For the YMMV page for the Wonder Woman franchise at large see YMMV.Wonder Woman, for the dedicated YMMV page for the storyline "The Contest" see YMMV.The Contest.
- Awesome Art:
- In addition to the writing, George Pérez did the art for the first 25 issues of his run and put his legendary skills to use into depicting not only Diana but bringing an epic grandeur to Themyscira, the Amazons, and Olympus. Perez has long-remained many a fan's favorite Wonder Woman artist since.
- The art situation on William Messner-Loebs tenure on the book is usually regarded as the weakest element of his run. But just about most agree Brian Bolland's (The Killing Joke) covers were worth the price of the comic, in particular the iconic cover of issue #72
.
- Broken Base: One of the more contested elements of George Pérez's run is the change in Diana and Steve's relationship by aging up Steve and removing the romantic relationship between them. Some see it as removing the dated idea 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 Put on a Bus and removed one of superhero comics' few superpowered female/normal male relationships.
- Complete Monster: See here.
- Franchise Original Sin:
- Early in the Post-Crisis relaunch, Diana was characterized as not being bound by the Thou Shall Not Kill rule like Batman and Superman. Some later depictions (Kingdom Come, Infinite Crisis, Wonder Woman (2011), Injustice: Gods Among Us, 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
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, with Amazons Attack! taking the inherent problems much further. - Perez's run also removed the Amazons' advanced, futuristic technology and depicted them as having never evolved past the Hellenistic Era. Many fans cite this as the genesis of depicting the Themyscirans as one-dimensional savages with nothing to teach the rest of the world, a depiction that was most prominent in the New 52 and the first live-action Wonder Woman film. However, Perez also showed that besides being fighters and soldiers, the Amazons included artisans, poets, musicians, philosophers and doctors, making the Amazons a much more complex society. Later Post-Crisis runs would also restore the Amazons' advanced technology.
- Vanessa Kapatelis' Sudden Sequel Heel Syndrome in the Jiminez run was contentious even back then and it's adaptation in James Robinson's Wonder Woman (Rebirth) run and Wonder Woman: Bloodlines 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. Jiminez was also making a meta commentaryon how the Kapatelis had been abandoned by subsequent writers. Rebirth has Vanessa's friendship with Diana and subsequent Face–Heel Turn 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.
- Many older fans also dislike the heavy focus on Greek mythology that the Wonder Woman comics and related media have taken ever since the Perez run. However, Perez had a decent balance of mythology and earthbound stories, still included non-Greek myth villains like Cheetah and Dr. Psycho and primarily focused on as a public figure and diplomat with a very grounded supporting cast. In fact, Perez moved further and further away from god-focused stories as the run progressed. Subsequent writers ignored this and placed more emphasis on the Greek mythology elements; this reached its nadir in Brian Azzarello's New 52 run, the entirety of which was driven by the Olympians to the point Diana was retconned into being yet another child of Zeus.
- Fetish Retardant: Mike Deodato's art of Artemis's beaten and bloody corpse with a suggestively arched back and clothing damage that just barely keeps her nipples covered is rather unsettling.
- Hilarious in Hindsight:
- Lyta Milton has purple hair and is the daughter of a Greek god and an evil sorceress. Fans of 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.
- "For the Glory of Gaea" has Heracles ask Hippolyte if his raping her was what conceived Diana. While this isn't the case here, Wonder Woman: Earth One would later establish Heracles as being Wonder Woman's father.
- Informed Wrongness: Anytime the subject of Diana using lethal force is brought up in stories featuring her and other heroes, chances are her willingness to kill will be treated as a moral failing on her part regardless of the context. The Maxwell Lord issue is a prime example of this. While the public freaking out is excusable since the video tape that showed her killing Max was edited to look like she'd killed an innocent, unarmed man, Superman and Batman treated her like the Anti-Christ despite having full knowledge of the situation and having even broken the no-kill rule themselves in desperation or against things they don't consider human, and to Wondy people past a certain point are just monsters, just like she judges actual monsters by their actions and intent rather than appearances.
- Memetic Psychopath: Diana has had this reputation from both writers and readers ever since she killed Maxwell Lord in a moment of desperation during Infinite Crisis. While the writing stressed that killing Max was the only way to keep him from making Superman kill her and several others, many fans felt the in-story explanation that her lasso couldn't make Superman see the truth to be a cop out that seriously undermined Wonder Woman and would have preferred one that didn't contradict existing powers.
- Moral Event Horizon: Doris Zool switching her dying body with a gorilla before stealing the body of a circus performer and trapping the woman in that gorilla. Zool in fact isn't much of a villain otherwise, her absolute refusal to give the body back is basically the only thing that keeps her in the "villain" role even though she's at least theoretically had several chances to undo the damage her body swapping has caused.
- My Real Daddy: For the modern generation, Greg Rucka. For a generation ago, George Perez.
- Peter David is often considered this for Cassandra Sandsmark/Wonder Girl II.
- Similarly, John Byrne is this to Artemis.
- Marv Wolfman is considered this for Donna Troy. At least, when it comes to her origin.
- Narm Charm: Wonder Woman working at fast food restaurant subplot from William Messner-Loebs's run. It is ridiculous and circumstances leading to it make no sense, yet many find it charming and fun, mostly for just how seriously Diana takes her job.Wonder Woman: I am unworthy to work at Taco Whiz.
- Romantic Plot Tumor: Very few of Diana's Post-Crisis romantic interests have been well-received. In fact, one of the most highly praised aspects of Perez's run was that Steve Trevor ended up being Etta Candy's partner.
- Tear Jerker:
- Issue #46 titled Chalk Drawings centers entirely around the suicide of Lucy Spears and how it affected the lives of the people around her.
- Despite all of Diana's efforts, the relationship between the Amazons and Man's World has broken down and the nations are ready to go to war with each other. Not only that, but the people she grew up on the island with are either dead, missing or injured, and her new family are all actively trying to cut her out of their lives for their own safety. It's so much that, at one point, she just goes home to her room and weeps to herself.
- The deaths of both Hermes and Menalippe during the events of War of the Gods.
- They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Lyta Milton, the daughter of Circe and Ares. There 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 Ret-Gone'd with the The New 52.
- Values Dissonance:
- Hippolyta forgiving Heracles raping her is one thing but kissing him afterwards because she hasn't been with a man in a long time does not play well with modern audiences.
- 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' attitude towards the Amazons reeks of Victim-Blaming.
- Wonder Woman says she doesn't consider herself a feminist, but a humanist, equating it as a spear counterpart to chauvinism. Modern feminism hinges on intersectionality, the idea that society harms both women and men in different ways, but their problems come from the same root, and that addressing said root is necessary to see greater social change. Essentially, feminism is not different from humanism. Even stranger is that Perez actually mentioned something similar to this in one of his letters in the early issues.
- WTH, Costuming Department?: The 90's were not a good time for Wondy, her costume kept shrinking first getting ludicrously high french cut leg holes and then turning into a distasteful thong, while the top kept getting lower and her chest started inflating.
