DC’s upcoming Absolute universe aims to offer radical new takes on the brand’s top A-listers (so far), with the initial focus on the Trinity of Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman. The swole, axe-wielding Batman has taken up most of the focus thus far, but the publisher’s now starting to shed some more light on what to expect from its new version of the Princess of Themyscira.
For starters, she’s not from Themyscira at all. The Absolute version of Wonder Woman is a Princess of Hell and a witch that wields some magic and a big-ass sword to fight monsters. When giant beasts called Harbingers start showing up in Gateway City, Diana takes it upon herself to leave Hell and make her debut as the first public superhero of the new, Absolute universe.
Absolute Wonder Woman is helmed by Kelly Thompson and Hayden Sherman, and the duo have started discussing their approach to the upcoming book. Speaking with Newsarama and AIPT, Thompson admitted Diana could be a “hard character” to write for, and some of her initial ideas weren’t taking like she’d hoped. Of those original pitches, she said most of them had either “depowered” Wonder Woman in some way, or felt too dark so as to feel like a betrayal. Eventually, Thompson decided to peel those ideas back to figure out how to give Diana a “very different life where she still comes out with the same soul intact.” Enter the return of an old idea: Wonder Woman, but a witch.
Despite hailing from Hell, Diana will “maintain that core we all know, love, and really expect and deserve from her,” said Thompson. Things have been “rearranged,” but she assured that the character “still ended up raised in love,” much of which can be owed to the art. She praised Sherman for “really knowing how to build that and show the warming up of that world and that connection between” Diana and her mother in the first issue. “It was all up to Hayden to telegraph that, [but] it’s like six pages where there’s only a handful of captions and some dialogue, and it’s so powerful.”
As far as what to expect from Absolute Wonder Woman, Thompson teased a variety of conflicts, from Diana’s clash with the US government and her public perception to big, Cthulu-like monsters. Along with all the fantasy, there’ll be some sci-fi elements thrown in there as well, and the Kaiju-like Harbingers are “just the beginning.” (In a separate interview with AIPT, Thompson assured classic Wonder Woman villains and friends will appear, their arrival will just be a “slow burn.”) For as much new stuff that’s in here, Thompson’s confident readers will find the core essence of the classic Diana in here: “We’ve made a sort of new mythology for her that talks to the old stuff,” she said, “but I think puts a fresh spin on it.”
Absolute Wonder Woman releases on October 23, and you can read Newsarama’s full interview with Thompson and Sherman here.
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