10 Characters Who Should Be Wonder Woman Villains

Wonder Woman is one of DC’s biggest characters, a member of the illustrious Trinity, and easily the most important superheroine to ever be created. She’s been around since 1941, and has gone from fighting in World War Two to protecting the entire multiverse as a core member of the Justice League. Diana is a warrior from a magical island paradise, and spreads a message of love, peace, and truth to the tumultuous Man’s World. She’s the archetypal superheroine, yet despite how important and popular she is, her villains are actually far less so. She has a few great stand outs, but beyond them, the people Wonder Woman goes up against tend to be rather bland.

Today, we’re addressing that issue by bringing up ten characters who would feel right at home fighting the Princess of the Amazons. Now, before getting into it, let’s just establish that Wonder Woman might have fought some of the people on this list once or twice. That’s inevitable with a character as old as her, but we’re specifically looking at them through the lens of being a mainstay villain for Diana, not just a one-off or someone she fights during a crossover. With that out of the way, let’s look at ten characters who would make awesome Wonder Woman villains, five of whom are from DC, and five of whom are from Marvel.

10) Black Adam

Black Adam is the former champion of the Wizard Shazam, given powers from several ancient Egyptian deities. Since then, he’s long since established himself as one of the strongest and most dangerous villains in all of DC, ruling the land of Kahndaq with an iron fist, and regularly doing battle with the Justice League. Not only does his relationship to divinity match him perfectly to do battle against the Greco-Roman-associated Wonder Woman, but his personality creates a wonderful counter to her own. Black Adam is cold and focused on rule through strength, while Wonder Woman preaches a message of peace and coexistence. The two are about evenly matched in terms of raw power, and have more than their fair share of experience when it comes to combat and divine magic. Every fight between these two is awesome to see, and seeing it happen more often would be incredible.

9) Enchantress

Normally a villain to the Mighty Thor, Enchantress feels like she should already be a villain for Wonder Woman. She is an Asgardian, and one of their most powerful mages to boot, but chooses to use her abilities to attempt to take over Asgard or the mortal realm. With her divine origin and powerful magic, she would perfectly slide in as one of Wonder Woman’s rogues, especially considering how many sorcerers and wizards the Princess already has to contend with on the regular. Beyond that, Enchantress’s entire gimmick is based around trickery and manipulation, hence the enchantment, whereas Wonder Woman as a lasso that forcibly brings out the truth. They’re natural opposites in that regard, and Wonder Woman would definitely enjoy taking her down and freeing the people she’s wrapped around her fingers.

8) Ra’s al Ghul

Ra’s might not be a match for Diana physically, but his ideology is one that I would love to see contrast against hers one day. While Wonder Woman left Paradise Island to come help our world, Ra’s al Ghul wants to decimate the population of the Earth so that nature can reclaim it, saying that humanity has become a disease. They both want to make the world a paradise, but come from completely opposite sides on how to achieve that. Wonder Woman says that this can only be achieved by being honest with and accepting one another, while Ra’s has lost hope and wants to burn everything down. Confrontations between these two would be less of a combat, given that Diana can easily bring him and his entire army down, but more of a battle for the psyche of the average person, earning the trust and belief of the populace.

7) Magneto

Similarly to Ra’s al Ghul, Magneto is someone who wants to improve the world in all the wrong ways. Although he’s more of a hero now, in his villainous heyday he was as psychotic as they came, and attempted to wipe out the human race on numerous occasions. Wonder Woman would more than be able to sympathize with Magneto’s plight and his past, and that sympathy is what would elevate their encounters to dramatic heights as she fights to prove to him there is a better way to change the world. Beyond that, it could be extremely interesting to dig into each of their perspectives on WWII and how that has defined each of their characters, given that Magneto was in a concentration camp while Diana was fighting on the front lines to stop the Nazis. This pair is rife with possibilities once you put them together, and it’d be great to see their emotions and ideals explored, especially if it’s given with an awesome fight between two powerful characters.

6) Brainiac

Given that he routinely goes toe to toe with Superman, Brainiac is easily capable of giving the Warrior Princess a good fight. But what really would make this relationship interesting is Brainiac’s motivations. He typically goes from planet to planet and collects one city to study before destroying the rest of it, and he could easily choose Themyscira as his target, given that it is a paradise on Earth and would provide him knowledge on Amazons, which can’t be found anywhere else in the universe. Brainiac kidnapping the entire island could be an awesome storyline, and Wonder Woman going up against the alien destroyer could definitely give us plenty of interesting stories that mix sci-fi and fantasy beautifully as Brainiac attempts to learn about her world.

5) Doctor Doom

Victor von Doom is one of, if not the best villain in all of Marvel. He is pure theatrics, and meshes science and magic together in truly unique ways, all of which would make him an incredible villain to stand against Wonder Woman. Doom doesn’t need a reason to throw hands with anyone, but there are plenty as to why he’d want to fight the legendary Wonder Woman. It could be as simple as him attempting to prove that Latveria is a much better paradise than Themyscira, leading to Wonder Woman and him clashing as she sees how very much non-idellic Doom’s own nation is. A freedom fighter versus Marvel’s most notorious dictator says all that it needs to about how intense and thematic their clashes would be.

4) Poison Ivy

Poison Ivy shares a lot of traits with some previous entries on this list, being that not only is she trying to remake the world in a terrible and bloody way, but she specializes in manipulation and mind control as well. She also would be able to give Wonder Woman a challenge on the physical side, as while she started as a run of the mill Batman villain, Ivy’s grown far more powerful over the years, and her control over plant life is second only to avatars of the Green like Swamp Thing. This battle would be as thematic as it would be brutal, as both women would much rather convince the other to their side of the argument than come to blows.

3) Mangog

Mangog is the combined hatred of a billion billion beings given form, and his sole purpose in life is to eradicate all gods in the universe. This is a perfect setup for him to come to blows with Wonder Woman, as the entire Amazonian people are divine in origin, having been specifically created by the goddesses and retain their favor. The Amazons are the warriors of the gods, and so would naturally fight Magog in what could only be an inevitable battle. A fight between Mangog and Wonder Woman would be a battle of the living hatred against the divine versus the greatest example of their love, and could only end in a beautiful display of action and heart.

2) Terra

This one might seem weird, but hear me out. Terra is best remembered for joining the Teen Titans as Deathstroke’s spy, meant to take them down from the inside, and hasn’t really done much of note since then, despite once again being alive. A young, hurt, emotionally manipulated girl with extreme power and a cynical worldview seems like the perfect person for Wonder Woman to fight, all with the intention of saving her. This could frame Terra as a lost soul who is angry at the world, and continuously smacks away the helping hand Diana offers because of her painful past. This is the perfect setup for a tragic villain that the hero only wants to save, tugging on all the heartstrings and making the readers beg for Wonder Woman to save her.

1) Red Skull

There is no villain I want to see Wonder Woman fight more than Red Skull, because she is the antithesis to everything he stands for. They both have a very intense WWII connection, with both being on opposite sides of the war. Red Skull has always preached about the ideals of his supposed master race, but in Wonder Woman he would find a woman who is quite literally genetically superior in every way, and endlessly kind even while she beats the tar out of his soldiers and him. Red Skull would despise her with every fiber of his despicable being, and I want nothing more than to see the dread and horror on his face when he realizes his greatest threat is a woman, which I’m sure he would take so, so poorly. Who doesn’t want to see Wonder Woman punch some more Nazis?

So there we have ten characters I believe would be awesome villains for Wonder Woman. Of course, this list could easily include plenty of other beloved, incredible characters from all kinds of comics. What do you think? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!

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