5 Wonder Woman Villains DC Has Totally Wasted

Wonder Woman is one of DC’s most iconic superheroes. A beloved heroine since her debut in 1941, the character has long been fighting evil and serving a champion of peace and is beloved as a key part of DC’s Trinity. However, despite her prominence in DC’s superhero pantheon, when it comes to her own roster of villain and threats, while she has quite a few, there aren’t many that are well known and, perhaps even worse than that, there are some threats with great potential that just aren’t being used enough.

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While most fans know about Ares, Cheetah, and Giganta, there are some other great characters on the bad side of Diana’s world that could make for some great stories both for Wonder Woman and for the larger DC Universe. They just don’t get utilized enough. Here are five — including one pretty weird one that we think deserves a second chance.

5) Devastation

Every hero has their opposite and for Diana, that’s Devastation. Created by Cronus when he sought to overthrow the Gods of Olympus, Devastation was molded from clay and brought to life and functions largely as a dark mirror of Wonder Woman, using her powers to do harm rather than good. Making her even more insidious, however, is that she has the appearance of a child and, more than that, can use telepathy and cast illusions, both of which she can use to drive people insane. She is a truly chilling character.

Given her immense power, her disturbingly deceptive appearance, and the fact that she’s even teamed up with another criminally underutilized villain, Baroness Von Gunther, it feels like Devastation should be a much bigger deal in the DC Universe than she actually is.

4) Paula Von Gunther/Baroness Von Gunther

Since we just mentioned her, Paula Von Gunther is another Wonder Woman villain that DC doesn’t utilize nearly enough. As one of the heroine’s first recurring villains, Paula was a larger figure in older stories and first appeared as a Nazi spy and saboteur. She also, for a time, reformed and became an ally of Diana’s, though not without the occasional lapse back into villainy. More contemporary portrayals have put her firmly into villain territory again, this time with a devotion to the occult side of the Third Reich.

There is so much potential with Paula. As a character who has reformed, lapsed, come back around, gone villain again, and started to find her way back to right, she’s complex enough that she really deserves to have her own arcs and stories, perhaps even independent of Wonder Woman. After all, everyone loves flawed characters fumbling their way towards greatness.

3) Paper Man

Okay, before you roll your eyes, hear me out on this one. Paper Man might be one of the weirdest villains in Wonder Woman’s history. The villain fell in love with Diana Prince unaware that she’s Wonder Woman, had an accident at a chemical plant that turned him into paper (literally) and he went on a crime spree to get Diana gifts, but fell into a newspaper printing press. There is, admittedly, not a ton that you can do with the character exactly as he is.

That said… Paper Man could be a really interesting character with the right reboot and as such, he feels like a truly wasted villain. In the age of social media, why not revamp this guy as some sort of media commentary and make him a reputational problem for Wonder Woman? Or just lean into the weird paper gimmick and just get totally bonkers with it. Sometimes weird makes for the best stories, after all.

2) The First Born

While there’s a lot about the New 52 changes to Wonder Woman’s origin story that just don’t resonate, there is something to be said for a bitter sibling and that’s exactly where The First Born comes in. A forgotten child of Zeus and Her, the First Born is a bloodthirsty god determined to rule Olympus by killing the gods and their offspring — including his half-sister, Diana.

It’s another situation where a villain has a lot of character potential. In this case, First Born offers a chance to tell some surprisingly human stories about the gods. They may be all powerful, but at the root of it all is family dynamics and, particularly with Wonder Woman, there is a lot about family dynamics that can be explored.

1) Veronica Cale

Wonder Woman is powerful which makes most villains no match for her. That’s why Veronica Cale is such an intriguing figure since she is just a human woman and yet, she’s a massive threat. You could think of her as Diana’s Lex Luthor, but that isn’t exactly accurate. Veronica is honestly a little more relentless and terrifying. She’s actually behind the creation of some of Diana’s larger villains, like Silver Swan.

Watching Diana having to face a threat that is more cerebral than physical is something that DC doesn’t do often enough — at least when the threat is a woman. It would be nice to see Veronica utilized more as a direct antagonist for Diana and, perhaps, even for the larger DC Universe.

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