Enemies, issues arise to test Wonder Woman's strength

Wonder Woman isn't always a wonder at multitasking life problems.

In her solo DC Comics series, the superheroine's dealing with her new position as the current God of War, helping the Justice League with various villages going missing throughout the world — even though every moment she's hanging with Batman and Superman is one where her fellow Amazons could be using their queen's help to ward off attacking monsters — and is on a collision course with an enemy expressly created to undermine her power.

In other words, it ain't easy being Diana.

"Wonder Woman is essentially the world's strongest woman, but being a strong woman doesn't necessarily mean you don't make mistakes and you don't feel hurt and you don't get emotional," says Wonder Woman writer Meredith Finch.

Wonder Woman No. 38 — the third issue, out Wednesday, for Finch and her artist husband, David — reintroduces Donna Troy, a character who hasn't been seen since DC's line-wide relaunch in 2011.

However, she's not going to be the heroine of Teen Titans comics of yore — this take on the character, formed from clay by the sorceress Hecate, is a blank slate and also an antagonist for Wonder Woman going forward. "It puts a lot of power in the hands of the Amazons who created her to mold her," says Meredith Finch.

Before revealing her true history as a daughter of Zeus, previous writer Brian Azzarello had set Diana up as an outcast within the Amazons on Themyscira because of her origin of being made of clay.

"They mocked her for that fact, which is what makes Donna so ironic — that they're going to accept her," Meredith Finch says. Now that she's queen, it's been an adjustment for everybody: "They need to know their leader is a warrior and the strongest warrior of them, and she's got something to prove to them."

The writer teases that Donna Troy will be a part of the ongoing Amazonian drama yet won't remember her old life, pre-resurrection. There'll be aspects of her personality reflecting the Amazon who was sacrificed as well as Wonder Woman's mother and previous queen Hippolyta, since it was her clay — the result of Hippolyta being turned into a statue — that gave life to Donna as a magical incarnation.

Donna and Wonder Woman have shared adventures in comic lore, but the Finches' take on their relationship in the current series is that they're not familiar with one another.

"The Queen of England doesn't necessarily know the face of every one of her subjects," Meredith Finch says. "I think it's reasonable, especially with the amount of time Wonder Woman has spent off of Paradise Island, she wouldn't necessarily know right away that Donna isn't your traditional Amazon. She could just be someone who she hasn't met before."

David Finch looked at previous versions of Donna, who first appeared in comics 50 years ago, in designing the new character, but based her new armored look on characters such as Walt Simonson's Thor — "something big and a little imposing," says the artist.

A veteran of New Avengers, Moon Knight, Justice League of America and the recent Forever Evil event series, Finch actually grew up more on fantasy than superheroes, so drawing warrior women and two-headed dragons "is a real comfort zone for me."

Strife, Wonder Woman's half-sister and goddess of discord from Azzarello's Greek-leaning run, reappears in issue 30, and Derinoe, who drove the creation of Donna, will continue to head up the movement against Wonder Woman. The situation builds into issue 40 as it heads into a climactic battle for Paradise Island in the Wonder Woman Annual, out April 1.

David Finch admits that he's still getting a feel for how Wonder Woman looks, including making sure she has the size of someone who's as physically powerful as she should be.

His wife, though, has focused on the character's emotional strength. In scenes like one she has with Superman in issue 37, where she flips out on him a little bit because she's feeling so overwhelmed, Meredith Finch is aiming to show that it's OK to have a moment where you lose it, even for Wonder Woman.

"Your strength is how you pick yourself back up or how you address that moment and move forward from it," the writer says. "Exploring that aspect of who she is doesn't take away from her being a superhero. In fact, it makes her more relatable and more human.

"We're getting to know each other, one story at a time."