The Non-Adventures of Wonderella

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"I started out Wonderella to make an off-the-clock superhero who was an average woman instead of some 24/7 warrior... though somewhere along the line, 'average woman' became a cross between Elaine Benes and Zelda Fitzgerald." —Justin Pierce

The Non-Adventures of Wonderella is a parody web comic of the DC Comics character Wonder Woman, and many superhero tropes in general. It focuses mainly on the mundane parts of the life of Wonderella, a somewhat air-headed and lazy Valley Girl-ish superheroine who demonstrates little interest in being a hero... or, in fact, doing anything much outside of partying, getting completely wasted, violence, and shopping. She is super-strong, super-durable, and she can't fly but she can "totally jump hella high", and when tied up she can hork up a giant octopus, tell plants to die, or curl up in a perfect ball when traumatized. She also has a rarely used invisible blimp.

Better Than It Sounds, honest!

The Non-Adventures of Wonderella began on September 9th, 2006. It was formerly hosted on Webcomics Nation, and now has its own website. Wonderella seems to be on hiatus, with the most recent comic posted in August 2019.

Tropes used in The Non-Adventures of Wonderella include:

• Accidental Murder: When a team of Highly-Visible Ninja arrive at Wonderella's door to kill her and their leader shoots a dart at her, Wonderella, thinking they've come Knocking on Heathens' Door, slams her door in their faces, which somehow deflects the dart back at the leader, which kills him. The other ninja submit to Wonderella as their new leader.
• Actually a Doombot: Intelli-Ape captures "Wonderella" to "draw attention to tropical deforestation", but "Wonderella" then explodes — "she" was only a "Custom Exploding Cyborg" that Wonderella bought on eBay.
• A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Read: Intelli-Ape comes to this conclusion after making the mistake of prying too deeply into Wonderita's mind.
• Affectionate Parody: Of Dinosaur Comics in this strip. Features genuine Ryan North T-Rex dialogue!
• Alter Ego Acting: Justin Pierce's Twitter feed is 100% in-character as Wonderella.
• Alt Text: Used for self-commentary.
• An Aesop: Even villains must help teach children lessons.
• A Pirate 400 Years Too Late: The Chesapeake Bay Pirates.
• April Fools' Day: The latest comics were slightly tweaked for 2009.
  • In 2012, NonAdventures.com was replaced with NoNadVentures.com (a replacement-testicles-for-pets company parodying the genuine Neuticles).
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: To a coin-operated fortune-telling machine, Wonderella wishes to be "big". Somehow the machine turns her into a giant, and she promptly rampages through her own city.
• Arbitrary Skepticism: The Alt Text in this strip, after magic is dismissed as nonesense:

Like all good comic book scientists, Dr. Shark is willing to ignore massive swaths of his inexplicable universe.

• Bare Your Midriff:
  • Her mother's superhero outfit.
  • Wonderita's civilian outfit.
• Bat Deduction: The Quizzicle is counting on Wonderella to make one of these. Even the Alt Text notes how there was a fatal flaw in that plan from the very beginning.
• Bat Signal
• Beast and Beauty: Here.
• Beware the Nice Ones: And here you thought Rita's only personality trait was being The Ditz. Think again!
• Blasphemous Boast: "God answers to ME!"
• Blessed with Suck: Animating touch.
• Bottle Fairy: Wonderella
• Breast Expansion: Even if you shouldn't have breasts at all.
• Butterfly of Doom: Daylight savings CRIME.

"Just seems like there are risks in altering the past, ya know?" "Risks like everything going exactly perfectly, maybe."

• The Cameo: Stephen Fry appears as Holmes' brother Mycroft in a strip which came out just after the announcement that he would be in the next Sherlock Holmes film.
• Can't Believe I Said That: This strip.

Wonderella: "...that's like the worst comeback ever uttered by the human mouth."

• Captain Ersatz: Well over half the cast.
  • Wonderella is Wonder Woman mixed with Superman's origin.
  • Wonderita is Robin.
  • Titania is Hippolyta.
  • Hitlerella is Red Skull.
  • Doctor Shark is Curt Connors, AKA the Lizard.
  • Intelli-Ape is Gorilla Grodd.
  • Lord Killroy is Darkseid.
  • Ginormus is Galactus.
  • Spirral is Starro.
  • Patrianna is Captain America (comics).
  • Jokerella is The Joker, sort of.
  • The Orchid is Poison Ivy.
  • Speedstar is The Flash.
  • Firebrand is Firestar.
  • The Quizzicle is The Riddler.
• Captain Patriotic: Patrianna.
• Care Bear Stare: Right here.
• Car Fu: She doesn't even remember her own strength!
• Catch Phrase: "Time to get wonderful!" To Wonderella's horror.
• Character Blog: Twitterella
• The Chew Toy: Jokerella
• Clip Show: Briefly.

"Don't you hate when lazy sitcoms reuse old material in clip shows?"

• Clothes Make the Maniac: [1]
• Cloudcuckoolander: Rita.
• Comeback Tomorrow: After managing only a Lame Comeback when meeting Hitlerella out shopping, Wonderella provides the current page image for the trope by confusing Hitlerella with a belated comeback while fighting her two weeks later.
• Comedic Sociopathy: Wonderella's blatant disregard for the safety and well being of pretty much everything other than herself (and possibly, her mother). Lampshaded when she travels to a Mirror Universe (see below).
• Comically Missing the Point: Wonderella embodies this trope.
• Comic Book Death: "Rita, Rita. Superheroes don't die. And if they do, they come back in like, a week!"
  • Stuffed Into the Fridge: "Yeah. GUY heroes. Bad Things constantly happen to girl heroes, and they STAY that way!" [2]
  • Lampshaded here

Wonderella: "Apparently a lot of 'em are dead now." Crowd: *GASP!* Wonderella: Superhero dead, guys. Crowd: "Ohhhhh."

• Continuity Nod:
  • "The Easter Bunny doesn't exist!" "Gasp! What about Santa?" "Sure, 'til I killed him!"
    • Santa, of course, returned. And then It Got Worse.
  • The virtual reality headset that Wonderella bought on 2006/10/14 to play a video game shows up again on 2007/11/17 when she uses it to enter the Internet (over Queen Beetle's objection that "There's no plausible reason why that should ever work") to stop an Internet entity's plan "to remove all color from reality itself".
• Crossover Cosmology: Lampshaded in the end of the Saving Christmas two-parter; then later, with the Norse.
• Cursed with Awesome: [3]
• Cyberspace: [4]
• Darker and Edgier: As with everything she does, Jokerella screws this up here. Although Hitlerella also has her own embarrassing Darker and Edgier stage.
• Deadpan Snarker: Wonderella's mother
• Deal with the Devil: Subverted here.
• Death Glare: Jesus Christ.
• Deconstructive Parody
• Did Not Do the Research:
  • Patrick Stewart appears in one strip. He claims that he hates that Tim Allen movie, but the real Patrick Stewart has gone on record as loving the film.
  • Thinking Pompeii was a Greek city rather than a Roman one:

"Generally speaking, most online comics get by with no editorial management, but in this case I made a couple of Greek jokes regarding Pompeii, a Roman city nowhere near Greece. I will leave the comic unchanged for the weekend as a shameful reminder to do better fact-checking, then replace it on Monday with a version that addresses my Carmen Sandiego dilemma."

• Disney Owns This Trope: Universal forbade Rita from asking a flapper to go Back to The Future with her and Dana.
• Divide by Zero: This will give you invisible paint.
• Do Not Adjust Your Set: [5]
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Being an archnemesis. Seems it requires lots of dedication and the unspoken agreement to limit torture and captivity to a single heroine (or her plucky sidekick). The heroine, by herself, is bound to listen her nemesis' villanious rants and, after beating her nemesis, stay there until the police comes. Connect some dots...
• Dresses the Same: Parodied, as they're both *evil* outfits.
• Drugs Are Bad: Parodied.
• Dude, Not Ironic: Here.
• Dumbass Has a Point: [6]
• Eldritch Abomination: Spirral.
• "Everybody Laughs" Ending: Parodied.
• Evil Plan: Jesus Christ has one.
• Eye Beams: But just as an allergic reaction to shellfish.
• Fairytale Wedding Dress: That even had a white version of her tiara.
• Fake Static: [7]
• Fan Girl: Hitlerella with regards to Wonderella Sr.
• Fantastic Voyage: [8]
• Fetish: A few are brought up.
  • Like why the Beast would easily find someone to love him.
• Flat Earth Atheist: Dr. Shark, as established here. Also lampshaded in the Alt Text here:

"Like all good comic book scientists, Doctor Shark is willing to ignore massive swaths of his own inexplicable universe."

• Flight, Strength, Heart: Wonderella's powers start as standard original Superman and get weirder.
  • She can't fly, though, which she resents.
• Foot Popping: When Wonderella first meets Devlin.
• Former Kid Sidekick: Wonderella was "Wonderita" when her mother held the titular office. It seems to have had a bad effect.
• Fortune Teller: [9]
• Fun with Acronyms: [10]

"What does M.A.L.I.C.E. stand for?" "It stands for evil, darling."

• Genie in a Bottle: Lampshading the Disneyfication.
• Genius Loci: Target and Wal-Mart.
• Genre Savvy: [11]
• "Gift of the Magi" Plot: Subverted here.
• Gilligan Cut: "S O O N :" This is used no matter the amount of passed time during the cut itself, be it a few minutes, thirty years or time travel.
• Go-Karting with Bowser: Wonderella is apparently really friends with every villain.
• Grenade Tag: On a defenseless Plant Person.
• Harmless Villain: Jokerella, ever since her on-panel debut.
• Have a Gay Old Time: Parodied here, perhaps in homage to the infamous "Batman's Greatest Boner":

"You just pulled yourself a boner so big, you're all wet!"

• Her Codename Was Mary Sue: And she wrote Twilight. [12]
• Heroes Want Redheads: Devlin the arsonist, whom Wonderella bumps into and breaks up with every year at Valentine's Day. (Also at the solstice.)
• Highly-Visible Ninja: A team of them arrive to kill Wonderella, wearing black bodysuits in an ordinary apartment building — except for their leader, who is even worse, wearing a bright red suit.
• Hitler Ate Sugar: Done in reverse.

Wonderella (to Hitlerella): You know who else did monologues all day? Hamlet.

• Hitler's Time Travel Exemption Act: Queen Beetle is Genre Savvy to this one.
• Hockey Mask and Chainsaw: The last panel here.
• Homage
  • To Planet of the Apes.
  • Also The Lord of the Rings movies.
  • Lampshaded The Simpsons homage. Straddles the line with being a Kandor parody, and adds on a Star Wars Shout-Out at the end.
  • Watchmen. [13]
  • Big. [14]
• Humanity on Trial: [15]
• Hypochondria: The page image for the trope is currently Wonderella being sure she has bird flu and calling Clark for help. Clark sounds pretty exasperated with her.
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Each strip is titled with a purposely terrible pun. "Daylight Savings CRIME", "Mostly ARMLESS", "Bad to the CLONE", etc.
• I Love Nuclear Power: Parodied, subverted, with one-third Genetic Engineering Is the New Nuke.
• Imagine Spot: [16]
• I'm a Humanitarian: In a variation, after staking some vampires, Wonderella takes their bones — i.e., presumably human bones — to make soup stock.
• Incredibly Obvious Bomb: Lampshaded in the alt text. Then Wonderella leaves one of her own.
• Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: Jokerella, although many of the other villains have their moments.
• Insult Backfire / Your Mom: "What about Heidi Klum? She's German." "So's YOUR MOM." "...wait, did you actually just say that?"
• Jedi Mind Trick: [17]
• Jerkass: Pretty much everyone has Jerkass moments, but Patrianna and Wonderella definitely fall into this.
• Jizzed in My Pants: [18]
• Just Between You and Me: [19]
• Kangaroo Court: Patrianna is Wonderella's Jerkass, snarky rival heroine. She's also Anna Petri, the only judge in their nameless city. This combination can lead to real awkward results...
• Kid From the Future: Turns out to be evil.
• Kill Sat: [20] With a bit of No Endor Holocaust.
• Klingon Promotion:
  • Satan.
  • And ninjas!
• The Ladette: Wonderella herself.
• Ladyella: Wonderella, Hitlerella, and Jokerella, are the most prominent, but not the only ones.
• Lawyer Friendly Cameos of other DC characters, referred to only by first name.[21] [22] [23] Captain Ersatz of Marvel characters occasionally appear, too.
  • And Paris Hilton and Whatsername.
  • Mace Win- er, Samuel L. Jackson in a bathrobe.
• Legacy Character:
  • Her mother Titania was the original Wonderella, her sort-of sister Penumbra was apparently also a hero.
  • Queen Beetle and Patrianna were later revealed as having legacies of their own.
• Logic Bomb: Attempted here. It doesn't work.
• LOLcats: [24]
• Magic Feather: "See this is why I don't do pep talks."
• The Magic Touch: On this page, Wonderella gains the power to give life to anything she touches.
• Mayfly-December Bromance: Wonderella hangs out with a mutant mayfly for its entire lifespan.
• Medium Awareness: God
• The Men in Black: parodied
• Merchandise-Driven: Wonderella's consultants at FocusPocus Media Solutions get her to replace her cars (which are either unremarkable or invisible) with a sporty car themed with her colors and logo and to use some rather useless Family Friendly Firearm so that toy versions can be sold to go with the Wonderella action figure.
• Milestone Celebration: Comic #300, "Hair of the DOG STAR," goes on for longer than the usual strip.
• Mini-Dress of Power: Wonderella Sr. wears a short skirt and top variant.
• Minor Flaw, Major Breakup: [25]. Changed into a Non Sequitur for April Fools' Day.
• Mirror Universe: [26] Wonderella's doppelganger is just like her, because "The opposite of neutral is still neutral."
• Mistaken for Profound: Here.
• Most Common Superpower:
  • Notably averted.
  • Briefly played straight when she gets relaunched.
• Nerds Are Virgins: "Sorry, I wasn't in the A/V club. I had sex instead."
• Never the Selves Shall Meet: Parodied like many, many other Time Travel tropes.
• New First Comics
• New Powers as the Plot Demands:
  • "I got powers I ain't even discovered yet."
  • Don't make me go to Lobsterfest. You wouldn't like me when I'm at Lobsterfest.
  • I'm electricty, Ma!
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Shark versus Ape!
• Not Quite Flight: Wonderella can jump hella high.
• "Not Wearing Pants" Dream: [27]
• Oh, Cisco: [28]
• Oh God, Did She Just Hear That?: [29]
• Omnidisciplinary Scientist: Dr. Shark, though he's supposedly a biology professor. Anyone else with the slightest scientific leanings shows it, too.
• The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: Spoofed.
• Orifice Evacuation: Here.
• Orphaned Series: Justin Pierce's previous webcomic, Killroy And Tina (which he dropped largely in favor of working on Wonderella)
• Paper-Thin Disguise: Wonderella never removes her tiara, and the collar of her shirt makes a "W" shape, exactly like her costume's.
• Parodied Trope: About 90% of the strips.
• The Parody
  • Charlotte's Web [30]
  • COPS [31]
  • The Da Vinci Code [32]
  • The monochrome-plus-red Sin City grittiness.
  • And The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
  • The third [[The Last Crusade Indiana Jones.
  • The 'Secret Wars' from Marvel Comics.
  • And Transformers, with some Does This Remind You of Anything?. [33]
  • Gotta have Back to The Future.
  • Second Life. [34]
  • Frosty the Snowman. [35]
  • Thor. [36]. Both the comic and the movie version.
  • Green Lantern. [37]. The entire Green Lantern mythos after War of Lights.
  • Beauty and The Beast. [38]. With a sprinkle of Fridge Brilliance on Wonderella's part, as she realizes both that the Beast's servants were unjustly affected by his punishment and that beating up the fairy could have been a possible solution.
  • The Little Mermaid. [39]. Owing to the source material, the ending result is more a (failed) Silent Snarker than a Cute Mute.
  • "Electric Bugaboo" is one of Superman's "electricity powers" Dork Age.
• Patrick Stewart Speech: With Patrick Stewart, even.
• Peek-a-Bangs: [40]
• Pettanko
• Pimped-Out Dress: Her outfit in a prison that Martha Stewart designed.
• Pink Means Feminine: Wonderita will not accept a Ring of Power that's any other color.
• Pity the Kidnapper: While Wonderella is busy ordering a virtual reality video game system, Hitlerella has Wonderita tied up over an Acid Pool, but Hitlerella lets Wonderita go because Wonderita's incessant chit-chat is too annoying, providing the current page image for the trope.
• Positive Discrimination: Queen Beetle, the black female superheroine, who is intelligent, well-mannered, and with an actual functioning moral compass -- very much in contrast with the lead.
• The Power of Rock: But will it work against bears?
• Private Eye Monologue: An unnamed character delivers one about the city and Wonderella, while Wonderella rages about her drink being the wrong flavor.
• The Problem with Pen Island: 2012's NoNadVentures.com April Fools' Day gag.
• Product Placement: Parodied in Wonderella's own comic-within-the-comic.
• Public Domain Character: Lampshaded
• Public Service Announcement: [41]
• Pun-Based Title: Every single comic has a punny title.
• Punch Clock Hero: Taken pretty much to the limit.
• Pyromaniac: Devlin is a minor character who "live[s] to purify the earth in fire" and calls himself "Perdition's Flame given bones, breath and blood". Wonderella, who apparently shares his love of burning and exploding things, occasionally romances him, but they never stay together long.
• A Rare Sentence: In the Tiny Newsbox, in reference to this comic:

Due to overwhelming reader response, I have added breasts to the space dinosaur cowboy. This was not a statement I was expecting to make today (or ever), but your logic is irrefutable and I am not above admitting my own mistakes.

• The Real Heroes: Not according to Wonderella.
• Real Men Wear Pink: The short-lived Sentai team Semaphorce's Pink member declares "Pink for VENGEANCE!"
• Reckless Gun Usage: On Christmas Eve, Wonderella wants to have fun shooting clay pigeons, which she has Wonderita throw into the air — in a city, with nothing to stop her shots from hitting passers-by. Wonderella immediately accidentally shoots down Santa Claus in his flying sleigh, which crashes and burns on the roof of a church, setting the church on fire, after which Jesus teleports in to admonish them and to recruit them for Saving Christmas.
• Refuge in Vulgarity
• Retro Gaming: Wonderella goes to buy a Wii because "everyone else wants" one, but she finds it too complex and prefers playing Bad Dudes on an arcade machine.
• Rogues Gallery
• Runaway Bride: Here, even though she apparently already eloped with the guy.
• Running Gag:
  • 'Ella and 'Rita trying to catch the leprechaun and teleporting somewhere.

*POP* "Aw bitches!"

• • Wonderella can jump hella high.
  • The Birthday surprise, complete with someone else's name poorly covered up on the banner.
  • Wonderella using the time machine for mundane purposes and causing horrible temporal paradoxes.
  • The Valentine's Day encounters with Devlin.
• Ruthless Modern Pirates
• Saving Christmas: With Jesus.
• Shooting Superman: Referenced here.
  • And here is a whole strip Lampshading this trope. Also, it gets worse when, after shooting failed, you try tossing the empty gun at her...
• Shout-Out
  • To the Joker's "boner," as popularized by Superdickery.
  • To the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Expository Theme Tune. [42]
  • To Bad Dudes. [43]
  • To Prodigy's "Firestarter". [44]
  • To The Adventures of Dr. McNinja. [45]
  • To the Super Mario series. [46]
  • To The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. [47]
  • To Frisky Dingo with its "ironic scare quotes".
• Sidekick: Wonderita.
• Skewed Priorities: Wonderella usually has them.
  • While Penumbra is concerned about the Greco-Roman Godhead being about to destroy Earth, Wonderella is instead upset that the Godhead didn't give her the power to fly when it created her.
  • Wonderella's objection to villains wanting to destroy Earth is that Earth has Arby's or Tim Allen.
• Skyward Scream: Really brings out Wonderella's Skewed Priorities
• Slash Fic: With Ronald McDonald
• Smoke Out: Parodied.
• Snap Back
• Spanner in the Works: [48]
• Spoof Aesop: [49]
• Stealth Pun: But spelled out in the alt text.
• Stepford Smiler: Wonderita lays it down. "Silly! Human ladies are always supposed to smile, even when we aren't happy at all! See?"
  • Also name-dropped by Wonderella during one of her typical ads - this one for "The Titanicker".
• Stupid Jetpack Hitlerella.
• Superhero: Wonderella et al.
• Superheroes Wear Capes
• Super-Hero Origin: Wonderella's is a parody/pastiche of Superman's and Wonder Woman's.
• Synchronized Swarming: When Wonderella refuses to leave her television to defend her city from a "mutant moth attack", Penumbra's faeries assemble and "link arms" to form a giant faerie warrior to fight the giant moth.
• Take That: At so many things.
  • Coors Light.
  • The Decemberists.
  • the Beatles.
  • Sarah Palin.
  • Psychologists.
  • Squirrel Girl
  • Dan Didio.
  • At Sutter Home.
  • The latest DC reboot.
• Temporal Paradox: [50]
• Theme Naming: Wonderella, Hitlerella, and Jokerella. When our heroine meets plant-based villainess The Orchid, she suggests "Flowerella" instead.

Look, I just have this naming convention. If you wanna be my villain, you might as well have a name that rhymes.

• There Is Another: Parodied and subverted.
• This Isn't Heaven: Through Frank Sinatra.
• Token Minority: Queen Beetle.
  • Poorly-conceived token black bear Onyx Star!
• Token Religious Teammate: Rita, maybe: in times when Jesus shows up, Rita seems distinctly more respectful and happy to see Him than Wonderella is.
• Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth: In Guess Who's Coming To DINNER. Tim Allen is apparently too spicy for Galactus Ginormus.
• True Neutral: Or as Dr. Shark puts it, Personality pH 7.
• Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist: Wonderella
• Utopia Justifies the Means: So does clutter-free web design.
• Valentine's Day Episodes: Starting in 2007, Wonderella, who evidently hates Valentine's Day, tends to meet a Pyromaniac named Devlin around Valentine's Day, after which they gleefully burn and explode things, have a passionate romance based on their shared love of fiery destruction, and then fall out with each other after a comically short time.
• Vegetarian Vampire: Wonderella meets some vampires who say that, instead of killing innocent people, they intend to organize a blood donation drive and split the donated blood with the Red Cross. Wonderella kills them all anyway — she wants their bones to make soup stock.
• Video Will: "Oh! Hello there! I am dead."
• Villainous Harlequin: Jokerella, skimping on the "villainous". Her mother Pirouette was a much straighter example.
• Wanton Cruelty to the Common Comma: "Those, madam, are called scare quotes. I'm using them to strike terror into the hearts of my enemies."
• Weaksauce Weakness: Hitlerella's greatest weakness is that she has a moustache. It's not pretty.
  • Wonderella halts an invading alien force with alcohol. (It doesn't poison them or anything, it just makes them think flying into the sun is a really good idea...)
• Wearing a Flag on Your Head: Patrianna's outfit.
• What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?:
  • Apparently Wonderella's original powers were so lame she was given new ones.
  • The Order of Prodigious Noblewomen's superpowers aren't outright useless — Alice is a Sizeshifter and Miss Havisham and Beatrice Rappacini are very good at killing (on the other hand, Jane Eyre is apparently The Team Normal) — but they just don't have the durability to survive at Wonderella's level.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Nearly Once an Episode. It's that kind of strip.
• A Winner Is You: [51]
• Wizarding School: Harry Potter style.
• A Worldwide Punomenon: Many examples. A French supervillain who can split herself into three people? Paris Troika.
• Worth It: [52]
• Wrong Genre Savvy: [53].
• X Meets Y: Wonderella is essentially Wonder Woman meets Elaine from Seinfeld.
• Yes but What Does Zataproximetacine DO: Wonderella's... frank regarding what it does, but not regarding its side effects

Wonderella: Not gettin' paid by the word here

• Yet Another Christmas Carol: A Christmas PERIL!
• You Kill It, You Bought It: Parodied with the Ninja clan. Given a Continuity Nod later.
• You Know I'm Black, Right?: With Stephen Hawking.
• Zombie Apocalypse: A Russo zombie, not Romero zombie.