So far, one hell has been, Absolute Wonder Woman is one of the best DC comics on the shelf, if not the best. Written by Kelly Thompson with Hayden Sherman’s incredible artwork, the absolute Wonder Woman is Diana’s pure rethinking if she’s a black magical rigged up in hell.
Few modern comic writers can balance the work of kindness, action and razor sharp characters just as effectively as Kelly Thompson. In this interview, she discusses her approach to writing Wonder Woman, the challenges of working with such a rich history, as well as the book’s themes and what fans can expect from the series.
Whether you’re a longtime Wonder Woman fan or not used to mythology, Thompson’s insights glamorously see the creative process behind the comic’s most enduring icons.
This interview was clearly edited
Absolute Wonder Woman Jeff Decal Variant Cover
Christian Angeles: The absolute Wonder Woman feels almost like a goddess, a beacon of hope that only fights when necessary, drawing power from love for others. That collectivist theme has now become my favorite DC story, but in your own words, what is your emotional sloop line for a run with Diana?
Kelly Thompson: I think our Diana throop line is that she is being radicalized because of deep injustice, what has been done to her. What she was taken from her. And wherever she sees, she sees similar injustice. She believes she is empowered by the Goddess to reveal these injustices, to stop them, and to save the world. And she either does it or doesn’t stop until she’s dead. And it’s the kind of embar that, although dark, encourages others to stand up… it mainly takes the flames of revolution.
Angeles: Reconstructing Diana as Princess of Hell led to some serious metal storytelling. Her nemesis whip is a weapon of judgment based on crime. Every spell must sacrifice it. Not only does it become a strength, but it also has the burden of sacrificing it. What happened to create lore and keep its tone consistent?
Thompson: Well, it’s certainly not something I came up with that magic has a price. It’s a rather core idea of how magic works in fiction, but I also feel it’s an idea that we often get lip service without seeing or feeling it first. Put your hands into the story. But it was a huge part of Diana’s world and power, so it was important for us to feel that reality. If she was trying to see the power that has magical consequences, we had to see and feel the sacrifice.
Expect it to continue and evolve as we go on. I’ve talked a lot about being our mentoring star on the way history approached God and what our relationship with Diana looks like. It is connected to God and magic.
Angels: I love the line in No. 3: “Kindness and compassion are everything to save us now.” Your view on Wonder Woman is very clear. Raised in hell, strengthened by fire and battle, she lost everything, but built hope in a place where all hope was intended to be lost. I want to know – what is the all story here? These lines are very strong for these times and I think it’s a good thing for the audience to get what you’re conveying.
Thompson: Diana is the beacon of hope. Getting it out of her probably won’t be Diana anymore. But when I think about Diana’s obviously, very honorable mission of peace, it didn’t make much sense to me in this world. Peace is beautiful, but I really don’t know if it exists in a world filled with injustice. Diana’s world is darker than ours in that respect. Her lines about kindness and compassion – I think there are a lot of subtexts in the line, but the more fundamental interpretation just takes it at face value? Kindness and compassion are what saves us now… if you care absolutely nothing about a world where such things still exist. A writer friend said a few months ago, “What can I say? You get the world you created.” And…well, I can’t stop thinking about it.
Angels: I think the moment I fell in love with this cartoon was in a Greek vase. It’s similar to the panel. Hayden Sherman is blowing it away on these pages. The wide landscape contrasts beautifully with the intense action sequences. Do you need to know that you are working with them in creating these pages?
Thompson: Hayden is truly an exceptional collaborator. I think it will help us to be on the very same page about the story we want to tell, the themes that interest us, the importance of Diana and her story. But it’s rarely a great collaboration, even for me, and frankly, people who were very fortunate about collaboration. The vase scene is a great example of how we are in very sync. The script proposed the figures “Greek styling” and “Greek vase” as “panels/borders.” Visuals in an exciting way. But in Hayden’s case, I was sure they were very interested in doing something like that. And I was right – they loved the ideas – and what they came up with was better than I could have imagined. It is the joy of working with them, the joy of pushing me forward, thus bringing the book even higher.
Angels: Would you like to talk about Steve Trevor? Romance is romance, but only if necessary. I know that Diana’s Steve’s views express the audience’s perspective in a way, but would you like to know how Diana sees Steve? What is he for her?
Thompson: I think it’s easy to say whether Diana is romantically interested in Steve. She’s got a lot on the plate and almost everything is new to her, so when she literally escapes prisons in her underworld, she’s not interested in boxing herself into one path. That said, there is clearly a deep connection between them, and there is something in their story that connects them over and over, and we are excited to explore it. I think it’s a shallow reading of the text to believe that she simply ablured her right arm out of romantic love. It’s not wrong to think of or think of romantic love as a factor in her decisions, but reading it feels like it’s ignoring many other things we’re saying. Both literal and subtext.
Angeles: Here is a strong statement that Diana exists outside the military industrial complex. I feel that important distinction is predicting the next arc, but could you please tell me more about that distinction? What about Veronica Kale and the President? !
Thompson: Well, part of that scene is to reinforce the difference between Diana, who was raised in Paradise by Hippolita and Amazon, and Diana, who was raised in the Underworld by a wonderful magician who has a complicated relationship with men. It’s there. A man who mainly became a pig when he contacted her.
(lol)
But it is also the sign of a young woman who knows many things, drawing a line in the sand with powerful people, claiming herself and trying to inform her boundaries. But I think people like Veronica Kale are watching it vigorously. Who is right? I know the time. Diana is certainly a weakling, that’s certainly true.
Angeles: Tetracid is devastating and produces mind, body and mind. There is an existential fear of this kind of destruction, but do I know that it suggests more of my own and Hayden’s creative ideas?
Thompson: I had very specific ideas about how I wanted Diana to unfold. Deploy her backstory, characters and weapons above the first arc. And it called for some sort of villain to get us many exciting action moments without overwhelming us with the backstory of many villain. It was also an opportunity to create monsters that felt authentic to myths like C’thulu, Godzilla and Hydra, but we also added our own “this world is strange and different” twist. That’s how you end up with Kaiju, destroying your soul if you consume your soul. dark. It was also important to establish the kind of threat Diana faced – and the kind of world she came from, and even though she herself was very young, she was raised with this knowledge – The world’s most raised humans know only through legends and myths… a story.
Hayden is clearly really good in this kind of design, but that seems almost ridiculous to say at this point.
Angeles: Athena Blade compares to the Buster Sword in Final Fantasy VII, but in recent issues you get Pret-Ty Digs. Will the sword be bigger than this? And please tell us about its use and creation in the story.
Thompson: In theory, given what we saw in question #4, Athena’s blade could be as big as Diana’s magic would allow. But you all saw the trick and she won’t pull it again any time soon. There are many more toys to reach anyway – as you see in No. 5! Originally I wanted to focus on swords, and part of that was personal bias, but there was concern that historically people were not responding to Diana with swords. .
(lol)
But we pivoted because we found Batman early on that he had an x, and it was so burnt on the concept. And as soon as I saw the Hayden design on the Athena Blade, I was sure that people would love it just as much as I did.
Angeles: Please, can you give us some hints on what’s coming in the finale? What comes to the second arc of the story?
Thompson: I love the finale of Gosh, Ark 1. I had two ideas on how to solve the tetracid threat in a permanent way, and I pitched both to Hayden. After sending the email I started to regret it. But Hayden always emailed, LOVING the same ideas I did. For this first Wonder Woman story, I’ve just made things into a complete circle in such a powerful way, and I’m in love with it. Hayden and Geordy’s approach is spectacular.
So the second arc (#6 & #7) is an alternative artist Arc with my incredibly talented friend Mattia de Iris (Cal, Jessica Jones). There, Diana returns to the Underworld to deal with the effects of running away. We set both the flashback and the current story in the underworld. It’s going to be a lot of fun, especially for those interested in her backstory, her underworld and the gods.
And then with issue 8, we returned to Gateway City, with Hayden and Geordy back as well. Of course, expect Veronica Kale and other villains (and allies) you recognize will see some fun new surprises and of course… more weapons. When you’re trapped in an underworld, there’s plenty of time to build weapons!
Angeles: Finally, the most important question: Who is the best boy – Skeleton Pegasus or Jeff the Land Shark?
Thompson: OOF. I refuse to answer that question regardless of the basis… I have a favorite and I will never say.
Thank you again to Kelly Thompson! Absolute Wonder Woman #5 will be held at the store on February 26th
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