Like how PKJ made me see the potential of what Metallo could be thematically, Tom King unlocked Grail as a Wonder Woman villain.
Issue 6 of Tom King and Daniel Sampere's Wonder Woman run finally made Grail click into place for me. I get her now. I get what she stands for, why she works as an evil Wonder Woman counterpart the way Zod and Bane do for Superman and Batman. It all comes down to the nature of what Wonder Woman is supposed to be, where she draws her strength from, and how DC has constantly dropped the ball with her portrayal.
Wonder Woman is meant to stand in contrast to the world of Men. The legends and myths mankind has told about the Amazons are total lies, at least with regards to what the Amazons are meant to be as created by Marston. Where the legends portray the Amazons as bloodthirsty warriors, the DC Amazons are peace-loving freedom fighters. They have a culture that values the arts and sciences equally to combat. They have advanced medicine and technology as seen with the purple ray. Where the world of men prioritizes fathers and sons, the Amazons show the value of mothers and daughters. Diana is herself the ultimate rebellion against the status quo of Patriarch's World. She has no father. Her creation was an act of love solely undertaken and made possible by her mother Hippolyta and her patron goddesses. Everything about the Amazons and Wonder Woman is supposed to be in defiance to what you'd think they'd "realistically" be.
What then is the thematic conflict between Diana and Grail? Diana is the Liberated Woman, free of the shackles that society places on people via gender roles, and fighting to share that freedom with the rest of the world. Grail meanwhile is her contrast, the Patriarchal Sellout. Where Diana invokes Hippolyta as her source of strength, Grail invokes Darkseid and has abandoned her mother's mission and dreams for her. Where Diana fights against the Patriarchy, as embodied in the Sovereign, Grail joins forces with the very man who has ordered the exile and murder of her sister Amazons.
She's bloodthirsty and spoiling for a fight, possessed of a curious honor that sees her toss her own weapon aside when she sees Diana has already done likewise. She's proudful and ego-driven, which is why Sovereign has to come recruit her himself rather than send an underling. All she cares about is fighting and proving her own strength on the battlefield or in the bedroom. In other words: Grail is the kind of Amazon that the general audience frequently thinks Wonder Woman is. All of the erroneous beliefs found there are true for her. Grail is the bloodthirsty Amazon of myth, the one who is powerful because her father is the head of a pantheon of gods. The evil dominatrix who gets off on other peoples suffering because they're weak, and thus not worthy unlike herself. Whose empowerment comes at the cost of others' debasement.
Instead of rebelling against stereotypes, she embodies them. All that makes her interesting, because here you have Wonder Woman embodying the Amazon Ideal up against the Amazon Nightmare. You have the strongest woman on the planet - who derives power from other women, up against the strongest woman who derives her power from a man. The Ambassador for Peace vs. the Goddess of War.
In other words? It's Diana up against a character who embodies the worst trends that she has fallen victim to because of DC's treatment of her. Grail is the kind of Amazon who would take heads as battle trophies the way Zack Snyder wanted to portray DCEU Wonder Woman, who'd gleefully leap at the chance to rule the world the way Injustice Wonder Woman does, who'd kill a child and wreck the planet like Flashpoint Wonder Woman, who is a warrior and nothing else. Johns created her as a dark reflection of the New 52 Wonder Woman, who was already a dark deviation from the "traditional" Wonder Woman. Which means now Diana has a Rogue who embodies every terrible misconception of, and direction for, her character. She has someone who she can look straight in the face of, see all those terrible ideas on what Wonder Woman should be, all those trashy takes on what empowerment for women looks like, and go
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