Who do you believe best reflects DC’s heart? Isn’t it most likely Superman? The Man of Steel, the last son of Krypton, the world’s first superhero; wow, he’s got a lot of cute nicknames now that we think about it. However, Superman has been reimagined as a wicked dictator, a justified dictator, a benevolent dictator….
Well, you get the idea. As a result, it can’t be him. It certainly isn’t Batman; while he may be DC’s most popular character at the moment, he’s also a jerk on the whole. Bruce has always been a more cerebral kind; he’s not the all-heart-warrior type, therefore it’s not him.
Wonder Woman, we believe, is the character who best reflects the heart of DC. Diana Prince is the epitome of a real goddess; she is both strong and steadfast, with an iron-clad resolve that would make her a perfect choice for the Green Lantern Corps. She’s strong, yet she’s also fragile.
This Amazonian goddess, out of all the masked mammals stalking the DC Universe’s streets, could well be the most human amid a sea of humanity. But what happens if that heart becomes tainted?
What happens if she fails to meet their expectations at a time when the world most needs her? What comes from Diana of Themyscira’s psyche’s (pronounced Psy-Key) much darker depths? This video will attempt to answer those questions; it’s Tales from the Dark Multiverse: Wonder Woman: The War of the Gods is investigated.
Before a begin: A note on the significance of War of the Gods
Before we get into the summary, we wanted to acknowledge George Perez’s contributions to the Wonder Woman franchise. His run with the character turned her into a heroine every young girl to rally around in the 80s and 90s. The fact that DC refused to celebrate Wonder Woman as one of its central characters back then is mind-boggling, considering she literally ascended to the level of the fabled “Hands” following the events of Death Metal. In a heartfelt letter he wrote to his “princess”, he lamented how his association was ending prematurely and recalled the good times they’ve shared with each other. He ended that letter with the Amazonian saying, “May the glory of Gaea be with you.” And as it so happens, the Earth Mother is the very reason that every divine pantheon was at each other’s throats in 1991.
Paradise Exposed: What went down in the original “War of the Gods” storyline
The War of the Gods was a 4-issue crossover series that basically saw all of the gods in DC go crazy and try to kill each other. Thanks to a series of nefarious machinations put in motion by the evil sorceress Circe, Wonder Woman Vol. 2 issue #51-57 documented the seismic revelation of Themyscira to the world. But this wasn’t a revelation made on their terms; Circe manipulated events to force the Amazonians to reveal themselves to the world.
She even tried to sabotage the peace delegation sent by mankind to Themyscira, playing both parties against each other until her ruse was discovered and she summarily shone the door. But what Circe did after that doesn’t even compare to what she had done so far. You see, Circe didn’t become the strongest sorceress by practicing her spells 10,000 times a day or swallowing a Special-Grade Cursed Object.
She was an objectively powerful sorceress in her heyday, yes, but what made her truly OP was her deal with Hecate. Circe would often invoke Hecate’s name to draw on her power to lure seafarers to her island; although the Sirens did a pretty good job at that, as well. So Hecate gave her a deal; she would grant Circe immortality, eternal beauty, and incredible mystical powers if she agreed to swap souls with her.
In her blind lust for power, Circe accepted the deal without paying much attention to the fine print that came with it. As Hecate’s body crumbled to nothingness having just given itself over to Circe, she prophesied that “Upon the death of witch and the birth of witch, Hecate, by name and choice, shall repossess her soul.” Circe brushed it off and kept doing as she pleased for a while; up until the events of War of the Gods. In order to curry more favor with her cosmic mistress, Circe put a plan into motion.
She secretly sowed the seeds of a conflict amongst all the major divine pantheons of DC: The Greek & Roman Gods, more specifically. She enlisted the help of the spurned tribe of Bana-Mighdall Amazonians- who longed to claim Themyscira for their own- and Ares’ daughter Eris’ to make those seeds bloom. Circe then invoked the ancient Hellfire Web incantation to kill Gaea herself- the very representation of the Earth, and the progenitor of most of the Greek pantheon of gods.
She was able to use her magic to trick Captain Marvel into becoming the champion of the Roman Gods, whilst Wonder Woman fought for the Greek Gods. As these 2 ancient pantheons engaged in battle with each other, the rest of the divine pantheons- Egyptian, West African, Germanic, and even Thanagarians- decided to assert their dominance on Earth at the same time, leading to a full-scale Crisis event contained within the confines of Space Sector 2814.
The conflict between the Greek & Roman pantheons caused New Olympus to pierce the veil between worlds and become visible on New Earth, inadvertently acting as the catalyst for the beginning of the end. The Justice League immediately sprang into action, trying to make the gods see their mistake and the bigger picture simultaneously, but it was to no avail; these guys just wanted to fight, and come out on top of the other.
No, not that way, you perverts. Still, Superman & Co. managed to make them see reason; just long enough for Circe to revert Diana into clay form! With Wonder Woman gone, the evil sorceress thought her victory secure, but as we know, that’s never how things end in comic books. Wonder Woman has resurrected thanks to the efforts of Phantom Stranger, Deadman & Gaea herself, and she managed to destroy the evil sorceress alongside Donna Troy (who was going through her Troia phase at this point in the DC continuity). As Circe was drawing her final breath, Hecate sprang her prophetic plan into action; rapidly emaciating her servant’s body to emerge as a being of pure mystical energy.
One lashing from the Lasso of Truth was enough to take down history’s most evil sorceress and the mother of all magic itself, but that is in the universe above. As you guys know, the Dark Multiverse is where all your nightmares reside in their own torturous little landscapes. And on one of these demented worlds, Hecate lived up to her title of being the “first and most powerful sorcerers in existence.” And it only ended up costing Diana everything she held dear.
Prophecy, Will, and Fear: The Day Diana Prince Locked something inside of herself
“Upon the death of witch and the birth of witch, Hecate, by name and choice, shall repossess her soul.” This is the prophecy that Hecate bestowed upon Circe before making her a thrall in her own service. It is also a phrase that reveals the true fate of Wonder Woman. See, Circe’s longstanding rivalry with Diana wasn’t all about her own ego.
Hecate herself considered the Amazonian princess to be the prime candidate for her own awesome powers. So when Circe died, Hecate attempted to fulfill the prophecy by causing the “birth of witch” herself; she tried to steal Wonder Woman’s body by swapping Diana’s soul with her own. In the positive matter universe, she was deterred by the power of the Lasso of Truth; the very instrument that helped unravel all the Crises that had kept DC continuity tied up like a particularly bothersome Australian braid knot.
But this is the Dark Multiverse we’re talking about; and here, the forces of evil don’t just thrive, they flourish. On one version of planet Earth in this realm of depravity, Tempus Fuginaut observes the battle for Wonder Women’s very soul unfurl in front of his eyes. But there’s something different about it. As Diana partakes in her final showdown with Hecate, she finds herself not at the tomb of Cronus, but within her soul’s subliminal space. She’s utterly confused by this, because this wasn’t supposed to happen.
Hecate, on the other hand, seems to be relishing the Amazonian’s confusion & paranoia, because things were progressing just as she’d wanted them to. But the Goddess of Magic does offer her one clarification; it wasn’t her who brought them here, it was Diana herself. Hecate remarks that Wonder Woman’s raw power made her the “perfect vessel” for her plans to re-make the universe in her own image.
She tells Diana, “There is no cheating fate. Everything you are belongs to me!” But it looks like Hecate’s long-term imprisonment has made her forget just what the Amazonians are all about. Diana charges Hecate head-first in the astral plane of her own soul, as her physical body writhes in pain. Captain Marvel & Hawkman look on concerned, while Lobo just behaves like his normal self; which is to say he doesn’t fraggin’ care much about things, no thank you.
Meanwhile, Wonder Woman can physically feel Hecate’s corruption spreading through her entire being, searing her with pain. But she will not yield; Diana knocks down Hecate in the astral plane, and with her physical body proclaims, “The only destiny I acknowledge is the one I make for myself!” She subconsciously unleashes a shock wave so powerful it blows all three of her on-looking allies onto the pavement.
Diana was aware of the fact that she’d been forced to become a part of the prophecy, so she took advantage of that fact and buried Hecate deep within her own soul. Her intention was to imprison the Witch Goddess, but she might have set something way worse into motion by not destroying her entirely. As Hecate sinks into the chasm that Wonder Woman had banished her to, she says to Diana, “You may think you bury me, but your planet me as a seed.
And your hatred, and fear, and pain, will be as the rain…” The Amazonian Warrior brushes her off, of course, vowing to contain her evil influence with sheer willpower. She explains what happened to her League mates, though Lobo remains skeptical. Hawkman reassures him that he has never known Wonder Woman to lie, especially when she is holding the Lasso of Truth. But something about the way her skin turned ice-blue and her eyes smoldered red when she made her declaration of destiny tells us maybe, just this once, Lobo’s insane mind might have actually been on to something.
If Plan A doesn’t succeed…: The Aftermath of Hecate’s “downfall”
Wonder Woman returns to Themyscira alongside Hawkwoman and muses about her status as an “avatar”. She knew that she would end up this way some time or the other, and even though Hecate was strong, Diana’s will was stronger. She had the love of her sisters & her mother, the trust of her beloved humans, and bore the beacon of peace & hope, which seemed to be burning brighter than ever before. Half a world away, the Hawkish US Army General Yedzinia stares at an enchanted hourglass.
A familiar face appears in its lower bowels, and tells him, “The hour draws near.” Yedzinia remarks that since Plan A had failed, he’d have to resort to Plan B, shape-shifting to reveal himself to be Phobos- the God of Fear. Phobos had aligned himself with Hecate in hopes of winning great glory in the new world she creates, and now that his mistress was perfectly positioned to do so, he set his scheme into motion.
Posing as Yedzinia, he orders his closest crop of recruits to weed out Amazonian sympathizers within their ranks and eliminate them, starting with Steve Trevor. He then orders them to carry out lethal airstrikes at Themyscira; which they go through with when Diana is taking a walk with Shay-Ara. The American fighter jets attack key locations twice, causing dozens of casualties; including Queen Hippolyta, Diana’s mother.
As she cradles her birth giver’s lifeless body in her arms and apologizes to her for letting her down, Hecate approaches her in her subconscious and asks her, “Is it you who should be sorry, or them?” Rage burns in Wonder Woman’s eyes as she rips apart those jets one by one, screaming “murderers” as she does so. A few days later, she is joined by the Justice League for her mother’s funeral.
Superman tells Diana they are there for her to help her process her grief, but Wonder Woman insists that she needs to do this alone. As she breaks away from the group, Zatanna notes that her aura had somehow changed. It’s like the mystical energy that comes off of Wonder Woman just suddenly changed. We find out why this is the case; Diana wanders through the ruins of one of Themyscira’s many wonders and comes face-to-face with one of the 4 pilots who attacked her Paradise.
After making him give her the name of his boss, she confronts Yedzinia himself, but Phobos immediately reveals himself to her. He starts singing her praises but Wonder Woman is confused, demanding answers from the Olympian instead of assessing the situation at hand. He remarks that the Amazonian is indeed quite resilient, as she had managed to cling onto her consciousness with Hecate inside of her, but her aura told a different story.
Phobos claimed that his Goddess had anticipated everything that would unfold should she fail to make Wonder Woman will falter; so she made contingency plans, and made sure Diana would find out about them. Phobos shows her “top secret” files with the names Steve Trevor & Etta Candy on them; and she knows, immediately, deep within her soul, that they are gone. And there is nothing she can do about it. This causes Wonder Woman to give in to her pain & despair, setting the stage for something for more sinister.
Arise Hecate: The Goddess of Magic Unleashed!
As Phobos informs Diana of his heinous deeds, her heart and soul fill up with rage, pain, hatred & grief; all emotions that directly feed into Hecate’s own power. Her will falters for a second, and the Goddess of Magic leaps at the opportunity. She traps her within the same crater where she was imprisoned, and takes over her body, declaring that Hecate was reborn. Diana asks her “jailer” what she had done, to which she replies that she had just taken what was hers. She tells Diana that her will was impressive for a being made out of clay, but it was the love she prided herself on having that had ultimately caused her downfall.
Hecate leaves Wonder Woman trapped, and forces her to bear witness to what comes next. She makes Phobos call a full-attendance council of the Olympic Gods, and attends it herself for the first time in millennia. Wielding her infamous scythe, she mows down her “lesser” relatives, using her primordial powers to strip them of their life forces, adding them to her own. But even after sucking the cosmic energy out of most of the Greek pantheon, she only gained a fraction of the power she had estimated she would soon command.
She tells Phobos that “something isn’t right”, when Zeus reminds her that Gods draw their power from belief; and that there were new gods in town, as we see Wonder Woman try to claw her way out of the pit. She kills Zeus and takes his power and then turns to Phobos, demanding an explanation.
The Last Olympian explains to her that the population of Earth no longer cares for “traditional gods”. They put their faith in superheroes, who have displaced the Olympians in the chain of hierarchy. So Hecate decides to re-instill the fear of God within mankind, and she does so in the sneakiest way imaginable. As Batman and the rest of the League argue on behalf of the Amazonians, despite the Bana-Mighdall Amazonians being the ones who committed the acts of terrorism, they don’t realize they are about to face a much more crushing trial, very soon.
New Themyscira: A Beacon for Gods, A Warning for Mankind
Using the body, face & voice of the new queen of the Amazons, Hecate traveled across the globe, tracking down every last one of them; from Themyscirans to Bana-Mighdallans. She united the Amazonians under one leader- herself- and told them that they were “done” playing by the rules. They were fierce warriors and conquerors in a golden age buried under the sands of time; but it was time that they reclaimed that title for themselves once again.
Hecate targeted the White House and made it levitate over the very ground, turning it into a floating fortress flanked at every entrance by Amazonians devoted to her cause. Hecate declares herself the conqueror of Earth, and New Themyscira it’s capital. The Justice League find her enthroned when they show up at the White House looking for answers. Bruce immediately recognizes the fact that this isn’t the Diana they know, and Superman remarks that it must be Hecate who is making Diana do all this.
Like any good uber-villain, Hecate reveals her master plan to the little heroes playing dress-up; she was going to feed upon the fear & pain that would be generated by her destruction of superheroes to become the omnipotent, omniscient ruler of the cosmos itself. Batman moves in for the kill, but The Flash stops him, reminding Bruce that Diana was still their friend. But Hecate simply tells him he should have let the brooding one strike her when he had the chance, effortlessly sucking the soul out of Barry’s body; and his powers along with it.
Batman attacks next, but he’s no match for a god in terms of raw physical strength. Green Lantern tries to use his power ring to build a construct sturdy enough to block her scythe, but he ends up getting fatally wounded. Hecate unleashes a barrage of mystic energy that knocks everyone flat on their butts, while they keep pleading Diana to fight back. Superman has had enough by this point.
He flies straight at Hecate and starts pummelling her into submission, hoping that he could break her with his fists. But in reality, the Witch Goddess is goading him into losing control and giving into his rage. She taunts Superman and asks him to finish off his beloved Wonder Woman; and for a split second, it looks like all is lost; but then, somehow, things manage to take an even worse turn.
Chaos, Imprisonment & Annihilation: The Aftermath of the ascension of “Hecate” Wonder Woman
Martian Manhunter grabs Wonder Woman from behind and uses his psychic abilities to let her personality surface. When it does, Diana horrifyingly asks Kal-El to kill her. She admits that she is not powerful enough to hold Hecate back and that killing her is the only way to end it all. But Hecate overpowers her again, reclaims her scythe, and introduced J’onn J’onzz’s throat to it. She then proceeds to rip out Superman’s heart, calling him a fool for letting his guard down around a magic user like her.
She is finally confronted by practitioners of her own discipline; the sorcerers and mages that populate the pages of DC Comics. Powerful entities like Doctor Fate, Phantom Stranger, Zatanna & even Mister Miracle show up to try to bind the progenitor of their powers before she can break all of reality with her insanity. Hecate is delighted to see them at first, thinking they’d naturally join her cause, what with her being the literal Goddess of Magic and all. But when they try to restrain her, she loses all her patience and starts wrecking shop, calling them “champions of death.”
As she plunges her scythe into Mister Miracle’s back, she berates Diana in her pit, back in the soul realm. She spits venomous words recounting the failure of civilization as a concept, and how she would cleanse humanity of this poison and re-introduce them to fear and darkness.
She would restore meaning to the word “God”. She would come to rule all creation. But love is a more powerful connecting force than hatred or evil could ever become, and it is this connection that Zatanna & Co. use to barge into the soul realm to rescue Wonder Woman directly. As Dr. Fate and Pariah engage Hecate, Captain Marvel rescues Diana from the pits of her own soul; but it is too late. Hecate begins executing mages left, right, and center; and they are suddenly put on the back foot yet again.
They manage to physically dominate the Witch Goddess, but she reveals that if they kill her, they kill Diana as well, which the Pariah confirms to be true. With tears in her eyes, Wonder Woman begs Captain Marvel to “do it”; to put her out of her weak-willed misery, once and for all. Dr. Fate proposes that all the mages come together to bind Hecate’s power forever.
The Goddess of Magic screams out in protest, reminding them that the binding process would kill them as well; but they don’t care. They’d rather die than live in a world without Wonder Woman. And so, the greatest practitioners of the mystic arts in the DC Universe perish in one fell swoop, as Hecate is left despondent and powerless. The Amazonians she had united turn on her as well, imprisoning her in the caves beneath New Themyscira. And the world…well, let’s just say it all came crashing down after that.
A World Without Superheroes is Ruled By Fear
Hecate is greeted by Zatanna a few days after her binding. She remarks that it was curious Zatanna survived the binding process, but the latter ignores it. She laments over the fact that she couldn’t save Wonder Woman when she had the chance. She brings up Hecate’s previous comment about how love was the weakness that allowed her to exploit Wonder Woman in the first place. Zatanna counters her claim by reminding her that it was love that brought every superhero together; the love they had for each other and humanity on the whole.
She reminded her captive that it was love that allowed them to overcome the darkness and their own fears, allowing them to defeat the Witch Goddess once and for all. Hecate’s derision upon hearing that statement was justified; she was still here, while Diana of Themyscira was rapidly becoming a distant memory. But the tears streaking her face told a different story.
Diana made one last plea to her friend, begging her to stay away from Hecate lest she ends up the same way the princess herself had. Hecate, of course, tries to sweeten the deal by offering Zatanna exactly what she had offered Circe; power beyond imagination. But unlike Circe, Zatanna didn’t lust for power, and so she rejected her offer, instead of reminding her that her restraints were fashioned from her own magic; so there was no way she could escape.
Her last words to Diana were “We’re still working on a way to get you free”; but in the time it would take for her to accomplish that, there might not be an Earth to protect. With every other Olympian wiped out from existence, The Last Olympian Phobos decided to carry out his own version of “domination”. Using his political connections, he was able to sanction the enslavement of all Amazonians; penance, he called it, for the crimes of their evil queen.
Over the next few years, he planted the fear of women into every mortal being on planet Earth, whilst also creating mistrust between the general public and the superhero population. Once he gets access to the entire US military command, he immediately launches a full-scale assault on all identified supers across the globe in an effective genocide. The last panel of Tales from the Dark Multiverse: Wonder Woman: War of the Gods shows Diana of Themyscira hanging from her restraints as Tempus Fuginaut notes the bitter-sweet nature of this Earth’s reality.
One of its greatest heroes fell from grace because she allowed herself to experience momentary grief. She then became the reason for an all-out war between humans and enhanced individuals. And ironically enough, she is the only being powerful enough to resolve any of this. But that future is a long way off, and nothing positive is ever guaranteed in the Dark Multiverse.
Marvelous Verdict
Tales from the Dark Multiverse are usually filled with gory, alt-reality versions of DC superheroes gone rogue. Most of these are evil Batmen because as Barbatos pointed out, entire galaxies have been created in the Dark Multiverse thanks to Bruce Wayne’s paranoia. But what makes this story unique is that, for the first time in the history of this series, it does not end on an entirely hopeless note.
Yes, the Diana we see in his comic issue is nothing like the Diana we’ve known for decades. Wonder Woman is a fierce, independent warrior whose willpower has acted as the glue that keeps the JLA together on multiple occasions. To see her get corrupted the way she did by Hecate is unsettling at best, and a terrifying reality at worst.
Because while we all know that Wonder Woman is one of the few truly pure heroic characters in comic book history, her Dark Multiverse counterpart gave us a glimpse of what Diana unleashed can do; and trust us when we say this, we are not at all keen to meet this version of it. It is the embodiment of Diana’s fear that her will isn’t as strong as she thought it was, and Vita Alaya did a magnificent job of getting that point across without getting too in-your-face about it.
This issue is also remarkable because it is one of the only Tales from the Dark Multiverse that ends on a somewhat positive note; we’ll take it even if it is just 10% positive, dang it! In the end, we are left with a cliffhanger instead of a world-ending catastrophe, which is rare to observe, especially when you shotgunning across the Multiverse with Tempus Fuginaut. This dark re-imagining of the classic War of the Gods storyline just goes to prove that no one is safe from the forces of evil; not even the heart of DC Comics.