WONDER WOMAN 1984 Explained: How Steve Trevor Is Still Alive

With the trailer for Wonder Woman 1984 dropping last week and confirming that Steve Trevor was going to be alive and kicking for a big part of the movie, it’s time to break down some of the best fan theories and predictions for how the character is going to return.

If we’re right there will be heavy spoilers here so if you don’t want the film potentially ruined then I highly suggest that you turn off now.

I’m also going to be going over the plot leaks from the October screening to be discussing what they said and how the death of the character is apparently retconned. You should always take leaks like this with a pinch of salt but they were released before the trailer and seem to line up with it a lot so yeah, they could definitely be true.

Anyway I’ll leave those until the end and with that out the way I just wanna give a huge thank you for clicking this, now let’s get into our breakdown of how Steve Trevor is still alive.

The Death Of Steve Trevor

Ok so cast your mind back to 2017 and the first Wonder Woman movie.

Set during the First World War, the film centred around an American Spy known as Steve Trevor who unwittingly stumbled across Themyscira, an island made up of Amazonian women, most notably Diana Prince aka Wonder Woman.

Teaming up the two fought their way across Western Front in order to stop the use of a highly toxic gas being used in the conflict.

During the final battle the pair discovered that there is a bomber filled with the deadly gas that is about to unleash the posion on several key places and Steve ended up piloting it to a safe altitude before detonating the aircraft with himself on board.

It was a massively heroic moment that pretty much changed the landscape of the war but also left a huge hole in Diana’s life.

Even a century later in the film Justice League, Di is still clearly hung up on the character’s passing and due to his popularity it looks like Warner Bros are too.

The Return Of Chris Pine

Chris Pine was just too good to leave out of a sequel and this clearly left the creative team at an impasse as the character has been resurrected.

Now comic books are full of time travel, magic devices and no one ever really stays dead there but the first big theory that is currently going about the net is that this isn’t even really Steve Trevor.

Cheetah In Disguise

Ok so firstly though we haven’t seen Kristen Wiig in full Cheetah get up, we know from behind the scenes information that she will be playing villainess.

In the trailer, she seems almost infatuated with Wonder Woman and currently there exists a theory that Cheetah will actually be in disguise as the character in order to get close to Diana.

Cheetah aka Barbara Ann Minerva possesses shapeshifting abilities and in the past, the character has taken on many different forms so this isn’t outside the realm of possibility.

From the first look at the film, we see the two discussing love and Diana says that she’s only been in love once which as we know is Steve Trevor.

Cheetah knows this information first hand now and will likely conclude that it is Steve Diana’s heart still pines for due to the memorabilia that’s scattered about her apartment. Therefore in order to get close to her, it is possible that she has taken on the appearance of Steve and this is why we not only see her Cheetah form absent from the trailer but is also why the character is still alive.

This could also explain why we see Trevor in 80s clothes as Cheetah would want to blend in as much as possible to the rest of the world and in order to do this, she would need to get more fitting attire than a World War One Uniform.

Comicbook.Com

Comicbook.com even put out a big video theorising that the character could be a clone which isn’t outside the realm of possibility and they stated that the character has been created in order to get close to Diana who at this time is probably seen as the world’s only superhero.

Steve’s Body Has Been Preserved

Another theory that is making the rounds at the moment is that Steve Rogers ended up with a similar fate to Steve Trevor with some fans drawing the similarities between the two.

Looking at it from a top-level view, both sacrificed themselves by piloting during a World War that ended up tearing them away from the love of their lives.

Both have similar-sounding names and some have even theorised that the toxin overload onboard the craft somehow changed Steve in some ways, giving him an almost super solider like physicality that has allowed him to remain preserved for all this time.

Honestly, I can’t see Warner Bros going with this as it’s just so close what Marvel did and personally out of all of the theories this is probably the worst one.

What The Plot Leaks Say

And finally onto what the plot leaks say. As I mentioned earlier in the video these apparently come from a screening of the film in October and going off the trailer they actually look like they line up quite a lot.

If you don’t want the movie then nows your last chance to turn off because we’ll be going over some major plot elements that could ruin the movie for you.

Ok if you’re still here thanks for sticking around and apparently the movie actually focuses on Barbara Ann Minerva who is an archeologist that has been scouring the world for rare artifacts on the payroll of her benefactor, Maxwell Lord.

This is why she meets with Diana early on because, as we know from BVS, Wonder Woman and Justice League, Diana is an expert when it comes to rare and historical items so it makes sense that Barbara would confide in what is probably the world’s leading authority.

Apparently at the behest of Lord, Barbara is trying to track down a rare and mystical stone that grants wishes and in the trailer we do at one point see Lord looking over this so it does seem like it is indeed in the movie.

The stone apparently grants wishes and allows the person who holds it to have anything that their heart desires come true.

Unfortunately though it too has a sort of monkey’s paw effect and the wishes often come with a curse to them that carries dire consequences.

Upon finding the stone Barbara wishes to have superpowers which in turn over time transforms her into Cheetah. Angry at this she sets out on a quest to kill Lord and left with no other option he turns to Wonder Woman for protection.

The stone also explains how Lord is able to get so rich and basically become a celebrity that is plastered across TV screens everywhere, making him pretty much a household name and motivational speaker.

Diana is and always will be a hero at heart and she is still a protector of people even if they may seem like they’re in the wrong which was a big motif of the graphic novel The Hiketeia which had the Amazonian Princess go head to head with Batman after he wanted to bring justice to a woman that she had chosen to protect.

Anyway with Diana realizing that Lord has the power to grant wishes she strikes up a deal with the character that becomes the reason that Steve returns. In exchange for her protection Diana says that all she wants is Steve back and Lord grants this wish which is how the character is resurrected.

Like we said earlier this kinda has a monkey paw effect and he ends up inhabiting the body of someone else and thus they lose their life in some ways so that Steve can live.

However, the two do work together throughout the movie in order to stop Cheetah from completing her Endgame.

Apparently Diana is the only person that can see it’s Steve but it doesn’t matter to her as he is all that she cares about.

And that’s apparently how Steve is able to return from the dead in order to be in this movie.

My Thoughts

Personally I’m still a bit unsure of the entire thing and though I know that comic books often bring characters back from the dead, I do feel that Steve should have remained that way. His sacrifice at the end of the first movie was a really bold one and we already know from BVS which revolved around Diana attempting to get the photo of her and the World War 1 squad back at some points means that the character won’t survive the events of this movie.

Knowing Steve is dead either way kinda strips the entire point of this resurrection but at least it may grant the character the ability to say the goodbye that she never really got to.

I also think that having Steve return for this film also makes it so that you sort of have to have him return for a third film which they will inevitably make if this one is a success.

If he doesn’t come back for that then it’s kinda like almost a hollow victory for Diana as you know that she is still mourning the loss of her love Steve.

It kinda paints them into a corner and as mentioned earlier I do think that Warner Bros. regrets killing off the character as if the leaks are true it’s a pretty strange way to bring him back.

Hopefully this movie is more wish fulfillment that evil curse as I would love to see it keep the DC train on track after the success of films like Shazam, Joker and even Aquaman which I did like…even if it had that terrible Pitbull song in it.

Either way I guess we will find out next year when the film is released worldwide on the 5 of June 2020.