The Flash Proves It's The Perfect Time To Reboot Wonder Woman
This article contains spoilers for "The Flash"
When Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman burst on the scene in 2016's "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice," she immediately put every other DC Extended Universe superhero on notice. She continued to deliver some of the best DCEU action out there in 2017's critically approved "Wonder Woman," and remained excellent in the otherwise divisive "Justice League." Then the 2010s turned into the 2020s, and something happened.
"Wonder Woman: 1984" was notoriously not great and reports of Patty Jenkins' "Wonder Woman 3" being shelved started circulating. While Wonder Woman does appear in no less than two DC movies in 2023, they're actually pretty good examples of her stagnation as a character. In "The Flash," she turns up to rescue Batman (Ben Affleck), Al Falcone (Luke Brandon Field), and half of Gotham City with a last-minute catch that serves as a setup for a wacky Lasso of Truth moment. In itself, the scene would be nothing more than a bit of good-natured cameo fun in a movie full of such moments. However, when you take into account Diana's earlier appearance in "Shazam: Fury of the Gods," a worrying pattern of Wonder Woman as a randomly appearing deus ex machina character emerges.
Diana has turned into someone who simply turns up to save the day whenever a DC movie has painted itself into a corner, does the bare minimum of what the plot requires, and exits stage left. This doesn't do justice for either the once-awesome character or the DC movie universe — and as such, it's high time to give Wonder Woman a much-needed reboot.
Wonder Woman's cameo appearances reduce the character to her DCEU debut scene
Wonder Woman is one of the most fully realized characters in the DCEU, so it's frustrating to see her turn into a one-dimensional rescue machine who essentially plays variations of her original entrance scene over and over again. In "Shazam: Fury of the Gods," Wonder Woman turns up at the end of the movie without warning and uses random divine powers to fix the Staff of the Gods, resurrect Shazam (Zachary Levi), and repower Anthea (Rachel Zegler) and her realm — basically fixing the plot's otherwise unsolvable issues in one fell cameo swoop. Mere months later, she returned in a very similar fashion for "The Flash," swooping in, saving the day, and flying away like it's nothing. This time, she even saves Batman, just like in "Dawn of Justice."
Gadot's take on Diana is great, and the character should be a welcome presence in any DC movie ... but the way the films have started using Wonder Woman cameos actually takes away from the whole. In both "Fury of the Gods" and "The Flash," she waltzes in the movie when she feels like it, makes the superheroes the movies are actually about look downright inept, and exits just as abruptly as she arrived. It's like the movies are just finding ways to insert her in the plot for a minute or two in order to replicate that cool arrival scene in "Dawn of Justice" — and, of course, to play a few bars of her iconic theme song. The trouble is, "Dawn of Justice" actually does a whole bunch of heavy lifting to get the plot to a place where her last-ditch arrival is both anticipated and welcome. Meanwhile, "Fury of the Gods" and "The Flash" just ride the coattails of previous Wonder Woman works.
A Wonder Woman reboot might already be underway
Even in the realm of superhero movies, it's nice to see things resolved in a way that the plot makes seem logical and believable. Wonder Woman's newfound tendency to turn up wherever she's needed the most to save the world for a couple of minutes and go about her merry way is the exact opposite of that.
Fortunately, there's some indication that a reboot might already be underway. As of now, the DCU slate of movies and TV shows only includes one Wonder Woman-adjacent work: "Paradise Lost," which takes place in Diana's native Themyschira before she was born. This doesn't exactly sound like the DCU has massive plans for Wonder Woman, and "Paradise Lost's" endgame might even be to set up a new version of the character.
Of course, whether we see Wonder Woman in the DCU anytime soon or not is anyone's guess, though DC Studios co-head James Gunn hasn't ruled the possibility out (via Twitter). Likewise, there's no telling whether Gadot will return in the role in a soft reboot capacity, since despite her apparently ongoing involvement in DC movies, she has said that she's keen to explore new, more personal projects. "I'm not only going to do my own projects, I'm going to work as an actress-for-hire still. But the fact that I can go ahead and tell the stories that I'm passionate about — from ideas that I conceived, or from ideas that I find fascinating from people that want to partner with us — it's an incredible thing," she discussed her future beyond the DCEU with Total Film.
Still, whether Gadot is involved in Wonder Woman's DCU future or not, one thing is clear. The next time we see the character should introduce a fresh take on Diana of Themyscira — and it definitely shouldn't be a quick deus ex machina cameo in another DC hero's movie.