How do you tell a brand-new story about one of the world’s most well-known heroic icons—one that doesn’t feel like anything that’s ever come before it—and yet, which still feels like that character? This is the challenge that faces the writers and artists of the Absolute comic line. And of all the superstars who have lined up to take on the Absolute Challenge, there may not be a bolder approach than the one Kelly Thompson and Hayden Sherman have taken with Absolute Wonder Woman—straddling her to the back of an obsidian skeletal Pegasus, raised in a tradition of dark magic, screaming with righteous fury from the bowels of Hades to reclaim a birthright denied by the gods themselves. We got to speak with these creators about the inspirations and pitfalls of redesigning Wonder Woman, balancing chaos with quiet, and the secret to cutting through comic book discourse: you just have to bring a bigger sword.

Scott Snyder told me that the idea with the Absolute line was to examine and strip away the parts of a character you don't need to tell a modern story about them that still remains true. How did you both approach that idea with Wonder Woman?

Kelly Thompson: I think with Wonder Woman, I first tried a lot of things that didn't work...at all. I was pretty frustrated and didn't think I could crack it. There's just a very specific way for Diana to be in order to be recognizable I think, but everything I tried felt like it stripped her of really vital characteristics that made her just...not feel like Wonder Woman anymore. Which was very much not the point. So, I had to go back to the drawing board a few times to figure out the ways in which taking things from her would actually focus her even more powerfully into who she was and needed to be and then figuring out what we needed to give back to her to replace those losses, to ensure that she could still emerge as the woman we all loved. What I found was that Diana transforms nearly everything she touches in the best of ways. Leaning into that became our guiding star.

Hayden Sherman: Speaking to the design side of things, the idea of taking and replacing to keep the core intact is spot on there as well. A big part of redesigning her here was finding those essential parts of her costume that made her identifiably WONDER WOMAN. And then the parts that could be tinkered with. And in doing so, we always pushed for new ground where we could, in hopes of building a Wonder Woman who feels decisively her own, but recognizably classic, which has become the aim for the art as a whole.

Kelly, this isn't your first trip with Diana. You introduced us to an absolutely terrifying Wonder Woman as an unstoppable opponent in the first arc of your ongoing Birds of Prey run. Did that prepare you to take on this new vision of Wonder Woman?

KT: I hope I've been a little bit preparing to write Diana since I started writing comics. She's long been a north star I'd hoped I would reach! I reached for her in Birds of Prey purely selfishly—it was my first book at DC and I wanted to grab for all my favorite stuff in case I only got one shot. I've also long been dying to see Diana and Barda get a good rematch. Knowing I had Leonardo Romero on board to draw it and Jordie Bellaire to color it, I'd have been a fool to pass it up

Let's talk about the Big Damn Sword. Whenever you bring up Wonder Woman in fandom spaces, there's inevitably a whole lot of Sword vs. Lasso discourse. How did you decide on how to equip Wonder Woman, and when did you realize the solution was to make her a roleplaying game protagonist?

KT: I honestly expected the sword to be very unpopular given how Wonder Woman fans often feel about Diana with a sword, but apparently if you make the sword big enough, some of that criticism...falls away? [laughs] I do think that a giant magic sword is very appropriate for some of the threats this Wonder Woman is facing right out of the gate. It's not a weapon she would deploy against an everyday threat, but the threat she first arrives to face is hardly "every day."

HS: Yeah, this Diana is going up against big things that cause big problems and require big tools. And it makes for a fun visual language to bring to Wonder Woman as we classically understand her. By the way, I love the RPG protagonist comparison! It’s super valid! This Wonder Woman is drawing from a wide net of influences, and I think that’s an important part of keeping her vital and engaging.

Hayden, I want to dial in on one of my favorite sequences from this first issue, where we get three quiet double-page spreads in a row of Circe learning to love her ward as they build a home together. What was the thought process behind conveying that passage of time in that composition?

HS: Oh, I adore that sequence. The beats Kelly constructed there are perfect, so my thought process was just: don’t overthink this. There are some very active and designed page compositions/layouts in this issue because I find those approaches fit those scenes best. But for this series of spreads, things needed to be simple and direct, so from panel to panel we can watch the cave become a home and these two people become a family. The action and emotion sits with them. So the page itself just needs to be simple.

Absolute Wonder Woman does a great job of establishing its own identity, but I can see some similarities in the art and tone with recent Black Label Wonder Woman books like Wonder Woman: Dead Earth and Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons. What were your influences going into Absolute Wonder Woman and on your conception of Diana and her world in general?

KT: Wonder Woman Historia was certainly the Wonder Woman reference that inspired me the most, though I looked at a lot of things and, of course, a lot of specifically Wonder Woman things. I just don't think an updating of that origin can be done better than Historia. Letting it remain complex and yet, somehow, clarifying it—it's a masterstroke. You'd be a fool to try to do it better than DeConnick, Jimenez, Ha and Scott. Dead Earth is obviously a touchstone, but in some ways, since we were doing a very "hardcore Diana," I felt we had to push away from that for fear of the comparison. But Rucka’s Wonder Woman, especially the earlier stuff, has some of my favorite plots, and Simone's Wonder Woman has some of the funniest and softest/most relatable Diana. So in the end, I hope we were pulling from a lot of it to end up where we did.

HS: Historia and Dead Earth are both marvelous. It’s undeniable that they have acted as influences on my end. But I’d have to say my biggest Wonder Woman influence going into this was George Peréz’s run. His Wonder Woman art has this gentle understated power to it. The pages are gorgeously detailed and the action is big and energetic, but his quiet scenes are given equal attention. There’s just so much care evident in it. Which, to me, is very defining of Wonder Woman. Every moment matters.

Absolute Batman frames itself as a modern Batman story, constructing a model of Batman who makes sense for our current age. Should we expect a similarly modern Diana, or do you see your Absolute Wonder Woman as timeless?

KT: I do typically think of Wonder Woman as quite timeless, but I think this Diana has a...righteousness in her mission that is especially powerful right now, that speaks to what a lot of people are feeling these days. The circumstances our Diana finds herself in, what she was raised in, it all feels very overdue for powerful wrongs to be righted and she feels like the perfect righteous hero for that mission.

I'll discard any veneer of objectivity by just plainly saying: I LOVED this comic. Every page of this book is mind-blowing. What have you written and drawn in Absolute Wonder Woman that you're proudest of and are most excited for readers to see?

KT: Well, I deeply love this first issue, especially how it builds and how the heart of it unfolds. But I'm really excited for people to read issue #3 as well—it has some terrific reveals and wild swings that I'm excited for people to experience.

HS: I’m going to echo Kelly here! I’m drawing issue #3 right now and it’s an issue that just gives and gives and gives. I’m such a fan of it. We’re going for a sense of scale here that I find real exciting. Can’t wait to share it!
 

Absolute Wonder Woman #1 by Kelly Thompson, Hayden Sherman and Jordie Bellaire is now available in print and as a digital comic book.