Usurping the Crown
By RazzaTazz 7 Comments
A not so common, but still recurring, plot in Wonder Woman comics is when Diana is forced into another contest for the title of Wonder Woman. Thanks to my extensive reading of Wonder Woman I can say that this has happened at least three times. Out of the three times, Diana was beaten twice (incidentally both of those characters ended up dying less than ten issues later.) First of all I am not a very big fan of Diana's costume being fought over. As was explained in the George Perez story arc Challenge of the Gods, the costume has special significance to Diana. It was designed to honour Diana Trevor, as aviatrix who crashed off of Paradise island only to find herself in the middle of a battle against mythological creatures. This is where Diana got her name as well, and because of her connection with Steve Trevor (Diana Trevor's son) it is all the more important to Diana. To be fair though this happened after two of the do-overs on the contests, and it makes sense in that it is the battle uniform of the person chosen to represent the Amazons in man's world. What I don't think is properly portrayed is that when Diana has lost, on both occasions she has also lost her tiara. The tiara is only technically part of the costume when Diana is wearing it. It is a sign of her royalty. It may be used as a weapon, but it still belongs to Diana. She is shown wearing in all manners of dress, it is one of the things which she rarely takes off.
Giving this to the person who takes her role would be the equivalent of John Henry Irons taking a job at the Daily Planet when Superman died, or Azrael taking over Wayne Enterprises when he was Batman. When the next contest occurs, it would be nice to see at least the tiara stays with Diana, assuming she loses again.