Gail Simone is one of the most important women in comic books, and fittingly enough, is a pivotal creator in the history of Wonder Woman. Her run writing Wonder Woman’s comic book from 2008 to 2010 still stands as one of the longest tenures of any single writer, and the longest for the women who did get to write her story.
Simone also worked on the 2009 Warner Premiere animated Wonder Woman movie, and of course made her mark on other heroes in the DC universe. In this capacity, she was brought on as a consultant for the Monolith Productions’ Wonder Woman video game that has just been cancelled. And so, shortly after news of the cancellation spread, Simone shared her thoughts on the game’s production.
On Twitter, she said this:
“Okay, regarding the Wonder Woman video game.
Others have already revealed elsewhere that I was a consultant on this game, so that Cheetah is out of the bag.
I want to say a couple important things about the game and the team who made it.
I was asked to do long-term consulting on the game, and I was thrilled to do it, it was a perfect storm of stuff I adore. Wonder Woman, video games, and one of my favorite games studios: Monolith, who produced the Game Of The Year MORDOR games, that I was completely addicted to.
The game was gorgeous and expansive. It was beautiful to look at. I am not going to give details for a number of reasons, but every effort was made to make this not just a great game, but a great WONDER WOMAN game. A showpiece epic.
And all of that was because of the team. Everyone who worked on it brought their a-game. Programmers, artists, designers, everyone. I don’t know that I have ever worked with a team that cared more about making sure the end product was perfect.
It was a dream come true. Wonder Woman had a dream team and they put their all into it. They made sure it had WW and DC lore on every aspect of the game.
It was a thrill and honor to work with them.
I know there’s a lot of finger-pointing going on, but everyone I worked with from Monolith and WB both was enthusiastic and supportive. Everyone wanted to make the best game ever.
Sometimes, you give your all and it doesn’t work out.
But that was an amazing team and I can only hope they continue to make brilliant games. Someone is going to snap them all up and set a new industry standard, I know it.”
In a way, it’s worse to hear that this Wonder Woman game had people who were trying their best. Even if we heard rumors that the project went through a reboot last year, that didn’t necessarily rule out the possibility that the game could be great. It’s a shame that it now joins the likes of the TimeSplitters reboot as one of those projects that was taken from us, because of the ongoing issues in the video game business. And we see that these issues continue as we are now in the third year of industry layoffs and studio closures.
For fans of Monolith Productions and Wonder Woman, you have every right to express sadness for how this project has worked out. At least, it seems, Simone didn’t want to let idle gossip spread about why this game didn’t move forward. We hope, as she does, that the people at Monolith can find placement back in the video game industry.
