Wonder Woman Writer Tom King on the Challenging Contradiction of a Character Who “Wants Peace but Makes War”

A new era for Diana Prince began in Wonder Woman #800, which included a tease of what fans can expect from the much anticipated Tom King and Daniel Sampere Wonder Woman series that launches later this year. That first look introduced fans to Wonder Woman’s daughter Trinity, who is working right alongside Jonathan Kent as Superman and Damian Wayne as Batman. While this future timeline looks to figure heavily into King’s series, Diana is obviously a major part of the series as well, and King teased what fans can expect from his Wonder Woman in an interview with ComicBook Nation. King highlighted what makes Wonder Woman so different from Superman and Batman, as well as the challenging contradiction of someone who wants peace but makes war.

“That’s the hard part of writing her, is that she’s almost radical in some of her belief in love, compassion, and peace. Much more so than Superman or Batman, but she’s also a warrior or war. She’s someone who comes from a society involved with a sort of endless conflict that trains you to fight. She comes from that sort of Game of Thrones atmosphere, and those two contradictions live inside of her,” King said. “She’s someone who wants peace but makes war, and her having to deal with that I think makes her one of the more interesting characters in fiction.”

“To me, I think I’ve written more Batman than anyone alive or close, and I’ve written some big Superman stuff, and now on Wonder Woman, I had to sort of differentiate her from those other two pillars of our universe. To me she’s…Superman is, he’s truth, justice, and the American way,” King said. “He’s the boy scout. He stands for the American flag and I like him as that. He’s of the system, I want the system to work as best as it can.”

“And Batman’s almost kind of the same way, but on the dark side of that. Batman’s enforcing the law. He’s against law breakers, and I know it’s about justice and not law for Batman, but in some sense, he’s just kind of fighting crime. What is crime, crime is breaking the law,” King said.

“Wonder Woman’s not that. Wonder Woman is more rebellious than that. Wonder Woman is not with the system. She’s not trying to enforce the system. She’s against the system. She’s rebellious. Iconoclastic, and I wanted to bring that out in her,” King said. “So in this, she is not with the government, she’s against the government, which I think in sort of our modern time, a lot of us have had the instinct that there are some great injustices happening with the people in power, and I wanted Wonder Woman to be the person who stands against that. Absolutely.”

You can find the official description for Wonder Woman #1 below.

“After a mysterious Amazonian is accused of mass murder, Congress passes the Amazon Safety Act, barring all Amazons from U.S. soil. To carry out their plans, the government starts a task force, the Amazon Extradition Entity (A.X.E.), to remove those who don’t comply, by any means necessary. Now, in her search for the truth behind the killing, Wonder Woman finds herself an outlaw in the world she once swore to protect! Writer Tom King (BATMAN, MISTER MIRACLE, SUPERGIRL: WOMAN OF TOMORROW) and superstar artist in the making Daniel Sampere (DARK CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS, ACTION COMICS) join forces for this action-packed relaunch and the beginning of what will undoubtedly become a groundbreaking run on the character.”

Wonder Woman #1 hits comic stores on September 19th.

Are you excited for the new Wonder Woman series? Let us know in the comments and as always you can talk all things comics and DC with me on Threads @mattaguilarcb!