Profile: Wonder Girl 2

Cassie Sandsmark, Wonder Girl 2
First appearance: Wonder Woman #105 Vol. 2, January 1996.

Current status: a leading member of the Teen Titans.

Was subjected to the followings acts of discrimination: when John Byrne introduced her years ago, it was a rather peculiar way to begin: he didn’t want for her to be a team player, despite that she can and does work well with one, and succeeding writers did make good use of her. Well, until more recently, that is. She also joined Supergirl, during Amazons Attack, in an assault on the president’s plane in the DCU that turns the US public against her.

What’s wrong with how this was done? The story in Amazons Attack was already bad enough in how it featured a ludicrous story that may have been intended as an swipe at the US administration for its policies on Iraq, depicting the Amazons out-of-character and depicting Cassie doing something as irresponsible as attacking the US president’s plane in order to bring him to the would-be Hyppolyta, who actually turned out to be Granny Goodness, was not helping matters one bit.

Even before this, she agreed with Ares during Infinite Crisis to accept special extra powers he’d give her to compensate for a loss she’d suffered when Zeus distanced himself from earth along with the rest of the Amazons, which raises some questions as to how kosher such an agreement really is. Lately, another big problem is that she seems to be defined only by her brief affair with Connor Kent, the newer Superboy, who was killed off during Infinite Crisis because of a copyright dispute with the Siegel estate. How can she stand out as her own character if that's all she's really known for, and laments about it too often?

And these are just some of the things that have led to the deterioration of the recent volume of Teen Titans. It could also explain why a recent miniseries written by J. Torres sold so abysmally – because, as something tied to the pointless crossovers DC Comics has been producing lately, it’s not really able to stand on its own.