Baroness Paula von Gunther is a fictional character appearing in DC Comics publications and related media, commonly as a foe of the superhero Wonder Woman.

[3] After DC Comics rebooted its continuity in 1985 (in a publication event known as the Crisis on Infinite Earths), Wonder Woman, her supporting characters and many of her foes were re-imagined and reintroduced.

Though initially absent in this revised set of storylines, the Baroness would eventually be reintroduced to the continuity in 1998 by Wonder Woman writer/artist John Byrne who returned the character to her roots as a villainous Nazi mastermind.

A member of the noble class in pre-National Socialist Germany with the rank of Baroness, Paula von Gunther first appeared as a foe of Wonder Woman.

Her many crimes include murdering many individuals, keeping a small group of women as personal slaves and torturing them routinely, was for a time the leader of all Gestapo operations in the United States, forcing American female citizens into becoming Nazi spies, attempting to kidnap a Colonel using an invisible ray on a ship while impersonating a high-society lady and stealing Wonder Woman's lasso while trying to steal secrets from security officers.

[volume & issue needed] Von Gunther was finally captured and revealed that she had worked for the Nazis because they held her daughter Gerta captive.

Gerta's enlarging ray, for example, was instrumental in helping Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor return to human size after escaping Atomia's atomic world, but also accidentally unleashed the menace of the Bughumans.

The Earth-1 von Gunta appeared in Wonder Woman #163 and 168, before presumably following a similar path as the Earth-2 Paula and moving to Paradise Island to become an adopted Amazon and chief scientist.

[volume & issue needed] Following the events of the Crisis on Infinite Earths, it was revealed that the Baroness fought Hippolyta during the time-traveling queen's World War II adventures as Wonder Woman.

[volume & issue needed] This Von Gunther was a mistress of the occult and became the human host for the evil wandering spirit, Dark Angel.

[volume & issue needed] Eventually, it was revealed that Dark Angel was not a mystical spirit but an extant multiversal doppelganger of Donna Troy.

However, she soon learned from the supervillain Leviathan that her birth parents were faction leaders of the Sons of Liberty and that her oldest ancestor is Gudra, a valkyrie with a grudge against the Amazons of Themyscira after they struck down her sisters on a supposed mission of peace.

[13] After having acquired the spear of Gudra; her great Valkyrie ancestor, she would gain vast empowerment through the heretical memory of all amongst the Von Gunther line whom fought against the Amazons in the past.

[volume & issue needed] In the original graphic novel Wonder Woman: The Blue Amazon, Paula von Gunther appears as a member of the Savanti, a trio of scientists who led humanity to live on Mars.

[17] Baroness Paula von Gunther appears in the second volume of Wonder Woman: Earth One by writer Grant Morrison and artist Yanick Paquette.