Etta Candy is a fictional character appearing in DC Comics publications and related media, commonly in association with Wonder Woman.

This milder-mannered version, a former U.S. Air Force captain and intelligence officer, is not presented as Wonder Woman's best friend, but rather as a genial ally among a larger cast of supporting characters.

Additionally, the New 52 Etta is queer, shown to have a romantic relationship with Barbara Ann Minerva, the British archeologist who would become Wonder Woman's arch-foe the Cheetah.

Etta's brassy queerness brings to the surface a consistent lesbian subtext[6] present in William Moulton Marston's original Golden Age characterization of a woman joyously defiant of sex-gender norms.

With her newfound confidence, Etta Candy soon after leads the fictional Beeta Lambda sorority at Holliday College and aids Wonder Woman in her adventures.

First, with a hundred other Holliday girls, Etta helps Wonder Woman take over the Nazi base of Doctor Poison without endangering Steve Trevor.

Holliday College was the setting for science-driven stories and it was at nearby "Starvard" (portmanteau of Stanford and Harvard), that her boyfriend, the gangling but very loving "Oscar Sweetgulper," studied.

She was shown to be brave and even stormed a Nazi concentration camp armed with nothing but a box of candy to rescue captured children.

In the years since her last appearance, Candy had not only graduated from Holiday College, but had become a Lieutenant and was on hand to welcome Wonder Woman back to her old job as Air Force officer Diana Prince something she hadn't done since 1968.

In one adventure, Etta was kidnapped by Satanists influenced by Klarion the Witch Boy and sent to Hell, where Wonder Woman and Etrigan the demon had to travel to save her, although she remained narcotized and catatonic throughout the ordeal.

In the years leading up to Crisis on Infinite Earths (1986), writers Dan Mishkin and Mindy Newell took Etta in a different direction.

Huckaby, who by then had been convinced for several issues that his girlfriend was the comic book's titular heroine, used Dr. Psycho's machine that could turn his dreams into reality to let the world see Etta as he saw her.

[9] After the 1987 Greg Potter–George Pérez revamp of Wonder Woman, Etta was romantically linked with, and eventually married to, Steve Trevor, who was no longer Diana's love interest.

A career Air Force officer, Etta served as Steve Trevor's aide when he was framed for treason as part of Ares' scheme to spark a global war.

When she finally collapsed due to a lack of food in front of Wonder Woman while trying on wedding gowns, Diana advised her to take better care of herself and maintain a sensible diet.

She did appear once Diana lost her royal title during writer Phil Jimenez's run as her usual supportive friend, but was depicted as still insecure about her heavy weight and apprehensive about her marriage to Steve.

Writer Gail Simone later reintroduced Etta Candy as an intelligence officer requested by Sarge Steel to report on Diana Prince and her associations.

[13] She eventually regained consciousness in the hospital some time during the next few issues, and after imploring Diana to not feel guilty over her torture at the hands of Genocide revealed that she was recruited as an operative by Mr.

She was now African American and depicted as young and ambitious, resembling the Etta played by Tracie Thoms in the unaired David E. Kelley Wonder Woman pilot.

headquarters where Etta Candy told him that the destruction was caused by a massive spike in Doctor Light's body where the energies emitted from it exposed the A.R.G.U.S.

Generations takes a different approach from the aforementioned example by imagining a world wherein superheroes age in real time relative to their original appearance in comic books.

After they grew up and Diana was offered a job in show business exhibiting her great strength, Etta bid goodbye to her friend.

With Etta bound and gagged by Priscilla, Poison attempts to use her as a test subject for her chemicals, only to be defeated when Diana arrives and rescues her friend.

In Neil Kleid's "Ghosts and Gods," his addition to the collaborative collection "Sensation Comics featuring Wonder Woman Volume 1," Etta is seen as an active sidekick to the Amazonian Princess, helping her raid Ra's Al Ghul's stronghold.

She appears to be a lesbian (or possibly bisexual) as she's intrigued by Wonder Woman's stories of Themyscira, an island full of women, but is put off by their attitudes as it "spoil[s] [her] fantasy".