WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Wonder Woman #785, on sale now from DC Comics.
Wonder Woman’s home has always been Themyscira, but her loyalties have never been as simple as they seem. Since the day she became the Amazon’s ambassador of peace, she has been enamored with the world of man. She has found friends, family and love beyond her island home and this has called her loyalty to her Amazon sisters into question on a number of occasions.
With both the death of her mother Hippolyta and the choosing of champions to face off against each other, Diana’s loyalties have been called into question once again. It was expected that, as one of the greatest warriors of her people, Wonder Woman would participate in the upcoming contest. However, she remained hesitant to take up the role of champion to her particular tribe of Amazon warriors. She finally made her choice on the final page of Wonder Woman #785, by Micheal W. Conrad, Becky Cloonan, Rosi Kämpe Tamra Bonvillain and Pat Brosseau, when she solved the problem by adopting an identity similar to one previously taken up by Marvel’s Captain America.
Instead of representing a single tribe of Amazons, Wonder Woman chose to represent them all, with her motivations for doing so echoing those of Steve Rogers when he took on the identity of Nomad. The Themyscirans eventually chose Phillipus, the late Queen Hippolyta’s love, as their champion while the Bana-Mighdall and the Esquecidas are championed by Donna Troy and Yara Flor, respectively.
Wonder Woman’s journey to this decision is a demonstration of how bad the tensions are between the tribes right now and how she herself has been feeling about her place among her people. Her initial unwillingness to enter the contest was questioned, with a few of her sisters believing she was putting her own wants before the needs of her people. Although she eventually chose to enter the contest, she feared that entering for the Themyscirans could make the current tensions even worse. Therefore, she chose to represent all Amazons as opposed to limiting herself to one tribe.
A similar thing happened with Steve Rogers, aka Captain America, during the time of the Watergate scandal in the mid-’70s. Rogers became disillusioned with the American government and abandoned the identity of Captain America, no longer believing he could fight for a nation he no longer believed in. He was convinced by Hawkeye to continue being a hero and subsequently created the Nomad identity. Both Rogers and Diana initially strayed from their people during these troubled times, but they each found a way to fight for what they believed to be right by abandoning their ties to their homes and becoming nomads. This new attitude was reflected in their costumes as well, with both abandoning their bright, iconic colors in favor of darker hues.
Diana’s current role as a nomad represents her unique place in Amazon society and her history of being an outsider among her people. Since leaving Themyscira, she’s been as much a citizen of Man’s World as she has been a Themysciran. This distance from her native people means that’s she’s the only one who can put herself forward as champion while not claiming a particular tribe. A victory on her part may be what is needed to finally unite the three tribes and avoid a civil war.
Even now, Diana remains Wonder Woman and is still the Amazon’s envoy of peace. It’s likely that she will return to her iconic role and her iconic colors when all of this is over, just in time for her possible death alongside the Justice League. Captain America did the same, only maintaining his controversial Nomad identity for four issues before donning the stars and stripes once more. The point of her new identity is ultimately to unite her people, and once that has been achieved she can be recognized as the true champion of all Amazons.
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