Wonder Woman #119
Wonder Woman (vol. 2) #119 sits at a pivotal moment in Cassie Sandsmark's evolution from plucky Gateway City teenager into a genuine super-powered hero: the arc running through this issue culminates in Zeus granting Cassie real divine powers of her own, moving her beyond borrowed Olympian artifacts and cementing her as the new Wonder Girl in the DC mythology. That transformation gave the book a fully-formed successor to Donna Troy and seeded the character who would go on to co-found Young Justice and anchor two decades of Teen Titans stories. DC itself recognized the issue's lasting narrative weight by selecting it for the curated *Wonder Woman: Her Greatest Battles* anthology alongside a handful of other landmark Wonder Woman chapters. For the Byrne era of the title, the issue also represents a satisfying payoff to the slow-burn Cheetah subplot that ran through his Gateway City run.
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The issue was produced during John Byrne's tenure as both writer and artist on Wonder Woman (vol. 2), a run he had held since issue #101 in 1995. Byrne plotted the story while Paul Kupperberg provided the finished script — a split that was common practice on the title at the time — and the cover was supplied separately by veteran DC artist José Luis García-López. The issue falls within what DC later collected as *Wonder Woman by John Byrne Book 2* (2018 hardcover), covering roughly issues #115–124.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Cover date: March 1997; part 2 of the 'In the Forest of the Night' arc, pitting Wonder Woman against Cheetah.
- Written by John Byrne (plot) and Paul Kupperberg (script); interior art by John Byrne; cover by José Luis García-López.
- Cassie Sandsmark (the future Wonder Girl II) appears as a supporting character — she was created by Byrne and first appeared in Wonder Woman vol. 2 #105 (January 1996), formally taking the Wonder Girl name and costume in #111 (July 1996).
- The surrounding Byrne arc (issues #115–124) contains the pivotal scene in which Zeus grants Cassie genuine divine superpowers, with the added condition that her mother Dr. Helena Sandsmark retains the ability to deactivate them.
- Other characters appearing include Hippolyta, Jason Blood (cameo), Mike Schorr, and Neron (referenced via flashback); antagonists are Cheetah and Chuma.
- The Grand Comics Database lists both a 'Cheetah' prologue segment and the main 'In the Forest of the Night' story within the issue.
- The issue was reprinted in Wonder Woman: Her Greatest Battles (DC, April 2017), a curated collection spanning key Wonder Woman chapters across multiple decades.
- It was also collected in Wonder Woman by John Byrne Book 2 (DC hardcover, September 2018), which gathers issues #115–124 and Annual #5–6.