Adam Hughes to write All-Star Wonder Woman

[Darthphere]

I think the All-Star books are in competition for that or something.

Yeah, whats ASS excuse?

 

[Bullseye]

Clearly, All Star Batman won that competition.

 

[BrianWilly]

Yeah, whats ASS excuse?

Obviously they are running out of drugs to OD Morrison on.

 

[Darthphere]

Impossible.

 

[Darthphere]

Has Adam Hughes ever even written anything?

 

[Bullseye]

Wikipedia has a list of Hughes credited works. He is credited being the co-writer of a few books. He might have solo written a few Tomb Raider issues.

 

[The Leaguer]

Has Adam Hughes ever even written anything?

His signature.

 

[Darthphere]

I dont think he does that.

 

[The Leaguer]

Then he's going to have a ghost-writer.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Then he's going to have a ghost-writer.

Sweet.

Do you think they'll solve mysteries and promote ethnic tolerance together?

 

[Darthphere]

Sweet.

Do you think they'll solve mysteries and promote ethnic tolerance together?

You know, I was going to do this joke, but I couldnt find a good picture of Ghost Writer other than the one you posted.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

That's because I'm better than you and the Internet loves me more.

 

[Darthphere]

That's because I'm better than you and the Internet loves me more.

I got the same pic, but my jokes need the highest of quality.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

ur such an eleetist

 

[Darthphere]

ur such an eleetist

I really hope that was on purpose.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

y r u so meen? i amn't gud w/ spleeling.

 

[Bullseye]

I'm not sure about Hughes being the sole writer for All Star Wonder Woman. I think it should be co-written. The art will be amazing but I don't know about his writing.

 

[Bullseye]

ADAM HUGHES ON HIS NEW EXCLUSIVE & ALL STAR WONDER WOMAN

While the news that Adam Hughes was going to be writing, illustrating, and coloring All Star Wonder Woman for DC Comics kind of snuck out of San Diego, the other piece of Hughes-related news just hit, with the artist and publisher confirming that Hughes has signed an exclusive contract with DC that will see him through his run on the book.

And no, wiseguy, it’s not a 100 year exclusive. Keep reading.

“You’d have thought,” Hughes joked when asked if he hadn’t received offers for exclusive contracts before this, “But that wasn’t the case.

“DC asked me a while ago to do All-Star Wonder Woman, and I said sure, and it came with an exclusive contract. Ideally, if I’m working on interiors, I really shouldn’t be distracting myself with covers and other extracurricular activities, so I might as well be exclusive, and gosh darn it, if I can get my teeth fixed at the same time, I’m going to go for it.”

The deal doesn’t have too many “carve outs,” that is, special exclusions to the agreement which would allow Hughes to continue working with other publishers in albeit a limited capacity. For the duration then, no new Star Wars covers or prints for Dark Horse.

“I can’t say Dark Horse was thrilled with me signing the deal, but it’s not like I’m disappearing from the face of the earth – I’m going steady with DC for a couple of years while I work on a book.”

Although, that’s not to say there can’t be certain exceptions. “If I get a call from the Pope to add a couple of figures to the Sistine Ceiling, I may be able to convince DC to allow me to do it. As long as I’m not adding Marvel characters, I think it will be fine.”

As for what will be keeping Hughes busy? Well, you’ll see a few more covers and origins spreads in 52, but the big thing on his radar? That project called All Star Wonder Woman, due to launch, according to DC, in the summer of 2007. Now that the ts are crossed and the is are dotted, Hughes said, he’s ready to roll.

“I’ve been thinking about it for the past two years, but my phenomenal bad luck with interior projects has taught me not to do a single line of actual work until I have a contract,” Hughes said about his schedule. “My last several attempts at major books with doing interiors have all ended up with me writing half an issue or a whole issue, and then having to quit. It wasn’t anything I wanted to repeat. So I have been doing ‘work’ on All-Star Wonder Woman, but not anything that can be construed as something I can put on someone’s desk and show them. Basically, I’ve sat on my porch and thought a lot about Wonder Woman.”

As for which current All Star book (Superman or Batman and Robin, the Boy Wonder) All Star Wonder Woman will most resemble in it’s approach to the character, Hughes just shrugs his shoulders. “I don’t know what’s been going on in All Star Batman and Robin or in All Star Superman – I’ve actually made a point not to read them. I’ve got my fingers in my ears and am singing ‘la-la-la’ when it comes to them, because I didn’t want to be colored by anybody else’s take on what’s going on. I didn’t want All Star Wonder Woman to come across in the same ‘flavor’ as the others.”

Okay – so what will his approach be, then?

“My plan is to start with Steve Trevor crashing on Paradise Island, and hilarity ensues,” Hughes said. “The way the All Star line was pitched to me, and this was several years ago, was that this was gong to be the iconic interpretation.

“So what I’ve been doing is re-reading a lot of old Wonder Woman comics. As I see it, I’m getting to do this iconic approach to the character, and I’m looking at it the same way as the people who did…say, Batman: The Animated Series. You look over the sixty year history of the character, and treat it like a salad bar. You take the good bits, and leave the rest. You get the best of all possible worlds. I’m taking all the thinking I did about the character that I did when I was working on the covers…which is a lot of time to sit and think, people will probably say, because I’m so slow [laughs], and I’m taking the best bits from the Golden Age, the best bits from the George Perez run, and hopefully will come up with something where I can say, ‘Aha! A happy, healthy balance.’”

Hughes also said that he’s not looking to play up the “superhero” side of Wonder Woman as much as has been done in the past. Not that she won’t do superheroic things, in Hughes’ eyes, Diana did not come to man’s world to be a superhero.

“I happen to love the heavy mythological feel of the Perez issues,” the creator explained. “To me, that presence was in the Golden Age version, but Perez just turned it up to 11. I’d like to keep that feel, because I like the tone of Wonder Woman as a mythological character, as opposed to just a straight superhero. I’m not as enamored with the concept of the superhero as I was when I was younger, so I don’t look at her as a superhero, and casting her as someone who stops bank robberies doesn’t interest me as much as seeing her as the daughter of a queen, someone who comes from a perfect place, but for some reason, wants to leave. She wants to go to a place that everyone in her hometown is telling her she doesn’t want to go. I find that kind of stuff a little more interesting.”

If Hughes’ take on Wonder Woman does have a unique ring to it, it’s something that he attributes to drawing the Amazon over, and over, and over, and over.

“I’ve been a cover artist for a lot of years, and I’ve found that the way to do the covers is to understand the characters you’re drawing. It’s one of the reasons that I prefer to be on a regular title, like Wonder Woman or Catwoman – after a while, you start to get a feel for the character, know who they are, and start drawing them from the inside out, as they say. I did that with Wonder Woman. I came up with my personal vision of the character.

“My take on Wonder Woman is that she’s the perfect woman, but perfect characters are boring. It’s the weaknesses that make people interesting. Superman running through the criminal world, with bullets bouncing off of him saying, ‘It tickles!’ - that’s not as interesting as it is when Superman gets to the villains’ lair, and the bad guy whips out a piece of Kryptonite, and Superman’s weakness now must come into play.

“Wonder Woman’s this perfect character, so her weakness can’t make her look like a bad person, or even a weak character, really, and I came up with insatiable curiosity. All of my favorite, larger than life, fictitious characters seem to come from farms, and they all seem to have what I think is called a Dorothy complex – they have everything they need at home, but they want to see over the rainbow. That’s it with Wonder Woman – she lives in the perfect place – and she wants to go to man’s world, and meet people, and talk to strangers, and learn their ways. I thought, in the hands of a writer who’s halfway decent, that insatiable curiosity, that Marco Polo, ‘I have to see the world’ kind of thing, could get any character into a world of trouble. She has this insatiable need to know and see the world. She’s Dorothy Gale, She’s Luke Skywalker, she’s James Kirk – she wants to get off the farm.”

But – Hughes stresses - that doesn’t mean she’s going to say, go to New York City, and get hit by a car as she marvels as these speeding hunks of metal all around her.

“There’s a difference between curiosity and naiveté. Wonder Woman standing in the middle of traffic asking, ‘What’s a car?’ is not what I’m talking about. She’s out somewhere, in strange new lands, meeting new people, and while she’s there, she needs to slay a dragon…or something. She’s almost addicted to learning new things. Anybody else would look at her and think she was perfect – wise, strong, beautiful, but she’s like a mental anorexic, and would be thinking, ‘I haven’t learned Japanese yet.’ But there’s no pessimism – there just aren’t enough hours in the day to learn all the new things in the world. That’s where her fascination of man’s world comes from – it’s so big and wide open – there’s just so much. Where she’s going to get into trouble is that…there are certain things we do in man’s world that they don’t do on Paradise Island. Likewise, she’s never seen a baby…or an old woman. Somewhere in amongst all of that, the stories start to write themselves.”

And as for that aforementioned Steve Trevor? After 25 odd years as not being even perhaps a love interest, he’s back to his more traditional role, that of a contemporary to Diana in age.

“To make this all an interesting journey, I’m trying to turn up the interest level in Steve Trevor. He’s going to be her guide through man’s world, and if romance blossoms between them, well…we’ll have to see…”

Make no mistake though, Trevor won’t be a boytoy, eyecandy that’s been pushed to the background in most scenes. “I’m treating all the supporting characters the same – Steve Trevor, Etta Candy, Diana’s mother – they all should be interesting enough that they could carry their own titles,” Hughes said. “They shouldn’t just be throwaway characters who are only there for contractual reasons. They should be there because they themselves are important parts of Wonder Woman’s story.”

Back to this Trevor guy? Want a mental image?

“If I can pull him off the way I want, picture Steve Trevor as Steve McQueen who’s been hanging out with Race Bannon from Jonny Quest, and they go over to Chuck Yeager’s house for drinks, but it’s the Chuck Yeager played by Sam Shepherd from The Right Stuff. Steve Trevor is the prototypical laconic, cowboy pilot, because that would make an interesting balance with Wonder Woman.”

Or, to go totally geekspeak, Hal Jordan wishes he could be Steve Trevor one day – and not just for the possible shot at Wonder Woman.

As Hughes sees it, he’s the perfect match for Wonder Woman.

“Everything Wonder Woman says and does makes the world a better place. If you aske her to pass the salt at the dinner table, she’d do it in a way that would make you think, ‘Gosh darn it, I am going to go back and finish college! She could cure cancer with a smile. She’s this positive, outspoken person, so her companion for the story will be this laid-back, laconic, cowboy poet of a pilot who balances her completely. Again - it’s not a story about a superhero, it’s about a princess from a foreign country coming to America, and her handler/tour guide is the Marlboro Man.”

Princess from a foreign land, Marlboro Man, and someone actually going by the name “Etta Candy” aside…admittedly there’re more than a few fans out there looking askance at the entire idea of a run on a regular series by Adam Hughes. In fact, Hughes himself is one of them.

“I told DC that most people were going to laugh when they heard I was going to be doing a monthly series, but just because the books is going to come out monthly, doesn’t mean I’m going to do it monthly. I think we’re talking about me handing in 10 or 11 pages of penciled, inked, and colored work each month, plus the covers. Hopefully, every two months to nine weeks, I’ll have an issue done. I told them also that if they solicit before I’m finished with my issues, I’m going to run screaming and quit [laughs]. Everybody wants this to come out every thirty days, so I think we’re going to stockpile it, so that as we’re nearing the end of me working on the book, we’ll solicit the first issue. That’s my goal.

“I get frustrated too when a book that I wants doesn’t come out as regularly as it’s supposed to, so I think everybody deserves to have their All Star Wonder Woman every thirty days.”

 

[hippie_hunter]

Has anyone heard about the All-Star Green Lantern book?

 

[Ultimate_Superman]

If any book was to come next it would be All-Star JLA but I just dont see why Justice couldn't be the start of their All-Star Books.

 

[Mee]

So Hughs said he understood the All Star title is suposed to be an iconic interpretation, how did that get lost on Frank Miller? And why is DC letting him do...whatever it is he's doing. (every 6 months)

 

[Ultimate_Superman]

^^LOL I wonder that too sometimes. Everyone else understands what All-Star is suppose to be only Fank Miller thinks its something else. Though I am still trying to figure out how a guy who pretty much has an empty plate is taking close to 5 months to put out one issue. He is giving Kevin Smith a run for his money. (Spider-Man/ Balck Cat series that took years to finsh.)

 

[Kurosawa]

Sounds like they're taking it in the right direction. WW should be an off-the wall kind of book. The Golden Age comic was all kinds of weird. Fat girls, male and female bondage, women in cat suits, giant women...what's not to love?

 

[BrianWilly]

Sounds pretty awesome. Why couldn't they get this sort of dedication on the regular title post-Heinberg? Instead we get Picoult of the "She's Amaz-ing!! and has maternal issues!"

 

[GoldenAgeHero]

look at it this way, now you have another wonder woman title you can read instead of the one with the new writer.