Invisible Plane - Current History

Current History

In the current Post-Crisis version of the DC Universe, Wonder Woman can fly, regardless of wind currents, and so has little need for the Invisible Plane. The Plane's history has subsequently been revised as well.

The origin of the Modern Age version of the Invisible Jet was chronicled during John Byrne's run of Wonder Woman with more detailed information chronicled in Wonder Woman Secret Files #1.

The being that would one day be called the Invisible Plane began life as an alien "morphing crystal" circling a distant planet with its "family," other morphing crystals who are collectively called the Ring. In their natural state, the Plane and its fellow members of the Ring resemble eggs made of semi transparent plastic. In time, it was separated from its family and was found by the Lansinarians, a blind subterranean race that lived underneath Antarctica. The Lansinarians could not react quickly enough to changes in their environment. Thus, they developed the morphing crystal they had found into a life support device that catered to their needs. These beings later bestow the device on Wonder Woman in gratitude for saving them. The plane, which possesses a sophisticated artificial intelligence, responds to Wonder Woman's thoughts. It is able to render itself invisible as well as alter its shape, transforming into any form of vehicle its bearer desires, be it a jet, submarine, motorcycle, or horse-drawn chariot.

Wonder Woman, however, was initially unaware that her Invisible Plane was not only alive but was quite aware that it was being treated by its mistress as a lifeless tool.

Lacking her daughter's power to fly and taking her daughter's original Golden Age incarnation, Wonder Woman's mother, Hippolyta, makes good use of the Plane during her time-travelling stint as the Wonder Woman of the 1940s. To adjust to the era, she willed the device to assume the form of a prop-driven plane and it took on the appearance of the original invisible plane of the earlier comics. After its return to modern times, the Plane once again begins to display a personality, and like its earlier incarnation, it ultimately develops the power to talk. When a villain manipulates the Plane's feelings of anger at having been ignored for so many years regardless of faithful service, it attacks Wonder Woman and her friends. But after realizing what it had done, it displays its capacity for remorse after and tried to make amends by transforming itself into a floating base above Gateway City for its mistress. Proving a good—though mostly silent and faceless—friend, the Plane receives a proper name: WonderDome. Later, Dome's technology is also incorporated into the Amazons' city of Themyscira following its reconstruction in the wake of the Imperiex War. Dome even reunites with members of its long lost family at one point.

In Wonder Woman #201 (by Greg Rucka), Dome sacrifices itself to prevent a tidal wave from killing thousands of innocent people. Having "died" to save so many, Dome is now the equivalent of a human corpse. While it can still function in its traditional shape of an invisible plane, it can no longer alter its shape and is now a lifeless inanimate object that is neither intelligent nor self-aware.