Wonder Woman 1984: Diana’s new superpower explained by the comics

Wonder Woman 1984 Diana from Themyscira has many surprises in store. New villains, a new era, and even a new superpower.

It may not come as a surprise to modern day superhero fans – but in the weird story of Wonder Woman, their standard powers aren’t that standard. Did you know she used to drive kangaroo?

Here is how Wonder Woman 1984The biggest leap is standing on a comic book foundation.

[Ed. note: This piece contains spoilers for Wonder Woman 1984.]

Pictured: Warner Bros. Pictures

in the 184, Wonder Woman learns to fly! The Princess of the Amazons gets a huge upgrade by jumping, running, letting and flying invisible her way through the world.

But she does it in a particularly unexpected way. By just doing it. With a little help from Steve Trevor, who describes how an expertly designed airplane flies through the air, Diana does the same with her roughly human-shaped body. Huh?

Wonder Woman flies back into comic book history

For a superhero of her stature, Wonder Woman’s powers are strangely resistant to codification. Sure, Superman went through some periods of power creeping where he could do things like “super-inventing”, “super ventriloquist” or “accidentally going back in time”. But nowadays it is generally accepted that he is strong and bulletproof, can fly, and has laser eyes, respiratory arrest, X-ray vision, and heightened senses.

Wonder Woman is super strong and super durable, but not bulletproof – why else would she have to do the bracer thing? – and is one of the greatest fighters in the world with tons of charisma. But beyond that, it gets muddy. At various points in her story she was also able to use a “mental radio” as if she were telepathic, was given the ability to talk to animals by the goddess Artemis, was able to travel in different dimensions through meditation, or could speak pretty much any language with Ease.

And Wonder Woman couldn’t always fly. This is obvious if you think about it for a second. Why would she need an invisible jet when she could fly? Flight wasn’t as closely associated with superheroes today as it was when it was founded in 1942. Even Superman couldn’t fly at first – that’s where the phrase “jumps tall buildings in a single sentence” comes from.

An invisible plane or jet served Wonder Woman reasonably well for a long time. Unassisted flight did not become one of its core forces until 1987, when writer / artist George Pérez started his permanent restart of its original story. With the blessing of the god Hermes, Diana could now fly through the sky with just a few winged sandals.

Image: Cary Bates, Don Heck / DC Comics

But it wasn’t the first time she learned to fly. In the 1970s, Wonder Woman lost all of its powers for a (brief but memorable and infamous) time, and when they were restored, she also rediscovered an ancient Amazonian technique. She learned to ride air currents for short distances. In other words, she figured out how to fly like an airplane without having an airplane-shaped body.

Which is exactly how it goes in Wonder Woman 1984, strange as it seemed on the screen. But you know what they say: fish have to swim, amazons have to fly.