Wonder Woman writer Tom King recently claimed that women have always been having a hard time of it while promoting the release of the first issue of the comic book series.
Speaking with Comic Book Nation, King was asked the loaded question, “There have been a lot of significant ups and downs for women in the last few years all over the world, what was important to you relaunching Wonder Woman in what feels like a very pivotal point in history for women and female culture?”
First, King responded, “Kelly Sue DeConnick has a great line [for when] people ask her why you write women so well. It’s like the first thing I do is I pretend they’re human. Which I think has always been my approach. I look at this as I’m writing a character. I’m writing a fully fleshed out human being who happens to be one of the great superheroes. It’s like writing Batman or Superman.”
He continued, “And I want her to be as interesting and as cool as anything I could for Batman and Superman because that’s the way she is.”
Next, King declared, “As for this particular moment, I don’t think there’s a moment in history where women weren’t having a hard time of it. I don’t know. It seems very consistent for the last 10,000 years or so.”
“What we’re trying to do here, our agenda is to make her as cool as her potential. Every little girl in this country grew up, you know, thinking Wonder Woman was awesome and I want to give them something when they’re older that sort of confirms that belief. I think it’s a way to just put out some joy into the world. I think that’s important right now,” he concluded.
The first issue of Wonder Woman depicts an Amazon named Emelie mass murdering 19 men in a bar in Montana. In response to this mass murder, the government of the United States institutes a law called the Amazon Safety Act. It then deploys Sargent Steel and a task forced named AXE to round up and deport the various Amazons living in the United States. However, he appears to end up killing many of them on the pretext of them resisting detainment.
All of this appears to be at the behest of someone named the Sovereign who wields the Lasso of Lies.
What do you make of Tom King’s comments about women and being oppressed?