I take a rather long look at Wonder Woman’s sidekicks, their history and what’s missing.

And now we’re on to Wonder Woman’s sidekicks!

Wonder Woman suffers a bit from the same problem as Superman: Some of the time, she doesn’t seem to be that close to her sidekicks at all.

There is a pretty clear cut reason for this, at least in the case of Donna Troy. Donna didn’t debut in the Wonder Woman comic. She debuted in the 1960’s in Teen Titans. The thing is, Wonder Woman was doing this super crazy thing where she had adventures with computer simulations of her younger selves (it was the Silver Age, don’t ask) including herself as a girl. Bob Haney, or whoever, glances over Wonder Woman and took it to mean Diana had a “Wonder Girl” along with her. They needed a chick for the Teen Titans, enter Wonder Girl.

Where were the editors, you ask? It was the Silver Age.

That said, it was a ridiculously long time before Donna got an origin and a name. She was finally given one by Marv Wolfman, which was that she was rescued as an orphaned baby from a burning building by Diana and given Amazon powers. It was expanded on later in the 80’s Teen Titans.

So, from the beginning, Donna was a Teen Titans property. She seemed to have little to do with Wonder Woman. This was made oh so much worse when Crisis of Infinite Earths came along and Wondy continuity was so messed up in turned out Donna has debuted BEFORE Wondy. They came up with some convoluted thing to explain why a Wonder Girl had been running around before a Wonder Woman, thus weakening Donna’s connection to Diana substantially.

Since then the poor girl has gone through so many origins it’s hideous. But her strong connection with Diana was reestablished, as she’s now Diana’s sister pretty much and thanks to Infinite Crisis, Diana’s back to debuting at the same time as Batman and Superman.

But seriously, Donna, get yourself a decent origin! You’re in the prime position to do it now! I mean, I don’t know who you are anymore!

…Oooookay then.

The point is, Wonder Woman and Donna didn’t have any kind of closeness before. Byrne and Jimenez fixed that, fortunately, and now, like I said, they’re sisters. Even Teen Titans Year One depicted them as close and had Donna looking for Diana in New York, referring to her as her sister, and being crushed when she thought Diana had betrayed her. But even now, Donna’s a Titans property more than a Wonder Woman one, and she’s too old to be a sidekick.

If we want a “Robin” for Wonder Woman, a squire to her knight, we’ll have to look somewhere else. When Cassandra Sandsmark, the second Wonder Girl, debuted, it looked like she’d fill that role. She debuted in the Wonder Woman title for one, so she was already one up on Donna. She was a spunky, spiky girl who idolized Diana, and she certainly had the drive. When she saw her heroine in mortal danger, she made herself Wonder Girl by taking the Gauntlet of Atlas and the Sandals of Hermes to give herself strength and flight and rushed to Wonder Woman’s aid. She helped Diana save the day and later managed to get Zeus himself to give her powers. Donna saw her potential and passed on the costume (though Cassie never used it, except once when she was changed into an adult.)

She had the drive, she had the ambition, she had the sheer gumption that let her look Zeus in the face and demand powers. In Young Justice she became an enjoyable character. She was stubborn, strong in her convictions, bossy, funny and tough. She was also a teenage girl who got jealous and lovestruck. Peter David did such good work on her character, the reader of Young Justice even voted for her to become leader of the team and she filled the role nicely. She had all the good qualities a Wonder Woman sidekick should have. We could understand the potential Diana and Donna saw in her.

And it helped that she absolutely idolized both of them, and Diana was very close to her at first. She appeared quite a bit in the title, and got training with Artemis of the Amazons. Both Diana and Cassie had a strong connection and genuinely cared about each other.

But theeeen Teen Titans happened. Not only did Cassie do a complete 180 in personality, becoming a simpering, bratty blubberer who was most certainly NOT Wonder Girl material, and who far from idolizing Diana, insulted and attacked her, she suffered Donna’s fate of becoming more of a Teen Titans property than a Wonder Woman one. This imposter’s connection with Diana seemed non existent, and the two rarely hung out. But why would Diana want to hang out with such a bratty girl anyway?

Recently Cassie’s personality seems to have improved (she’s even a team leader again!), her brattiness explained away as a result of Ares’s RAGE!Lasso, but unfortunately, she also went through a costume change that DOESN’T INCLUDE AMAZON BRACELETS.

Wearing the bracelets symbolizes you are an Amazon, a sister and a warrior. It is also a huge symbol of being part of the Wonder Family. If Cassie’s not wearing the Bracelets, she’s decided she’s not part of the Wonder Woman clan. It’s like a member of Supeman’s team not wearing the S symbol.

Annnd there’s also the question of how she’ll stop bullets without those things…

It’s a shame, that just as Cassie starts acting like a Wonder again, she distances herself from her mentor. There’s no good explanation. Cassie needs her bracelets back, stat.

Plus, it looks horrible, did I mention that? She can’t move her arrrrrms!

Now, if you’re anything like me, you’ve noticed that both of Wonder Woman’s sidekicks are girls. Batman has a Batgirl (and female Robin), Superman has Supergirl, where’s Wonder Woman’s Wonder Boy?

In fact, I can’t really think of any female heroes with a male sidekick, can you? Weird, isn’t it? There’s plenty of male heroes with girl sidekicks.

The best theory I can come up with is that a female being in charge of a male goes against the archaic and sexist balance of power too much for DC. Young girls can look up to older men, but a young man looking up to an older woman? Gasp! (Let’s ignore the fact that most young men have an older woman they look up to who orders them around. It’s called their mother.)

Well, I say if anyone’s going to break the superheroic glass ceiling on that one, it should be Wonder Woman. Let’s have a Wonder Boy! Wouldn’t it send a great message to have a young boy look up to and idolize Wonder Woman? To have Wonder Woman send the message that, yes, boys can admire strong women?

(I should note we came pretty close to Wonder Boy in Jiminez’s run on the WW title. Diana gave a “WB” T shirt to a young male relative of the current guy she was dating.)

But what about Wonder Woman’s current sidekicks/sisters and the sad state of her relationship with them? Well, I’m happy to say that Gail Simone has stated in interviews that she’s going to restore Donna and Cassie to greater importance in the Wonder Woman books, and they have been involved in the latest arc of the title and were done absolutely right. They both demonstrated that they cared about Diana loads, fought valiantly in battle with her as a team, acted like strong women and warriors who were actually close to their mentor, and Donna had a lovely “get the hell off my sister!” moment where she came to Diana’s aid.

So I see a bright future for the Wonder Trinity (providing Cassie gets her bracelets back, grrrr.)

Let’s hope so.