Wonder Woman in Soweto! | Lauren Beukes Gives African Spin to DC Comic’s Superhero

We know and love Lauren Beukes for spine-tingling urban fantasies like Zoo City,The Shining Girls, and Broken Monsters. Well, it appears there’s even more reason to love South Africa’s “darling of speculative fiction.”

Thanks to Beukes’ literary awesomeness, the lasso-wielding Wonder Woman is getting an African make-over.

Wonder Woman is still hanging out with Batman and fending off her nemesis—Cheeta—but she’s spending most of her time in Southern Africa where she, at some point, becomes the heroic avatar of two Soweto sisters.

The story is set in a Soweto middle class suburb called Orlando West. It features two kid sisters who discover their heroism by embodying the figure of Wonder Woman.

This collaboration with DC. Comics is not Beukes’ first foray into comics. “All my comics,” she says in a recent interview “are pretty dark. My daughter is six and she loves comics, but I can’t read her mine.”

With Wonder Woman, she wanted to write a comic book her daughter could read.

Congrats to Beukes!

The comic book—illustrated by Mike Maihack—is set for an April release, but here is a sneak-peek. Enjoy!