History YMMV / WonderWoman1987

* FauxSymbolism: It's fairly noticeable when you're looking for it, and those expounding on the idea on the internet abound, but there was supposedly no intended symbolism or deeper meaning behind DC trying to change the feminist hero's signature item from her vulvar lasso to a phallic sword while they were making her DarkerAndEdgier from the '90s on.

** Vanessa Kapatelis' SuddenSequelHeelSyndrome in the Jiminez run was contentious even back then and it's adaptation in James Robinson's ''ComicBook/WonderWomanRebirth'' run and ''WesternAnimation/WonderWomanBloodlines'' haven't done the concept any favors. However, the shock of seeing Vanessa as a villain worked when Jiminez did it because Vanessa had a long history spanning 60+ issues as a beloved supporting character. ''Rebirth'' has Vanessa's friendship with Diana and subsequent FaceHeelTurn occur in the space of one issue and ''Bloodlines'' completely inverts their relationship by making Vanessa hostile towards and jealous of Diana, removing the tragedy of her becoming a villain.

* CompleteMonster:
** Edgar Cizko, better known as the infamous [[PsychoPsychologist Doctor Psycho]], is the epitome of a DepravedDwarf and a [[HeManWomanHater raging misogynist]] with a long and memorable rap sheet. Psycho introduced himself by psychically torturing a guidance counselor who confronts him over subtly manipulating the minds of a school's students and attempting to murder her and her unborn baby in the process. After this incident, Psycho would go on to wreak swaths of death and mayhem with his powers, often teaming up with others, racking up a count of [[PsychicAssistedSuicide driving and attempting to drive people to suicide]] on numerous occasions, molesting and raping women he fancies, going on a psychotic rampage after being called "normal" and, in possibly his worst moment, hypnotizing an entire crowd of people into partially cannibalizing each other. Psycho, [[NightmareFetishist aroused by this]], allowed the people to live as an act of sheer torture, even condemning them to feel his own sexual pleasure as their own. A man whose diminutive, nonthreatening stature is vastly disproportionate to his evil, Psycho is one of Diana's most shamelessly wicked rogues.
** [[EvilutionaryBiologist Doctor Poison II]], real name Marina Maru, has only had a few appearances, but has made up for that with the sheer ugliness of the crimes she commits. The granddaughter of a Japanese war criminal, the original Doctor Poison, she has continued her grandmother's research, creating new toxins and diseases with which to infect the world. Kidnapping a man named Richard Agoras, Doctor Poison subjected him to lengthy [[ColdBloodedTorture torture]] and experimentation, ultimately using the Pandora Virus to mutate him into a hideous monster, and unleashing him on Wonder Woman. When captured following this incident, Doctor Poison released the Pandora Virus into the atmosphere, endangering millions of lives. Escaping custody, Poison joined Queen Clea's new [[LegionOfDoom Villainy Incorporated]], and helped to overrun the PocketDimension of Skartaris, requesting that any prisoners they took be turned over to her for [[TestedOnHumans further use in her experiments]]. Using drugs and prolonged torture, Poison transformed her victims into living zombies, and forced them to battle their friends and relatives when Skartaris rose up against Clea's despotic regime. When Trinity betrayed Clea and attempted to eliminate all sapient life in Skartaris, Poison tried to prevent Wonder Woman from stopping Trinity, hoping to see [[OmnicidalManiac the dimension destroyed]] by Trinity's new virus; she later willingly loaned her talents to the collective responsible for producing the monster Genocide. Obsessed with [[MasterPoisoner producing the perfect toxic agents]] and little else, and making her appearance as [[BodyHorror horrible as possible]] in order to maximize fear in her victims, Doctor Poison II is as bad as a MadScientist can get.
** Sebastien Ballesteros, aka ComicBook/{{Cheetah}} III, quickly proved himself the worst person to ever hold the title. An Argentine [[CorruptCorporateExecutive robber baron]] who made his fortune collaborating with the UsefulNotes/NationalReorganizationProcess, Ballesteros decided real power trumped riches and stole the power of the Cheetah from Barbara Minerva, leaving her for dead. Kidnapping Diana's foster sister, Vanessa Kapatelis, Ballesteros [[MindRape psychologically]] and [[CyberneticsEatYourSoul surgically]] modified her into becoming the Silver Swan, then unleashed her on [[WouldHurtAChild Cassie Sandsmark's school]], leaving dozens of students injured or dead. He subsequently forced Vanessa to join in his and Circe's plot to murder half of New York, and personally captured Superman so that Circe could brainwash him into believing that he was Doomsday and turn him loose on Diana. After this plan failed, Ballesteros retreated to his base in Buenos Aires, where he plotted to slaughter protestors with his Cheetah powers, and burned down much of the city in battle with the returned Barbara Minerva. Escaping with his life, but not the whole of his fortune, Ballesteros again kidnapped Vanessa, who had been briefly freed by Wonder Woman, and put her through another round of [[BeingTorturedMakesYouEvil torture]], surgery, and psychological conditioning, before selling her to [[BigBadWannabe Veronica Cale]] for ten million dollars. Murdered by Minerva shortly afterwards, Ballesteros left behind a legacy of misery and shattered lives.

* MemeticPsychopath: She has started getting this treatment since killing Maxwell Lord in a moment of desperation during ''ComicBook/InfiniteCrisis''. (It was literally the only way to keep him from making Superman kill her and Batman in story, though many fans felt the in story explanation that her lasso couldn't make Supes see the truth to be a cop out that seriously undermined Wondy and would have preferred one that didn't contradict existing powers.)

** The Bana-Mighdall have been criticized for being a more brutal and militaristic {{Foil}} to the Themysciran Amazons while being a tribe of [[UnfortunateImplications mostly black and brown women]]. While the Bana were certainly supposed to be seen as more vicious than the Themyscirans (who were also not without flaws themselves) when they debuted under Perez's pen, they were still depicted with a great deal of nuance, sympathy and complexity to them. Unfortunately, later writers ignored these complexities in favor of writing them as one-dimensional, evil misandrists.

** Vanessa Kapatelis' SuddenSequelHeelSyndrome in the Jiminez run was contentious even back then and it's adaptation in James Robinson's ''ComicBook/WonderWomanRebirth'' run and ''WesternAnimation/WonderWomanBloodlines'' haven't done the concept any favors. However, the shock of seeing Vanessa as a villain worked when Jiminez did it because Vanessa had a long history spanning 60+ issues as a beloved supporting character. ''Rebirth'' has Vanessa's friendship with Diana and subsequent FaceHeelTurn occur in the space of one issue and ''Bloodlines'' completely inverts their relationship by making Vanessa hostile towards and jealous of Diana, removing the tragedy of the arc.

* HilariousInHindsight: Lyta Milton has purple hair and is the daughter of a Greek god and an evil sorceress. Fans of ''Film/{{Descendants}}'' who are unfamiliar with Wonder Woman's more obscure supporting cast would be forgiven for thinking she is a ripoff of Mal even though Lyta debuted two decades earlier.

** Early in the Post-Crisis relaunch, Diana was characterized as not being bound by the ThouShallNotKill rule like Batman and Superman. Some later depictions (ComicBook/KingdomCome, ComicBook/InfiniteCrisis, ComicBook/WonderWoman2011, ComicBook/InjusticeGodsAmongUs, etc) of the character greatly played up this aspect and often treated as a moral failing on Diana's part by the writer or characters in-universe. However, these takes ignore that even when her willingness to use lethal force was established, Diana still mainly went for solutions that didn't involved killing and wasn't happy about it when she did have to resort to lethal options.
** The Bana-Mighdall have been criticized for being a more brutal and militaristic {{Foil}} to the Themysciran Amazons while being a tribe of [[UnfortunateImplications mostly black and brown women]]. While the Bana were certainly supposed to be seen as more vicious than the Themyscirans (who were also not without flaws themselves) when they debuted under Perez's pen, they were still depicted with a great deal of nuance, sympathy and complexity to them. Unfortunately, later writers ignored these complexities in favor of writing them as one-dimensional evil misandrists.

* TearJerker: Issue #46 titled Chalk Drawings centers entirely around the suicide of [[spoiler: Lucy Spears]] and how it affected the lives o the people around her.

** The Bana-Mighdall have been criticized for being a more brutal and militaristic {{Foil}} to the Themysciran Amazons while being a tribe of mostly black and brown women. While the Bana were certainly supposed to be seen as more vicious than the Themyscirans (who were also not without flaws themselves) when they debuted under Perez's pen, they were still depicted with a great deal of nuance, sympathy and complexity to them. Unfortunately, later writers ignored these complexities in favor of writing them as one-dimensional evil misandrists.

* SignatureScene:
** Diana making Ares see the folly of starting World War III with the Lasso of Truth from Perez's run.
** Diana beheading Medusa from Rucka's run.

* CriticalResearchFailure: George Perez was meticulous using Hellenistic Greek culture and mythology for his run, but he slipped up once that can't be excused as [[SadlyMythcharacterized artistic license]]. Namely, it was mentioned that Diana said that the Black Canary would have been a great gladiator. Gladiators are from Roman culture, and Themyscira was an isolated Amazon island that would not have known about Rome.
** In #38, ComicBook/LoisLane explicitly refers to Diana fulfilling TheThreeFacesOfEve trope with Julia and Vanessa Kapatelis - however she specifically uses the phrase "Maiden, Mother and Crone", which is used to describe ''TheHecateSisters'' trope.

* BrokenBase: One of the more contested elements of Creator/GeorgePerez's run is the change in Diana and Steve's relationship by aging up Steve and removing the romantic relationship between them. Some seeing it as removing dated UnfortunateImplications of Diana falling in love with the first man she lays eyes on while others think it shrunk Diana's supporting cast as Steve eventually ended up being PutOnABus and removed one of superhero comics' few [[AmazonChaser superpowered female/normal male relationships]].

** The Bana-Mighdall have been criticized for being a more brutal and militaristic {{Foil}} to the Themysciran Amazons [[UnfortunateImplications while being a tribe of mostly black and brown women]]. While the Bana were certainly supposed to be seen as more vicious than the Themyscirans (who were also not without flaws themselves) when they debuted under Perez's pen, they were still depicted with a great deal of nuance, sympathy and complexity to them. Unfortunately, later writers ignored these complexities in favor of writing them as one-dimensional evil misandrists.

** Early in the Post-Crisis relaunch, Diana was characterized as not being bound by the ThouShallNotKill rule like Batman and Superman. Later writers and depictions (ComicBook/KingdomCome, ComicBook/InfiniteCrisis, ComicBook/WonderWoman2011, ComicBook/InjusticeGodsAmongUs, etc) of the character however greatly played up this aspect and often treated as a moral failing on Diana's part by the writer or characters in-universe. However, these takes on Diana ignore that even when her willingness to use lethal force was established, she still mainly went for solutions that didn't involved killing and wasn't happy about it when she did have to resort to lethal options.
** The Bana-Mighdall have been criticized for being a more brutal and militaristic {{Foil}} to the Themysciran Amazons [[UnfortunateImplications while being a tribe of mostly black and brown women]]. While the Bana were certainly supposed to be seen as more vicious than the Themyscirans (who were also not without flaws themselves) when they debuted under Perez's pen, they were still depicted with a great deal of nuance, sympathy and complexity to them. Unfortunately, later writers ignored these complexities in favor of writing them as evil misandrists.

** "Wrath of the Silver Serpent" arc: [[DarkActionGirl Astarte]], the renegade Amazon, swiftly proved herself the nastiest villain of Creator/GailSimone's run. After usurping command of the nomadic intergalactic army known as The Citizenry, Astarte transformed what had been a largely pacific collective into a rampaging horde that destroyed and cannibalized the populaces of entire planets, kidnapped, genetically modified and raped men for reproductive purposes, and indoctrinated stolen girls into becoming loyal slave-soldiers for Astarte's wars. Having [[AbusiveParents put her daughter]], Theana, through TrainingFromHell--forcing her to murder one hundred other children or starve--Astarte kept her caged like an animal, only turning her loose when Wonder Woman threatened her invasion of Earth. When Diana started getting through to Theana, Astarte ordered her daughter [[OffingTheOffspring executed]].

** The Amazons taking bloody revenge on Heracles's men for drugging and raping them is depicted as them having crossed a line. This would not likely be the case if this story were written in more modern times, especially since the goddesses attitudes towards the Amazons reeks of UsefulNotes/VictimBlaming.

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter: Lyta Milton, the daughter of Circe and Ares. They was a lot that could have been done with a character like this given how common children of supervillains are in DC but sadly she was never seen after the Greg Rucka run and RetGone'd with the ComicBook/TheNew52.

** The Bana-Mighdall have been criticized for being a more brutal and militaristic {{Foil}} to the Themysciran Amazons [[UnfortunateImplications while being a tribe of mostly black and brown women]]. While the Bana were certainly supposed to be seen as more vicious than the Themyscirans (who were also not without flaws themselves) when they debuted under Perez's pen, they were still depicted a great deal of nuance and complexity to them. Unfortunately, later writers ignored these complexities in favor of writing them as the bog standard evil misandrists.