Wonder Woman has had her bottom spanked by glassy-eyed adult babies from Grown-Down Land. She has been rendered helpless by the prehensile moustache of Egg Fu, a 30-foot-tall, communist egg. She has been turned into a gorilla against her will, battled villains as depressing as the Paper Man (who has all the powers of paper) and the Mouse Man (who controls mice with his mind), and her own mother has tried to kill her on more than one occasion. But never before has Wonder Woman faced an enemy as demoralizing as the ones she’s found in 2007 — the 66th year, this month, of her super life.

Two years ago, Joss Whedon, the creator of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” was hired to write and direct a Wonder Woman feature film for Warner Bros., but in February of this year, Mr. Whedon abruptly walked off the project, saying in an interview, “I would go back in a heartbeat if I believed that anybody believed in what I was doing. The lack of enthusiasm was overwhelming.” Ten months later, producer Joel Silver shelved the movie indefinitely.