This four issue mini series was published under DC’s Black Label brand, which was originally launched as a more mature, adult themed imprint. It allowed creators to push the boundaries with their takes on some of DC’s iconic characters.
‘Wonder Woman: Dead Earth’ was the first story published under the Black Label imprint to feature Wonder Woman and depicts Diana in a post Apocalyptic world following a nuclear war.
Cheetah recounts what happened to the Earth. As it’s precious resources were being stripped by humanity and sea levels rising, even endangering Themyscira, Diana had been sent on a apeace mission to Man’s World to try and find a peaceful solution.
But the humans did not like being preached to and war broke out, culminating in missiles being launched at the Amazon homeland, obliterating it and mutating the surviving Amazons. But the magic that protected the island did manage to deflect many of the missiles before the end and these veered off course and reigned down over the rest of the Earth. As the apocalypse came most of the heroes of the Earth tried to save the population but were either killed or became nomads.
Diana vows to set the world right again and tells Cheetah they need to find the one man that can help – Superman.
Meanwhile Dee decides to set off and find Diana and give her chance to explain, having taken the magic lasso she had found.
Diana and Cheetah arrive at the fortress of Solitude only to find a robot who explains that Superman is dead and that Diana had killed him. It then recounts how Superman has been trying to restore order between the Amazons and Mankind when the missiles reigned down on the island. He had raced to the launch HQ to try and stop them as Hippolyta removes Diana’s bracelets, unleashing her full berserker power so she can try and stop the many missiles approaching.
Diana flies through the skies smashing through them but there are simply too many and she watches in horror as Themyscira, her mother and her sisters are engulfed in the atomic fireball.
As Superman arrives too late to help her, she becomes enraged and blames him. She attacks him and the two powerful heroes fight to the death. The fight takes them all over the Earth, obliterating cities and killing thousands but Diana is oblivious to the destruction she is causing.
They finally end up at the Fortress of Solitude where she uses Kryptonite locked away there to kill the Man of Steel.
Hearing the robot recount this, Diana realises that the end of the world was all her fault.
Dee arrives and using the lasso forces Diana to reveal everything but also shows she genuinely wants to help save the world and its remaining peoples.
With dee’s people almost out of food back at the camp and the Amazons closing in on them, they go to the fortress armoury and load up on weapons. Diana rips the spinal cord out of Superman’s corpse and threading her lasso through it, turns the indestructible bone into a deadly weapon, ready to take on her enemies.
