonder Girl, pictured in the same frame as Wonder Woman and calling Hippolyta "mother".[2]
Wonder Girl and the other Teen Titans were then featured in Showcase #59 (December 1965) before being spun off into their own series with Teen Titans #1 (February 1966). With the character called only Wonder Girl, or "Wonder Chick" by her teammates, her status as either the younger Wonder Woman displaced in the timeline or another character altogether is not explained until Teen Titans #22 (August 1969).[3] In a story by Marv Wolfman and Gil Kane it is established that Wonder Girl is a non-Amazon orphan, rescued by Wonder Woman from an apartment building fire. Unable to find any parents or family, Wonder Woman brings the child to Paradise Island, where she is eventually given Amazon powers by the Purple Ray. The story ends with Wonder Girl wearing a new costume and hairstyle, adopting the secret identity Donna Troy.
As special event comics like the Crisis on Infinite Earths and Infinite Crisis miniseries have rewritten character histories, the origin of Donna Troy has been revised several times. In brief, those origins are as follows:
See main article: Wonder Girl (Cassie Sandsmark). Cassie Sandsmark is the granddaughter of Zeus. She has been a member of both Young Justice and the Teen Titans. Initially, her powers were derived from ancient Greek magical artifacts. Later, Zeus granted her the boon of actual powers. Her powers are similar to Wonder Woman's, though she carries a lasso that expels Zeus's lightning, which was given to her by her father, Ares, the Greek god of war. When the Greek gods left the mortal plane during Infinite Crisis, Zeus stripped Cassie of her powers. However, she was granted powers by Ares in exchange for becoming his champion.
After Superboy's death, she quit the Titans for a time to be an independent vigilante. She was mourning the loss of her lover, Superboy, and bitter from the abandonment by Robin and Wonder Woman over the following year. She later rejoined the group after a battle with the Brotherhood of Evil and the return of Cyborg. She is close friends with fellow hero Supergirl. She later didn't need anyone to empower her as she grew stronger herself.
See main article: Yara Flor. Yara Flor is the daughter of an Amazon and a Brazilian river god, who becomes the defender of the Esquecida Amazon tribe. The character debuted in January 2021 as part of DC Comic's "Future State" storyline, in which she is shown to be the Wonder Woman of the future.[9] [10] In the present day DC Comics narrative, Yara is introduced as part of the Infinite Frontier publishing event. She is unaware of her Amazon heritage, but, responding to a prophecy, the Olympian Gods and the Amazons of Themiscyra, Bana-Mighdall, and a third tribe in the Amazon rainforest separately begin to converge on her location as she makes a trip from the US to Brazil, the country of her birth. Queen Hippolyta sends Wonder Girl Cassie Sandsmark to protect Yara, where she encounters Artemis of Bana-Mighdall.
As an Amazon-Guarani demigoddess, Yara inherits abilities the average Amazon does not. Yara has superhuman strength, speed, reflexes, durability, agility and senses. Yara also has the ability of hydrokinesis (manipulating water), which she discovers after she gets her golden bolas. Yara also rides a white winged horse from Olympus named Jerry.
According to the character's creator, Joëlle Jones, Yara's appearance was inspired by the Brazilian model Suyane Moreira.[11]
| Title | Material collected | Pages | Publication date | ISBN | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Volume 1 | |||||
| Teen Titans Spotlight: Wonder Girl | Wonder Girl (vol. 1) #1–6. | 144 | July 9, 2008 | ||
| Volume 2 | |||||
| Wonder Girl: Adventures of a Teen Titan | Wonder Girl (vol. 2) #1, Adventure Comics (vol. 1) #461, GirlFrenzy! Wonder Woman: Donna Troy #1, Teen Titans (vol. 1) #22, The Brave and the Bold (vol. 1) #60, Wonder Woman (vol. 1) #105, and Wonder Woman (vol. 2) #105, 113. | 160 | August 30, 2017 | ||
| Volume 3 | |||||
| Wonder Girl: Homecoming | Wonder Girl (vol. 3) #1–7, Wonder Girl 2022 Annual #1, and Future State: Wonder Woman #1–2. | 272 | November 8, 2022 | ||
Both Donna and Cassie have a recurring roles in the Tiny Titans comic by Art Baltazar and Franco Aureliani. The two are depicted as cousins, with the Wonder Girl alias given to Donna and Cassie being referred to by her first name.[12]
In #2, Wonder Girl first appears in 1953 as a "mystic projection" to take Wonder Woman's place while Diana gives birth. She finds a wounded Steve Trevor and takes him back to Paradise Island, but despite being subjected to the Purple Power Ray, he dies of his wounds, leaving Diana to raise their daughter, Stephanie, alone.
In 1964, Stephanie (or "Stevie") decides to go out on her own as Wonder Girl. She shares a link with Supergirl (Kara Kent), as they were born at the same time. Years later, she becomes the new Wonder Woman. Her outfit is pretty much the same as her mother's, except that she does not possess either the tiara or the Magic Lasso of Aphrodite, instead possessing the winged sandals of Hermes. She also wears a mask. When she becomes the new Wonder Woman, she adds a cape to the ensemble. In Superman & Batman: Generations #3, she is killed by Darkseid.
Another version of Donna exists in the New 52 on the alternate Earth-2. In Earth-2: Society, the character, Fury, reveals her name is Donna. This character is the daughter of the late Earth-2 Wonder Woman and the New God, Steppenwolf. This is the first time Fury is used as a doppelganger of Donna Troy and not just an analogue.
In the DC Comics Bombshells universe, Wonder Girl is not a single person, but rather a team of young Asian-American girls who are empowered by the mystical artifacts formerly used by Wonder Woman. The Wonder Girls consist of Donna Troy (a Nisei Japanese-American), Cassie Sandsmark (a mixed-race girl of partial Japanese heritage), Yuki and Yuri Katsura, and Emily Sung.[13]