This article contains Zack Snyder’s Justice League spoilers.
She’s the only League member left in an uncertain place. During a triumphant montage in Zack Snyder’s Justice League epilogue—a sequence which likely would’ve closed out the film before 2020’s reshoots added extra scenes—nearly all the heroes appear at peace. Superman finally gets the iconic shirt-rip; Batman stands on the Bat-tank from The Dark Knight Returns, looking into the night; and Cyborg grieves his father. But Wonder Woman? Gal Gadot’s beloved superhero is in an ambiguous place in her signoff.
When last we see Wonder Woman, Diana Prince stands once again before the Temple of the Amazons, the ancient Greek site where her mother Queen Hippolyta (Connie Nielsen) aimed the flaming arrow of Artemis during ZSJL’s first hour. That arrow is what alerted Diana to the threat of invasion, as well as acted as her literal key for diving into the past. Like Indiana Jones, Diana raids the grounds beneath the temple to find a hidden room featuring dire warnings about Darkseid. That space could only be accessed with Artemis’ arrow.
For nearly three hours, that’s the last we see of the magical volley. But in Wonder Woman’s last scene, she holds it again, now draped in black and staring across the Aegean Sea, presumably toward the island of Themyscira. It was the place of her birth and the home she abandoned a century ago to fight in World War I. The implication is clear: Diana wants to go home.
In retrospect, Zack Snyder’s Justice League was threading the need for Diana to go home and be reunited with her mother all along. Unlike in the Whedon Cut, Diana does not appear to have any internal conflict in the new version’s beginning; she’s happily a symbol for young children whom she saves from terrorists, and is confident in who she is. Yet Hippolyta’s arrow is as much an invitation as a warning.
“Return to me, Diana,” Hippolyta whispers before letting the arrow fly from paradise island. Come back to the Amazons. While a century appears to be a short period for immortals, a hundred years away has clearly started to weigh on Diana’s soul. Throughout her fights with Steppenwolf, the alien New God taunts Wonder Woman that his axe is still caked with the blood of her sisters. Why weren’t you there? he mocks the strongest of the Amazonian warriors.
There is a guilt in Diana’s ferocious cries of anger. And it is ever so satisfying that Zack Snyder’s Justice League restores the ending where Wonder Woman personally severs Steppenwolf’s head from his body.
But the longing to go home and be with her mourning sisters persists. At the start of the movie, Diana confidently strides into the temple wearing white; at the end of the film she vacillates in black, her confidence waned.
Obviously the setup is Diana will seek to go home in a future sequel. It’s unclear exactly why she is unable to return to Themyscira after the events of Wonder Woman, but a magic separates her from her mother. Obviously, it’s a magic that is about to be tested. Could this be the direction of Wonder Woman 3?
It’s hard to say. The tease could’ve just as easily been intended to set-up Wonder Woman 2 before Zack Snyder’s departure threw the DCEU’s best laid plans to the wind, and Patty Jenkins wound up designing what became Wonder Woman 1984 from the ground up. Technically the Snyder Cut isn’t even canon, so the wistful and homesick Diana at the end of ZSJL doesn’t need to inform the one who, canonically-speaking, was most recently seen smiling for pictures at the end of the Justice League theatrical cut.
However, Wonder Woman 3 is in development, and Jenkins has nothing but kind words to publicly say about Snyder, the producer who put his trust in her on Wonder Woman and with whom she cracked the story for that highly celebrated 2017 origin film. So she might be interested in picking up that thread, whether officially or not, in the already confirmed Wonder Woman 3.
Personally, I was disappointed like many by the lack of Amazons in Wonder Woman 1984. Other than one awkward opening sequence flashback, we saw little to none of Themyscira in the sequel after it proved such a revelation four years ago. Wonder Woman 3 seeing Diana go home could fix that, and it seems an intriguing idea that Jenkins and Snyder undoubtedly spoke about in the past.
Plus in the (unlikely) event that the Snyder Verse is fully restored, then this reunion will become inevitable. Indeed, we know from Cyborg’s vision in Zack Snyder’s Justice League that the Amazons eventually leave Themyscira to fight against Darkseid with the rest of Earth. And in an especially grim note, we even learn their struggles include grieving Diana, whose eyes Hippolyta eventually covers with two coins for the boatman.
While I doubt we’ll ever see that thread carried further along by the DCEU, the thought of Diana being homesick and ready to see her mother and sisters again would be a nice place to start Wonder Woman 3…