Steve Trevor | |
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![]() Steve Trevor as drawn by Phil Jimenez. |
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Publication information | |
Publisher | DC Comics |
First appearance | Historical: All Star Comics #8 (December 1941) Modern: Wonder Woman #2 (1987) |
Created by | William Moulton Marston |
In-story information | |
Full name | Steven Rockwell Trevor |
Supporting character of | Wonder Woman |
Steve Trevor is a fictional character appearing in DC Comics, as a member of Wonder Woman's supporting cast.
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In the original version of Wonder Woman's origin story, Steve Trevor was an intelligence officer in the United States Army during World War II whose plane crashed in the isolated homeland of the Amazons. He was nursed back to health by the Amazon princess Diana, who fell in love with him and followed him when he returned to the outside world. There she became Wonder Woman (and also his coworker, Diana Prince.)
Steve Trevor was portrayed as an American military hero who often fought battles both alone and alongside Wonder Woman. At the same time, he was also a traditional superhero's love interest: repeatedly becoming kidnapped and needing to be rescued by Wonder Woman, as well as pining after the superheroine in the red-and-blue outfit while failing to notice her resemblance to his meek, bespectacled co-worker Diana Prince.
After Marston's death, much of the original supporting cast had less attention paid to them. Under writer-editor Robert Kanigher, both his and Diana's personalities were compromised considerably, with Steve beginning to seem threatened by his heroine's power, and with Diana almost beginning to seem apologetic about it. As with Superman stories of the same period, the question of marriage was never far from the couple's minds. There was also considerable attention given to the threat of the Amazon's secret identity being revealed.
In 1968, Diana chose to give up her powers and cut ties with her native Paradise Island to stay close to Steve. Trevor was killed off in the next issue. He was thus absent for the next few years of the comic. In the mid-1970s, following the return of the heroine's powers, Trevor was brought back to life by Aphrodite, and given a new identity as the brunette Steve Howard. In 1978, he was killed off again. He would be replaced in 1980 by a double from another, undisclosed dimension of the Multiverse. For the next few years the classic relationship of Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor would be essentially restored, and explored with some detail. In 1985 with issue # 322, writer Dan Mishkin dealt with Trevor's three separate "lives," and after much explanation merged the "new" Steve with the old.
During this same period in early 1980s issues of Wonder Woman, the villainous Doctor Psycho fused Steve's image with Wonder Woman's abilities and became "Captain Wonder," sporting a costume similar to Wonder Woman's. In the final issue of the original Wonder Woman series, Steve and Diana married.
The 1985 comic book storyline Crisis on Infinite Earths erased all previous history in the DC Universe. At the end of the series, the Wonder Woman and retired 4 star General Steve Trevor of pre-Crisis Earth-Two traveled to Mount Olympus to live with the Greek gods and goddesses, as many of the other pre-Crisis Earth-Two heroes died or merged into a new streamlined continuity. The Wonder Woman of pre-Crisis Earth-One was devolved back into the mystical clay from which she was formed (technically dying), thus allowing Wonder Woman and her supporting characters to be re-introduced with new origins, backgrounds and plotlines.
With the restart of the series in the third volume after the "Crisis on Infinite Earths" series, Steve Trevor was revamped to be considerably older than Diana. In addition, the two of them never had a romantic relationship. Trevor also had a later revealed link to the Amazons in that, prior to his own crash landing on Themyscira, his lost mother, Diana Rockwell Trevor, had also crashed on the island to find the Amazons battling a large monster. Seeing they were close to defeat Diana Trevor used her pistol on the beast giving the Amazons an advantage in the battle. Trevor dies as a result. After her death the Amazons considered the outworlder to be an honored hero for her sacrifice. It is from her that Queen Hippolyta named her daughter Diana and also from her that the Amazons came into possession of a gun originating from Man's World. It's this familial link that led to the god Ares to manipulate Steve into bombing Themyscira to eliminate the Amazons. However while in flight and guided to the island, Trevor realized he was about to needlessly bomb civilians and attempted to abort the mission. Steve's co-pilot, a minion of the war-god, transforms into a monster in an attempt to continue the attack. Diana rescues Steve from the resulting disaster
Bringing the unconscious Trevor to the island, Diana recognized his American flag insignia on his uniform mirrored her own armor's color motif and took this as a sign of where she had to go to begin her fight against Ares. Thus inspired, Diana took Trevor to 'Man's World' in the city of Boston and began her calling. Since then, Trevor and Diana have been close friends ever since despite him being old enough to be her father. This version of Steve Trevor went on to marry Etta Candy and became the Deputy Secretary of Defense.
Following the recent Infinite Crisis, Wonder Woman's origin has yet again been revamped, as by extent her supporting cast. Diana is no longer a recent arrival to man's world, but instead has been around for a considerable time, having been involved in the creation of the Justice League of America. Although Steve still remains close friends with Diana and married to Etta, his history with Diana has not fully been developed.
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