Wonder Girl is a superheroine from DC Comics. Introduced originally as a younger Wonder Woman, the writer Bob Haney introduced Wonder Girl as a member of the Teen Titans in the present day in an accidental retcon, and leading to the original Wonder Girl being given a series of different origins.
| Wonder Girl II | |
|---|---|
| File:Wg lasso.jpg Cassie Sandsmark. Art by Mike McKone. | |
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | DC Comics |
| First appearance | Wonder Woman (vol. 2) #105 |
| Created by | John Byrne |
| In-story information | |
| Alter ego | Cassandra "Cassie" Sandsmark |
| Team affiliations | Teen Titans, Young Justice |
| Abilities | Powers granted by Zeus, accoutrements enchanted by other gods. |
In comic books
Diana
The character of Wonder Girl was originally introduced in the Wonder Woman comic as a teen-aged version of Wonder Woman; that is, a teen-aged Princess Diana of the Amazons. A third incarnation, Wonder Tot, Wonder Woman as an infant, had also been featured. From Wonder Woman #124 (August 1961) onwards, all three versions of her frequently appeared together in stories that were initially labelled "impossible tales," said to be films made by her mother, Queen Hippolyta, by splicing together films of herself and Princess Diana at different ages. However, by the time the Teen Titans made their first appearance, the idea that Wonder Girl was Wonder Woman as a teenager was no longer pointed out explicitly, which is a likely explanation for why Haney began writing stories with Wonder Girl that took place in the same time period as those of Wonder Woman.
Donna Troy
As a character in her own right, she made her first appearance in The Brave and the Bold #60 (July 1965), and was portrayed as a member of a junior Justice League consisting of Robin, Kid Flash and Aqualad, joining together as had their mentors (respectively, Batman, The Flash and Aquaman). Together, they were known as the Teen Titans.
The relationship between this Wonder Girl and the younger version of Wonder Woman was not fully explained at the time. The mystery of Wonder Girl's background would linger in the series until finally resolved in the 1980s.
Cassandra Sandsmark
Cassie Sandsmark is the daughter of Dr. Helena Sandsmark, a noted archeologist, with whom Wonder Woman was working. She created a costume and used magical acoutrements (the sandals of Hermes and a gauntlet of strength) to help Wonder Woman, much to her mother's horror.
Cassie later had the opportunity to ask Zeus for a boon, and requested real superpowers. Zeus granted her request, but gave Dr. Sandsmark the ability to deactivate them. Dr Sandsmark, however, reluctantly accepted her daughter's wish to be a superheroine.
As the new Wonder Girl, Cassie joined Young Justice due to her crush on Superboy, where she became close friends with Arrowette, Empress and Secret, and eventually became leader of that group and eventually entered a relationship with the teenaged hero.
Her secret identity was publicly revealed when the second Silver Swan attacked her at high school.
She was one of the Young Justice members to later become a Teen Titan, after that team disbanded. She has been trained with Artemis, the former "stand-in" Wonder Woman. She has recently been given a lasso, similar in appearance to Wonder Woman's Lariat of Truth, by the god Ares. Unlike the lariat of truth, this "gift" appears to be sinister in nature, feeding off anger to invoke Zeus's lightning.
In a recent issue of Wonder Woman, Cassie was granted another boon, this time by Athena. She requested to know the identity of her father, who was revealed to be Zeus.
The "Titans of Tomorrow" storyline, which showcased a possible, dystopian future, Ares persuaded Cassie to assume the mantle of Wonder Woman after Diana died during a Crisis. She proved to be disturbingly ruthless in this vision of the future.
Powers and Abilities
Cassie originally received powers her powers from a number of mystical artifacts employed by Artemis during her time as Wonder Woman. These included the Gauntlet of Atlas and the Sandals of Hermes, which provided her with the powers of strength and flight/speed. She was eventually granted similar abilities by Zeus who granted "her fondest wish". This gift message proves to be rather vague though, and Cassie could arguably have access to more powers than what is already displayed (although it remains unclear whether she already had these abilities as a benefit of her divine heritage). Discouraged by previously shown arrogance in his children (Ares and Herakles) Zeus also blessed Cassie's mother with the ability to take away her powers for a short time via a simple touch. Recently, Cassie was given a lasso by Ares which enables her to channel Zeus's lightning.
On television
A version of Wonder Girl also appeared in the Wonder Woman TV series of the mid-1970s, and was played by Debra Winger in one of her first film roles.
Although the pilot episode of that series had made specific reference to the fact that Wonder Woman's alter-ego, Princess Diana of Paradise Island, was Queen Hippolyte's only child, three later episodes featured a younger sibling named Drusilla.
The first appearance of Drusilla was in the two-part episode "The Feminum Mystique". In that episode, Queen Hippolyte (Carolyn Jones) sends Drusilla to America in order to bring her sister home to Paradise Island.
Drusilla is consequently caught up in a Nazi plot to discover the secret of Wonder Woman's magical bracelets. In the process, she masters the spinning transformation her older sister does to become Wonder Woman and in the process creates the persona of Wonder Girl (though the distinction is lost on her Nazi abductors; they abduct Wonder Girl believing her to be Wonder Woman). Wonder Girl's costume is a scaled down version of Wonder Woman's, but it also has similarities to the comic book version.
Drusilla appeared again in the final episode of the first season, "Wonder Woman in Hollywood".
When the series returned for subsequent seasons, with its storyline updated to modern day, the character of Drusilla/Wonder Girl did not re-appear. Reportedly the producers had hoped to bring the popular character back, but Debra Winger, not wanting to be typecast, bought out her contract.
Although Wonder Girl has long been rumored to appear on the Teen Titans animated series, legal issues prevent her from appearing on the show. In "Homecoming" (part two), a character resembling Donna Troy appeared in a very brief scene, though she was not named.
External links
- Debra Winger as Wonder Girl
- Newsarama- Phil Jimenez on The Return of Donna Troy
- Alan Kistler's Profile On Donna Troy - A complete history of Donna Troy by comic book historian Alan Kistler on www.MonitorDuty.com. This retrospective covers Donna Troy's entire history, with detailed accounts as to why and how she was originally created and why her origin was altered time and time again.