SMASH - 1997

GRANT MORRISON TAKES ON JLA

Interviewed by Steve Johnson

Grant Morrison, writer of the upcoming JLA series which reunites the "Magnificent Seven" DC heroes (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Green Lantern, Flash and Martian Manhunter), has loved the Justice League since he was a boy. Now he's got the chance to take them back to their roots.

SMASH: How far ahead have you thought out what happens in JLA?

Grant Morrison: In detail, about up to issue 12, and then vaguely for the next 2 years or so.

SMASH: How different will the characters be from the way they appear in their own books?

Grant Morrison: Obviously, I want to stay as close as possible to the original books.

SMASH: How weird are they going to get? DOOM PATROL weird? INVISIBLES weird?

Grant Morrison: Well, that depends on that you consider weird. It won't be the same thing as Doom Patrol, for example, which was my way of bringing surrealism into comics. But there will be a great deal of imagination, the sort of imagination that I think everyone lost about 10 years ago when they started getting all grim and gritty. I think now the pendulum's begun to swing and people are ready for more imagination and heroic figures.

SMASH: If they are the same as they're established in their own books, then, well, Flash and Green Lantern are just young guys who happen to be superheroes, whereas Superman and Wonder Woman, for example, are used to being looked up to as gods, practically.

Grant Morrison: Yeah, you have someone like Superman who's the ultimate super hero, and he's been doing this for ... since he was a kid, and then you have Green Lantern who's basically a bum from LA who just happened to get hold of the most powerful weapon in the universe.

I'll be playing with the way the characters get on. There will be some who don't exactly get on. I mean, as much as they admire Batman, he sort of gives them the creeps. Flash and Green Lantern, when the teleporter goes on, they'll be thinking I hope it's not Batman because every time he comes into the room it's like a funeral. It's like when people are in an office or a real situation: alliances form, people talk about each other.

SMASH: Do you plan to use a bit of humor?

Grant Morrison: There will be humor, definitely, because people who are in earth shattering situations, (well, not that I've been in any earth shattering situations, but in real life) in any sort of a dangerous situation, they tend to make jokes. And these people are in danger all the time. It's what they do.

SMASH: But policemen and soldiers, their humor tends to be pretty rough.

Grant Morrison: Well, yeah, as rough as we can get away with.

SMASH: Tell me a bit about the Hyperclan. Who are they?

Grant Morrison: They are, well, they claim to be superheroes from a long destroyed planet who have been wandering for a million years through space looking for another planet that they can make work. They claim that their planet was destroyed by the greed and the pollution of the human inhabitants, you know, the kinds of problems that we have today. And they say "We're going to help you solve these problems because we don't want to see it all happen again." But they turn out to be the villains of the piece. They're sort of an Anti-Justice League. And they are tied into DC history; there are clues in there to tell you who there are.

SMASH: Well, I have my theories, but I suppose you wouldn't care to...

Grant Morrison: (chuckles)

SMASH: Right, then. So the Hyperclan are what the Justice League could have become.

Grant Morrison: Most definitely.

SMASH: Are we going to see a lot of crises where the whole world is hanging in the balance?

Grant Morrison: Pretty much on every page. It's like every month is Independence Day. And it will reflect that sort of end-of-the-century paranoia that here are these incredibly powerful beings who are watching us.

SMASH: Lots of going to other worlds, and underwater, and the kingdom of the micro-people and all?

Grant Morrison: Well, yes, but with a modern sensibility, of course. No one will believe the Justice League going to Jupiter and fighting purple people. If they ever did.

SMASH: Will the League ever make a mistake and have to live with the consequences?

Grant Morrison: No, it will probably be me who has to do that.

There IS a time-travel story at the end of the first year that involves their efforts going hideously wrong.

SMASH: It is, after all, the JUSTICE League. So have you any plans to send them to Bosnia or Chechnya or the American inner city, or anything like that?

Grant Morrison: Well, that's the problem when you try to do something like this. Obviously, if there really were a Justice League, we wouldn't have all these problems. So why in the DC universe, which is full of superheroes, do we still have them?

There's a scene at the end of the first story where Superman says, "We cannot interfere in human affairs" and the Flash says "What's the point of us being the Justice League at all, then?" And Superman just says, to catch them when they fall.

You see, it's like Holden Caulfield in the Catcher in the Rye. He's there to catch the kids when they fall off the cliff, but they're all laughing and enjoying themselves and he's just there to make sure they don't get themselves hurt.

SMASH: Are you planning to introduce any new characters?

Grant Morrison: We ARE going to bring in new characters. I used to love when a new guy would join the League and then a few issues later someone else would leave. So we're introducing the new Hawkman; we'll have him on board around issue 6.

SMASH: The post-Tim Truman Hawkman?

Grant Morrison: Yeah, DC could really never figure out how to make him work. So we're starting over from scratch, really. We're going to have a new Hawkman, and then we'll introduce Green Arrow later on and eventually by the end of the first year we'll have a stable team of about 12 members.

SMASH: Will it be similar to the classic JLA, I mean with the Atom and Elongated Man and all?

Grant Morrison: Well, I believe the Atom is currently in the Teen Titans, but yeah, it'll be pretty close to the classic team. Plastic Man is someone we're going to add, because pretty much everyone knows who he is, what he can do, but all the other Justice Leaguers are so pompous and all, and here we have this maniac, this Ace Ventura type coming on. It should be fun.