Despite being arguably the most iconic female superhero in history, Wonder Woman was often considered one of the most difficult heroes to bring to the big-screen. There are a lot of reasons for that, including studios finding the character difficult to sell to contemporary audiences and previous female-led superhero films failing to succeed at the box office. However, that changed in 2017, when Patty Jenkins' take on Wonder Woman proved a real crowd pleaser and became arguably the most lauded entry in the DC Extended Universe. The hero's next journey, Wonder Woman 1984, will bring Diana Prince forward from the World War I setting of her first film to a time of Reaganomics, Cold War paranoia and brash pop music, which really is the perfect age for Wonder Woman to kick some serious butt in!

When asked at 2019 Comic Con Experience why Wonder Woman 1984 was set so long years after the first film, Jenkins explained, “We wanted to bring Diana into the modern world. But the ’80s is a period that Wonder Woman is quite synonymous with. So it was great to see her there. But most importantly, it’s sort of the height of Western civilization and the success of the world that we all live in in the aftermath of now.”

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Jenkins' statement is bold, but there certainly are parallels between the '80s and now. The United States was starting to recover from a recession but was governed by a conservative administration that stressed prosperity through brash tactics and reactionary methods. Such ideologies could be considered seminal for our current presidency, but if there were any progressive qualities that arose from the era, it came from those that stood against it.

1984 was, as the New York Times noted at the end of that year, major for women in the United States: Geraldine Ferraro became the first woman to run for Vice-President for a major party, Kathryn Dwyer Sullivan became the first American woman to walk in space and female athletes won a collective 62 gold medals at that year's Olympics. Even though the policies of the era were dictated by powerful men, people were able to find hope just by turning on a TV and seeing strong-willed women succeed in their fields. Sure, Geraldine Ferraro may not have become Vice-President, and others were shut out from political fields, but just the fact that she got so far shows that women were increasingly able to break through previously established boundaries.

However, there was also a backlash to third-wave feminism’s forward march. Its successes saw the rise of several anti-feminist groups, including the Moral Majority, a political organization that’s heavily Christian and Republican values opposed homosexuality and abortion. President Ronald Reagan also vocally opposed many strides feminists had made, and he won re-election in 1984. The fight continued into his next term, but many media outlets downplayed this and even used terms such as “feminism is dead” and “post-feminism” as a way of being… well, let’s just say politically correct.

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Yet, as Patty Jenkins pointed out, this was also a good era for the character of Wonder Woman. In the early 80s, Wonder Woman’s popularity was floundering. The TV series had ended so comic-book sales were down, and people were wondering if the character still mattered. Then, in 1982, writer Roy Thomas and penciler Gene Colan actually replaced Wonder Woman’s eagle emblem with that of a WW. They felt this better suited the character and had more marketing potential, This has been representative of the character ever since and is even shown in the trailer for Wonder Woman 1984. Also, in 1983, Roy Thomas’ wife, Dann Thomas, co-wrote Wonder Woman #300 with him, and she went down as the first woman to get a scripting credit for the character.

In 1985, when DC Comics rebooted all of its titles with the event comic Crisis on Infinite Earths, Wonder Woman was the most redone character of the spectrum. They did away with dated elements, such as her Invisible Plane, while augmenting the character’s role as a teacher, and an ambassador of the Amazonian people. This version of the character has been the most pronounced of her iterations since, and likely bears the most influence on this upcoming film.

While the plot of Wonder Woman 1984 isn't totally clear at this time, the first trailer and Jenkins' statements indicate what the sequel is trying to do thematically. Wonder Woman 1984 wants to capture a particularly time in American history that was often sugar-coated in gloss and synths, but had a torrential underbelly to it. The film will undoubtedly pay its respects to Wonder Woman’s legacy, but it also has the potential to do something very powerful with the superhero genre. It could very well prove to be an exposé into a shifting time for women’s rights, as well as a metaphor for how the fight continues in this day-and-age.

Directed by Patty Jenkins, Wonder Woman 1984 stars Gal Gadot as Diana, Chris Pine as Steve Trevor, Kristen Wiig as Barbara Minerva/Cheetah, Pedro Pascal and Natasha Rothwell. The film opens on June 5, 2020.

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