Wonder Woman's powers [movie spoilers]

[metaphysician]

The impression I got was that, a lot of the stuff she was doing in the final battle? Was using her own divine power to redirect and control energies launched at her, by Ares. She probably can't throw lightning bolts of her own, but if you send tons of divine power at her, she can fling it back. This fits with her general divine specialty being "defense".

Which, btw, I don't actually think the deflection is artifact-based. She did the crossed-bracers trick before she "borrowed" the artifact armor. I suspect that she can use any suitable object to perform her supernatural parries.

 

[Wanda Detroit]

From what I saw she wasn't flying, just hovering and do high jumps.

You miss it then. Hovering alone suggest she has the ability but hasn't mastered it.

 

[Dark Raven]

Apparently the Lasso of Truth was not created as a Lasso of Truth by William Moulton Marston according to "Wonder Woman Psychology: Lassoing the Truth" by Travis Langley and Mara Wood.

"Most readers are doubtless familiar with Wonder Woman's Lasso of Truth. The fact that this lasso, which compels absolute truthfulness, was created by the inventor of the lie detector (or at least an important component of it) makes for a fantastic bit of trivia. Unfortunately, it's not entirely true. When Marston was writing Wonder Woman, she did not have a Lasso of Truth. She had a magical lasso with numerous powers, primarily with the ability to make those it encircled obey her commands. This ability to compel obedience derived from the goddess Aphrodite's power to make others submit to her will. Wonder Woman could use this ability to make others tell the truth, but this was always in the context of their obeying her. There was no inherent compulsion for truthfulness.

There seems to be some debate about when the lasso of truth, with which modern readers are familiar, became a Lasso of Truth. It was never called by that name during Marston's tenure, and he never described it as being linked exclusively to truthfulness. The modern form of the lasso first appeared after the universe-shaping events of Crisis on Infinite Earths in the 1980s. Though they may have coined the name "Lasso of Truth", it seems that neither writer George Potter nor artist George Perez ever actually invented a lie detector."

 

[Flemm]

The smiting of Ares was very Zeus-like.

I'm sure that was by design.

I'm not sure how they might develop that further in the future, though.

 

[storyteller]

Patty said bullets can kill her but it will be tough.

While Superman, if you don't have kryptonite, he is virtually unstoppable like Doomsday.

Hmmm but can her sword affect Superman?? I thought it only cut Doomsday because he was just made and his hand did grew back. While Superman has over 30 years absorbing the yellow sun which made him more powerful than Zod and the other kryptonians and should be more invulnerable than Doomsday. Just a theory.

Unless this Supes also has a weakness with magical weapons and attacks and that is to say if the weapons of the Amazons are considered magical.

Comic wise Superman is less resistant to magic then he would be to non magical attacks. Her sword if it's indeed a magic blade should be able to cut him like Doomsday. Of course Doomsday be more vulnerable but can heal much faster.

If the blade isn't magic then Superman should be okay.

Now Superman's time one earth in the film I don't think made him more powerful outside of training. Then again he get's stabbed in the chest and may come back on his own power. Zod stayed dead.

Now in MOS some high yield missiles did put him down for a few minutes. Didn't hurt him but did slow him down. We know a nuke could possibly kill him if he doesn't have the sun to juice him up.

But yeah from what I saw from Wonder Woman in BVS and WW, she could probably take him on in the short term but by no means last unless she taps into god magic.

 

[The Guard]

I like that the last shot is basically messing with the audience about whether she can fly.

 

[coluanprime]

I hope she can fly. It always annoys me when writers nerf her compared to Superman.

 

[metaphysician]

Eh, be fair, in the movie context, she trades out some of the traditional Superman-like abilities, for a good double handful of other more distinct powers. While making her weaker than Superman is dubious, making her *different* from Superman is much less so.

 

[DieSmiling]

I wasn't convinced that she was actually flying, as it seemed more like a mega super-jump, especially at first, but will be definitely be glad if WW flies in JL. And it'd be extra awesome if she used her lasso while flying, like in JL/JLU.

That was my impression too. It felt like she could do massive jumps and almost glide but wasn't truly flying. I'm okay with it either way to be honest.

 

[Osiris-Rex]

I think that she's incredibly durable, but it does seem as though their approach is that she's susceptible to bullets and presumably other projectiles and possibly sharp weapons (e.g. Cheetah's claws). I think that's okay. It does make her ever so slightly more relatable and it is more heroic for her to be out there fighting baddies when she actually has something to lose. Still, being a demigoddess, I'd suspect that any death wouldn't necessarily be permanent (e.g. Ares returned, although he was a full god). And you'd still have to somehow overpower Diana in the first place to actually make her physically vulnerable.

I think that she's plenty strong. Whether deliberate or not, Diana was holding the tank like it was made of cardboard in the end. Maybe an ocean liner would be a struggle, but I don't think many other things would pose a real challenge in terms of strength. She could probably balance the Batmobile on her pinkie finger.

It's interesting that in the Wonder Woman TV show, she was far less powerful in terms of physical strength. (Obviously due to budget constraints and the less sophisticated special effects of the time)
But in one episode she is shot in the shoulder from behind, and so not getting a chance to deflect the bullet, which causes her to double over in pain. She is then helped out of the room by her sister.
Once outside she smiles and says she is perfectly fine, the bullet didn't hurt her. It was only a ploy so that a soldier who thought he was a coward could show his bravery by stepping in to defend her.
Anyway to make a long story short, thereby establishing that bullets can't harm that Wonder Woman even if she doesn't deflect them with her bracelets.

 

[metaphysician]

In the movie, I got the impression that shooting her would inflict a flesh wound, but it'd quickly heal. To kill her with gunfire would either need a really big gun, or a *lot* of guns continuously.

( Though it did annoy me how much the guns were magic wands of instadeath in the initial attack on Themiscyra. You gals are all pulling 300-style low level superhuman warrior crap, and yet you die to bullets even more quickly than real world humans do? Really? )

 

[AVEITWITHJAMON]

I think in regards to her strength and some other powers she is a bit like Superman in MOS. She won't know how powerful she is until she keeps testing her limits. Superman started MOS seemingly less strong than by the end. Same with Diana.

 

[Iceman]

Yeah it's one of the newer additions to her powerset.

I kind of like it.

 

[righthooksrus86]

I loved towards the end of the first battle scene when she starts using the lasso of truth. That was one of the most bada$$ things I've seen in any superhero movie, her theme song playing in the background made that scene perfect imo.

 

[The Endless]

I liked how her powers seemed to grow as the film went on. Towards the beginning she seemed to be just a bit above Captain America levels. Then at the end she's god level.

I loved the end when she seemed to get a "power-up" from love and speed blitzed the German soldiers. Awesome moment.

As far as durability goes... Well it's like the comics. She's incredibly resistant to blunt force trauma, but her skin can still be pierced by swords or bullets.

 

[MydnightPhoenix]

That was my impression too. It felt like she could do massive jumps and almost glide but wasn't truly flying. I'm okay with it either way to be honest.

That's what I thought as well. With her impressive jumps there s no need for her to fly IMO. Leave that for Superman and let her have the better combat skills.

I do have a question about the no mans land scene; she kept deflecting the bullets but they all seemed to be coming at her head. In your opinion wouldn't the gunmen eventually try to aim where she can't deflect? Or is the armor on her torso also bullet proof?

 

[Milk Tray Guy]

I like that the last shot is basically messing with the audience about whether she can fly.

I thought exactly the same thing!

 

[AnneFan]

I loved the sequence of Diana climbing the wall by punching into it. That emphasised to the audience early on that we were dealing with a very strong individual.

 

[Osiris-Rex]

That's what I thought as well. With her impressive jumps there s no need for her to fly IMO. Leave that for Superman and let her have the better combat skills.

When Superman was created he couldn't fly either. He could just jump really high, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. He only started flying in the Fleischer cartoons because flying was easier to animate than realistic looking jumping. In the WW TV series WW also couldn't fly, just jump real high, ironically because it was cheaper just to show her jumping that create special effects showing her flying. Though they did do some scenes with the invisible airplane. But those were rather few. I think they probably started flying Wonder Woman because they wanted to make her more on par with Superman, not that there was any real reason Wonder Woman should be able to fly. At least they didn't give her heat vision. So I too prefer not turning Wonder Woman into a Superman clone by having her fly

I do have a question about the no mans land scene; she kept deflecting the bullets but they all seemed to be coming at her head. In your opinion wouldn't the gunmen eventually try to aim where she can't deflect? Or is the armor on her torso also bullet proof?

I was in the military and we were taught to aim for the center of the target. In the heat of battle you aren't thinking, you are just reacting, so you do what you were trained to do. To me it looked like a lot of
the shots seemed to be body shots. That's why the shield was deflecting a lot of the bullets. It was in effect giving a bunch of frightened, confused soldiers a target to aim at.

 

[Flemm]

It confuses me that some fans seem to have doubts about WW flying.

I thought it was clear that flight is one of the powers that emerges gradually over the course of the movie, and that she will fly in future appearances.

But anyway, we shall see.

 

[Micromind]

In "Tower of Babel" comic, where Batman is preparing how to take down JL members by studying their weakness, I like how his files says "No known weakness" for WW.

It becomes difficult for Batman to prepare a plan for her.

 

[AnneFan]

In "Tower of Babel" comic, where Batman is preparing how to take down JL members by studying their weakness, I like how his files says "No known weakness" for WW.

It becomes difficult for Batman to prepare a plan for her.

She's essentially Superman without a Kryptonite allergy.

 

[Longshot777]

She's essentially Superman without a Kryptonite allergy.

If she is THEN why does she need the bracelets and shield even in JL where she had over a hundreds years to grow her powers???

Even Patty said she could be killed by mere bullets but she can still survive when she heals from them. But bullets can slow her down if she takes a direct hit.

Unlike Superman where bullets easily bounce off, it takes a nuclear missile to halt his assault.

 

[Primal Slayer]

She also doesn't have super breath/heat eyes/x-ray vision/as fast as Supes.

The only powers they share is the super strength/flight which plenty of characters share.

 

[Dark Raven]

WW does have super breath. She breathed new life into the DCEU.