Wonder Girl


Wonder Girl is the alias of multiple superheroines featured in comic books published by DC Comics. They are associated with the superheroine Wonder Woman and possess Amazonian powers.
The Wonder Girl alias was first used for a teenage version of Wonder Woman in Wonder Woman #105. An original Wonder Girl, later named Donna Troy, debuted in The Brave and the Bold #60 and is a founding member of the Teen Titans. Cassie Sandsmark, the next Wonder Girl and a member of Young Justice and the Teen Titans, made her debut in Wonder Woman #105. Future Wonder Woman Yara Flor, who debuted in Dark Nights: Death Metal #7, is the most recent Wonder Girl.
An original version of Wonder Girl named Drusilla appeared in the Wonder Woman television series, played by Debra Winger. Donna Troy made her live adaptation debut in the DC Universe/HBO Max series Titans, played by Conor Leslie.

Fictional character biographies

Diana

A teen-aged Princess Diana of the Amazons first appeared in a backstory in Wonder Woman #23, written by William Moulton Marston and designed by H.G. Peter.
Wonder Girl first appeared in The Secret Origin of Wonder Woman, written and edited by Robert Kanigher, in Wonder Woman #105. 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 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 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 Harlequin. With mounting pressure, Kanigher 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.

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, Kid Flash, and Aqualad. During their next appearance in The Brave and the Bold #60, they were dubbed the Teen Titans and joined by Wonder Girl, pictured in the same frame as Wonder Woman and calling Hippolyta "mother".
Wonder Girl and the other Teen Titans were then featured in Showcase #59 before being spun off into their own series with Teen Titans #1. 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. 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.

Multiple origins

As special event comics like Crisis on Infinite Earths and Infinite Crisis have rewritten character histories, the origin of Donna Troy has been revised several times. In brief, those origins are as follows:
  1. Rescued orphan: Donna Troy was rescued from an apartment building fire by Wonder Woman, who took her to Paradise Island to be raised as an Amazon by Hippolyta.
  2. Titan Seed: The Titan Rhea had rescued a young Donna from a fire, adding her to a group of 12 orphans from around the universe who had been raised on New Cronus by these Titans as "Titan Seeds", their eventual saviors. The Seeds had been given superhuman powers and named after ancient Greek cities. Called "Troy", Donna was stripped of her memories from her time with the Titans of Myth, and reintroduced into humankind to await her destiny. In this version, Donna was not an Amazon and had no connection to Wonder Woman.
  3. Infinite Lives of Donna Troy: In a revision that incorporated the Titan Seed continuity while reattaching Donna Troy to Wonder Woman, it is revealed that the Amazon sorceress Magala had animated a mirror image of young Princess Diana to create for her a mystical, "identical twin" playmate. This twin is soon mistaken for Diana and kidnapped by Dark Angel. Dark Angel disperses the girl's spirit across the multiverse, condemning her to live multiple lives, each one cut short by the Dark Angel at a moment of tragedy. In at least one of these variant lives, Donna would become a superhero and encounter her grown sister, now Wonder Woman, and their mother Hippolyta, without realizing who she really was or how she was related to them. After that timeline ends with the death of Donna's son, Diana and Hippolyta intervene to find what happened to Donna. Donna finally defeats Dark Angel, destroying the evil entity and regaining her original Amazon powers. She returns to reality to continue her life from that point.
  4. Pre-Flashpoint version: Wonder Woman Annual #1 gives Donna a new origin that combines elements of her three variant origins. Donna was born as Princess Diana's mystic twin through the help of Amazon sorceress Magala. Months later, an old enemy of Hippolyta, called Dark Angel, kidnapped Donna thinking she was Diana. Donna was placed in suspended animation by Dark Angel for years but was eventually rescued and returned to the Amazons' home, where she received training from both the Amazons and the Titans of Myth and was raised as Hippolyta's second daughter. Years later, she followed Wonder Woman into the outside world as Wonder Girl and helped form the Teen Titans.
  5. New 52/Rebirth: Donna was created out of clay as part of a plan to destroy Wonder Woman. The Amazons later gave her false memories of being an orphan rescued by Wonder Woman allowing her to live a normal life.
  6. Infinite Frontier: Following the Multiversal upheaval of Dark Knights: Metal, Donna's original backstory of a rescued orphan raised on Paradise Island was restored to canon.

    Cassandra 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.

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. 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. 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, 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 Brazilian model Suyane Moreira.

Collected editions

Alternate versions

''Tiny Titans''

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.