I really missed a trick not posting this on Halloween. Sigh. ANYWAY.
Welcome back to Part Two showing off Hayden Sherman’s ABSOLUTE WONDER WOMAN designs. If you missed Part 1, which covered designs from the first volume of ABSOLUTE WONDER WOMAN, you can read that here.
Part Two includes the significant designs from the “As My Mothers Made Me” arc (issues #8 - 12). All designs by Hayden Sherman. Let’s get into it!
DOCTOR POISON
Doctor Poison is one of my favorite new takes on old villains. I love this suit so much and I love how much she hates Veronica Cale. lol. <3
Poison IS getting an update to her suit (if you’re following the story you know why!) — so expect a tweaked design when she shows up again in ABSOLUTE WONDER WOMAN #16 (Jan) — but we all love this design so much I didn’t really want to change it (foiled! by my own storytelling! ahhh!) but I confess that the tweaked design Hayden did for Poison is…perfect. I don’t know why I was surprised.
THE TETRA-SPIDERS
Sometimes something intended to be a one-off thing is too cool to just be a one-off. I actually find this happens a lot with Hayden — everything they create is too interesting and I find I don’t want move on — so I would expect these guys to eventually show up again in new/different ways in the future!
FERDINAND
I love Ferdinand. That is all.
THE MEN-FISH/THE FISH-MEN:
Though they are mostly cannon fodder, doing Clea’s bidding without question in the maze, I ended up really loving these dummies and don’t be surprised if we see them again some day too.
QUEEN CLEA
Fantastic design that in my view, builds beautifully on the OG design (and the 80s update) in super smart ways that are fun while also making a lot of sense. We ended up giving her a staff instead of the Trident when we realized the Trident of Poseidon should be much more than just a weapon, and tweaked the story accordingly.
Hayden also added absolutely wild platform heels after this iteration — which are super impractical to actually fight in, but made a lot of sense for her trying to make herself larger than life inside the maze.
IO
IO is one of my favorite Amazons (and one of my favorite moons of Jupiter! There are at least 97 so that’s more impressive than you think. Yes, yes, I hear how nerdy this sounds…let’s move on). One of the reasons I picked IO to be our Amazon in the maze, beyond my affection for her, is that she tends to be one of the larger/more muscled Amazons in regular WW canon — she’s often depicted as the blacksmith with big heavy blacksmithing tools more than slender swords and shields. Anyway, showing Diana being larger than even one of the (presumably) larger Amazons was a good way to both show their connections and similarities, and to also suggest that even among the gifted/fantastic, Diana is still quite special.
The specifics of her design were quite tricky — she had to feel like she was an Amazon, but having been separated from them for decades and trapped in a maze, she had to also feel both aligned with the others trapped inside the maze and unique among them. As usual, Hayden mastered all those complications with ease.
We changed her hair color and tweaked the way the maze tattoo looked on her skin, but otherwise this was a hit on the first pass I believe.
HIPPOLYTA & THE AMAZONS
We knew that other than IO, we were going to be seeing Hippolyta and Themyscira, if only briefly. But that meant Hayden had to really dig in and think about the Amazons as if we were diving into a massive story about them, so that everything would feel appropriately fleshed out and well-considered even if we were just getting a glance.
Hippolyta in particular is such a great look that feels like Diana visually but also DOES NOT feel like she’d be confused for Diana. A personal pet peeve of mine is when Diana and Hippolyta look indistinguishable and so I’m particularly delighted by how Hayden handled that challenge.
ZATANNA
I showed off the Zatanna design already in the last installment since everyone was so excited, but I’ve put the cover below and for the folks anxious for Zatanna to arrive INSIDE — expect to see her in ABSOLUTE WONDER WOMAN #14 (this month!) and again in ABSOLUTE WONDER WOMAN #16 (Jan) which kicks off the Season Of The Witch arc. The cover below is Hayden’s cover for issue 16, with colors by Jordie Bellaire.
Okay. That’s it for now, but I will try to do another one of these for issues 13 - 20 (and the Annual!) when appropriate — as we have a ton of incredible design coming down the pike — and as the teases in ABSOLUTE WONDER WOMAN #12 have suggested. :D
Thanks for reading!
Kelly
Love this art! Also been loving the comics in general :D
Incredible work once again by Hayden Sherman. It's so wonderful that they are obviously a fan of the story you're telling and you're such a fan of the art and it's creating such wonderful vibes and style.