WW84 Ending Explained: How Wonder Woman 2 Could Change the DCEU

Warning: this article contains full spoilers for Wonder Woman 1984!

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2020 may have been a wasteland as far as new movie releases, but there’s some good news on which to end the year. Wonder Woman 1984 is out now in both theaters and on HBO Max. This sequel continues where the 2017 original left off, as Diana Prince battles Maxwell Lord, Cheetah and the most fearsome villain of them all – 1980’s consumer culture.

If the ending of WW84 left you confused or wondering how the movie fits into the larger tapestry that is the DCEU, fear not. We’re here to break down the sequel and explore how it could wind up having a much bigger impact on DC’s movie multiverse than you might think.

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The Aftermath of Maxwell Lord’s Plot

After Maxwell Lord brings the world to the brink of total annihilation through the power of unchecked wish-granting, Wonder Woman saves the day by making Max and the rest of the world understand the true cost of this power. Diana is able to restore the world to normal (more or less) by convincing everyone to renounce their wishes.

However, there do seem to be lingering effects from Max Lord’s flirtation with godhood. The world still seems to remember everything that happened, which raises all sorts of difficult questions we’ll touch on in our upcoming “Wonder Woman 1984′s 7 Biggest WTF Questions” piece. And for at least one character, life doesn’t appear to be reverting to normal.

The last we see of Barbara Ann Minerva, she’s seemingly reverted to human form and survived her violent clash with Wonder Woman. However, it’s unclear whether Barbara Ann actually renounced her wish. While she may have lost her secondary set of powers granted by Lord, she may still possess the strength and agility she gained from her original wish. Or perhaps she can switch between her human and feline forms now.

Cheetah’s status quo has always been in flux in the comics, from her powers to the fact that multiple women and men have taken up the mantle. The door is certainly open for Cheetah to remain an antagonist in future Wonder Woman or Justice League sequels. Whether or not she still has powers, we doubt her jealousy of Diana’s gifts has faded.

Which also begs the question – how many other people across the world didn’t rescind their wish? Are there other humans who might now have extraordinary powers thanks to Maxwell Lord? Will Wonder Woman 1984 serve as a backdoor origin story for more DC villains? Only time will tell on that front.

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Does WW84 Have a Post-Credits Scene?

Short answer: yes, Wonder Woman 1984 has an after-credits sequence, and it answers a small question you may have been left with while watching the movie as well as features a fan-favorite cameo appearance.

Wonder Woman 1984 features a small but important subplot where Diana dons the golden eagle armor of a fallen Amazonian warrior named Asteria. Asteria held the line for her fellow Amazons when they retreated from the outside world, seemingly sacrificing her life so her sisters could make it safely to Themyscira. Diana tells Steve she spent years searching for Asteria after the events of the original movie. Diana did find Asteria’s armor, but not her body.

WW84 features an end credits scene that ties up the Asteria loose end. We see a cloaked figure who seems to be Diana walking through the street and rescuing a young girl from a falling telephone pole. It turns out this savior isn’t Wonder Woman, but Asteria, played by none other than Wonder Woman TV series star Lynda Carter. Like the Arrowverse before it, the DCEU is paying homage to DC’s live-action movie/TV past by bringing back iconic actors in new cameo roles. It turns out Asteria wasn’t killed saving her sisters, but instead went into hiding and has been protecting the innocent ever since.

The golden eagle armor has it roots in the DC comic book universe. Art by Paul Renaud. (Image Credit: DC)
The golden eagle armor has it roots in the DC comic book universe. Art by Paul Renaud. (Image Credit: DC)

Sidebar – this armor is directly inspired by an Alex Ross-designed costume introduced in the 1996 graphic novel Kingdom Come, which features older versions of Wonder Woman and her fellow Justice Leaguers struggling to deal with the rise of a newer, more violent generation of heroes. That armor later made its way into the present-day DCU in writer Gail Simone’s Wonder Woman run.

Speaking of which, this isn’t the first time Carter has appeared in a recent live-action DC project. She also played a recurring role on The CW’s Supergirl as President Olivia Marsdin, an alien disguised in human form. Her brief appearance as Asteria is now her third time playing a DC character. HBO Max also just debuted the Lynda Carter’s Wonder Woman series two days before WW84’s release, so clearly they’re also hoping everyone is sticking around for the Wonder Woman 1984 mid-credits sequence and understand the reference.

A Bridge to the DC Multiverse?

On the surface, Wonder Woman 1984 seems like a fairly self-contained movie without much bearing on the larger DCEU. That’s more or less been DC’s approach ever since 2018’s Aquaman, and it makes sense for a film specifically set decades before the events of Man of Steel and Batman v Superman. However, the ending to WW84 has some intriguing implications for the future of the DCEU. Could the fallout of Maxwell Lord’s failed plot and the surprise Lynda Carter cameo be a small taste of things to come for this shared universe?

As we’ve explored, the movie is purposefully vague as to whether Barbara Ann still has her Cheetah powers. But the possibility is certainly there. And there’s still the question of how many other people across the world refused to give up their wishes. Just how many far-reaching changes have been introduced as a result of WW84? Could these wishes be used as a catalyst for introducing other DC villains? We could see other major Wonder Woman rogues like Doctor Psycho and Giganta or even Batman villains like Deathstroke or Joker having origin stories rooted in the events of WW84. Much like how the Arrowverse relies heavily on the STAR Labs particle accelerator explosion of 2014 as the catalyst for its metahuman characters, WW84 could be the foundation on which countless heroes and villains are built.

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We also have to wonder whether Wonder Woman 1984 might work hand-in-hand with 2022’s The Flash in broadening the the DCEU and building to a true big screen DC multiverse. The Flash has long been rumored to be based on 2011’s Flashpoint, a story wherein Barry Allen screws up the DC timeline after travelling back to save his mother. The Flash is reportedly dabbling in the DC movie multiverse with the return of Michael Keaton’s Batman, a move that seems primed to truly open the doors of the multiverse.

WW84’s ending doesn’t necessarily make a lot of sense in the larger context of the DCEU, but maybe that’s the point. Warner Bros. is clearly trying to find a different direction for this cinematic universe, one that focuses less on strict continuity between films and more on celebrating multiple incarnations of iconic heroes. That’s why Robert Pattinson is starring in a Batman reboot even as Ben Affleck and Michael Keaton’s Batmen are both appearing in The Flash. Together, WW84 and The Flash may be part of a concerted effort to change the scope of the DCEU and allow for a much wider assortment of heroes and villains.

And with Carter playing a small role in WW84, we can only hope some future DCEU movie will allow her to reprise her classic version of Diana Prince. If not, what’s the point of a superhero multiverse in the first place?

For more on WW84 and all things DC, find out what worried director Patty Jenkins the most about the movie and see everything coming to HBO Max in January 2021.

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Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.

Every GameSpot Game Of The Year (1996-2020)

Since the late ’90s, GameSpot has awarded Game of the Year to the one game each year that stood above the rest. After crowning our Game of the Year 2020, we decided to look back on our history and reflect on every game we decided was the best of the best.

From classics like Diablo and The Sims and blockbuster action titles like Resident Evil 4 and Gears of War, to peaceful meditations like Journey and competitive shooters like Overwatch–our GOTY award is an annual celebration of the diverse experiences video games can offer us.

Here’s every game we’ve awarded Game of the Year in GameSpot’s entire history.

Wonder Woman 1984: Is There A Post-Credits Scene? We Explain The Ending

After a handful of major release date delays, Wonder Woman 1984 is finally here–and you don’t even have to leave the comfort of your home to watch it. It’s streaming on HBO Max for the price of a subscription.

Chances are, if you’ve already made time to watch, you’ve got a few questions about the ending and what it all might mean for the DCEU moving forward. Or, maybe you’re just a spoiler-hound looking for all the answers before you even sit down to see the movie through. We’re not here to judge you if that’s the case, but we will get into the ending here so, naturally, massive spoilers for WW84 from here on out. Consider yourself warned.

WW84 is all about that classic ’80s materialism gone horribly, magically awry with the aid of an artifact called the “dreamstone,” a magical crystal created by beings Diana calls gods–or, more specifically, a being called the “Duke of Deception,” who made the stone to–surprise!–deceive people. The stone caused the downfall of many civilizations with wishes gone sour and now it’s threatening to do the same to the entire world thanks to Max Lord, who wished to become the dreamstone himself.

Poor Max quickly gets in over his head as the physical need to grant more and more ill-fated wishes takes over his life, pivoting his relatively simple scheme to position his dead-in-the-water company, Black Gold Collective, as an oil superpower, into a full-blown global catastrophe. With mutually assured total destruction knocking at the doorstep of the planet, and Max needing more and more wishes to sustain himself, he turns to a top secret government satellite system that allows him to beam himself onto every TV on the planet, simultaneously. He pulls this off and begins his final push, demanding that every human who hasn’t already made a wish, wish for something–all while Diana, naturally, tries to stop him.

With her own wish, the resurrection of Steve Trevor, rescinded, she’s got the powers to fight–which is good, because Max has a bit of an ace up his sleeve. Diana’s former coworker Barbara Minerva made a wish to be just like Diana–powers and all–at the price of her own humanity. This cost became literal after Barbara teamed up with Max himself and she physically transformed into the “apex predator” she wanted to be–Cheetah. Barbara’s story took her from a mild mannered dweeb to a full on villain, even after Diana tried to reason with her about revoking her wish for the good of humanity, and that’s where we find her at the end. Fully transformed, Barbara is willing to go toe-to-toe with Diana to protect Max on his mission to grant the entire world’s wishes, even if it means destroying everything in the process.

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Unfortunately for both of them, Barbara never acquiesces and is beaten into unconsciousness by Diana–she doesn’t die, of course, but she is left extremely worse for wear as Diana continues on to face Lord directly.

Now, fighting Lord is a tricky thing–he’s not actually that much of a physical threat himself, but with the power of the dreamstone and the world’s endless cascade of wishes being broadcast to him, he’s almost untouchable, meaning Diana has to take an alternative approach. Rather than simply knocking Lord out, she is sneakily able to hijack his broadcast and make an impassioned plea to the world: Everyone must recant their wishes in order for the consequences to stop compounding on one another.

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It may seem like a very simple solution on paper–all anyone needs to do is to say that they revoke their wish out loud and the wish will be broken–but it proves to be much harder in practice. After all, even with their wishes hurting everyone around them, so many people have been given what they so desperately want, and they have to grapple with how much they’re willing to pay.

Thankfully, the looming threat of complete nuclear annihilation coupled with Diana’s speech is enough to make a strong case, and together, the planet–and Lord himself, finally seeing the error of his short-cut to power–turn their backs on their wishes, allowing things to return to (relative) normalcy. Nuclear warheads disappear, wars started by sudden land-grabs made by rulers end, everything that the dreamstone created to plunge the world further and further into chaos winds up vanishing or reverting back to the way it was.

Lord, too, revokes his own wish, which frees him from the dreamstone’s power and gives him a chance to actually reconnect with his son, who he had nearly abandoned in his crazed, wish-fueled state. Interestingly, we don’t see Lord actually face any real consequences for his actions and it’s not totally clear if any of his victims actually remember what he did or how–but, like Cheetah, he’s definitely still alive and potentially able to make a return for Wonder Woman 3.

And speaking of a potential Wonder Woman 3–we should talk about that stinger, which featured the reveal of none other than Asteria–the legendary Amazon that Diana explained as the original owner of the golden armor. Not only is Asteria alive, and in the world of men, she’s also played by original Wonder Woman actor, Lynda Carter.

Now, this could obviously just be a cute meta-comment about the Wonder Woman legacy, but it does pose some interesting questions and possibilities for the future. What has Asteria been doing this whole time? How has she remained hidden? Does anyone know she’s alive, and will Diana ever learn? We may never find out–but it’s certainly interesting to theorize.

While we’re on the subject of theories, we should also spend some time thinking about what any of this might mean for the future of the DCEU at large–though it will come as no surprise to hear that it’s hard to say for sure. Interestingly, in DC Comics lore, the dreamstone has connections to another, significantly more esoteric branch of the multiverse: Dream of the Endless, otherwise known as the Sandman. It seems somewhat unlikely, given the backstory invented for the movie about a “god” and another extremely minor character in the DC pantheon–the Duke of Deception–that the on-screen dreamstone is meant to play a role in slowly seeding the introduction to The Endless or the Sandman mythology into the DCEU, but it’s not something we should totally discount.

After all, there’s a live-action Sandman TV show headed to Netflix in the near future meaning characters like Dream, AKA Morpheus, are about to have their moment in the spotlight, and, given the fluid nature of continuity between DC’s many movies and TV shows with multiple incarnations of characters existing simultaneously, it doesn’t seem entirely off the table.

For the uninitiated, Dream and the Endless are esoteric, god-like beings who govern over human emotions and concepts like desire, death, and delirium. They haven’t always existed in the same corner of the DC multiverse as say, the Justice League, but they do intersect from time to time. The Endless are typically heroic allies, or at the very least true neutral forces in whatever cosmic goings-on are afoot, so if they are brought into the DCEU, it would make sense for them to be slowly built up in the background of movies with more pressing and obvious conflicts at first.

Another interesting possibility is the reference to the Duke of Deception–a name very offhandedly dropped during Diana’s explanation of the dreamstone–being a potential hint to more of Diana’s gods coming into play in the future. In the comics, the Duke is a favorite minion of Ares, who Diana already defeated back in the first Wonder Woman, but he’s also been known to work with Circe, another god Diana has tangled with on more than one occasion. If there is a third Wonder Woman movie in the works, Circe might be a good bet for the big bad.

Now Playing: Wonder Woman 1984 Review: Even Better Than The Original

Wonder Woman 1984: Every DC Reference And Easter Egg You Missed

Wonder Woman 1984: Every DC Reference And Easter Egg You Missed – GameSpot

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Disclosure: ViacomCBS is GameSpot’s parent company


Nintendo Switch eShop Is Down for Some Players on Christmas

If you just received a new Nintendo Switch for the holidays and can’t connect to the eShop to download new games, you aren’t alone. Nintendo has announced that it is “aware that players are experiencing errors accessing Nintendo eShop, and are working to address the issue as soon as possible.”

Nintendo took to Twitter to give the news and also said “Thank you for your understanding, and please see our Network Status page for the latest updates.” You can click here to check the status of the Nintendo eShop, and we will update this article when services appear to be working again.

Screenshot_2020-12-25 Nintendo of America on Twitter

As of this writing, when you go to Nintendo’s Network Maintenance Information page, it has a notice that players could be receiving when trying to access the eShop that says, “Unable to connect to the network service. Please try again later. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.”

Considering today is Christmas, the cause of these network issues could very well be the many new Nintendo Switch consoles that were opened today or those with gift cards trying to purchase new games.

As previously mentioned, we will update this article as soon as we hear the problems are fixed. Until then, be sure to check out our list of the top 25 Switch games to give you an idea what you can play this holiday season and beyond.

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Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to [email protected].

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.

Wonder Woman 1984: How Did Chris Pine’s Steve Trevor Come Back?

One of the biggest mysteries surrounding Wonder Woman 1984 has been the return of Chris Pine’s Steve Trevor, a character who heroically sacrificed his life back in the first Wonder Woman film, set during World War I. In the trailers, however, we’ve been able to clearly see that Steve is back and seemingly completely fine here in the ’80s, with Diana showing him around and cracking all sorts of jokes about everything that’s changed for him.

In our review, we singled out the much-needed feel good message of the film–which of course, includes Steve’s arc in the movie. “Wonder Woman 1984 features some cheesy-looking CGI effects and some even cheesier messages. But it’s also an improvement on the original in some key ways–where the first movie concluded with Wonder Woman literally punching the anthropomorphized concept of War in the face, WW84’s climactic showdown is much more nuanced. The message–that every individual person on the planet has a shared responsibility for the common good–gets slightly muddled in the end, but it’s also the exact one we need right now. And Wonder Woman 1984 is the exact film you’ll want to sit down and watch with family, friends, and loved ones this holiday–even if you’re doing so over Zoom.”

Now, comic book stories are no stranger to resurrection plots and death defying schemes, so Steve’s return isn’t completely out of left field given the source material–but the question remained: How, exactly, did he do it? And, more importantly, why did it happen?

The good news is we now have those answers. Wonder Woman 1984 has hit select theaters and HBO Max. So let’s break down exactly what happened to return Steve Trevor from beyond the grave–major WW84 spoilers ahead, obviously.

As it turns out, Steve’s resurrection came from the movie’s big McGuffin–the Dream Stone–which, like the name suggests, grants people’s wishes if they touch it, for a price. The Dream Stone causes all sorts of chaos once it’s absorbed by Max Lord, but before that happens, Diana gets her chance with it and–somewhat accidentally–wishes for Steve back.

This actually happens, of course–but Steve doesn’t literally materialize from beyond the grave. He possesses the body of a living man, meaning that when he finds Diana, she doesn’t actually recognize him at first. This problem is quickly solved when he proves it’s him and she (and we, the viewers) begin to see him for who he actually is. But this is just a trick of the eye, or the camera as it were, because everyone else surrounding Diana still sees this random stranger.

Resurrected Steve even has access to the stranger’s apartment–he “woke up” there, despite knowing he was “somewhere else” for a while before Diana’s wish, which could potentially allude to one of DC’s many versions of heaven or an afterlife existing in the DCEU. The implications here are a little dark–the man Steve’s spirit is inhabiting clearly had a whole life all his own that Steve basically hijacked, but that’s not the most pressing issue at hand. Diana’s wish cost her her Amazonian abilities, meaning she spends every day with Steve progressively getting weaker and more human, which is a real problem considering the threat that people like Max Lord begin to pose.

Ultimately, Steve’s resurrection proves to be too selfish for either of them and he winds up begging Diana to rescind her wish, undoing his miraculous revival and returning her powers–it’s the same sort of tragic final moments we had back in the first movie all over again, with the two of them having just enough time to really say goodbye before coming to the mutual understanding that this just isn’t going to work out for anyone.

But at least the man Steve took over gets to go back to his own life–it doesn’t make the situation any less sad, but at least it is a little bit of a silver lining.

Wonder Woman 1984 is currently streaming on HBO Max.