War of the Gods was a 1991 DC Comics Crisis Crossover, which involved the gods of various pantheons getting into conflict with one another and served as a conclusion to George Pérez' run on Wonder Woman (1987).
The main parts of the story occurred in a four-issue miniseries sharing its title with the event and issues 58-61 of Wonder Woman, with tie-in issues of other comics relevant to the storyline including Superman: The Man of Steel issue 3, Hawkworld issues 15 and 16, Starman volume 1 issue 38, L.E.G.I.O.N. '91 issue 31, Hawk and Dove volume 3 issue 28, Captain Atom volume 2 issues 56 and 57, Doctor Fate volume 2 issues 32 and 33, The Flash volume 2 issue 55, Justice League Europe issue 31, Batman issue 470, Animal Man issue 40, Suicide Squad issue 58, The Demon issue 17, and The New Titans issue 81.
The storyline would later be one of several to receive a darker retelling in DC's Dark Nights: Metal tie-in anthology series Tales from the Dark Multiverse.
Tropes:
- Big Bad: Circe has orchestrated the conflict solely to ruin the Amazons' reputation and destroy Wonder Woman.
- Bittersweet Ending: Wonder Woman triumphs over Circe in the end, but Themyscira is no longer protected from the outside world by the Ancient Greek gods. On the bright side, there are now scores of superheroes willing to be their allies in further times of peril.
- Death Is Cheap: Circe kills Wonder Woman, but she is subsequently resurrected.
- Divine Conflict: The central conceit of the storyline is the gods of various pantheons warring with each other.
- Dropped a Bridge on Him: Among the casualties in the Suicide Squad tie-in is Grant Morrison's Author Avatar from their run on Animal Man, whose powers of controlling the story fail to protect them from certain death due to being under the control of a different writer this time.
- Grand Finale: The crossover event serves as the finale to George Perez's run on Wonder Woman (1987), having her soundly defeat Circe after she started the war between the various pantheons of gods. Issue 62 of the main Wonder Woman comic served as a dénouement of sorts by tying up the remaining loose ends and closing with a letter from Perez addressing how his tenure with the title has come to an end and wishing the best of luck to his successor William Messner-Loebs.
- Shout-Out: During a battle with the pantheon of Norse Mythology, Metamorpho is surprised to see Thor with red hair and comments that he thought he'd be blond, almost certainly a nod to the thunder god's depiction from DC's biggest competitor.
- There Is a God!: Lobo quips that there must be a God after all when he sees Captain Marvel show up while he's itching for a fight.
- Trapped in TV Land: Grant Morrison's Author Avatar from their run on Animal Man appears as a recruit of the Suicide Squad, bemoaning that they've become trapped within the DC Universe after the conclusion of their Animal Man run and that their Author Powers can't reliably protect them from danger this time now that their actions are under the control of a different writer. Sure enough, they end up getting killed by a Beastiamorph when they get writer's block at the worst possible time.
