From the Golden Age of Comics to the present, Wonder Woman is often at the center of DC's most critical stories, but she's also had long periods through the years when a lack of creative direction inspired some very odd stories. Some have been adapted to reveal new aspects of the DCEU like in Wonder Woman 1984 and others are just plain weird.
Many of her weirdest stories involve her losing her powers or identity, or facing truly weird villains and situations. She's definitely not alone - Batman owns some of the weirdest comic book arcs as well. But Wonder Woman's brand of weird is hers alone and well worth exploring for not just fans of the character but of comics as well.
9 Wonder Etta
Wonder Woman #323 (from late 1984) launched a story arc that set Wonder Woman up for Crisis On Infinite Earths. Doctor Psycho, through the use of an ectoplasmic extractor, transforms Etta Candy, Diana's longtime ally, into Wonder Etta. She has the same powers and abilities as Wonder Woman, at least for the duration of the issue.
Etta's presence in the story is a hallmark of the series' confusing continuity and the story of making her Wonder Woman for a simple sight gag falls flat.
8 Etta Candy Marries Steve Trevor
Steve Trevor and Etta Candy married in the late '80s, punctuating a weird period in which much of Wonder Woman's history was changed or forgotten. Yet one of the weirdest story arcs comes from one of Wonder Woman's best artistic periods.
The George Perez late '80s revival of Wonder Woman did a lot to bring Diana out of the goofiness of the Silver Age, but Steve and Etta's romance is even stranger now in light of how important Steve Trevor and Diana's romance has become in the movies and later comics.
7 War Of The Gods
War Of The Gods is part of writer and artist George Perez's legendary run on Wonder Woman in the '80s, but it does feature some strange elements. One of them is turning Diana back into clay.
One of her mythic backstories involved being shaped from clay by Zeus, and it's used here by the villain, Circe, in a surprising and weird effect. The story ends on an unusual note for comics of any era. Issue #62 ends with a letter by Perez addressed to Diana, apologizing for moving on from the title.
6 Twelve Labors
The Twelve Labors is a major comic book story arc that runs through issues #212-222 of Wonder Woman. In the story, Wonder Woman wants back into the Justice League, but in order to be eligible to join, has to perform twelve labors, echoing those of the Greek hero Hercules.
The weirdness is mostly a result of the JLA forcing her to prove her worthiness to the team in such a complex fashion, especially with every one of the individual labors overseen by a different member of the team. It's hard to imagine someone of Diana's character and power needing to jump so many hurdles when it wasn't necessary for others.
5 The Empress of the Silver Snake
For five years (between 1968 and 1973), Wonder Woman lost her strongest powers. Once she got them back, she got thrown into one of her strangest stories, "The Empress of the Silver Snake." Running in Wonder Woman #252-253, Diana fights a gigantic robotic snake in space while training to be an astronaut.
It's not clear what the Empress or her massive silver creature wants, but they appear to have some connection to the Amazons. She is eventually revealed to be the sister of Hippolyta and is also named Diana.
4 Working At Taco Whiz
One of the wildest comic book arcs of Wonder Woman's entire history came in the '90s. In 1993, Diana went to work as a waitress at a restaurant in a mall called Taco Whiz. She had lost everything, again. She lost her money, Themiscyra, and any support she relied on. That forced her to get a regular job.
The story arc eventually saw her leave the mall to become a private detective. However, many Wonder Woman's readers had contemplated what the writers intended or the purpose was for this story.
3 Violent Beginnings
Another weird story arc from the 90s was "Violent Beginnings," which began in Wonder Woman #93. In this story, which echoed some of the tropes of the era established in the classic but controversial Death Of Superman event, Artemis becomes Wonder Woman and Diana takes on a new extreme costume.
This new status quo would last for the next year as Diana again tried to work against the grain of her comic history. The costume would be discarded and forgotten, one of the worst among Wonder Woman's costumes over the years.
2 A Life In Flames
Ares is one of Wonder Woman's greatest villains, but he wasn't always one of her best. One of his weirder moments in the comics came in Wonder Woman #226-227, "A Life In Flames." He teams up with the Greek god Hephaestus to take down Diana and uses his flaming fist.
The visual of him extending his arm into a burning fist is kind of silly in retrospect, especially when it's his main selling point in the comic. Wonder Woman defeats the two gods pretty handily, though Ares would go on to become her primary antagonist in later iterations of her story.
1 The Dark Knight Strikes Again
There's nothing too weird about Wonder Woman and Superman being a couple, but the depiction of their relationship in The Dark Knight Strikes Again is among the strangest romances in Justice League-related comics.
This early 2000s sequel to the iconic The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller has Superman couple with Wonder Woman after both are forced into being government soldiers for President Rickard. They have a daughter who becomes Supergirl, but the over-the-top nature of the story renders them all more caricatures rather than characters.
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