Wonder Woman 1984 includes a cameo by Lynda Carter that pays tribute to Carter's early work playing Diana Prince. The cameo also makes Carter into the original Amazon hero in the DC Extended Universe, and an inspiration to the current iteration of Wonder Woman, played by Gal Gadot.
Carter's brief appearance occurs in the Wonder Woman 1984 post-credits scene. The camera follows a woman through a busy marketplace, never showing her face. However, from behind, the mysterious woman resembles Diana, with her flowing blue outfit and similarly styled hair. The woman stops a pole from falling on a mother and her child, and when the mother thanks her, the unknown woman turns around and is revealed not as Diana but as Carter instead. Carter tells the mother that her name is Asteria, a character mentioned by Diana earlier in the film.
As Diana shows a resurrected Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) with the Lasso of Truth, Asteria helped save the Amazons from a lifetime of servitude. Before they settled on Themyscira, the Amazons were enslaved by mankind. Diana's mother Hippolyta (Connie Nielsen) freed them, but someone had to stay behind to hold back the forces of all mankind while the rest of the Amazons made their way to the safety of Themyscira. That role fell to Asteria.
While Asteria fought these men alone, she did not fight without the help of her sisters. They gave up all their armor in order to make "one suit strong enough to take on the whole world." This suit is the Golden Eagle Armor that Diana wears later in the film to take on Maxwell Lord (Pedro Pascal) and Cheetah (Kristen Wiig). Diana found the armor while searching for Asteria, but she never found the Amazon warrior herself.
There's something poetic about Carter appearing as Asteria. Carter played the titular role in ABC's Wonder Woman from 1975-1979, helping pave the way for female superheroes onscreen. Asteria's bravery saved the Amazons and allowed them to create their society on Themyscira, a society which forged Diana into the hero she is in Wonder Woman 1984. In a way, both Carter and Asteria's actions make Wonder Woman 1984 possible. This line of thinking extends to Diana's use of the Golden Eagle Armor in the film's climactic final battle. She takes up Asteria's mantle in order to save the world, while Gadot stepped into Carter's shoes in order to bring a new live action Wonder Woman to life. Carter's cameo as Asteria is the perfect way to pay tribute to her foundational role in the Wonder Woman franchise. After all, it's only fitting that Wonder Woman 1984 would cast the original Wonder Woman as the Amazons' original hero figure.
