In what might be the final big story arc before Mariko Tamaki takes over writing Wonder Woman and the book’s current scribe Steve Orlando heads to Marvel to write a story about the Darkhold featuring Doctor Doom and the Scarlet Witch, today’s issue of Wonder Woman — #753 — reintroduced fans to Maxima, a former member of the Justice League and princess of Almerac who has not been seen in a couple of years and has not had a real story in almost five ears. The character, who has been teased on future covers for the series, appeared on the final page of the issue, beaten and saying that she had nowhere else to go.
Maxima was originally created by Roger Stern and George Perez, and was the crown pricness of a world called Almerac. She came to Earth looking for a man worthy of being her husband and father to her children, and picked Superman. That he won when she challenged him to a fight only cemented her notion that he was the only man to sire the heir to Almerac’s throne.
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Eventually she would stop picking fights with the Man of Steel and fight alongside him as a member of the Justice League America, first because she wasnted the League’s help to protect Almerac against an external threat and later as she made a run at redemption. She would serve first on the Justice League (memorably as part of the iteration that faced Doomsday alongside of Superman) and later on Extreme Justice, a team put together by Captain Atom that reunited members of the Giffen/DeMatteis era of Justice League titles, but with a harder, more ’90s edge.
Shortly after that, she would abandon heroics to become a villain again, joining a group of post-Crisis on Infinite Earths Superman villains called the Superman Revenge Squad. Eventually, Maxima died fighting alongside the heroes again during he Our Worlds at War crossover event.
Maxima returned following the New 52 reboot, first appearing in a 2015 issue of Supergirl from Kate Perkins, Mike Johnson, and Emanuela Lupacchino. The newly-reinvented princess of Almerac appeared as part of a school for potential new heroes in space, where she found herself meeting with Supergirl. The pair struck up a friendship, and later, when an imposter tried to usurp Maxima’s role in the royal family and steal her name, it was Supergirl and Superwoman who faced the fake Maxima down, before the real one arrived to help out and put the imposter in jail.
Now, though, it seems that it’s the real Maxima who is on the run from…well, if not the law, then something. She’s royalty, after all, so it’s possible that either an invasion from another world, or a revolution fomenting on her own, could have put her on the run. The solicitation for the next issue teases, “Princess Maxima, the former ruler of the planet Almerac, has crash-landed on our hero’s doorstep and is desperate for her help. Maxima’s people are victims of a vicious lie, and only the truth she’s discovered will set them free. With Wonder Woman by her side, can she retake her throne and bring back the planet’s peaceful matriarchal society?”
That issue — Wonder Woman #754 — will be in stores on March 25.
