The Wonder Woman 1984 ending sees Diana Prince defeat Maxwell Lord and Cheetah, but perhaps not how comic book readers would've expected. Although she's taken on her fair share of bad guys, such as preventing vehicular manslaughter and rescuing children from robbers in the local mall, none of them had been true villains out for global domination (with powers of the gods, no less) - until Maxwell Lord comes along.

When it comes to superhero movies and stories, sometimes it's not the big bad character who's been planning to wipe out the galaxy that heroes need to worry about. More often than not, the DC universe tends to pit businessmen, tycoons, and industry leaders against humanity, though not necessarily world leaders. Presidents, prime ministers, and monarchs can't easily become villains in these stories because that would force the heroes against the wrong people.

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In Wonder Woman 1984, viewers get to see the humble, relatable origins of a would-be supervillain, who is brought down not through physical strength but through love, hope, and truth. It's what makes Wonder Woman so special as a superhero, and it's all on display in the ending. Although Wonder Woman's story is far from over in the DCEU, there's a sense of finality to one part of her arc in the sequel, which is set decades after Patty Jenkins' original Wonder Woman film starring Gal Gadot as the eponymous superhero.

Dreamstone Explained: How Steve Trevor Returns In Wonder Woman 1984

Chris Pine as Steve Trevor and Gal Gadot as Diana Prince in Wonder Woman 1984

The Dreamstone serves as the MacGuffin in Wonder Woman 1984, an ancient object that grants the holder one wish - any wish - but in return, it takes what is perhaps their most prized possession away from them. On the outside, the Dreamstone looks like a worthless item, with no real reason for why the FBI is investigating its origin. But there is, of course, more to it that's lurking underneath the surface - literally. As Diana discovers midway through the film, one of the Old Gods imbued the stone with powers to grant anyone a wish. Without proper use, the Dreamstone holds no value, but if someone holds it and wishes for something, then their wish will be granted; again, any wish... immediately.

The first person to test this is Diana and Barbara Minerva's co-worker at the Smithsonian, Roger, who wishes for a cup of coffee, which he receives moments later. Then, later on, Diana gives the Dreamstone a shot and wishes for Steve Trevor to return - she's always been waiting for him to come back, as evidenced by her comments at the street café and her looking up at the planes in the sky - but while he doesn't appear in front of her in the moment, he does return that night. He tells Diana when they reunite that he was watching her - stalking her, really - and even makes a joke about the phone books being future-proof. After spending decades shielding herself from society, Diana is beside herself with happiness, finally having the "one thing" she's always wanted: Steve.

However, everything comes with a price, and having Steve Trevor return (in someone else's body, no less) means her god-like powers being taken away from her. This is first hinted at when she struggles to break the garage lock at Maxwell Lord's company headquarters, but it becomes obvious when Lord's security detail shoots Wonder Woman; the bullet pierces her skin, thus making her bleed for the first time from a mortal weapon. The only way for her to regain her powers is to renounce her wish, which she does before taking off to find Barbara and Maxwell Lord at the communications array. Even though letting go of Steve - willingly - is the most difficult thing she's ever done, she understands that the world would be destroyed if she doesn't stop Lord.

Related: Wonder Woman 3 Won't Be Able To Repeat 1984's Steve Trevor Trick

As Barbara discovers, the Dreamstone has been passed from civilization to civilization for centuries, always ending with the current society being destroyed. This is all due to the Old God who created the Dreamstone - the God of Lies. It's unclear exactly which god Diana is referring to, but it could be one of two: Dolos, the God of Trickery, or more likely, Apate, the Goddess of Deceit. In the latter's case, Apate's opposite is the Goddess of Truth, Aletheia - and since truth is at the core of who Wonder Woman is, given she wields the Lasso of Truth, it stands to reason Apate is the deity who created the Dreamstone, which differs significantly from the comics. In DC Comics, the Dreamstone is created by the supervillain Doctor Destiny, who uses it to warp reality, similarly to the Reality Gem from Marvel Comics.

Maxwell Lord's Powers & Plan In Wonder Woman 1984

Pedro Pascal as Maxwell Lord in Wonder Woman 1984

 

Wonder Woman's story in the DCEU led with her taking out Ares, the God of War, which makes the choice to have Maxwell Lord, a human, nearly succeed where Ares failed incredibly interesting. As revealed through flashbacks in Wonder Woman 1984, Maxwell Lord came from an abusive family and had humble beginnings as a businessman, seeking to give his son, Alistair, everything he never had. Furthermore, he wants to be the best, most powerful person in the world, someone no one would dare go against. But his ultimate goal is to not be a loser, above all else. So in order to attain that goal, Maxwell Lord circumvents the Dreamstone's one-wish rule by wishing to become the Dreamstone itself.

Maxwell Lord gains the powers of the Dreamstone, but crucially, he doesn't become a god. He doesn't gain super strength, invincibility, or longevity; instead, his one power is granting wishes. However, just like what the Dreamstone does to Diana and Barbara when they make their wishes, he takes what "he wants in return" - power and health. The power is for him to achieve his goal, but the health is to make sure he can live, seeing as the Dreamstone corrupts his body and drains his life. The easiest and quickest way for him to do what he needs is to use the U.S. government's secret program of high-jacking the broadcast signals of every screen in the world, thus making himself a sort of televangelist.

Since the broadcast signal is a form of wave that can "touch" people around the world (the requirement to grant a person's wish), Maxwell Lord uses it to have people make their wishes from wherever they're standing. He then grants them their wishes all at once, effectively bringing down society (much like what happened to the previous civilizations), while simultaneously taking their health and everything they have. That's why he begins to heal immediately; he's no longer seen with bloody eyes and having what appears to be an insane headache. All in all, Maxwell Lord's plan works perfectly, but like everyone else, his wish to become the Dreamstone comes with its fair share of consequences, particularly losing his son.

Related: Where Other DCEU Heroes Are During Wonder Woman 1984

How Barbara Minerva Becomes Cheetah (& Gets Two Wishes)

Kristen Wiig Barbara Wonder Woman 1984

 

Unlike everyone else in the world, Barbara gets two wishes. She and Diana both use the Dreamstone before Maxwell Lord gets his hands on it and literally becomes the Dreamstone (much like how one becomes the new genie in Aladdin). Diana later comes to understand the consequences of her choices and, therefore, refuses to wish for Steve Trevor's return again (with the caveat of keeping her powers) when Maxwell Lord told she could in the communications array. Barbara, however, willingly took him up on his offer of being "generous" while they were in the helicopter and made a second wish - to become an apex predator, unlike anything anyone's seen before. It's why she becomes a cheetah; she may have been thinking about cheetahs subconsciously since there's one on display in her office.

The key here is that Barbara's first wish comes from the first Dreamstone when it's still in its original form, not the new version occupied by Maxwell Lord. So she gets one wish just like everyone else, but her second wish comes directly from Lord who enthusiastically grants her wish because he always gets something in return. (Again, this is like someone getting a new set of wishes from a new genie.) It's a neat loophole that explains Barbara's two villain forms in Wonder Woman 1984. First, she just wants to be like Diana, but she doesn't know what that means. To her, it means being strong, beautiful, and comfortable in her own skin, but there's a side to Diana - the Amazon side - that she's not aware of, so she loses herself in all that power and attention. When she realizes what she can truly be, after she beats the sexual harasser on the street, she becomes an apex predator - the Cheetah.

How Wonder Woman Defeats Cheetah & Maxwell Lord

Wonder Woman 1984 Maxwell Lord Lasso of Truth

 

Using the Golden Eagle armor that once belonged to the Amazon warrior Asteria, who saved the Amazons from humans thousands of years ago, Wonder Woman fights and defeats Cheetah outside the communications array. Given that they seem to be on equal footing, the only way for Diana to beat Cheetah without killing her is to incapacitate her with an electrical wire while they're in water. Even though they are nearly as strong as each other, electricity doesn't necessarily harm Diana, so it only weakens Cheetah - just enough to take her out of commission. Unfortunately for Barbara, even apex predators have some weaknesses. Diana then sets her sights on stopping Maxwell Lord.

DC Comics readers may have been wondering how Wonder Woman and Maxwell Lord's confrontation would end since Diana kills him in the comics. During the "Sacrifice" storyline from the mid-2000s, Maxwell Lord uses his psionic powers to mind control Superman, making him believe Batman and Wonder Woman are his enemies. The only way Wonder Woman is able to stop Maxwell Lord is by snapping his neck, which is recorded and broadcast to the entire world, forcing the Justice League to shun her despite her saving their lives. It was a controversial moment then and still is today. So considering how things turned out for Superman in Man of Steel, Jenkins and Warner Bros. wisely avoid repeating Maxwell Lord's death in Wonder Woman 1984.

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Instead, Wonder Woman uses the Lasso of Truth to bring him down. As she mentions earlier in the film, the Lasso doesn't just force someone to tell the truth, it can also reveal the truth, which is what she uses against Maxwell Lord. By tying the Lasso around his ankle, Wonder Woman is able to show the truth to the entire world using Lord's powers and the government's broadcast system, while simultaneously appealing to the better part of themselves. Considering the broadcast system is able to "touch" people around the world, it stands to reason the Lasso is able to do the same thing while tied to Maxwell Lord. It's at that moment that people begin to renounce their wishes, including Lord, who worries about losing his son.

Among the billions of people in the world, it's plausible many of them choose not to renounce their wishes, which is futile since Maxwell Lord does when he realizes his son is in danger. Though not expressly confirmed by the film, all the evidence points to every wish being nullified once Lord renounces his wish, which takes away his powers as the Dreamstone. Whether or not the Dreamstone reverts to its original form as a crystal, it's effectively destroyed once Lord returns to normal - and so, through a domino effect, everyone who had their wish granted by him would see the results of those wishes taken away, including Barbara, who appears human again shortly after Lord leaves the communications center. Just moments before, Barbara tells Diana that she will never renounce her wish, so the only way to save her is, logically, through saving Lord.

Wonder Woman 1984 Final Scenes & Maxwell Lord's Fate

Maxwell Lord 1984

After Diana defeats Maxwell Lord and saves the world from destruction, Wonder Woman 1984 ends similarly to the first movie. It sees Diana standing amidst a celebrating crowd - in this case, people enjoying the holiday season - before taking off into the sky dressed in her armor. In the first film, audiences saw Diana in the middle of a crowd celebrating the end of World War I, before then going back to the present day; she then goes to the roof the museum and takes off into the sky. This time, however, she doesn't just jump, but fly instead (even if the ending is chronologically before the ending of the first movie). What's interesting is that, after she tells the children it's okay they accidentally hit her with a snowball, she sees the "Handsome Man" (as he's known in the credits) whose body Steve Trevor possessed, wearing the clothes Diana told Steve not to wear.

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When Diana leaves Steve to save the world, she forces herself to be strong in the moment, but it's at the end - approximately five months later - that she appears to come to terms with what happened. She accepts her choices and her duty and presumably continues to fight injustice in the years between the sequel and Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice, when she re-emerges out of the shadows. And she can only do so without being discovered because the world only saw the truth (through the Lasso of Truth) during her monologue, not her, specifically. They heard her voice but didn't see her face - a crucial point in maintaining her secret identity. But perhaps the biggest lingering question revolves around Maxwell Lord's fate. He renounces his wish and returns to save his son. Since he isn't heard from again, he presumably resigns to a secret life - but that's unfortunately not confirmed nor hinted at in any way.

Lynda Carter's Asteria & Wonder Woman 3 Setup

Wonder Woman 1984 Diana Golden Eagle Armor

Based on what Wonder Woman 1984's ending shows and what's been revealed elsewhere in the DCEU so far, viewers know Diana continues to operate as Wonder Woman after defeating Maxwell Lord, even if she does so more in the shadows than her fellow Justice League members, Batman and Superman. Still, given the fact that she ages much slower than humans, at some point she is forced to move her life from working at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. to working at the Louvre Museum in Paris, which is where she is at the start of 2017's Wonder Woman. Though it's never explicitly stated, she must do this in order to preserve her secrecy. The world can't know she doesn't age like everyone else.

Although it's unclear exactly where Wonder Woman 3's story will go - if it happens at all - Wonder Woman 1984 sets up the perfect narrative: Diana searching for the lost Amazon warrior, Asteria. She tells Steve about searching for Asteria and coming up empty, only finding Asteria's Golden Eagle armor. But now that that door is open, the DCEU needs to find a way to close it. Solving the mystery of Asteria's whereabouts while connecting it to a larger story could be the best way to end the Wonder Woman trilogy. And since Lynda Carter is revealed to be the DCEU's Asteria in Wonder Woman 1984's post-credits scene, still alive all those years later, it seems Diana finding her and uniting Wonder Woman's two live-action eras will be at the heart of Wonder Woman 3.

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