Wonder Woman is first called her superhero name rather recently in the DCEU timeline, though there were perfect opportunities to include the moniker in earlier films. Wonder Woman is one of DC Comics’ most famous superheroes and one of the most successful characters in the DCEU film franchise. Played perfectly by Gal Gadot, Wonder Woman has starred in two solo movies and was part of the ensemble cast of two DCEU crossover films, yet her iconic superhero name is only said once, with no explanation for its origin.
The DCEU’s Wonder Woman, a.k.a. Diana Prince, is the princess of Themyscira, having been born towards the end of the Neolithic period. One of the few differences between the film and comic versions of Wonder Woman is that Gal Gadot’s iteration left Themyscira during the First World War instead of the second, foiling a destructive plot by Ares and Doctor Poison, as shown in 2017’s Wonder Woman. The sequel, Wonder Woman 1984, establishes that Diana continued to save lives and even battle new threats for decades after defeating Ares, though she remained hidden from the public eye.
This changed in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Zack Snyder’s Justice League, however, where Diana saved the world from new threats and no longer hid her presence from humanity. Thus far, the only times her Wonder Woman name is spoken in the DCEU is by Barry Allen in Justice League and by Christopher Smith in Peacemaker (along with a classroom of schoolchildren). Though no explanation is given for how she got her famous moniker, Wonder Woman’s solo films and Dawn of Justice missed ideal opportunities to provide one, given Diana’s enigmatic sightings throughout history.
The DCEU establishes Wonder Woman as a heroic, humanoid, cryptid, with little documented evidence of her existence, despite her numerous heroic acts throughout history. Wonder Woman was photographed in Europe during World War I and civilians who witnessed her superpowered feats likely told stories of a mysterious woman who defeated an entire military contingent single-handedly. As shown in Wonder Woman 1984, Diana non-lethally defeated criminals in a crowded mall with numerous witnesses but destroyed security cameras to cover her tracks.
Despite these precautions, people most likely continued to tell stories of a superpowered being who matches the description of the woman who fought in World War I, likely making Diana a mythic being whose escapades would be collectively noted, even with little to no documented evidence of her existence. Similar to the Mothman or Bigfoot, this mysterious being would eventually need a name, which is where the Wonder Woman moniker would come in.
When Bruce Wayne learned about other metahumans from Lex Luthor’s records in Dawn of Justice, the film could have included newspaper headlines describing Diana as “Wonder Woman” or perhaps her World War I photograph could have included the moniker. Similarly, Wonder Woman and Wonder Woman 1984 could have included dialogue where amazed civilians call Diana a Wonder Woman, explaining the name similarly to Steve Trevor creating Diana’s false surname of “Prince.” The DCEU cleverly explained the origin of Diana’s civilian alias, but it should have also provided an origin for the iconic name Wonder Woman.
