Her little spells matter as much as the giant weapons

Her little spells matter as much as the giant weapons One thing I wanted to get into more is how often Diana's magic is practical. She isn't just throwing bigger attacks until something dies. In the maze she needs light, a way out for the prisoners, something to help Ferdinand, and a way to keep the flowers from scrambling her senses. Those are different problems, and she handles them differently. The flowers are a good example of what can go wrong. In #11 she can't trust what she's seeing, and even her speech seems distorted. She knows that fighting an enemy she can't properly perceive could mean hurting an innocent person. So she actually puts the sword down. She takes out a small stoppered vial and appeals to Athena to let her perceive what's truly there. The page combines the vial, the prayer and the casting gesture. It doesn't hand us a neat ingredient list or give the spell a name, so I wouldn't pretend we have either. What matters is that she treats her perception as the problem she has to solve before she starts swinging again. Then there's the flashback with the hydra. As a child, she enchants a stone so the creature will be drawn to it. But the lesson changes: retrieve the stone without using magic. Diana gets her axe, makes a bargain with the hydra, and leaves the axe with it until she brings the stone back. The point isn't that she has a spell for absolutely everything. She has to know when a spell isn't the answer. Back in the maze she lights a torch with an incantation. She prepares to protect herself from the flowers and heal Ferdinand. For the escape she gives Io a small glowing object with a specific instruction: break it against the wall marked for Hecate, and it will make a doorway to Diana's home in Gateway City. Io does not need to become a witch to use it. Diana has already made the tool and explained how to activate it. She also warns them not to wait around for her, because Clea could follow. It is an escape route, not a portal that automatically knows who the good people are. Ferdinand's treatment is another separate piece of work. Diana throws a green vial so it breaks by him and casts as the green light reaches him. He breaks his restraints and says he feels strong. That supports a healing/restorative effect in this scene. It does not establish unlimited healing, resurrection, or a permanent strength upgrade. The enchanted stone in #12 may be my favorite small example. She gives it instructions to find Io and close the way behind her when she leaves. It glows and moves ahead of Ferdinand, who is told to follow it. That is a little magical object doing a very specific job while Diana stays behind to deal with Clea. And she immediately tells us that this used the last of her magical reserves. There is an actual limit here. She can't keep casting forever just because she's Wonder Woman. Poseidon's trident is an ally, not just another spear The trident's introduction makes more sense when you follow the pieces. In #11 Diana senses a presence in the maze. It speaks to her and explains that it is incomplete. She offers to help make it whole. Clea's staff contains the missing piece. After Clea stabs Diana through the torso, Diana pulls the staff out and throws it down the shaft. Blue energy comes back up, and the restored trident reaches her hand. That blue presence isn't Diana leaving her body. It belongs to the weapon she is helping restore. Diana explicitly calls it the Trident of Poseidon in #12, and says it has a mind of its own. Their purposes line up at that moment. That matters more than treating it like loot she picked up and now owns forever. She feels the weapon's power throughout her body, and it even communicates information about Clea to her. When Diana tells it to be many, the thrown weapon becomes a spread of luminous attacks against the menfish. We also see her use it in a broad circular sweep of energy. There's a detail worth keeping straight about the flood. She didn't conjure the Pacific Ocean into the maze. She specifically says she used no magic for that part. She made a hole, with the trident helping her do it, and the actual ocean came in. The weapon gives her a way to change the fight without pretending she just cast an ocean-creation spell. She then leads Clea and the menfish toward the water and freedom instead of simply executing them. Also, Diana has already exhausted her own casting reserves before this part of the fight, but she can still wield the trident. Her spellcasting reserve and her ability to use a divine weapon aren't presented as exactly the same thing. The comic doesn't give us a numerical power system, but it does show that distinction. What the armor does and doesn't prove The armor is not a reason to describe her as untouchable. Clea's staff goes through her torso while she is armored. In the following arc she wears a full crested helmet and a furred cloak or shoulder covering over her armor, but the energy creature still beats her badly. We can describe the equipment we actually see without inventing a special metal, enchantment or resistance for each piece. She uses a long double-ended bladed polearm against the energy creature and addresses her weapon as a trusted friend. There is magical light around the weapon, but the early attacks barely slow the creature down. Against Gaia's living roots she calls for the weapon again and begins cutting, then realizes that attacking the earth is a terrible way to ask its goddess for help. She stops. These scenes are useful because they show the limits of solving a magical problem with a weapon, even when the person holding it is immensely powerful.