Highlights
- Wonder Woman’s strength and powers are impressive, but she has been defeated by surprising opponents.
- Batwoman managed to beat Wonder Woman and nearly kill her using her combat skills and the lasso of truth.
- Swamp Thing easily defeated Wonder Woman without even needing to attack her, leaving her helpless.
DC Comics is filled with fascinating characters who have all kinds of strengths to them, but very few are quite as capable as Wonder Woman. The Themyscira-born warrior princess is one of the toughest heroes in the DC Multiverse, constantly proving her strength by taking on some of the strongest beings to be found.
However, despite her strength, Wonder Woman isn’t quite invincible or undefeatable. She has been taken down and defeated on several occasions, and occasionally by some pretty surprising figures. While the strongest heroes and villains have a chance against her, some names, for one reason or another, are quite baffling.
8 Batwoman
Fought In: Injustice: Gods Among Us Year 3 #22
Many “hero vs hero” battles that fans wouldn’t normally be treated to within the main DC Universe can be found in the Injustice Universe. This storyline involving Superman going crazy and turning evil, with heroes and villains taking sides with or against him, saw Wonder Woman joining the Man of Steel in his conquest, turning into a truly terrifying version of Wonder Woman.
Unfortunately, this forced other heroes to stand against the Amazonian, including Batwoman. Though she is without her powers, Batwoman is excellent in combat, and against a weakened Wonder Woman, she managed to beat her down and use the lasso of truth as a noose to nearly kill Wonder Woman, certainly defeating her, but choosing not to stoop to the murderous level that Wonder Woman had done.
7 Swamp Thing
Fought In: Wonder Woman Vol.4 #36
In one of the more recent cases of heroes misunderstanding each other, Wonder Woman assumed that Swamp Thing was behind a series of murders she was investigating within the issues of her comic book. Upon finding him, she immediately went on the offensive and tried to attack him, but her attacks were fairly useless.
The most intriguing thing is that Swamp Thing didn’t retaliate. He didn’t feel the need to do anything to defend himself since her attacks meant so very little to him. He even escaped her lasso of truth and ensnared her with his vines, leaving her completely helpless. If he’d wanted to attack her, to harm her, he easily could have done so in that position, but without a single attack, he undeniably defeated her. Swamp Thing has already been confirmed for the DCU, so this face-off could occur again once the new Wonder Woman has been cast.
6 The Upside-Down Man
Fought In: Justice League Dark Vol.2 #18
Wonder Woman’s time with the Justice League Dark was a fascinating and fun one for the Amazonian, as she often got to take the leadership of the group, whereas Superman and Batman more traditionally led the regular Justice League team. However, their saga against the Upside-Down Man was a true challenge.
Not only did it take the entire Justice League Dark team to bring down the Upside-Down Man in his realm, but Wonder Woman was barely a piece in defeating him. It came down mostly to Zatanna, while Swamp Thing proved his ability to at least hold his own against the demon, but this member of the Otherkind was a surprisingly strong villain, and he had the advantage in a one-on-one fight against Wonder Woman and could have destroyed her if she didn’t have her team to help.
5 Storm
Fought In: Marvel Versus DC #3
There have been a few, albeit rare, crossover events between the two biggest comic book companies in the world. DC and Marvel are competitors, but they have occasionally given fans a glimpse of what could happen if their characters collided, and in one major crossover event known as DC vs. Marvel, Wonder Woman took on this powerful mutant from the X-Men.
Storm and Wonder Woman is a shocking battle, but perhaps even more surprising is that Storm won their fight. After picking up Mjölnir and proving worthy, Wonder Woman decides to drop the weapon in favor of a fair fight and is taken out relatively quickly by Storm’s weather-controlling abilities. This was a fan-voted victory for Storm, but Wonder Woman and many of her fans have itched for a rematch ever since.
4 Harley Quinn
Knocked Out In: Harley’s Little Black Book #1
In one of the more bizarre comic book moments of all time, many of which include Harley Quinn, the anti-hero tries to try and save her idol, Princess Diana, by knocking her out, while Harley herself tries to deal with a plot by some villains to assassinate the legendary Wonder Woman.
Harley’s methods, however, were extreme. She used a gas bomb on Diana, successfully knocking her out, then stole her clothes and took off, leaving Diana with Harley’s ill-fitted costume, which wasn’t one of Diana’s best looks. Though it seems unfair to count this as a victory over Wonder Woman, Harley probably could have found a way to kill Diana after so thoroughly incapacitating her, but didn’t wish to, meaning this was a decisive win.
3 Supergirl
Fought In: Wonder Woman Vol.1 #177
There are various ways to achieve a victory over Wonder Woman, but the strangest one seen in the pages of DC Comics to date is in a staged fight. Supergirl is generally considered weaker than her cousin Superman, who has a pretty even record fighting with Wonder Woman, so it’d be a surprise to see Supergirl take Wonder Woman down.
She did though, albeit Wonder Woman let her. After both heroes were abducted and forced by an intergalactic dictator to fight to the death, the penalty of the Earth being destroyed, the two had to start trading blows. Supergirl eventually takes Wonder Woman down, only for it to be revealed as a ploy to stop the villain in his tracks. Still, though, Supergirl won this strange, staged fight, and there aren’t a lot of other battles in either’s history to use to try and overturn this result.
2 Ra’s Al Ghul
Fought In: Justice League: Tower Of Babel
It is a known fact that, with planning and prep time, Batman could take down any member of the Justice League, due to him setting up viable contingency plans for any of his teammates going rogue. However, the one time that somebody stole his plans and data on the other league members, they were able to stop all the heroes in their tracks.
This was Ra’s Al Ghul and his League of Assassins, who gained intel on the league and managed to take all of them down, and then the entire world. This near-apocalyptic event saw Ra’s able to beat or incapacitate every member of the League, including Wonder Woman, despite not being one of her best-known villains.
1 Spider-Man
Fought In: Superman & Spider-Man
In another of the odd Marvel-DC crossover events, Superman and Spider-Man met each other for the second time. But, despite those two being the main team-up, Wonder Woman and The Hulk both appeared so that fans could see some fascinating hero vs hero action along the way.
This led to Spider-Man and Wonder Woman coming to blows, although it was only because Dr Doom was pitting them against each other. Spidey saw through the ruse and refused to fight Diana, but she attempted to take him out sincerely. Due to speed and being able to see in the dark, Spider-Man got the upper hand and managed to convince Diana he didn’t want to fight her, but if he had wanted to, he could have easily taken her down in this situation, leading fans to count this as a win for Spidey.
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