Wonder Woman 1984: What Is the Dreamstone?

Warner Bros. finally released the eagerly anticipated Wonder Woman 1984 on December 25th giving fans a new adventure after her debut in 2017's Wonder Woman, but also introducing new challenges for Diana Prince/Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) in this more modern world, such as businessman Maxwell Lord (Pedro Pascal) and friend-turned-adversary Barbara Minerva/Cheetah (Kristen Wiig). But while the movie features two antagonists of sorts, the real threat in the film stems less from a person and more from an object and we're breaking down what you need to know about it.

Warning: Spoilers ahead for Wonder Woman 1984. If you haven't seen the film, read on only if you want to know.

In Wonder Woman 1984, the conflict settles around an ancient object called the Dreamstone, something viewers are introduced to when it is stolen in a robbery of a jewelry store in a Washington D.C. area mall that happens to also be the front for an illegal antiquities market. When Diana foils said robbery, the recovered artifacts are brought to the Smithsonian -- where she works -- by the FBI for identification. The most mysterious item of the bunch is the Dreamstone, ostensibly a hunk of citrine with an inscribed base. It doesn't take long for that object to prove itself to be far more than just a hunk of stone as it's shown to grant one wish for whoever holds it -- though those wishes come with a great price.

In the film Lord uses his wish to literally become the living embodiment of the stone, allowing him to grant the wishes of others and take what he wants from them as the cost. The Dreamstone is also responsible for the "resurrection" of Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) and Barbara's transformation into Cheetah. Over the course of the film, Diana discovers that the casing for the Dreamstone is etched with the writing of the Gods and deduces that the stone was imbued with powers from a god, who she figures out has to be the God of Lies, also known as Dolos and Mendacius.

The Dreamstone in Wonder Woman 1984 is actually a mashup of two objects from comics, one actually called the Dreamstone and one called the Chaos Crystal. In the comics the Materioptikon, also known as the Dreamstone is a powerful item that allows the person wielding it to not only see dreams, but bring them to life, literally reshaping reality itself. Think of it as wish-granting on acid. Before Crisis on Infinite Earths, the stone was a weapon designed by Doctor Destiny to use against the Justice League while, post-Crisis, the Dreamstone is one of 12 crafted by Dream of the Endless.

As for the object that is more directly adapted, the Chaos Crystal. This object first appeared in Batman/Superman #3 in 2013 and is a wishing relic from the Sphere of the Gods, with the object granting the heart's desire of whomever its surface reflects. In comics, the United States government of Earth-2 used it to create a weapon to incapacitate their Superman should he ever go rogue while Batman also had a fragment of it that he used to further weaponize Kryptonite. It's later revealed that Ra's al Ghul had a fragment as well.

As for the Dreamstone in Wonder Woman 1984, while Diana manages to save the world by getting everyone, including Lord, to renounce their wishes, the fate of the object remains a mystery. Since renouncing wishes seems to reverse what's created by the initial wish, one can only guess that the stone is back as a physical object, possibly lurking out there for someone else to take possession of in the future.

Wonder Woman 1984 is now streaming on HBO Max and playing in theaters.