Helena Sandsmark
44 years ago - Helena Sandsmark is born in South Dakota
26 years ago - 18-year-old Helena Sandsmark studies anthropology at Gateway University.
22 years ago - 22-year-old Helena Sandsmark graduates and becomes a grad student.
19 years ago - 25-year-old Helena Sandsmark earns her masters in anthropology. She begins working towards her doctorate, focusing on the history of the Amazons. She is published for the first time
15 years ago - 29-year-old Helena Sandsmark earns her doctorate.
12 years ago - 32-year-old Helena Sandsmark first meets Diana Prince as a student at Gateway University. They start to work together to explore the Amazon’s relationship with the outside world.
11 years ago - 32-year-old Helena Sandsmark opens her home, giving Donna Troy somewhere to stay as she attends Gateway University.
9 years ago - 35-year-old Helena Sandsmark assists in the opening of Diana Prince's new Themysciran embassy, taking a position on it's board.
6 years ago - 38-year-old Helena Sandsmark helps Diana Prince to find and recover the lost Amazons.
4 years ago - 40-year-old Helena Sandsmark is granted permission to visit Themyscira while working on her book. Her daughter Cassie Sandsmark steals everal Amazonian artifacts to become Wonder Girl. When she returns them, she manages to gain an audience with Zeus & impresses him, gaining her powers. Diana Prince, Artemis & Nubia agree to help train her on Themyscira. When Cissie King-Jones decides to emancipate herself from Bonnie King, she accompanies her and supports her.
Wonder Woman has undergone a whole series of paradigm shifts from one writer to the next over the decades, but there has to be something to it when two different writers create two different supporting characters that basically play the same role. If nothing else, it clearly means that that role is an important one, so let's find our best version of the character that will play that role.
Helena Sandsmark's Comic HistoryWhen we originally met Wonder Woman's first female friend in man's word it was Julia Kapatelis, in George Perez's Wonder Woman #3 in 1987, a Harvard professor and expert in Greek history and language. She would go on to become a mentor and surrogate mother figure, and her daughter Vanessa would go on to become the post-crisis Silver Swan.
Later, during John Byrne's run on the series, Diana is referred by Julia for a job at the Gateway Museum, where we meet Helena Sandsmark, the museum curator. She is also an expert on Greek history and Language, but she is notably younger, and her relationship with her teenage daughter Cassandra set up Diana to have a slightly more big-sisterly relationship with both of them. As Cassandra went on to become the new Wonder Girl, Helena became a regularly occurring character in both Wonder Woman and Young Justice, where she proved to be the most responsible and reliable of the parents of the team members, much to Cassandra's chagrin... Stepping up hard to support Arrowette as she confronts her own mother. |
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Our Helena StorySo the comparisons here are obvious; both Julia and Helena are befriended by Diana, they are both reliable experts in the history of Greece, specifically as it pertains to it's mythology and the Amazons specifically. They are both mothers, and their daughters both have relationships with Diana, although it's fair to say one of them goes considerably smoother.
The differences are actually a little harder to spot? It's really more in execution; Julia was clearly meant to be a mentor, while Helena was more of a friend, and a way to bring in a new Wonder Girl. If anything, I think it's possible that John Byrne's known penchant for ignoring existing continuity and inventing his own might have come into play here. In either case, I think the course of action is clear. We're going to just use Helena and Cassandra, but make Helena a part of Diana's story from the beginning, letting her fill the same mentor role. We've specifically made her an anthropologist with a doctoral focus on the Amazons, making her absolutely indispensable. |