DC’s Absolute Wonder Woman Just Lost a Limb in a Truly Shocking Way

The Absolute Universe has brought any number of significant changes to DC’s iconic Trinity, but one of its most surprising shakeups was saved for Absolute Wonder Woman #3. We’re jumping into big spoilers for the issue from here on out, and if you read the issue, you know that not only did Wonder Woman lose a limb, but she lost it in a way that no one expected, and the loss has now tied her to Steve Trevor in a very different capacity compared to what’s come before in their stories.

As seen in Absolute Wonder Woman #2, Trevor finds himself stranded on the island of hell, and he’s only alive thanks to Wonder Woman keeping him away from the Hydra. Here we see Diana asking Steve to tell her about his home on the surface, and that prompts her to go looking through Circe’s spell books for a spell that can get him back home.

Diana finds a spell that will work, but Circe emphasizes that the sacrifice it requires is not small. Diana conveys she knows and understood what it requires, and that leads to a moment that will be hard to forget from here on out.

Circe wakes up to find Diana awake and covered in a hooded cloak by the fire. Circe asks what she’s doing up and Diana says she couldn’t stop thinking about it. When Circe inquires about what, Diana says “About what I am to be. If I am a great warrior, and will someday be an even greater one…a savior of humanity, as you say…then I cannot fail in my first mission for humanity.” Circe asks what mission, and Diana responds “to return to them one of their great heroes. One good man is all it takes to save the world.”

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Then Diana says that Trevor wasn’t a gift, but a test, and that’s when Circe shockingly realizes that Diana has cut off her entire right arm as a sacrifice to activate the spell. The arm is laying in front of Diana and she is bleeding from the wound as she says “If we are right that I am a great warrior…then the dominant arm of a great warrior is a worthy sacrifice.”

Circe goes to help take care of the wound, asking Diana what she’s done. Diana says “what was necessary”, and they hug. The next scene we see Diana and Circe reciting the spell near a green flame on the beach as Trevor stands nearby. They activate the spell and Trevor says Diana’s name as he starts to fade, and a few moments later he is back in the land of the living on the surface world, returning him home.

Things get even more intriguing back in the present, where Wonder Woman is currently in a battle with the Tetracide. The creature had managed to snare her right arm in the battle, but after a quick spell you see her arm vanish with magical energy.

Upon returning to the military’s temporary headquarters, Diana reveals that after what happened, Circe made a magic arm for her to use. Diana also says that she can get it back, but it will take complicated magic to do so. In the meantime, she takes a metal arm from her pouch and attaches it to her shoulder, and this is when Trevor realizes how she got him back to the surface world. After seeing the regret on his face, Diana says “it was more than worth it.”

Absolute Wonder Woman #3 is available in comic stores and digital storefronts now.

What did you think of Absolute Wonder Woman #3? You can talk all things comics with me on Bluesky @KnightofOA!