If you’ve seen Wonder Woman, you know that some art plays a big part in relaying the backstory of the film. Now, you can see it online.
In case you were wondering, some Wonder Woman spoilers follow. If you haven’t seen the film, there is discussion of the villain below.
Even though Hippolyta dismisses the story she tells a young Diana about the Greek gods as “just a story,” the original telling is accompanied by some beautiful paintings. Or, more accurately, it’s mostly just one painting, apparently. CBR found that one of the artists has now put the images online.
As noted by Houston Sharp, the artist who made the post, these images did start out as separate pieces. Then they were “stitched together into one massive painting”. A quick download of the file of the whole painting shows its dimensions are 1920 x 710 pixels (making it a not-terrible choice for a wallpaper, though the proportions would understandably be a bit off).
CBR posits that Poseidon may get a mention in future films because of his trident and Aquaman, which makes sense. However, that presumes that Aquaman will somehow have the Trident of Poseidon. If Poseidon was killed while using his trident, as shown in the painting itself, how did it make its way to Atlantis? Or will they write around it by suggesting that Poseidon and Neptune are two different gods? Technically, in mythology, they are separate gods. The Encyclopedia Britannica notes that Neptune started off with a slightly different domain — fresh water.
Really, the gods dying at Ares’ hand puts a damper on the expansion of the mythological side of the DC Extended Universe. The only one who may survive is Hades, because he lives, traditionally, in the underworld, not so much on Mount Olympus.
So, who are the other gods Ares fights and presumably kills in the painting? A good guess for the flaming sword wielder in red is Hephaestus. Although we tend to think of him as the god of the forge, Britannica dubs him the “god of fire,” too. There’s one god wearing yellow; that may be Apollo, as we identify him closely with the sun.
In the first image, we can see someone wielding a longarm with a winged helmet. That’s likely Hermes in the blue with the unshaven face, although it’s usually a hat, not a helmet. The last of the Olympians is Dionysus. That leaves one god, assuming that it’s not Hades. A possible answer is Hercules/Heracles — who does become a god in mythology, and is also usually a god in the comics, too. Let’s assume they fall in the first image of Ares Kills Gods. That leaves rooms for Hades to still be alive.
The evidence is circumstantial at best. However, it seems that, for now, the running theory here at Culturess that Diana may venture to the underworld in a Wonder Woman sequel lives.
Next: 5 things we want in a Wonder Woman sequel
Either way, it’s nice to get a better look at all the effort that went into these images.