There are only a few beings in the DC Universe who are capable of making Batman scared. There are even fewer who have taken the blunt force trauma of an enraged Superman and lived to tell the tale. However, DC's most iconic female superhero, Wonder Woman, has done all that and more in comics, TV, and her own solo film in 2017.
DC’s flagship Amazon has macked up quite an impressive list of accomplishments over the past eight decades. While a fair number of those feats involve her tools like the Lasso of Truth and her Invisible Jet, Diana Prince has accomplished just as much without them. Now, we're taking a closer look at Wonder Woman to see what makes her so much more than the dirt she was crafted from.
WONDER WOMAN'S STRENGTH
While costumes may have changed over the years, one of the most consistent aspects of Diana's superhero moveset has been her strength. While it's measurements vary wildly depending on the stories it's appeared in, it’s worth noting that she’s always stacked up to universe threatening enemies, and yes, Superman.
Her history includes repeatedly slugging it out with the Man of Steel, no small task for anyone in the realm of fiction. Her most auspicious task, however, was towing the entire Earth with Superman. While naysayers may cry foul at the idea that the weight was shared equally, even lifting a fraction of our planet would put in in DC’s top 1% strength bracket.
WONDER WOMAN'S UNBREAKABLE SKIN
Wonder Woman can't just dish out a beating. She can take one as well. Her history shows that she can survive being thrown into buildings, mountains, and the Earth itself without missing a beat. Her bracelets make deflecting projectiles a breeze, and her healing factor should render any injuries a moot point if anything ever manages to pierce her skin. Additionally, extreme temperatures don’t act as anything more than an annoyance to her, as she’s been shown in upper reaches of space without issue.
In Greg Rucka and Rags Morales' Wonder Woman #219, she fights Superman of all people, who flies into a rage believing Lois Lane was murdered by Doomsday in a plot by the devious Maxwell Lord. The icing on the cake is, of course, his belief that Diana is Doomsday, leading him to hold nothing back in his attempt to murder her. Not only does she best him in combat, but she does so while holding back as to not inflict lethal damage.
WONDER WOMAN'S SUPER-SPEED
While she's not the fastest character on the Justice League roster, Wonder Woman has had her fair share of feats involving speed. She routinely is able to deflect bullets, which means that her reaction time sits in the nanoseconds since the average bullet travels at 1,700 mph.
Her pinnacle of speed would undoubtedly be her deflection of shards in Walter Simonson and Jerry Ordway's Wonder Woman #194, where she’s forced to save a man from particles of a deity that number in the trillions raining in from across the universe. She deflects them long enough for several pantheons to arrive and assist her in defeating him.
WONDER WOMAN'S LANGUAGE SKILLS
One of Diana’s lesser-known talents, the ability to speak any language is rarely mentioned when listing her skills. In her titular 2017 film, she’s shown as easily switching between Ancient Sumerian, English, Spanish, Chinese, Greek, and French. The average human knows one to two languages, while exceptionally linguistic people can jump as high as 70. However, Diana is functionally capable of speaking any language on Earth. She is also capable of communication at a near-infinite level.
While that alone might be impressive, she's also capable of communicating with beings that aren't even people. In the aforementioned fight with Superman, she uses one of her even less frequently addressed abilities in animal communication to call up a flock of birds and assist her. She does this while mending a shattered wrist, so it's safe to assume even this level of communication requires little concentration from the Amazon.
WONDER WOMAN'S CLAY ORIGIN
Diana’s most unique anatomical trait is that she’s not human in the most technical sense. In some versions of her origin, she was constructed out of wet dirt. While it may not be her current origin, Diana’s most iconic beginnings all extend from the idea she was crafted from clay.
In some versions of her origin, Diana was created from the clay of her homeland of Themyscira and given life by her mother Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons. Diana’s immaculate origin also has several other perks too. Since there’s no genetic sequencing to mutate or alien physiology to decipher, many of her powers in this iteration come straight from their ancient source: the Greek pantheon of Olympian Gods. She was also given several traits from the Olympian deities, including being as "beautiful as Aphrodite, wise as Athena, swifter than Hermes, and stronger than Hercules" in some of her origin stories.
