Doing promo for Wonder Woman 1984, leading actress Gal Gadot appeared (via video call) on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. There she partook in a cultural cuisine-swap with Fallon – actually a “sequel” to her previous appearance promoting the first Wonder Woman in 2017 – giving him some Israeli snacks like Gefilte Fish, while Gadot tried “American delicacies” for the first time, like Eggnog, Ho-Hos, and of course, Taco Bell. Gadot seemed particularly taken by The Bell, describing it as “flavorful” and “salty,” and telling Fallon it was “the best so far.” The appeal is inadvertently appropriate, given how in the comics, Wonder Woman found brief part-time employment working at Taco Bell (or, as it’s known in the DC Comics, Taco Whiz).
Superheroes facing financial insecurity is usually the domain of Marvel Comics. Spider-Man is always struggling as a freelance photographer, the Hulk is often homeless, and even the Fantastic Four had a storyline (in Marvel Knights #4) where they went bankrupt. By contrast, DC Superheroes are aspirational figures who rarely face such mortal hardship. Superman is reliably employed as a Daily Planet reporter, and (as Bruce Wayne admits in Justice League) Batman’s superpower is being rich. Wonder Woman’s employment history is more complicated. Originally, Wonder Woman became an “army nurse” in her secret identity as Diana Prince, but gradually rose in the ranks of military intelligence. Other jobs included working at the United Nations. For a time, she was also a depowered martial-artist who worked at a boutique store.
Wonder Woman’s income was further complicated by her fluctuating secret identity. Sometimes she would commit to the Diana Prince identity, and sometimes abandon it. After Crisis on Infinite Earths rebooted DC Comics continuity, this human identity was completely done away with, making Wonder Woman live openly as herself, usually without monetary needs. During Greg Rucka’s first run on the character, Wonder Woman served as a literal Ambassador to Themyscira, including running an embassy and publishing a book about Amazonian values. But before that, when struggling for money, Diana found a small steady salary working at Taco Whiz.
This occurred when William Messner-Loebs wrote the character, picking up after George Pérez reinvented Wonder Woman post-Crisis. After a six-issue arc where Diana was lost in space, she returns to Earth in Wonder Woman vol. 2, #72 to find the room she’d been renting had been filled, and her home island of Themyscira had disappeared. Worse still, having been registered as M.I.A., the Justice League computers aren’t able to release Diana’s pay-checks. So, Wonder Woman’s usual home-base and income are cut off from her.
Although she crashes on her friend’s couch, Diana is determined to make her own way, and finds a small apartment in Boston (where these stories are set). She applies for various jobs but finds she has few “references” (the fact she is Wonder Woman doesn’t seem to come up) and that nobody is hiring (in 1992, when these comics were coming out, the unemployment rate was 7.5%, the highest it had been since 1983). Except for Taco Whiz that is.
Wonder Woman slinging burritos is a funny image, but the interesting thing about these stories is that Diana (paragon of virtue that she is) does not look down upon her new profession. Instead, she is grateful for the opportunity, and finds something meaningful in the gig, telling her employer how “feeding people is a just and dignified profession.” She finds satisfaction is sating hungry regulars. Diana even notes that since Taco Whiz is cheap and quick, it invites a sprawling melting pot of customers, enabling Diana to directly help people without elitist barriers. Taco Whiz also briefly becomes a hub for fellow superheroes, who feel the casual setting is less intrusive to their super-powered celebrity.
Taco Whiz is admittedly on the side-lines in these issues. There isn’t a storyline where Diana utilizes her new customer service skills against a supervillain, for instance. Mostly it serves as a light-hearted location in-between her crime-fighting. Her Justice League salary gets quickly resolved in #81 after Donna Milton (secretly the sorceress Circe in disguise) makes a threatening phone-call to Justice League manager Maxwell Lord (not yet a supervillain but still an unscrupulous businessman).
Wonder Woman did not stay on at Taco Whiz, and her history there is an amusing anecdote hardly ever brought up in continuity. Yet these issues still contain some pretty fun and effective stories. They aren’t as mythic and reverential as Diana is typically treated, but silly as it is, Wonder Woman’s tenure at Taco Whizz shows her eagerness to serve humanity, no matter what the method.
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