Wonder Woman 1984's New Look Explained

The real history behind Diana's new armour...

Wonder Woman 1984 New Armour
Warner Bros.

The first trailer for Wonder Woman 1984 dropped on Sunday, and with it came our first look at one of two new costumes Gal Gadot will sport in the DC sequel.

A follow-up to Patty Jenkins' 2017 hit, Wonder Woman '84 sees Diana continuing her life in Man's World a full seven decades on from her first mission to destroy Ares in World War I. Steve Trevor has somehow returned (with Chris Pine again reprising his role), while the film's two main antagonists look set to be Maxwell Lord (Pedro Pascal) and Cheetah (Kristen Wiig).

The world's changed, and so too has Diana's sense of dress; her original costume is brighter, and those who caught the first trailer will also have noticed she's wearing a new set of armour near the end - gold from head to toe. Hardcore comics fans will probably have picked up something else though, and that's that the costume in question actually comes from a specific comic - namely Mark Waid and Alex Ross' Kingdom Come.

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Wonder Woman Kingdom Come Armour
DC Comics/Alex Ross

While it's highly unlikely that Kingdom Come will influence Wonder Woman '84, the decision to take visual cues from the comic will come as a pleasant surprise to fans. Ross' work is fairly legendary, and Kingdom Come was where the artist was really allowed to flex his muscles, with the comic providing a whole host of new designs for iconic characters like Batman, Superman, and of course Wonder Woman among others.

Again, it's doubtful that Jenkins' sequel will take any narrative cues from the comic (which revolves around a semi-dystopian reality where the Golden Age heroes of yore are deposed by a more violent generation of vigilantes), but it's still pretty great to see it represented in live action all the same. What's more is that Ross' redesign of Superman will also be appearing in The CW's Crisis on Infinite Earths, some 23 years after it debuted in his and Waids' comic.

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Could interest in Kingdom Come spark an adaptation of sorts? One can only hope...

DCEU Quiz: Who Said It, Aquaman Or Wonder Woman?

Justice League Aquaman
Warner Bros.

1. “What One Does When Faced With The Truth Is More Difficult Than You’d Think."

Content Producer/Presenter

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.