Kevin Grevioux Talks Odyssey of the Amazons

When Underworld writer Kevin Grevioux was announced as the writer of DC’s Odyssey of the Amazons late last year, it came as a surprise: with a handful of recent Wonder Woman origin stories, most of which centered primarily on the Amazons, why did there need to be another one?

Well, Grevioux joined ComicBook.com to talk about the series, which premiered yesterday, and that was the very first thing we asked him.

“I think what it is, is trying to figure out who exactly the Amazons are, and why they exist, and coming up with a viable origin as to why that might be,” Grevioux told ComicBook.com. “To me, that presented an interesting challenge. Why have they been considered just purely Greek before, when if you look at the history of Amazons you find that they started in the Middle East and Iran according to some of the myths and legends — even as far as the ancient Greek myths are concerned. Then we were trying to find a way to marry that with the comic book mythology that we know. Why are they seemingly multiracial at different points in time? I’m trying to really get my head around that, and seeing what I could up with, give credence to some of the things that we’ve seen.”

Without Wonder Woman to see the world of the Amazons through, Grevioux had to choose someone else. The point-of-view character ended up being Hessia, a character who came along with the assignment.

“There weren’t a lot of other Amazons that I could use, because their beginnings were kind of mired in a lot of continuity that I was not familiar with,” Grevioux admitted. “So what I did was create new characters, who will lead us into this world and through that we find out how they came to be. What they’re like, what their culture is like, how they relate to each other, things of that nature. And really try to come up with something interesting.”

While there have been a number of different recent takes on the origin, the story Grevioux plans to tell seems to be conflicting rather directly with the ones told by Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang at the start of The New 52 and Grant Morrison’s from Wonder Woman: Earth One.

“Wonder Woman had a purpose, but that purpose was changed over the years. What is the purpose of her world?” Grevioux asked himself. “What was the purpose of the Amazons themselves? Before, it was a safe place for women who were abused. But I try to take that and turn it on its head and say, ‘This wasn’t born out of things done to them. This world was born out of them taking a stand and basically meeting a challenge that will come later on.’ This was them taking charge and not a culture of victimization, so to speak.”

To that point, Grevioux admitted that he’s sensitive to the representation issues that are raised when a male writer is tapped to write a book like this one. He said that being a person of color gives him a perspective on the world of Wonder Woman and the Amazons that has rarely been explored in print.

“[A female writer is] going to bring a different perspective to Wonder Woman,” Grevioux admitted. “But I also think too, it’s time for different voices and different perspectives from creators who aren’t really of those persuasions, or those cultures, or those genders. You can kind of play with it to see, this is an ancient story about new characters. Even my being a black man writing this, that’s quintessential diversity. Because I am not relegated towards writing just black characters, just male characters, just modern-day characters.”

The first issue of Odyssey of the Amazons went on sale yesterday. You can get a copy at your local comic shop or buy it digitally on ComiXology.