Wonder Woman (DC animated universe)

Justice League was the first chance to add Wonder Woman (VOICED by Susan Eisenberg) to the DCAU, as the rights had been previously tied up in possible movies and television shows.

Introduction

To introduce her into a universe already populated by long-experienced heroes like Batman and Superman, Bruce Timm and his team took a cue from George Pérez’s newcomer-to-man's-world Post-Crisis interpretation. This Diana started off completely innocent and ignorant of man's world. Also like the Pérez version, she neither keeps a secret identity nor has an invisible plane (although in the 1st season of Justice League Unlimited we see her unveil the plane). However, perhaps as a nod to her Pre-Crisis appearance, she has straight hair and high-heeled boots suggestive of her old Super Friends incarnation. Also, her lasso did not compel truthfulness until the Justice League Unlimited episode "The Balance" in which Hippolyta activated all her powers.

Personality

Her initial personality consisted of a strict adherence to Amazonian dogma (prompting some of her teammates to react to her attitude by calling her "Princess" somewhat disdainfully). Noticeable though is the effect of Man's World on Diana. Her first appearances are marked by her reflexively acting off of Amazonian ideology (in "Fury", she questions how necessary men really are), but as time passes, she becomes more interested in men (in particular, Batman, with whom she has a flirtatious and possibly romantic relationship) and also experiences the emotional excesses of man's world, as compared to the Amazons (who are portrayed as somewhat stoic if not emotionally stunted). Batman's affections for Wonder Woman, however, are somewhat confirmed in the Unlimited episode "This Little Piggy", where he admits his feelings to Zatanna when requesting her help in changing Diana back (she was turned into a pig by Circe). Batman's and Wonder Woman's mutual feelings are implicated in the JLA episode "The Brave and the Bold", when Wonder Woman manages to stop a missile crashing into Gorilla City. When the weight of the missile head crushes her, Batman rushes to the site and attempts to clear the rubble while everyone else is too stunned by Wonder Woman's possible death to help. However, Wonder Woman is found unhurt, and when she sees Batman's gloves covered in rubble in his attempt to save her, she kisses him on the cheek. Batman and Wonder Woman also share a kiss in the Justice League season finale "Starcrossed" (they kissed in order to hide their faces from Thanagarian patrol). In the episode "Kid's Stuff", Wonder Woman, in her eight-year old form, also flirts liberally with the young Batman.

She finds joy but also discovers a temper that frequently needs to be checked by her teammates ("Hereafter", "Hawk and Dove", "Eclipsed", etc.). Later episodes dealt directly with her temper and Diana’s eventual mastery of it. She since adopted the role of ambassador of the Amazons at her mother’s request ("To Another Shore"), bringing another Post-Crisis trait to the DCAU.

Origin

While Wonder Woman’s origin in the DCAU is not detailed, in the episode "The Balance", it is revealed that she indeed was a clay statue sculpted by Hippolyta and somehow brought to life. In the same episode, Hades says that he helped Hippolyta sculpt the clay statue that would eventually become Diana, making him feel almost like a father to her, but was banished before she was brought to life. That claim, however, was never substantiated (when Hawkgirl points out she could use the lasso on him, Diana says it doesn't matter). It was also revealed that the Wonder Woman armor was originally made by the god Hephaestus for her mother, Queen Hippolyta, not Diana. However, in episodes, again like "The Balance", it was insinuated and implied that the armor was eventually made for her purposes and use. She had stolen her armor to use once Hippolyta forbade her to enter the outside world. Later in the series it is revealed also that Diana did not know that the armor had additional abilities, which could be activated by pressing the star on the tiara.

Themyscira

Themyscira appears in several episodes of the Warner Brothers animated television series Justice League and in Justice League Unlimited as the homeland of Wonder Woman. In the first episode, Diana rides a horse with her mother along the shores of the island and watches aliens raining down upon Earth from afar. Later, after joining the League as Wonder Woman, The Flash offers her an Ice Mocha, which later in the series is implied to become her favourite drink. After tasting it, she replies, "Mmmm. They don't have these in Themyscira!" Themyscira was shown three more times on the series, once when the Justice League battled the sorcerer Felix Faust on its shores, again when a rogue Amazon named Aresia left the island to become a villain in Man's World, and also when the Annihilator was stolen and Wonder Woman and Shayera had to travel to the underworld through the gate on Themyscira.

Powers and equipment

Her powers are almost the same as her comics counterpart, including flight and super strength, lending Wonder Woman the ability to hold out against Superman in a fight, while both were hallucinating. She also has a weakness to pierce wounds as shown by Devil Ray's poisonous dart harming her. In "Grudge Match", she is able to singlehandedly defeat Vixen, Hawkgirl, Huntress, and Black Canary in a no-holds barred fight.

Invisible Plane

The Invisible Plane has appeared on the animated series Justice League Unlimited. It had a separate origin that was supposed to have been told in an animated TV movie, Justice League: Worlds Collide, but the feature was never produced. Had it been produced, it would have also explained how the League roster would be expanded and transformed into Justice League Unlimited.

Lasso of Truth

In the Justice League animated series, the lasso is only used as an exceptionally long, flexible, and unbreakable rope. In Justice League Unlimited however, Wonder Woman's lasso was officially portrayed as being able to compel the truth. This ability was finally unleashed in the episode "The Balance" by Wonder Woman's mother Queen Hippolyta who revealed that Diana had stolen the uniform before being told of its full capabilities. Upon touching the star on the tiara, various parts of the Wonder Woman costume began to temporarily glow such as the tiara, bracelets, belt and lasso. It was after this that Diana discovered that the lasso could compel truth. However, in the series, Diana only used the truth powers of the lasso once, on the demon Abnegazar to learn the location of Felix Faust, an event that occurred in the same episode.

Batman Beyond

Her eventual fate is unknown, but Kobra mentions that she is still alive during the time of Batman Beyond. Wonder Woman was originally supposed to appear in the Batman Beyond episode “The Call”, which featured a future Justice League. However, rights issues precluded the possibility and her cameo was instead taken by Big Barda.

Supporting characters

Fury

A character with elements of both versions of Fury appears as a villainess named Aresia (voiced by Julie Bowen) in the Justice League animated series1, in an episode titled "Fury", though Aresia herself is never named as such.

Aresia is a rogue Amazon bent on exterminating men from the planet. She was born in "Man's world". When she was just a girl, she and her mother were forced to flee their homeland from war. On a refugee ship, she was attacked by pirates, who also sank the ship. After drifting aimlessly for days, she washed ashore on Themyscira, where she taken in by Queen Hippolyta, and raised as an Amazon. During the last stage of her Amazon rebirth (solitary meditation), she secretly left the island to exact her revenge on the men of the world.

With the help of Lex Luthor's Injustice Gang, she makes a special poison that will only affect men. She tests it on Gotham City and watches as the city goes into chaos. She defeats several men in one-on- one combat. The other male members of the League are quickly taken out, although Batman holds out the longest, leaving only Wonder Woman and Hawkgirl. With her sidekicks, Star Sapphire and Tsukuri, Aresia plots to send her poison around the world. She believes this will make her a hero among the Amazons.

When Queen Hippolyta arrives, Aresia explains her plan and expects the queen to approve and give her her blessing (she is, after all, acting on everything Hippolyta has taught her), but Hippolyta states that she has violated Amazonian Law by lying, stealing, and committing mass destruction. Disappointed by her disapproval, Aresia knocks out Hippolyta and takes her as a hostage. She then finds Wonder Woman and Hawkgirl, and offers them both a chance to join their cause. She angrily sees Diana's polite rejection as "standing against her own sisters." Then she hijacks a stealth bomber and attempts to release her poison into the atmosphere.

After a brief battle on the jet against Wonder Woman and Hawkgirl, in which Star Sapphire is knocked into the sea, and Tsukuri abandons her, Aresia learns from Hippolyta that she didn't survive the shipwreck on her own; she was rescued by the ship's captain (a man), who brought her to Themyscira before dying of heart failure. Both of them were found by Hippolyta, who buried the captain in an unmarked grave near the beach (making him the only man buried on Themyscira). At first she was angry and asked why she never told her this, her answer was that she thought it didn't matter (that "he didn't matter"). However, this story doesn't change Aresia's mind. ("The acts of one man cannot redeem the sins of his kind," she states, "They must all pay.") She launches the poison missiles, but Hawkgirl smashes in the missile bay doors with her mace, jamming them and making it impossible to launch the missiles. Wonder Woman, Hawkgirl and Hippolyta escape, leaving Aresia alone to die as the plane crashes down and the missiles explode. Later, Wonder Woman and Hawkgirl discover Aresia's hideout, and find her notes, which they use to make an antidote for Aresia's poison.

Hippolyta

In 2001, Hippolyta was depicted again, this time in the animated series Justice League. She was voiced by actress Susan Sullivan. Hippolyta appeared in the following episodes: Secret Origins, Paradise Lost, Fury, and Hereafter; and when the series continued in Justice League Unlimited, in The Balance. Unlike the Superman cartoon Hippolyta, this Hippolyta seems to be a hybrid character of the Pre-and Post-Crisis versions: she is blonde, yet maintains her Post-Crisis personality as a stately queen. Putting her religion and devotion to the Olympian Gods above all, she exiles her daughter Diana from Paradise Island rather than risk incurring divine wrath, when Diana brings out-worlders (the Justice League) to Themyscira in Paradise Lost. In this series it is explained that the Wonder Woman uniform was actually made by the god Hephaestus for Queen Hippolyta to use (but he cheekily comments that the uniform looks better on Diana). Hippolyta is seen comforting Diana following Superman's supposed "death" in the episode Hereafter, and in The Balance she lifts the exile she put on her daughter as well as informing her of her full power. Also was develed into was her one time intimate relationship with the Greek god Hades. Hades tells Wonder Woman that the two of them made her out of clay.

Nemesis

Nemesis (Thomas Andrew Tresser) has appeared as a background character in several episodes of Justice League Unlimited.

He debuted in the first episode of Justice League Unlimited (Initiation), and later was seen more prominently in the episode Dark Heart. 2.

Olympian Gods

Many of the gods have made appearances on the Justice League and Justice League Unlimited animated series.

Gods who have appeared include Hades 3, Ares 4, Hephaestus 5 and Hermes 6.

Philippus

Philippus appeared in 2002 as a minor character in the Cartoon Network original animated television series Justice League. In the episode Paradise Lost, Philippus appeared as a victim of the evil sorcerer Felix Faust. She, along with her fellow Amazon sisters, are discovered to have been turned to stone. Members of the Justice League team join together to revert the Amazons back to their normal state. That same year, Philippus re-appears in the episode Fury. She is shown as part of a small group of Amazons attempting to capture Hawkgirl due to her trespassing on the Amazon island.

Steve Trevor

In Justice League, Trevor appears in the three part story, "The Savage Time" (voiced by Patrick Duffy), in which the Justice League travel back in time to prevent Vandal Savage from altering the course of World War II. Here, Trevor is a secret agent for The Allies whom Wonder Woman rescues from a plane crash; the two have a brief, flirtatious relationship that remains as a friendship in the present day where Trevor is now decades the superheroine's senior.
Trevor calls Wonder Woman by the nickname "Angel". This is similar to the Golden Age version of the character, who often referred to Diana as the "angel" who rescued him from the plane crash.

Wonder Girl (Cassie Sandsmark)

Almost all appearances of Wonder Girl in other media involve the Donna Troy version of the character, however, in the Justice League episode 'Paradise Lost', Wonder Woman rescues a young blonde girl named Cassie, whom she refers to as "little sister" (to which the girl replies that Wonder Woman isn't her sister). Cassie is portrayed by Serena Berman.

Villains

Angle Man

In Justice League Unlimited, Angle Man appears as a member of the Secret Society and makes several non-speaking appearances in the series final season. Angle Man had one line in the episode The Great Brain Robbery, voiced by an uncredited Phil LaMarr. He is a member of the Grodd/Luthor Secret Society in the episode Alive.

Ares

Ares made an appearance in the Justice League Unlimited episode "Hawk and Dove", voiced by Michael York. In the episode, Ares commissions Hephaestus to forge the Annihilator, a living suit of armor fueled by violence. He uses it to incite conflict between North and South Kasnia, hoping to destabilize the entire region and create more conflict. Wonder Woman and Hawk and Dove intervene, forcing Ares to back down after discovering the Annihilator's weakness. The suit is confiscated by the Justice League. He appeared by the name of Tom Sera in the episode (Sera spelled backwards is Ares).

Cheetah

In the Cartoon Network's Justice League, there is a new Cheetah played by voice actress Sheryl Lee Ralph. The producers have said she is Dr. Minerva, but she has a different form and origin. This Dr. Barbara Minerva was once a biologist who was doing valuable genetics research, but her funding was running out, and was unable to perform proper experiments. In a last ditch effort to prove the value of her research, she tested her theories on herself. The result was a mutation into a half-human-half-cat hybrid. She was shunned by the scientific community for her recklessness and ostracized by humanity as a freak. With no alternatives, she turned to crime to fund further research to undo the change.

Her first appearance was in the episode "Injustice for All" as a member of the Injustice Gang, and it was supposed to be her last; producer Bruce Timm intended for Cheetah to die. She joins Lex Luthor's Injustice Gang for the same reason she became a criminal in the first place: money - but unlike the others, she has little criminal intent, and merely wants to be normal again. When the Injustice Gang succeeds in capturing Batman, he realizes that Cheetah isn't like the others, and offers her a way out, in exchange for helping him topple Lex Luthor. However, Cheetah hesitates to take up Batman's offer. Instead, another disgruntled member betrays them. When Luthor realizes they have a traitor in their midst, he points the blame toward Cheetah, thanks to a clip from a security camera showing her and Batman kissing. She is defeated by Joker, and then Solomon Grundy takes her away, where he supposedly kills her by petting her to death — a reference to Lennie in Of Mice and Men.

Because she was killed in a typical comic book death — namely being dragged off screen to be executed — some assumed that Cheetah was not really dead and might come back. The series producers argued the point; James Tucker wanted to bring the sympathetic character back, while Bruce Timm insisted that she was an "ex-Cheetah." Cheetah was saved by the most unusual of saviors: an animation error. At the end of the episode, she appears alive and well in the back of the paddy wagon with the other members; once the producers saw the error, they decided it was easier to say she wasn't killed, but still haven't said how she got away from Grundy.

Sheryl Lee Ralph reprised her role as Cheetah in Justice League Unlimited. She has made minor appearances in the series after this, and was only heard speaking again in "Kid Stuff".

Cheetah joins Gorilla Grodd's Secret Society in the 2005–06 season of Justice League Unlimited, though she remains a minor character. Despite the original intent of the producers to have her killed in her first appearance, Cheetah actually ends up one of the few Legion members to survive the resurrection of Darkseid in the series finale.

Circe

Circe appears in the animated series Justice League Unlimited, appearing in the episode "This Little Piggy." In the show, she liberally displays her powers of transforming humans and other objects into animals, most notably turning Wonder Woman into a pig, and transforming Batman's batarangs into doves. The storyline here is that she was an old enemy of Wonder Woman's mother. Upon being released from imprisonment in Hades, Circe decided to get her revenge against Hippolyta by turning Diana into a pig (one of the terms of her release was that she could not attack Hippolyta directly). She agrees to turn Wonder Woman back after Batman sings "Am I Blue?" in front of an audience (the ability to sing supposedly being Batman's "darkest secret"). Circe was voiced by Broadway actress Rachel York, who also sings the 1935 hit "Lulu's Back in Town" (music by Harry Warren, lyrics by Al Dubin) in the episode.

Doctor Cyber

A Z8 Training Drone appears as Doctor Cyber in the Justice League Unlimited episode "Far from Home." She is also seen as a member of Gorilla Grodd's Secret Society. During the mutiny against Lex Luthor and his group, Doctor Cyber sides with Grodd's faction. While she is not among the villains frozen by Killer Frost, she presumably died when Darkseid destroyed the Legion's base as she was not seen with the surviving villains.

Cyborgirl

When Justice League was pitched to KidsWB, the line up originally included 3 young members (the network prefers kids to have a prominent role). The members would have been Tim Drake (Robin III, in DCAU continuity), Impulse and an original character described as a "teenage female version of Cyborg". The promo is viewable on the Justice League Season 1 set, Disc 4. Though not stated to be LeTonya specifically, this character is somewhat similar to the character Cyborgirl, allying herself with heroes.

Giganta

Giganta appears in the Justice League episode "Secret Society" voiced by Jennifer Hale. This version hash an origin somewhat similar to that in the comics. Unlike her more brutish characterization in the comics Giganta acts in a more feminine manner in the Justice League cartoons, but is still eager for battle according to Hale. She was once a small female ape, transformed by her mate Grodd. In "Secret Society," Giganta recruits The Shade into Grodd's Secret Society. During her first confrontation with the Justice League, she manages to defeat Wonder Woman with help from Killer Frost and later topples the Man of Steel. Then at Gotham Field, Superman is being beaten badly by her, but manages to escape. When he finally is about to strike back, she manipulates him by asking "Wouldn't hit a woman, would you?" Fortunately, Wonder Woman has no problem delivering a one-hit, final blow which knocks her out.

Giganta later appears in the Justice League Unlimited episode "Ultimatum" with Jennifer Hale reprising her role of Giganta. She attempts to break Grodd out of prison with the help of Bizarro (whom she manipulates by having him play his girlfriend). She is defeated by Wonder Woman and the similarly powered Ultimen member Long Shadow (who was himself a thinly veiled homage to Apache Chief). She then becomes Grodd's devoted follower and has become a returning member of the new Secret Society (based on the Legion of Doom). While on a mission for Grodd as a backup to retrieve the Viking Prince's corpse, she ends up comatose after the Martian Manhunter tries to read her mind. However in the episode "The Great Brain Robbery", Giganta is seen among the rest of the Secret Society, apparently fully recovered.
When the Secret Society becomes divided between Luthor and Grodd, she sides with Luthor angry with Grodd for shutting off her mind and cheating on her with Tala. When Darkseid attacks the remaining members of the Society, she argues with the Justice League to fight alongside them, going with Green Lantern and Flash to defend Paris. At the end of the series, Giganta sacrifices a few seconds of her allotted five minute head start reward (for helping the League) and plants a fast kiss on the Flash.

Hades

Hades appeared on the Justice League animated series (Paradise Lost, Parts I & II), as well as on Justice League Unlimited (The Balance). His appearance on the show is significantly different from the comics version, with long black hair, a dark goatee, and black and silver armor. He is a former lover of Wonder Woman's mother Amazon Queen Hippolyta and (it is implied) possibly the real father of Wonder Woman. Hades was voiced by John Rhys Davies in Paradise Lost, Parts I & II, but was voiced by veteran voice actor Bob Joles in The Balance.

However, he was significantly altered. In the comic books as in the original myths, Hades, while feared, was not evil. He was portrayed as a hard but ultimately just judge. In the show he was literally demonized and used as a stand in for the Devil. According to the episode Paradise Lost, (based on John Milton's book by the same name which retells Lucifer's War Against Heaven) after a failed attempt to overthrow Zeus, Hades was cast out and [...]. He was sentenced to eternal torment and imprisonment in the pits of Tartarus, the fiery abode of demons and the evil dead. This Hades made a pact with Felix Faust--a clear nod to the true Faust was said to have made a deal with the Devil. (Through the first episode, Hades as shown as a fiery being with--it seems--horns on his head.) Hades here was portrayed as deceitful and treacherous and, though seemingly handsome, revealed his true face as that of a monster. This was further suggested in his second appearance as the words Hell-though it was cut off--and Tartarus were used interchangeably throughout the episode and Hades' demons were terrified by Hawkgirl thinking she was an angel. She encouraged them in that thought and, pointing upwards, said that if they touched her "The Boss" would be angry. Hades also implies to Diana that he is in fact her "father" saying that he and Hippolyta created her together. Despite this he assists in fighting Faust and decides to torment Faust's soul for eternity.