Let’s talk about how the DCEU could conceivably reunite Diana Prince and Steve Trevor in future installations and cause me immense pain.
Spoilers for Wonder Woman, obvs. Now that the movie is a massive success, we know that there will be sequels, and that Gal Gadot and director Patty Jenkins are likely locked in hefty payday negotiations to return. Warner Bros. would be smart to keep hold of the wonderful Chris Pine, who played roguish spy with a heart of gold Steve Trevor (maybe my favorite trope, don’t look at me), and whose low-key yet lovely romance with Diana became the beating heart of the film by the end.
His death was a galvanizing force for Diana to win her final battle as well as a blow struck directly to my emotions from which I will never recover. Not only was Pine’s Trevor a gift that subverted the usual milquetoast love interest, but I think audiences would have trouble accepting any other man in Diana’s life going forward. So let’s bring Steve Trevor back from the dead.
Fortunately, we live in comic book land, and there’s plenty of ways Steve could be returned to Diana. Unfortunately, almost all of them hurt like hell. Let’s suffer together, shall we?
5. The Fountain of Youth.
I recently saw this interesting fan theory while on a spiral of watching YouTube videos about Wonder Woman and interviews where Gal Gadot and Chris Pine smile at each other (so: all of the interviews). (You know you’ve been there.) This theory suggests that when Steve Trevor bathes in the glowing pools at Themyscira, he’s actually being anointed by some magical Amazonian waters. The mythical Fountain has featured in DC Comics before, and while it’s not exactly a part of Greek mythos, Wonder Woman‘s mythology is already such a hodgepodge it wouldn’t be hard to shoehorn this in.
The Greeks had plenty of mystical springs, pools, and rivers of their own if it comes to that. If Steve Trevor had soaked in enchanted waters, he could have been given eternal life/youth and then, maybe, IDK? Fell out of the plane and lost his memory for 100 years? Was blown through a rift in space/time into the future? This is all very Bucky Barnes-esque, but possibly without decades of murderous brain-washing and assassinating people. So, yay! This option isn’t so bad for Diana, Steve, or for me. Bonus points, a Steve who would remain young alongside Diana.
4. Magic.
Wonder Woman has magical heroes and villains baked in, natch, as well as hugely powerful ancient Gods. In past comic incarnations, Steve Trevor has died and been resurrected via otherworldly powers. In one ’70s storyline the Goddess Aphrodite brought him back to life, and just imagine what a Wonder Woman movie could do if they went deeper into the dark mythology of the Greek afterlife—let’s see Diana tangle with Hades to get her man back, or even better, the Queen of the Underworld, Persephone. (BRB writing this script.)
As comicbook.com points out, the “resurrection” angle is an interesting way to go, because it adds a wrinkle to any character—you know, the whole snatched-back-from-death thing. Would Steve feel elated, or cheated out of Elysium? Would there be, as Comicbook asks, “some horrible catch to it?” Very, very rarely in any of the stories that we tell ourselves do people return from the dead unchanged or without some sort of massive consequence. While this method of reunion would see Diana get “her” version of Steve back, which is important to me, there’s also the potential for an incredible amount of angst. Just picture Steve Trevor wandering like a ghost made flesh, brought back to a world–and a time–that he no longer knows.
And of course, some evil sorcerer or fell God could bring Steve back for their own purposes, to have leverage over Diana. Imagine that she’s about to deliver up some deliverance and the villain hisses, “Steve Trevor. He’s alive. I have him.” Why do I do this to myself?
3. Time travel.
Another option always open to us thanks to the nature of Comicslandia is time travel. There’s plenty of groundwork for it in the DCEU, and Diana’s upcoming teammate in Justice League, Barry Allen a.k.a. the Flash, can run right into the past and multiple timelines.
Who’s to say future installations in the DCEU won’t play with time, and either allow Diana to visit Steve in the past or find some means of rescuing him that way. Time certainly became thematic in Steve and Diana’s relationship. Maybe his beloved watch and the words that he left her with was HEAVY-HANDED FORESHADOWING. Now I am in pain again.
However, much as with death, messing with time is generally an extremely tricky narrative device and sets all kinds of stages for Tragedy and Further Sacrifice. While time travel might be a way for Diana and Steve to meet up again for a while at least, it’s hard to imagine a time travel-based story to end happily for them and for the love of Zeus JUST LET THEM BE HAPPY THEY DESERVE TO BE HAPPY.
2. The ancestral Trevor line.
NOPE, NOPE, DO NOT LIKE, ABANDON SHIP. Cinemablend wrote a year ago that Pine may be playing the Steve Trevor that we saw and then one of Steve’s descendants in future films. First of all YUCK, PLEASE NO. Second of all, STOP, YIKES, HOW ABOUT ACTUALLY WE DO NOT DO THIS. Third of all, other than being stupid, this concept is hard to track: so Steve had a secret baby somewhere he forgot to mention to Diana? Or even if it’s, like, Steve’s great-great-nephew, just please hell no.
Please let DCEU learn from the MCU’s mistakes where Captain America is concerned. Steve Rogers and Sharon Carter may work in the comics as a loving couple, but on-screen Emily VanCamp’s Sharon was seriously underdeveloped and as such it’s just weird to see Cap kiss his first love Peggy Carter’s niece for no goddamned earned reason. Avoid the “hey I’m a Trevor with the same exact face” casting, this is insulting and will cause me pain from when I throw my soda at the movie screen and pull a muscle.
1. Clones/the Multiverse.
Ugh, oh nooo, there goes my heart. Bringing back some version of Steve Trevor by introducing a clone of him or finding another Steve from a different universe is great because it means more Chris Pine but terrible because this Steve Trevor would not be, exactly, the Steve Trevor that loved Diana Prince in 1918 and sacrificed everything for her and for the world.
He might have Steve Trevor’s face (which is a good face) and maybe some of his characteristics, but it still wouldn’t be Diana’s Steve–at least not for a long while. A cloned or multiverse Steve would have to prove himself anew and also endear himself to audiences and Diana. It would be an upward battle, full of melodrama and tension as Diana worked alongside a man similar in some ways to the one she cherished but still not ever quite him. And what if a multiverse or clone Steve was a villain? No, that’s too much, it’s too torturous, they wouldn’t do that to Diana or to me. Would they?
Chris Pine is a great actor and if he returns it’s easy to imagine the creators would want to give him some new kind of scenery to chew—and playing a murkier version of Steve would fit the bill.
After all, an earnest clone chasing after Diana isn’t thrilling, but a cool and/or evilish dude who’s, like, part of an alterna-Earth gone wrong (because he never found Diana and helped to stop the war) could work really well. Having to rebuild a dynamic between Diana and a “new” version of Steve Trevor could be satisfying as well as rip-the-still-beating-heart-out-of-my-chest agony.
Honestly, this is one of my least favorite storylines to see play out in fiction unless it’s handled exceptionally well, because it hurts so goddamned much. Most of the time, even superheroes have to accept that dead is dead and their loved one isn’t returning, but to encounter a person with similar characteristics yet who will never be exactly the same promises a world of pain (hi yes hello I am a Captain America fan, all my love to Bucky Barnes).
One of the best things about Diana Prince is that she’s so damned close to invincible and so outwardly confident and collected. Messing with her on the Steve Trevor level seems like one of the only guaranteed ways to get under her skin. If Steve Trevor is a bit like Wonder Woman‘s kryptonite, you can bet we’ll see him being used against her. No, I am not okay, thanks for asking.
Right now, Chris Pine hasn’t said anything definitive about returning, but he certainly hasn’t shut that door. It was reported that he signed onto a multiple contract deal with Warner Bros. (though at the time those additional films didn’t mean Wonder Woman sequels, since the studio idiotically hadn’t planned for them). But now we know we’ll be getting more Wonder Woman, and they would be foolish not to bring Pine back to the project.
I believe at this point it’s not a matter of when we’ll see Steve Trevor’s face again, but when, and why—and how much it will hurt us when he does reappear. Excuse me, I’m off to watch Diana/Steve vids and cry some more and dream up more dreams of these two meeting again.
(pictured: Me)
How would you want to see Steve restored to Diana? What would make you throw soda at the screen?
(via Comicbook.com, images: Warner Bros./DC Comics)
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Published: Jul 3, 2017 01:36 pm