Wednesday Interview: Sterling Gates

If you have been reading Living Between Wednesdays for a long time, then you might be familiar with my long struggle with Supergirl. It went from apathy to hate to offense to curiosity to optimism to love in only a few short years. Supergirl's role in the current New Krypton event has solidified my love of the latest version of the character. Much of this can be attributed to the current Supergirl writer, Sterling Gates. Today Supergirl #40 hits stores, and the mysterious Superwoman will be revealed! Sterling was kind enough to answer a few questions for me.

1. How did you get the gig of writing Supergirl? Was she a character that you specifically wanted to write?

Well, I liked Supergirl a lot when I was a kid. Like, a LOT. The "Supergirl" movie came out when I was very small, and I was really, really drawn towards Helen Slater and her interpretation of Kara. DC published a comic adaptation of the "Supergirl" movie around that time, and I read it enough times the cover fell off. So she’s always been a character I was interested in and enjoyed.

As for writing Supergirl, it was a combination of wanting to write it, some really hard work, and some fortuitous circumstance. I work as Geoff Johns’ assistant when I’m not writing, and over lunch one day I was telling him all these ideas I had for Supergirl, and what I would do with the title. He gave me some great advice over that lunch, and told me I should just go away and write my first issue. That is, write what I would write if I were to suddenly be handed the title.

I spent a weekend writing an issue on spec and a series proposal and emailed them off to Geoff. Geoff really enjoyed the script, and he sent it off to James Robinson (who writes Superman) to check out. He liked it, too, so the pair of them approached Superman Group Editor Matt Idelson with it.

Matt and the other super-editors at that time, Nachie Castro and Tom Palmer, Jr., had been actively looking for someone to take over that book. They responded to what I’d written, and a few days later, Matt called me and asked if I’d be interested in being the new Supergirl writer.

Naturally, I freaked.

After I’d picked myself up off the floor, I told him that I’d absolutely love to write the book. And the spec script that I’d written turned into Supergirl #34 and the very lovely and talented artist Jamal Igle signed on to draw the book a few weeks later.

But I really owe Geoff and James and Matt and Nachie and Tom for giving me the chance to write Supergirl. I can’t possibly thank them enough.

2. It seems that Supergirl's return, starting in the Superman/Batman title, has been awkward and only very recently have we seen her find her place in the DCU. I feel that in the past year or two, DC has really thrown a lot of support behind Supergirl as a character and as a title, and including her in this crossover New Krypton event is a good example. Do you find it to be an exciting time to be writing Supergirl as a character, and have there been a lot of discussions about the future of the character?

Well, personally, it’s one of the most exciting times I’ve ever had in my life. Every day I get to go to work and write the adventures of the strongest girl on the planet. No, scratch that -- strongest girl on TWO planets, Earth and New Krypton. And yes, I’m thrilled that DC has put so much support behind Supergirl. Jamal and I have been working hard to make sure Supergirl’s as good a book as we can possibly make it, and I’m grateful that DC has been so supportive of us.

I know that I have discussions with my editors Matt and Wil Moss and the other super-writers almost every day about Supergirl’s future, and her as a character, and what the best possible stories are that we can tell to service her character.

At the end of the day, I want Supergirl to not only be an iconic superhero in the DCU, but also a good role model for kids and adults alike. Jamal and I’s take on the character is a little different from how other writers and artists have interpreted her, I know. But in my head, she’s a member of the Superman Family, so I’m going to write her as such, y’know?

That isn’t to say we’re going to tell “boring” or “safe” stories with her, which are accusations I’ve seen leveled against Superman before. What I mean is: Supergirl’s a hero, and I’m going to write her as a hero. A hero that makes mistakes, sure, and lives and learns from them. Her flaws can be very noticeable, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing. Supergirl should be someone we can all identify with and support and root for and learn from.

3. New Krypton seems like a very tight crossover. Are there regular meetings or discussions between yourself and the rest of the New Krypton team (Geoff Johns, James Robinson, Greg Rucka)? Have you found it challenging to write a series that ties into a larger story?

It can be a challenge, yes, but it’s also part of the job, taking into account what’s going on in the bigger picture as you write.

James and Greg and Geoff are really a blast to work with, and I feel that I'm very, very blessed to be working alongside such talented writers.

Greg and James and I have a weekly conference call with editorial where we sit down and plot and plan and break stories and figure out the beats in August’s crossover and just how long has Jimmy Olsen known how to ride a motorcycle and where could we find a good Kryptonian animal for Non to fight? “Oh, what about a torquat?” “What’s a torquat?” “Who’s got reference for a torquat?” “Well, they’ve only appeared once before, in Krypton Chronicles #2, I can send you a scan…” It can be a madhouse on the phone sometimes, but I think all of us really want to make the Superman Family of titles as strong as possible, and we're working hard towards that goal.

Plus, there’s a HUGE endgame in mind, which you’ll start to see the first few strains of in August’s big Superman crossover. It's not going to be an easy couple of years for Kal or for Kara.

4. Is Superman going to stick a braided wig on Kara and force her to live in an orphanage again?

Ha. No.

…although, that does give me an idea for something...

5. What other projects are you working on now, and what have you got planned for the future?

Well, today I’m working on Supergirl Annual #1, which I think is scheduled to come out in September. As I said before, we’re doing a month-long Superman crossover in August across the four main Superman titles, and we’re producing a pretty extensive Superman Secret Files to go along with that story. It won’t quite be on the scale of the Green Lantern: Sinestro Corps Secret Files that Geoff and I wrote, but it’ll be a really great resource, with extremely detailed maps and profiles and stuff.

As for future plans, there are things in the works, but nothing I can announce yet. Sorry!

I can tell you that I’m planning on staying on Supergirl as long as DC will let me write it. Maybe, just maybe, I can figure out a way I can put Supergirl in the braided wig at some point. 

If I do, you’ll know it’s just for you, Rachelle.

"Now Doom will totally rule the school!"

You can say a lot of things about Doctor Doom, but you cannot say that he doesn't know how to rock a crew-neck sweatshirt:

Oh, Doom. You so badly want that sweatshirt to be the key to social acceptance, but believe me, it isn't.

Also, that sweatshirt is not being truthful.

Never Trust Ladies Who Live Down A Well!

    Continuing last week’s Pluto tradition of me writing about stuff long after everybody else has discovered and blogged about it, I’m going to talk today about IDW’s Locke & Key. This horror/fantasy series by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez debuted last year with a six-issue miniseries, Welcome To Lovecraft, and is available in a slick hardcover volume. That first miniseries is up for this year’s Eisner award for Best Miniseries, and Joe Hill received a nod for Best Writer, so I guess this review isn’t entirely un-timely.
    Locke & Key is one of those occasional series from relative newcomers that somehow reads as though it was crafted by seasoned old professionals who know their way around every trick in the funnybook business. That’s not to say that Hill and Rodriguez are complete novices—after all, Hill is a bona-fide New York Times bestselling novelist, and Rodriguez has done a few IDW projects before this, but this series announces the both of them as comics talents to be reckoned with. I read the first issue of Welcome To Lovecraft when it was released in single issue form, and was intrigued by the capable, confident storytelling and the supernatural premise, but by the time issue two rolled around, our store was swamped with demands for the series and I sold every copy before I could get a look at it. After that, the series just kinda got away from me, but after my pal Eric (check out his amazing illustrations at http://www.ericorchard.blogspot.com/) lent me Hill’s awesome short story collection, 20th Century Ghosts (if you’ve got a hankering for some very Bradburyesque horror/fantasy, you owe it to yourself to check this out), I resolved to have another crack at Locke & Key.

    The first series, Welcome To Lovecraft, introduces readers to the Locke family as tragedy engulfs them. When guidance counselor dad Rendell is murdered by a disturbed student named Sam Lesser, the remaining family members—Ty, Kinsey, Gabe, and their mother—head to the town of Lovecraft, Massachusetts to live with uncle Duncan in the ominously-named family estate Keyhouse. Once there, plucky youngster Gabe is the first to discover the house’s mysterious properties—such as a certain door that renders your body lifeless but frees up your ghost to float around, as well as a sinister phantom named Echo who lives in a well. Turns out Echo is also in contact with psycho Sam Lesser up in the correctional facility, and she recruits him to bevil the Locke clan once more—this time, to find her a very special set of keys that Rendell may have hidden in the house years ago.   

    Often, when writers from other media try their hand at comics, there is a pretty steep learning curve. However, Hill has managed, in true Dr. Frankenstein fashion, to stitch together what he has learned from writing prose fiction with what he has loved about the comic form his whole life. The result is an engaging and readable narrative that glides effortlessly back and forth between past and present, and is filled with chilling reveals and cleverly seamless transitions. Each issue spotlights a different character, giving us their perspective on the awful events that brought them to Keyhouse and gradually revealing different facets of their personalities; for instance, we know that Ty is particularly haunted by his father’s murder, but it’s not until issue four that we learn exactly why. Gabriel Rodriguez’s highly detailed and expressive art looks like a weird hybrid between Rick Geary and Bob Fingerman, of all people. He gives all of the characters their own unique look and sets of expressions, while still managing to make the members of the Locke family look related to one another. Rodriguez also give the location of Keyhouse loads of personality, with its sinister gables and turrets and ominously-illustrated doors.
    If I have a complaint about Welcome to Lovecraft, it’s that it doesn’t really stand all that well on its own—a sequel, Head Games, is on its fourth issue as I write this, and it presumably delves more into the mystery of Keyhouse (which apparently “chose” Duncan, not Rendell, to live there—why? And how?), the connection between Rendell Locke and the gender-swapping ghost Echo (look for some well-placed foreshadowing of this in issue three), and the purpose of the key Bode fishes out of the lake at the end of issue six. That isn’t much of a complaint, though, since I enjoyed the first series enough that the lack of closure is more of an enticement than a put-off. Locke & Key: Welcome To Lovecraft is a creepy good time, a macabre mixture of supernatural horror and family drama that hints at a much more intricate and generational tapestry of terror.
 

Archie Sunday: Foot Fun!

And now two gross Archie comics on the subject of podiatary problems:

Fin.

Justify Your Existence: Batman Villain Edition

Hello and welcome to Saturday here at Living Between Wednesdays! Today we'll be playing a game of "Justify Your Existence", the game in which super-folk of yesteryear tell us, in their own words, exactly why they did what they did. This week we're going to be talking to some Batman villains of yore, and in return we'll be telling them exactly how likely it is that they might make their way back into the comic books of today to bedevil whoever wins that pesky battle for the cowl.

First up, Doctor No-Face, from Detective Comics No. 319.

And who is Dr No-Face? Why, he's Dr Paul Dent, medical researcher and erstwhile chimp-smoother!

Dent's facial features are obliterated by overexposure to his ray! He rushes out into the night, shrieking!

Dr Paul Dent becomes Dr No-Face! He goes on a rampage! His petty, ascotted vandalism has Gotham in the grip of fear! But why, Doc? Tell us your motivation:

Ah, the classic plot: taking revenge on society for the horrible disfigurement that... you caused yourself to have. Well, I guess that it's not like you can erase your own face, right?

What are his chances? Pretty good, if it were up to me. I'm sure that if he were around today he'd be disfiguring beautiful people or holding famous faces for ransom whilst wielding a vial of acid or something but I suppose that that's the style of the time. Check this though: Dr Paul Dent is Dr No-Face while Harvey Dent is Two-Face! They could be cousins and have a familial rivalry and terrorize the Gotham citizenry with their feud! Or Dr No-Face could fight the Question for thematic fun and maybe try to woo her, leading to big laffs! And Cousin Harvey is creepily into Renee Montoya! The plots write themselves, folks!

What does the Internet say? Because I haven't read every comic ever I feel the need to check for repeat appearances. Turns out that Doc N-F was mentioned in 52 as having developed some of the technology that led to the Question's mask, but his name is also listed as Bart Margan, which detracts from some of my fun. Still, the stage is set!

Our next contestant is The Dummy!

As far as I can tell, The Dummy is some guy named Danny, a very short performer who poses as a ventriloquist's dummy while working tthe controls of a larger figure named Matt:

But Danny has a problem: when he walks down the street dressed as a ventriloquist's dummy after a long day of pretending to be a ventriloquist's dummy in a fairly popular show (well, popular enough that that one guy's evidently seen it twice), sometimes people talk like he's a ventriloquist's dummy.

This is not a good reason for crime, Danny the Dummy. This is a good reason to retool your act so that it involves you explicitly puppeteering Matt or maybe so that it's you operating a very small dummy while Matt's dismembered body lies on the stage behind you. Continuing to dress as a dummy and calling yourself The Dummy will still result in people referring to you in a manner that might lead you to believe that they think that you are a dummy, Danny.

What are his chances? Poor. In addition to the fact that he became a criminal for a very stupid reason and that he looks unnervingly creepy, the Dummy doesn't even fill a unique niche. Batman already has a much better ventriloquism-based villain and there's already a more notorious DCU villain named The Dummy who fought the Vigilante and killed his sidekick and stuff.

What does the Internet say? Squat. Danny is not a player.

The Hangman:

The Hangman made an appearance in Detective Comics No 355 as a wrestler who was undefeated and whose identity was unknown and had promised to reveal his identity if he was ever beaten in a fight.

And then, the Hangman starts showing up all aroung Gotham - every time that Batman investigates a crime scene, the Hangman is nearby, running away or loitering suspiciously, and of course they fight and Hangman keeps beating Batman with his awesome wrestling moves and then keeps trying to take unconcious Batman's mask off. Why all the strange behavior, Hangman? (below)

Augh! That's a terrible reason to roam the city staging crimes (it turns out that he was staging the crimes, by the way) and picking fights with a super-hero!

The Hangman turns out to be Telman Davies, a TV newsman who has a secret life as a masked wrestler, just as they often do in real life. Remember the wrestling subplots on Murphy Brown? Classic.

What are his chances? On the theme that he showcased in this story? Bleh. However, Davies was disgraced at the end of the story and had to leave Gotham. He'd have made a great recurring antagonist, trying and failing to wreak his revenge on Batman for ruining his scheme. At the very least he's visually interesting enough to make good crowd scene filler - he could pop up in villain bars and prison escapes and such.

What does the Internet say? Things aren't looking good. A Hangman has made an appearance in Batman comics in recent years, in the series Dark Victory, but it wasn't Davies. He could still get that job as an extra, I suppose, but this makes it far less likely.

It's Signalman!

Signalman is Phil Cobb, an itinerant gangster who wants to hit the big time in Gotham but just can't seem to get ahead. Being new in town, he has a really hard time making friends and inciting them to shake down local shopkeeps.

Phil is a thinking man, a cleft-chinned, green-suited pool hall-frequenting thinking man. He puts his mental muscle to work and comes up with a plan re: how to get a gang going in Gotham. What was that plan again, Phil?

He decides to gin up a reputation by emulating the  crime-style of the Joker and the Penguin! Granted, those two never seem to have any problem drumming up a gang of gangsters in Gotham, but then again they always seem to get caught or seemingly killed as a  result of their convoluted scheming and the Batman's straightforward punching. Maybe it would be a better idea to relocate to a town without a masked champion of justice, or at least with one who has never beaten Superman in a fight?

Or going completely, insanely all-out with a theme and attacking Batman head-on is another option. Signalman is of course defeated (despite his awesome cape) but I'm sure that he makes lots of friends in prison with his effective communication skills.

What are his chances? Well, this one's a little easier, since I know that Signalman made a few more appearances in the Silver Age and showed up in the Secret Society of Super-Villains and so forth. He's been treated as something of a joke for a while now but maybe his time has come. Maybe Mr Cobb has been biding his time and is about to unveil a super-cool new device that disrupts the electrical signals of the brain or takes over the Internet or something. Will 2009 be the year that Signalman comes into his own?

What does the Internet say? Man, Signalman is still around, more than I realized. He's like the new Dr Light, the joke villain that everyone makes fun of. Let's hope that he can make a better, non-rapey comeback.

Okay, one more: The Wheel.

Come on, you know The Wheel, don't you? Frank "Wheels" Foster? Gotham restauranteur? Ran a clandestine gambling den? Captured by Batman? Sent to a prison full of yokels with simple senses of humour?

The Wheel! Remember how he serendipitously escaped from prison when a truck blew a tire and came up with the best plan ever?

That's right, Frank, it's an omen! Wheel crimes, yeah! Though why gate-, truck- or laundry-based crimes were less fateful I'm not sure. I guess that the whole nickname thing meant that he already had some sort of wheel connection going on in his mind but I'd think that the merciless prison-taunting would have seen to that pretty damn quick.

I want you to note two things here, folks: this is The Wheel's first caper, the one where traditionally the villain thwarts Batman and gets away. The second time out is the one where Batman almost catches the villain but ends up with the loot. The Wheel is not fated to be doing this. Also, Batman clearly knows who he is so the mask is kind of stupid.

What are his chances? I see two chances for The Wheel. One, he can show up in an Arkham Asylum scene in a room full of wheels and clockwork and stuff as a background madman. Two, if my plans for Signalman come to fruition and he becomes cool again the Wheel can step in as the low villain on the totem pole. Heck, theyy even have basically the same costume.

What does the Internet say? Sorry, Frank. You're off the radar.

Okay folks, that's it for today. I'd like to thank all of our guests and remind them never to give up hope. You never know when you'll get the chance to shine in a prison riot or Suicide Squad mission or parody comic.

See you next time, existence-justifiers!

JLA: Cry for Supergirl

 I had a really busy Wednesday and Thursday, so I was late reading my comics this week. But I did want to mention this:

From left to right: Hero! Hero! Hero! Hero! Boobs!

Aw man! Surely DC is not doing this. Not after they have worked so hard and earned my praise for the last year or two for their complete turn-around of the Supergirl charcacter. She is no longer DC's teenage blow-up doll, but instead a complex, strong hero who is far more than a pair of boobs in a halter top.

So any excitement that I had that this promo image implies that Supergirl is going to be a member of the Justice League is overshadowed by the fact that the only women on the page is an isolated pair of boobs. I hate when a woman's head is cut off in an ad or promo image, and it happens all the time. Nevermind the fact that it looks like the four male heroes in the picture are just staring at Supergirl's rack.

Boooooo, DC. Boooooooo.