Wonder Woman’s 75th anniversary year has afforded us with several exciting stories about the Amazon warrior princess. Of course we’re highly anticipating her live-action solo film but DC Comics has been publishing Wonder Woman: Earth One and The Legend of Wonder Woman plus her main rebirth title and she’s part of the DC Comics Bombshells. But a new miniseries from Underworld creator Kevin Grevioux is set to focus on the great Amazons who came before her.
The six-issue series is called The Odyssey of the Amazons and it will have art provided by Ryan Benjamin. Here’s the set-up via DC:
Years before the birth of Princess Diana, a group of Amazons set out on a globe-spanning quest to find others of their kind, encountering legendary creatures and beings along the way. But their journey soon turns into a rescue mission as two of their own are captured by the legendary Storm Giants of Norse mythology. It’s up to their leader, the stalwart Hessia, to keep them together through the many trials that lie ahead.
The Hollywood Reporter spoke with Grevioux to get some more details. If you’re wondering whether Homer’s epic of the same name was an influence on The Odyssey of the Amazons, you’re close. “We were looking at the great epic poems, like the Iliad, Jason and the Argonauts — what if we did something with the Amazons that had that same epic power,” he told them. “In this one, we have, essentially, the origins of the Amazons. Where they came from, why there are so many across the planet? One of the legends of the Amazons is that they began in the Middle East, others have them near Greece, there was even a kind of Amazon in Africa amongst the Senegalese peoples. There were even the Valkyries in Norse mythology.”
Grevioux also told them the series will focus on Amazons traveling the world not just to find more Amazons but to find out more about Amazons. “Looking at Wonder Woman with this rich background of Greek mythology but with a racially diverse group of characters, how did it get like that? Here’s where we try to answer some of these questions,” he said.
And while you can expect to see a few of your favorite characters, the creative team is also adding to Amazon lore to make it even more diverse. “I’m creating a whole new set of Amazons that hopefully other writers will use. Previously, we’ve seen Hippolyta, Hessia — who’s the star of this book — as well as Artemis, and a handful of others,” Grevioux told THR, “but we’re creating an international group of Amazons from difficult cultures, for the future. We’ll be seeing Aztec Amazons, Persian Amazons, German Amazons, Chinese Amazons, Slavic Amazons. It’s just great.”
DC’s The Odyssey of the Amazons is set to begin in January.