DC’s Absolute Universe is arriving in a matter of weeks - including the very first issue ofAbsolute Wonder Womanby Kelly Thompson and Hayden Sherman, the hotly anticipated and “witchy” take on Diana of Themyscira. But is the Absolute version of Wonder Woman still considered “of Themyscira”? ScreenRant spoke with Thompson and Sherman to discuss this dark new Wonder Woman’s dark new history.
This October, DC Comics is launchingits Absolute Universe: an alternate world with a brand-new continuity, altering the origins of the publisher’s classic superheroes. Like Marvel’s Ultimate line, this new world will begin witha slate of #1s perfectly designed for new readers- including those with no knowledge of the traditional DC Universe. Among those new #1s isAbsolute Wonder Womanby Thompson and Sherman.
October 23rd, 2024
Variant Covers:
Wes Craig, Jim Lee, Jeff Dèkal, Dan Panosian
EISNER WINNER KELLY THOMPSON AND BREAKOUT ARTIST HAYDEN SHERMAN REINVENT WONDER WOMAN FROM THE GROUND UP! Without the island paradise… without the sisterhood that shaped her… without a mission of peace… what’s left is the Absolute Amazon!
Thompson, a fan-favorite writer who’s also currently on the critically acclaimedBirds of Preyongoing with Leonardo Romero, and Sherman, a rising-star artist whose array of creator-owned titles has already won them acclaim,spoke with ScreenRant about their take on the Absolute version of Wonder Woman. Check out the interview below - lightly edited for clarity - to learn more about Diana’s new origins, her “witchy” make-up, what went into her gnarly new design, and much more.
Absolute Wonder Woman’s Kelly Thompson and Hayden Sherman Discuss Their Take on Diana
And the Promising First Reactions
Screen Rant: We’re less than a month away from the launch of the title. So how are you guys feeling now that we’re so close to everything really getting started?
Kelly Thompson: I mean, I think I think the nerves really ramp up, but also you’ve been working on something so long in a vacuum that it’s A. fun to talk about it, and it’s B. exciting to see people reacting to it who aren’t the people making it. I mean, I think there’s a fair amount of criticism within any good creative group where we’re all sort of pushing on each other and hoping that you’re going in the right place. But you still get nervous about it, where you’re like, “wait, we all loved this, did we not question it enough?”
I mean, I would say the sword, you know, we just put the sword in. Basically, I had pitched an ax, and I am a big fan of the ax. But then Batman has the ax. So we were like, “well, we better pivot.” And we went to the sword, and I was really nervous about it because historically people get a little mad about aWonder Woman with a sword. Then people have gone crazy over it! So apparently all you have to do is change all of her situational stuff and make the sword absolutely massive and people are back on board. So, you know, I’m gonna keep that note in my pocket for later.
It’s exciting, but it’s terrifying.
Hayden Sherman: It’s been nice having things trickle out step by step. At first it was like, “oh, we have so much,” and nobody knows anything, and then they see the design and like, “OK, there’s a good reaction to the design.” Thank god! And then a little bit more comes out. So now I’m just really like, “ah, I just want the issue out there!” Which is a month away.
KT: When you’re at the point we’re at, you really just— I mean, you’re excited to be talking about it, but you really just wish people could be seeing it. But also, once they see it, now you’re like on the clock, though. So you know, it’s good to have some time, some room to do these things.
But I’m very excited, especially because of the way Wonder Woman works— the way we’ve designed it, it sort of deploys the reveals a little more slowly, a little more deliberately, as it gets into that. So that makes it extra hard, because you have stuff, like— there’s stuff in issue 3 that I’m so excited for people to see, and we’re not even close [laughs]. It’s months and months away. It’s exciting, but it’s terrifying.
ABSOLUTE WONDER WOMAN’s New Tattoo Redesign Is the Freshest Take on Diana in Decades
DC has finally unveiled their much-anticipated ABSOLUTE Wonder Woman redesign, set to debut this October as part of their upcoming ALL IN initiative.
SR: You guys brought up, organically, the character design, which is hard not to bring up when we’re talking about Absolute Universe stuff. So let’s jump there first and talk a little bit — especially Hayden, I’m looking forward to hearing from you — about the character design. Especially since, as you guys implied, there were, at least from what I’ve seen, really great reactions to Wonder Woman’s design— well, I had a great reaction to it, so I speak for the entire Internet, obviously. [All laugh] So what was your process like, Hayden, in making this design, this new version of Wonder Woman? And are there any character details that you’re both particularly excited about from a visual standpoint?
HS: The starting point that we had for working out the design— because first, to start with, we didn’t really know how far away we could push from what we traditionally classically know as Wonder Woman. What elements needed to stay and what elements would need to go in order to find, like, a new vision for her. So the first approach was like, I sent over six or seven designs that were just kind of a shock and blast of an approach as you could go.
Like, here or there, straight hair, curly hair, all these different little variations we could do so that as a team we could suss out stuff we do like collectively, things we don’t like. And also finding individual tastes for each of us and what we all personally wanted to be in there— and didn’t want to be in there, very importantly.
Starting there, and then refining and sharpening it down until we got where we are now, thank god [laughs]. The process was a lot of fun in that way. I like being able to bounce off of everybody and it’s kind of like— Kelly, what you were saying, we are supportively critical of one another?
KT: Yeah, it’s hard to get a bunch of people to agree on something as important as this, but I think we did a good job of holding each other’s feet to the fire about what mattered and what worked and what didn’t.
HS: Yeah, exactly! I feel like the result is that— all these questions, I have real, genuine answers to, because there was a lot of intention and there was a lot of discussion back and forth about what we were going to be doing both between us and editorial and then with color and everything.
How Absolute Wonder Woman’s Character Design Informs Her Action and World
Variant Cover by Jim Lee
KT: Good design really informs what we’re doing. For example, I’ll give you some details that we haven’t really talked about. We talked about the pants a lot with other people. But something we haven’t talked about is the armor. And when Hayden sent in the first pass on the armor with the helmet and the fur cloak and everything— I was like, “oh, well, that is my favorite thing I’ve ever seen and we’ll be writing that like—” That’s how she first arrives. We’re not gonna build up to that; we’re just gonna start with that. Because it’s so cool!
I think it’s people bringing their best— it changes your direction. Because I wouldn’t have thought, initially, we’d debut her that way. Because you would think you’d debut with a look that’s a little more core to the look and then you’d add those things later. Like, “Oh, she’s gearing up for her big battle—” no. She arrives fully formed, fully armored, prepared to save a town, save a city.
How do you make something completely different but still recognizable?
But had Hayden’s design not gone so hard, I might have been like, “oh, well, we’ll build to that. We’ll get to that in five or something.” But no. This goes very hard, especially in the design choices and the ways that she’s different and I hope that some of that is drawing a really good contrast for her still really feeling like Diana inside all of that.
And all credit to Hayden. I would also say that the scattershot approach worked really well, because it did immediately allow us to be like, “Let’s try it without the skirt and see what happens.” And we all like the curlier hair. We were able to really say, okay, these are some core things we’re gonna move toward, which was a great way to go, because I don’t even know as a designer how you begin with such a huge task of, like, re— How do you make something completely different but still recognizable? “Oh! Oh! Just an impossible thing to do! Oh, sure, no problem. I’ll do it this weekend.” Like it’s really hard! And they nailed it.
“This is Who Bruce Would Be Today”: ABSOLUTE BATMAN Creators Explain Their All-New Origin (And Yes, That Giant Bat-Symbol)
ScreenRant spoke with Scott Snyder and Nick Dragotta about their process in creating ABSOLUTE BATMAN, a completely reimagined version of Bruce Wayne.
HS: Thankfully there were a bunch of us to go back and forth about it. Because if I was left to my own devices to do this, I don’t know what I would have come up with on my own.
Something we haven’t touched on with other interviews or anything is her makeup approach, where we’re going with the dark black lipstick and a little heavier on the eyeshadow and things. In its own way, It feels, I think, distinct enough in the current landscape of Wonder Woman comics, but also kind of pulls from her 1940s origins where she would be drawn with very dark makeup, which I thought was kind of fun to bring back in this way.
SR: I feel like that’s a good way to bring it back to my questions about magic — which is a weird transition, but when you say dark makeup, I think, “oh, like witchy makeup!” [All laugh]
Absolute Wonder Woman Has Brand-New Roots in Magic - Yes, That Makes Her a Witch
Variant Cover by Dan Panosian
SR: Yeah! This witchy vibe that she has— and y’all have talked before a little bit about Diana’s ties to magic and have actually used the word witch before. In the second issue solicitation, we’ve got that moniker for her, the Princess of the Underworld, which is incredibly gnarly. So is her witchiness and her role in the underworld connected in some way? What can you tell us aboutthis Wonder Woman’s connection to magicand how it affects her traditional clay origin and her role with the Amazons?
KT: I think someone asked us the other day a little bit like this, a similar question, and I realized that they were sort of asking — is she actually a witch? And yes, she’s 100% a witch. She’s not the most powerful witch in the world or anything. For example, down the line, when Zatanna becomes part of this Absolute Universe or something, she’s not more a witch than I would saysomeone like Zatanna is, because she’s also all these other things.
But it’s now a core part of how she was raised, and how her mother raised her, and what her mother’s about, and what they had to deal with in this hell scenario in which she grew up. We’re not trying to hide that at all. She does magic, she does magic in the first issue, she is going to continue using magic. She has a pouch where she keeps the sword that’s got infinite space inside it or connects to a portal or whatever you want to say it is — that is completely magic based.
The Wonder Woman from the main DC Universe isn’t typically considered a magic-user, but she does have close ties to Justice League Dark - check out 2018’sJustice League Darkongoing series for more, available now both digitally and in collected editions from DC Comics.
So she’s really just playing with completely new weapons. The lasso that we debut in issue 1, which I sort of hoped we wouldn’t get that spoiled before the issue came out, but there was some talk about it and so I’ve confirmed it. We saw it in a couple of covers. So that’s called the Nemesis Lasso, and it’s incredibly cool and awesome. It doesn’t mean the golden lasso doesn’t exist, like that still is a thing in this world — or can be a thing in this world — it’s just not one of Diana’s tools.
I’ll say “yet,” but don’t expect it to show up anytime soon, as she’s just got all new, cool stuff that has new origins that I think are going to completely make sense to people, but be based on other things that she has had. But she just got to them a different way and they look a little different.
This all goes back to design — we’re talking about that a lot, which is rightly so — but they have different access to different materials. It’s a little more rough and ready-made in the way she looks, and that’s all by design. It all connects.
SR: Hayden, for you — Kelly’s talking a lot about Diana’s tools — her access to magic and different kinds of weapons. How do these changes to the character in terms of, like, what she has at her disposal change the way you think about her action scenes from a visual point of view?
HS: I think the magic in itself gives us a lot of flexibility, which is a lot of fun. The fact that she can pull out items from this pouch that she has at her side means there’s a lot of flexibility for what she’s using at any point. She could pull out the sword and then be working with that tool for a while. And then the next instant, just discard that, on to the next thing. So it makes things very playful, I think. At the same time we get to use magic-y imagery, which is a lot of fun on that level too. But yeah, I think the flexibility is the funnest part of it overall.
What Is Absolute Wonder Woman’s Connection to the Amazons?
Variant Cover by Wes Craig
SR: For as long as she’s been around, Wonder Woman has been closely tied, obviously, to the Amazons, to Paradise Island — that goes back to the ‘40s, and of course thinking about George Pérez’s revival of Themyscira and all of that. So Diana is a symbol of sisterhood in particular, as much as she is a symbol of truth and justice and all those classic big ideas. But now she doesn’t have those sisterly connections anymore. So who is Wonder Woman without sisterhood?
KT: I think — I hope — that people feel she’s still really almost the same? I would say the conceit is that you may change all these things around her and you can try to hold her back in this way and give her all these extra obstacles for whatever your motivation is for doing that, whether it’s circumstance or deliberate. I would argue, in Wonder Woman’s case, it’s gonna turn out to be both. But the core of her remains the same, and some of that is because she’s an incredibly special child, like literally blessed by the gods with these incredible gifts.
She’s seen those gifts and been like, “okay, someone given these advantages has to use them for good; there’s no other path, I have to be a force of good and change in the world.” So I think all that core Diana stuff is still there. I would say, in case it helps anybody feel better, I feel like the Amazons are some of the most important characters and forces in all of DC Comics. I love them. And I think, if you know anything about Diana, she’s gonna want to know them if she doesn’t.
Find the Amazons. Find my sisters. Rectify this wrong that’s been done to me and them. It’s one of the driving forces of the book.
So I would say, people who are looking for “what are her missions,” her mission is— it’s probably a little less a mission of peace, because she’s thrown into a much more violent world. But it still is about saving humanity, doing the right thing, using her power for good. But you know, if you’ve been taken from someone, you might want to find them again.
So I think people should not be surprised to find that as another part of her mission. Find the Amazons. Find my sisters. Rectify this wrong that’s been done to me and them. It’s one of the driving forces of the book. I think that’s not clearly spelled out, certainly not in the first issue, but I do think the way Amazons are used in the first issue— I hope will really resonate with people, because it’s very important to me personally.
SR: Hayden, any thoughts on that? What is Wonder Woman without sisterhood?
HS: The thing is, like, it’s so hard for me to detach from what I know Kelly is planning [all laugh]. I can just say that it is very important to Wonder Woman and that aspect of Wonder Woman is in very good hands. And maybe I should leave it at that.
SR: Yeah, as an aside, every time I do one of these interviews and I’m like, poking around, kind of dodging the spoilers, I’m like, “I don’t know how you guys do it.” I would just be like, blabbing six issues ahead or whatever [all laugh].
KT: It’s hard! It’s hard. It’s also hard because you feel like you’re giving non-answers, and you want to give satisfactory answers to people who are like, “I’m gonna spend my spare time listening to an interview of comics creators!” I don’t wanna give non-answer answers. So you try really hard to give what you can.
It’s particularly difficult on [Absolute] Wonder Woman because of the approach we took.[Absolute] Batman #1is a lot more dense as far as teasing multiple characters and all of that stuff. Some of that is they had a little bit more pages, but some of it’s just a different approach that is equally interesting, I think. I’m honestly really grateful that Scott [Snyder] went in a much more dense direction, because I think it allowed us to take a sort of different approach, which I hope will be equally effective.
Absolute Batman#1 by Scott Snyder and Nick Dragotta - the first title in the Absolute Universe - is available October 9th, 2024 from DC Comics.
Why can’t these things play together in this same world? It’s sort of the same way I feel about— there’s a very different, very beautiful Wonder Woman book also going on right now [by Tom King and Daniel Sampere] that has a completely different style. Why does it have to be one or the other? Let’s have both, you know? They can be different and still worthy, you know?
Absolute Wonder Woman Embraces the “Weird” for a Bold New Take on the Superhero Genre
Variant Cover by Jeff Dèkal
SR: What I’ve been finding interesting when following the Absolute Universe stuff is what it might be like building this new universe and a set of characters, like— that’s kind of from scratch? But also not from scratch at all? So for you as creators, with these different approaches, how is working onAbsolute Wonder Womandifferent from working with the characters in a main universe story — or even the “building from scratch” that actually happens in one of your creator-owned titles? How is it different working in this kind of universe?
KT: We’ve been given a lot of rope, which is incredible. Sometimes I’m shocked that we’re allowed to read this book [laughs]. I’m not shocked that it could exist, but I’m really proud of DC for not pulling punches and really letting us go where we wanted to go and where we felt the book should go. I think it’s really strong as a result. It’s always really fun to build a new version.
If you can figure out the angle, it’s always really fun. I mean, I almost quit because I couldn’t figure out the angle, but once I had the angle, it’s been some of the most fun stuff I’ve ever done and some of the most creative stuff I’ve ever gotten to do. It’s a true treat when you get to do that in a work-for-hire situation. It’s really been amazing.
HS: Coming at it from my end of things, I only really started doing work with DC or superhero comics in general within the last couple years. So the bulk of my career thus far had been a lot of creator-owned stuff where I had a lot of say over what looks like what and how things work— which was very foundational to me coming up, making books that I had a lot of say over. I mean, shoot, the ones that I made at Image, I would have to design it up through the trade paperback collections. I had to design everything.
So going from having that much agency and having to make and build so much from scratch, it’s nice to take that tool set over. Now having worked with DC for a while and having the comfort of knowing them and doing backups for a while and like a couple of single issues here and there— there was a lot of encouragement to do different things and to be kind of weird. It was really heartening, because it really felt for a while that this sort of thing — being a little bit more out there in approaches — I had internalized that it wouldn’t be very welcome.
But over the years working with DC and then coming up through this— I was completely off with that. It’s so encouraging to just push, to go in a different direction. If we’re going a little too far, then there’s a conversation about it and we go from there. But it’s rarely yhat there’s a hard like, “NO!” [Laughs] There’s so much room to breathe there that it still feels kind of creator-owned.
DC Finally Explains How Its New ABSOLUTE Universe is Created, And It’s Not Good News
DC is gearing up to introduce readers to the brand new Absolute Universe, and now the surprisingly dark origin of this new universe has been revealed.
KT: It does. I was just gonna say I would like totip my hat to Scott [Snyder]on that point too, because he really could have thrown his weight around about what he wanted these things to be, but I felt so much freedom from him and encouragement. Not that there wasn’t, you know, “hey, we need to align with a few things here.” Like, this is the basis of this world where, these are the directions you should first push.
But beyond that, we were really given so much freedom to cut loose and I think it served the project incredibly well overall. I I think the book ended up super strong and also weird, which is hard to do, and I credit a lot of people with us being able to get there with it.
KT: Right?!
SR: It is!
KT: It’s fun. There’s so much creativity here and it’s such a strange take. And I have to say I do credit— not to not to blame Hayden for weirdness, only in a positive way! But I do think there’s a version of this with a more traditional, superhero-type artist where, even if I wrote everything the same, it just wouldn’t be as interesting.
And I am really excited about that. Hayden just has slightly different instincts that I don’t ever think I would have gotten with just any other artist. I don’t think we would have gotten the sort of more Greek-looking, Hellenistic features. I don’t think we would have gotten the costume to the place we have. Hayden’s instincts are really strong. It’s really benefited the book in an incredible way.
Looking for more Hayden Sherman art? They worked with Scott Snyder on two creator-owned series at IDW:Dark Spaces: WildfireandDark Spaces: Dungeon. They also have a recently announced Batman maxiseries launching December 11th, 2024:Batman: Dark Patternswith writer Dan Watters.
What Other Wonder Woman Characters Can Fans Expect in the Absolute Universe?
Foil Logo Variant Cover
SR: I could talk about process all day, and I really wish I could. But I’m gonna ask one more question before I let you guys go, and it’s gonna be one of those like poking for concrete answer questions [all laugh]. As much as my instinct is just to keep asking about process!
What can you tell us about Wonder Woman’s traditional supporting cast who might be appearing in this universe? I think we’ve seen mention of Steve Trevor in one of the solicitations already, but anyone else you can tease? Wonder Girls, villains, anyone else we know from traditional continuity?
KT: Steve certainly is on the board. You’re going to be meeting him in issue 2. Barbara Minerva is also on the board. I think anyone [reading] this knows their lore enough to know that that is Cheetah in the regular universe. Etta [Candy] is certainly going to be on the board early. I wouldn’t expect to see powered people or even the Amazons right away, like it’s sort of a slow lead into how that’s gonna work.
You said Wonder Girl— I don’t even know how far we are away from Wonder Girl. There’s so many steps we have to get to before we would get to a Wonder Girl. I’m not saying that means she doesn’t exist or she can’t exist. I would love it if we write 1000 issues of this and you know, she shows up when she shows up.
But I think even seeing other powered people is gonna take a minute. One of the fun things about our Wonder Woman is that she really gets to be the first superhero in this world. Because, what she’s doing is very big, and she’s fighting a very big public threat. She’s on news cameras on page 2. The secret is out. And that’s really fun, but it also puts a weird clock on the universe, where now: how long is it before these heroes find each other or whatever?
But I think the slow play to that is going to be really fun and exciting. I think one of the strengths of the Absolute Universe is that these books have been allowed to do their own things separately, almost like — they’re not miniseries, they’re ongoing — but almost like self-contained stories that organically tell you all these things about this world without making them intersect or forcing them to cross over too fast. And I think it’s a luxury that we’ve been given that I’m really grateful for.
Thanks again to Kelly Thompson and Hayden Sherman for speaking with us about their work in the exciting new Absolute Unvierse.Absolute Wonder Woman#1is available October 23rd, 2024 from DC Comics.
