Mania - 16 May 1997

HOW DO YOU TOP ANGELS AND DARKSEID? - GRANT MORRISON'S PLANS FOR JLA YEAR TWO

by Steve Johnson

Grant Morrison has written JLA to fan-fave status in just seven short issues, rescuing the team from relative obscurity with a practised ease. Now, as Grant heads towards his second year and beyond, MANIA takes you through the roll call and puts you at the center of unstoppable JLA.

MANIA: With Darkseid due to appear in issue #12, and all the Leaguers slated to die (temporarily, one assumes), what comes next?

Grant Morrison: Well, issues 10 to 15 are a six part story which is the biggest story I've attempted so far. It's got the new Injustice Gang led by Lex Luthor. And along the way we're going to be doing some dragging in of Darkseid and expanding the edges of the DC Universe in lots of different ways, and kind of setting up the teams for the second year, which will bring in the whole twelve members of the Justice League.

I guess the Injustice League has to be indirect and crafty because the Joker and Luther are people who can't challenge the JLA directly.

Luthor decided that they've never won before mainly because they've tried to go up against them in street fights. Knocking each other through walls is useless when you're up against Superman. So Luthor's ideal way to win is to make a corporate takeover of the Justice League using his business acumen.

So with these things in mind, the organization which the people like Superman, Batman and the Martian Manhunter belong to has these young heroes, like the Flash and Green Lantern, and Luthor's people are trying to sweet-talk them into joining the bad guys by pointing out the fact that they are humans, and they are working for the aliens. It's like making them a better offer.

Luthor is absolutely convinced that his business skills and his corporate savvy are going to allow him to take over the Justice League; but Bruce Wayne is a member of the Justice League, and he's a better corporate shark than Luthor is. This means the two ultimate human minds are pitted against each other.

You wouldn't count the Joker as one of the ultimate human minds?

Well, he's the mind of a different stroke.

Yes, he is indeed. You never really played Bruce Wayne as being a competent businessman.

Well, here's what I thought--I can actually see him doing that stuff on behalf of the Justice League, which would just add a new dimension to the whole team dynamic. Also within this story, half of the Justice League is sent into possible futures which are liable to come about if the Justice League wins against the Injustice Gang. The whole thing has been gagged in the future, so they have to contact their selves in the past to warn them not to win.

Because it could actually turn out worse if they won?

Yes.

In the final issue of Aztek, the hypothetical scenario that the JLA asked him to solve was one where all the superheroes have been killed and Darkseid is ruling the world; it sounds as if it's very similar to what's going to happen in the coming issues.

Pretty much, that was always the flash of things to come. There's a lot that was set-up in that issue of Aztek that will pan out in the Justice League story, in a sense, since Luthor's scheme in Aztek was actually designed to bring out the end of the Justice League.

The Injustice League is the inverse of the seven original heroes, but by the time they go up against them there's going to be three more--Aztek, Zauriel and Green Arrow...

Actually, I don't increase the Injustice Gang because it's easily getting too many. It's the big seven against the big seven, with the new members of the Justice League as well. So the whole series is pretty much focused on the main seven members, and we're going to have another five members.

Are the new guys going to rotate in and out? Say, the original seven, then a different five people every year or so?

I don't quite know what to say; I just want the best guys in the world for the 12. We're going to have, as you know, Captain Marvel and Plastic Man. To me, it's the bad guys who I'm going to rotate. But certainly, if Wonder Woman's off for a month, we're going to be doing Supergirl and stuff like that. So there will be other members; it'll be a 12 member group composed of seven core members plus five.

So Captain Marvel has definitely been approved then?

As far as I know, yes.

How are you going to play Captain Marvel? Are you playing him similar to the way he was presented in the JLI?

No, I want to do something different because that's already been done. They played him off as a comedy figure most of the time and that is just a level I don't care to repeat. Captain Marvel is one of the ultimate superhero fantasies. Captain Marvel is what Billy thinks of as the ultimate Dad, or the ultimate grown up. He's not really a grown up, he's actually a little kid's version of what an ideal grownup is. He's really polite and really nice, and he's also tough and at the same time, and slightly naive, because a kid's idea of adulthood is kind of limited.

So when he's in situations that Billy has never imagined, he'll just react as sort of this idealized Dad might?

Sure. You'd think if your Dad was up against a villain he would be really great.

And Captain Marvel's impressions of the other Leaguers?

I think he's going to take them all at face value and expect the best.

Take Batman at face value, and you might be afraid of him.

He wouldn't be afraid; I don't think he's afraid of people because he's got the courage of Achilles. Besides, I get the feeling that to kids, Batman isn't scary; Batman is only scary to bad guys and villains.

And of course he's going to love every moment of being in the League, without any doubts like Aquaman has...

Captain Marvel would be the complete opposite of Aquaman.

But Aquaman is going to stay in the League?

Basically yeah. He's definitely the hardest one in the League to do.

So there's a six-issue struggle with the Injustice Gang which eventually brings in Darkseid, and other major villains, and what's after that?

After that we're doing this thing called Camelot. It's a trip into the Justice League Round Table to complete the twelve, and also brings in the guy who's going to be the new member. Again, I can't say who he is... he gets thrown in because Aztek is thrown out.

I would guess that Aztek would be gone as a result of his Luthor connections, which he exposed during the previous story. So in a sense, you felt you had to write him out?

Yeah, I felt that it just seemed... I don't like people coming in with an agenda, and the agenda there was that I wrote Aztek's book. I felt that Aztek was in there with no justification, other than the fact that Mark and I had written him, and people could object to that. I just wanted some comment in the way that is was canceled. He's thrown out of the Justice League as abruptly as he was thrown out of the DC Universe.

Yes, actually having read the final issue of Aztek, I went back and got all the others... I don't suppose you're not going to do anything with Aztek in the future?

Well, later, because I want to set up the ending to the story, which we have already written. We could do it in a couple of specials.

I noticed you deliberately summed up all the dangling plot threads on the last couple of pages of Aztek #10.

Well, actually it finished the entire plot in one word balloon in Justice League, which kind of tossed Aztek on his head again. The Camelot story does that; the main function is just to introduce the new members, so again, I can't tell you too much about the story, but after that we might do something with some of the young heroes [Captain Marvel Jr., Robin, Supergirl], as a sort of Justice League Jr.

There's enough of them out there. You're bringing back a lot of the best early Justice League villains, so can I ask if you have any plans for, say, Felix Faust?

Nothing that worked out yet. I wanted to do something with Starro, but everyone hates Starro so much that the story, of course, would be about a completely different Starro.

It's still Starro, but a completely new idea, other than the fact it's still a starfish with an eye in the center. And the story is a really good one, I'm really pleased with that.

I thought I'd please everyone and do a lot of the old characters in the first year, and in the second year, I'll make up a new bunch, then just kind of mix and match after that. So I thought, just for a few issues, to come up with the new stuff and unique nemeses big enough for the Justice League to handle.

Well, the first one that you've done of those was Asmodel, who is just big enough for the Justice League to handle-- possibly too big. Is it difficult to come up with the kind of nemeses they can face on even terms?

Not really. I like working in that grandiose scheme of things; that sets the JLA apart from everyone else.

What can you tell me about the enemies you're thinking about for the second year?

Well, Starro. We've changed his actual being; he's actually the size of Hudson Bay, and he sort of latches onto the North American continent.

Then there is this energy entity that has been buried on the moon for 30 years and has actually been awakened by the Justice League construction activity. And it's a different sort of genie in a bottle combined with a spirit that's been captured. Whoever used it was trapped inside with this terrible force of energy until a human shakes the bottle. Naturally it wants to be free and comes into conflict with the Justice League.

Based on the idea of "If he was a crooked man he'd have a crooked head," I came up with the idea of a Batman of evil--this fellow who had a traumatic shock as a child and decided, "I will become the ultimate evil."

Someone as capable and intelligent as Batman, and actually traveled over the world and used all the money to become the ultimate detective and martial artist and then to take out the JLA. And his tactic is, "Okay, I'll wait until these people are vulnerable and I'll beat them forever.

Well, that is equal time for the villains because Batman has defeated several of the biggest villains just by basically being smarter than they are, and by wanting it more. So they get to face him on his own terms. Now, will Batman be involved with dealing with this fellow, or will they have to face him without Batman?

Well, Batman will surely be involved there somewhere but I don't exactly know how. I wouldn't think they could take on Batman himself, but they'll need him this time, which gives me the chance to keep Batman in danger for a change.

I was just thinking of the classic DC run that I grew up with--the Shaggy Man, the Key, the Phantom Stranger was a member of the old JLA for one time...

What I'd like to do is a Phantom Stranger appearance, because he used to turn up at least once a year in a special story, a supernatural one. There's another supernatural character that I'd like to use as well, but again, there is so much I can't talk about-- something that's never been done in Justice League. But yes, Phantom Stranger is a possibility. Shaggy Man... I'm still trying to come up with a story, I definitely want to do something with that character. It hasn't gelled yet.

Well, there hasn't been a great deal done with him in the past, that I saw, so the field's wide open as it were.

It's so simple, it's just rampage and destruction.

So you're planning to be on JLA for the long haul.

Oh, definitely. Some of the plan has got a really far reach. I want to do this comic for the twenty-first century. This has got to be the super team for the twenty-first century. So the whole thing is constantly updating and upgrading the possibilities of what superheroes can do, and bringing back the imagination that comics used to have.

What's a twenty-first century superhero, in your opinion?

Well, definitely I want to see different costumes. Because I used to draw and design a lot of the stuff that we do, and I'm trying to design superhero costumes that no longer have jackets, because that was such a thing of the '80s. I'm trying to get back to the basics of superheroes and then taking it forward and upgrade the type of technology that we use, and ways we think of their powers and the ways that they could be used.

Also to think how a superhero mind would think. Now that Superman's magnetic, he picks up a CD and he can read it just by looking at it. He can read anything because of his sense of the whole electromagnetic spectrum. To me, there's a lot of details that come of imaginatively construing their powers and what these things could do.

There's a great deal of that in issue three when the Flash was battling Zum and they were both using really bizarre applications of super speed. It made perfect sense, but no one had ever done it before.

Yes. Again, it's kind of reading through Popular Science and kind of making up some bits which you think are great. But using the wits, which DC characters always did. Marvel used their fists, but DC applied their powers to the problem cleverly. I think it was one of those things that DC always did well, and is one of the things that is coming back into comics. Using the applications of the super power to solve problems.

And they were somewhat qualitative rather than quantitative. It wasn't that Superman said, "I'm faster then X and smarter then Y," but "I have these abilities that allow me to do this one thing which falls into the chink in their plan. If they'd done something else, they might have won."

Exactly! Which is the source of lots of fun stuff and I think that is what's coming back into the great comics.

Well, I'm pleased to hear that you'll be here for 50 issues or more.

Definitely. I constantly get rushes of ideas.

So do you have to throw out some of the ideas, or do you just put them into issue #51?

Actually, I have to keep throwing them away because I keep getting them. There's just so much I can do before I get to that story, so I'll leave the next story until the end. So some of them probably will never be seen.

Well, there's always hope...

Flash Forward

Grant Morrison: the Fastest Writer Alive?

Interviewed by Steve Johnson

Grant Morrison hopes to do more than restore the grandeur of the old Justice League of America: he wants to take the JLA forward into the next century. What's on the horizon for the greatest super-team ever? Morrison shared some of his plans, his hopes, and his dreams for both JLA and his new title, the Flash.

MANIA: I figure there's not a lot of advance warning on what they're going to do with the characters who are in JLA, such as Superman's new costume and powers.

Grant Morrison: I'm getting surprises all the time. But that's the cost and benefit of working on the book.

Now you said you were going to upgrade their costumes and technology; if you change the Leaguers significantly, then will the people who are doing the individual books have to go along?

Grant Morrison: Well, there isn't much I can do to affect the individual books. I don't know if I can change costumes of people like that, but with the new characters coming out I've got more control, so I can do the type of design that I'm looking for.

Still the classic costumes will bethere, but we're getting a lot more futuristic, and as we're getting into the twenty-first century I want to aim for a more futuristic look. That's what I'm trying to influence in Justice League.

Okay, I'm real anxious to hear how you would do that visually; would everyone have big complex wrist watches, or helmets.... ,

Grant Morrison: Well, I designed one of the first every characters to wear a jacket. He wore street clothes and the comic was based on that design. So that kind of got into mainstream comics, the idea of super heroes wearing jackets, and that kind of took over to where everyone got a jacket, trenchcoat or whatever. Now we're starting to get back to the Silver Age sort of costume, I think that's what we'll see with the new take of designs which will go closer to the original ideas of original super hero costume designs. I got a vision of where we're headed visually; they're a lot more fluid looking then we've had for the last ten years.

Some people will still have their standard costumes: the Flash, for example.

Grant Morrison: The Flash is a very classic costume, that still stands up because it's so simple and it's so well designed.

And J'onn J'onnz' costume couldn't really be simplified a lot further. He could have one strap over the shoulder instead of two. And as you say, with the new members like Plastic Man, Green Arrow and Aztek, you have a bit more freedom to reinterpret them.

Grant Morrison: Also, because the Justice League has been so successful, I'm getting more freedom anyway. Because I'm basically, undeniably the biggest seller. So I think that some people are starting to think that I've done something right and it's getting easier to do, some things that have been a little tricky to get approval to do to the character.

Green Arrow, for one, is so young you could really take him any way he wanted.

Grant Morrison: Yeah. I'm thinking to make him more like his dad.

So he'll be having continual disputes with Zauriel, the new Hawkman?

Grant Morrison: Well, I kind of like the idea that he starts out being this laid-back, meditating sort of young guy, and the more he sees of the world, the more he actually ends up becoming like Oliver Queen.

Well, in his own book Oliver started moving more toward the calm center at the end of his run.

Grant Morrison: No, I think he'll be more like the Green Arrow from the old Justice League. The jive-talking hothead.

The only caustic one of the old League.

Grant Morrison: Yeah.

Now on the other hand, on the Flash, you'll be working there for 12 issues. And that's coming up and you'll have to be starting on that soon, is that not so?

Grant Morrison: Well, I've finished the fist one and getting ready to start on the second. I wrote it in two days. It was the fastest comic in my life. Usually it takes up five days to do these things, but with Flash it was two days.

Why's that?

Grant Morrison: Because it was the Flash, I just get into the whole velocity thing and I just wrote the comic really fast. That's the atmosphere that Flash; he's caught up with motion. In fact, because I worked on it so fast I really plan to do the rest of them the same way, and try and capture the same feeling.

So you'll be writing the entire year, and by the month of June you'll hopefully be done?

Grant Morrison: Hopefully. I'd like to be finished before ten o'clock tonight.

Well, what do you have coming up

Grant Morrison: Well the first issue is called Emergency Stop, and that's when we cripple the Flash. He's up against a villain called the Suit, a supervillain costume. This villain made a lot of super suits, and he just got the idea to make the ultimate super suit and put everything into this, and some people even said that it had developed a life of its own, because it took so much of his power and efforts. So this ultimate suit is stolen by this guy, the criminal. He gets caught, gets fried in the electric chair and this suit escapes.

There's nobody in it.

Grant Morrison: Basically it's a haunted costume. And has a hunger for the Flash. In the first one it manages to convince him that it was dead but through the use of super speed and time travel, he does this little tricky thing and defeats it, but again he's crippled in the process, so that's where we're starting off from.

Oh, no. The fastest wheelchair alive, but still. Do you have any particular place you are hoping to aim the series so that you hand it back off the Mark Waid at a certain point?

Grant Morrison: We've thought everything out. As I said before, we're pretty much going to do three multi-issue stories. The first one is a thing on the Flash being crippled, which we're working on now. And about Flash getting a new costume.

What kind of costume is that?

Grant Morrison: Made from condensed speed force.

Oh, good heavens.

Grant Morrison: He has to make it because he's crippled. He's still crippled and he thinks of what he can do and he condenses speed force in his body and to support himself.

On a costume in which he can summons at any moment, so he doesn't need the ring anymore.

Grant Morrison: Yep. It's just a weird and immaterial material.

Whereas before, when he was running, there would be lightning bolts crackling off, now that's all there is.

Grant Morrison: And also with this thing he's more aerodynamic when he's running, because the costume changes shape to accomodate his speed.

That sounds like a lot of fun, so that's going to be early in your run.

Grant Morrison: Yeah, that's going to be the first issue. Then we're doing a story in which we call the Human Race and it's going to be a race story. It's been ages since the Flash was really in a footrace.

Not since Superman.

Grant Morrison: I'd like to do the race with Superman, I don't know if that's going to happen given the changes in Superman. But there's definitely going to be a race and it's going to involve the entire population of the earth. Little idea we had was there comes a point when the human race has to put all its kinetic energy into helping the Flash, and we're in abig race, a waving the flag thing.

That's a race against an alien being?

Grant Morrison: Yeah.

Wow, that echoes the end of Justice League 4 in which the Justice League wasn't able to stop the Martians in time, but once they were properly informed and inspired, common people could stop them, because the Martians are vulnerable to fire and everyone's got a lighter or some matches.

Grant Morrison: And everyone can run, at least a little bit. That is the lot of it.

Wow, okay. There's Emergency Stop, The Human Race (which is an excellent title, by the way) and after that is what?

Grant Morrison: Some one-issue stories. We're going to do one which is just the young guys in the Justice League, a real escape from the superheroes and we're going to go one with Flash, Green Lantern and Green Arrow kind of hanging out and what happens mostly is them just drinking and hanging out with his pals.

But apart from that we're got the end of this thing called the Black Flash. It's kind of what happened after Savitar was bumped off into the Speed Force and sort of corrupted and tainted it and created this personification of the Dark Side of the Speed Force which is a skeleton in a Flash costume.

We have this thing where he's chasing after the Flash on the cover ,which is kind of a neat run there. The Black Flash escapes from the Speed Force and comes after the Flash and he has got a friend who gives up her life to save him and then we throw the Flash into the Dark Side of the Speed Force to get her back.

Because the Black Flash is unleashed on Earth, time starts to run down, as velocity is measured by time and everyone is slowing down until one day it just absolutely stops and the Flash as to get back into the Speed Force. The last part of it the Flash returns and he's affected by this complete slowing down to the point to where he's only as fast as you and me, but everyone else is so slow that he's still the fastest man alive. And he has to restore the Speed Force with just a normal man's speed.

Without calling his JLA buddies, because that would be cheating.

Grant Morrison: Yeah, and they would be slowed down too. It's all down to the Flash on this one.