WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Sensational Wonder Woman #1, by Stephanie Phillips, Meghan Hetrick, Marissa Louise and Pat Brosseau, on sale now.
Whether it's in cartoons, comics, film or TV, Wonder Woman stands stall as a symbol of empowerment, a role she's had to one extent or another since she was created by William Moulton Marston and H.G. Peter in the '40s. Today, her status as an icon lives on in releases like Wonder Woman 1984, which reiterates that Diana of Themyscira is indeed a beacon of hope and paragon virtue.
Now in Sensational Wonder Woman #1, this stoic ideal is dealt a major blow as Diana is plopped into her worst nightmare, a misogynistic prison where she's a housewife with seemingly no control over her life.
In this hallucination, Diana is an obedient housewife who spends her day aimless, waiting on her mysterious husband, a Steve Trevor-lookalike named Douglas in a stereotypical '50s setting. Still, Diana can tell something's off with this world as it glitches out. Memories of her past life keep appearing, and she keeps hearing someone's voice, who turns out to be Hawkgirl beckoning her back to the real world.
At this point, the book shows Diana's body, comatose on a table, seemingly almost dead, with Hawkgirl over her. However, Diana's trapped in her mental prison, However, things change drastically when she jumps out in front of a car to stop a boy from getting hit while on an evening stroll.
His ball bounced into the road, but Wonder Woman is able to save him and stop the car when he runs after it. At this point, Douglas starts chiding her because she's overstepped his sexist bounds for her, acting on her own accord to do what she knew to be right.
But as the abusive Douglas berates Diana for defying him, the world starts breaking apart, hinting at the true nature of the illusion that she's trapped in. The solicits for future issues have indicated that Doctor Psycho responsible for this I Love Lucy-esque suburban fantasy, which makes sense because not only has he been a major thorn in Diana's side for years.
By the end of the issue, Diana returns to her right frame of mind but still seems to be in the psychic plane, which means Psycho might have to come up with a new plan. While Psycho has always wanted to prove his self-proclaimed 'superiority' to Diana and the Amazons, Wonder Woman's will was too strong to be subjugated by his illusion. And even though she's still trapped in Doctor Psycho's hallucination, she seems set to show him what a real nightmare looks like.
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