Wonder Girl

Wonder Girl is a superhero from DC Comics. Introduced alternately as the younger sibling, or ward, of Wonder Woman, in both instances she is played as a protegé to the older, more experienced heroine.

Her relationship with Wonder Woman is roughly analogous to that of Batman and Robin, or Aquaman and Aqualad. The hero/protege relationship is a common theme in comic book lore.

In comic books

Donna Troy

The character of Wonder Girl was otiginally 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.)

As a character in her own right, she made her first appearance in The Brave and the Bold #54 (July 1964), 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.)

It was revealed, four years after her introduction, that Wonder Girl had been orphaned by a fire which killed her parents. Saved by Wonder Woman, she had been taken to Paradise Island, where she was given Amazon powers by the mysterious Purple Ray. She later took the alias of Donna Troy and remained on Earth.

These revelations were published in Teen Titans [first series] #22.

Since the Crisis on Infinite Earths, Donna Troy's origin has been rewritten several times. The first rewrite came about when it was noticed that, in post-Crisis continuity, she had made her heroic debut before Wonder Woman. Her history was changed so that she had now been saved, gained her powers etc. by the Titans of Myth. At around the same time, she adopted the name Troia, much as Dick Grayson "graduated" from Robin to Nightwing.

Donna got married and had a son. She sacrificed her powers for this, but they were divorced. She joined the Darkstars, and rejoined the Titans with her Darkstar suit. She briefly dated Kyle Rayner while he was in the Titans, but they broke up following the death of her son and ex-husband. The Darkstars also broke up, leaving her powerless once more.

Her origin was then rewritten again. The latest version has it that she was originally a magically-created duplicate of the young Princess Diana of Themiscira (a nod to the original Wonder Girl), cursed by the Dark Angel (a World War II villainess) to live endless varients on a life characterised by suffering. With the help of her mother and the third Flash (her former Titans teammate Kid Flash) (the only two people who remembered the previous version), Donna was restored. Somehow, she also regained her powers.

She was apparently killed in the Titans/Young Justice crossover Graduation Day.

Cassandra Sandsmark

Cassie Sandsmark is the daughter of Dr Helena Sandsmark, a noted archeologist, whom Wonder Woman was working with. 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, has reluctantly accepted her daughter's wish to be a superheroine.

As the new Wonder Girl, Cassie joined Young Justice, and was one of the YJ 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.

On television

The character of Wonder Girl appeared in the popular television series based on the Wonder Woman comic.

Although the pilot episode of the series made specific reference to the fact that Wonder Woman's alter-ego, Princess Diana of the Amazons, was Queen Hippolyte's only child, three later episodes featured Wonder Girl as a younger sibling.

Those three episodes occurred in the series first on-air season, when the story was set in the 1940s, and featured Wonder Woman as a World War II heroine, fighting Nazi spies and saboteurs in America.

The first appearance of Wonder Woman's younger sister Drusilla was in the episode The Feminum Mystique. In that episode, Queen Hippolyte (Carolyn Jones) sends Drusilla to "Man's World" 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 bracelets. (They are made of a metal called feminum, hence the episode title.) 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 appears in one more episode, "Wonder Woman in Hollywood". In all three instances, she was played by Debra Winger.

When the series returned for a second and third season, with its storyline updated to modern day, the character of Wonder Girl did not re-appear.

External links

• Debra Winger as Wonder Girl (http://www.freewebs.com/immunology/wonder-girl-1.html)