ABSOLUTE WONDER WOMAN DESIGNS BY HAYDEN SHERMAN - PART 4

Welcome back to Part 4 of our look at Hayden Sherman’s designs for the world of ABSOLUTE WONDER WOMAN. You can read parts One, Two, and Three at the links.

That said, this post, more than the others I think, I DO NOT advise you reading this post until after you’ve read the issues in question. The Annual in particular would be a bummer to experience outside the issue first. So go read the annual first and then come back!

Before we do that, a tiny bit of HOUSEKEEPING. Anyone expecting an order — they are ALLLLLLL going out today — you can check your Paypal Accounts this evening for tracking numbers if you’re anxious. Sorry for the delays and thanks for your patience. There will also be some refunds going out — I had some missing books and some damage (you will also be able to see any applicable refunds tonight in your Paypal Account). I’ll talk in a bit more detail about that in tomorrow’s post.

Okay! Let’s get into it!

Today we’re focusing on two arcs where Hayden did the design, but the issues were drawn by other artists. First up, from this week’s ABSOLUTE WONDER WOMAN ANNUAL #1, we had Athena, one of my favorite god designs thus far.

The og design by Hayden:

Admittedly I wrote a big DPS reveal for her in the Annual when I saw the genius and spectacle of Hayden’s design, suffice to say Mattia De Iulis did not disappoint either:

Hayden also did these incredible GORGON designs for original Medusa and her sisters Stheno and Euryale. I love their weird cool faces, so unlike the kind of design I feel like we traditionally see for female characters in comics:

Some of Euryale and Stheno in action by Mattia:

Obviously we saw the “Medusa” form (below by Hayden and colorist Jordie Bellaire) when Diana transformed into her in ABSOLUTE WONDER WOMAN #5:

And here is Mattia’s take on current actual Medusa as Diana first finds her in the Annual:

That’s about it design wise on the Annual this week, but I also wanted to highlight GAIA and the “Inverse Diana” that Hayden designed for THE PRICE arc a few issues back, which Matias Bergara brought to life so beautifully for those issues.

This is the original GAIA design by Hayden. Really leaning into her being made up of whatever Earth is around. I tend to think of her as not really having a representational physical form (because she is EVERYTHING) but when communicating with humans she tries to form a “face” for herself…something more representational…just to help their tiny human brains to not explode. lol

And Matias Bergara’s excellent distillation of that in ABSOLUTE WONDER WOMAN #14. The Diana size relationship here is particularly cool:

We also had Diana dealing with a villain for these two issues that was basically a magical “inverse” of herself. But we didn’t want this to be obvious from the jump. So Hayden did a design that felt like a sort of “dark Diana” and we merged it with a more sort of “energy form” — the idea being that the “Inverse Diana” would start pretty non-representational and become more and more like her the longer it progressed and the more contact it had with her.

And then this was Matias Bergara’s version of it when we first see it fully integrated in the issue and understand it’s more than just “energy”:

Okay. That’s it for today. There will be another more regular non-design post tomorrow, so… I’ll see you soon!

Take care of yourselves and each other. <3

Kelly