We chat with Waid about having all heroes in the Justice League and how that immediately creates tension.
Welcome to Creator Corner, our recurring interview series in which we chat with the industry's coolest and most thought-provoking creators. In this entry, we're conversing with Mark Waid about Justice League Unlimited. Listen to the unedited audio HERE.
When you invite every hero in the DC Universe to join the Justice League, you're going to have some problems. However, Mark Waid is not interested in telling a story where little squabbles amongst the greats become big problems for the rest of us. He loves Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman - as well as Air Wave, Doctor Occult, and Thunderbolt. He wants his new Justice League Unlimited series, done in collaboration with artist Dan Mora, colorist Tamra Bonvillain, and letterer Ariana Maher, to be a big swing celebrating these titans as true heroes.
Just as the third issue was set for release, we spoke with Mark Waid about Justice League Unlimited. We discuss the tensions that occur when every hero can join DC's ultimate superhero book and how finding small battles to win is just as crucial as finding the big battle around which to base your arc. And, oh yeah, we talk about Air Wave and why he's got it out for the Justice League.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Mark Waid Managing the DCU in Justice League Unlimited
Brad: Gosh, Justice League Unlimited - has this been logistically more difficult than previous team books you've dealt with?
Mark Waid: Yes, yes, yes. In a good way, not in a pain-in-the-ass way. In a good way. With the entire DC universe at your choosing, I'm overwhelmed. I want to serve so many different characters, but there are only twenty pages in every issue, so that's the struggle of it. But that's a good problem to have. It's much easier than if I'm stuck with Elongated Man and Steel and Vibe, and that's all I got.
Brad: I have read about these three charts you have. One of the heavy hitters, one of the the B-listers, and one of the C-listers. I imagine some kind of murder board behind you, keeping track of everything.
Mark Waid: Frankly, it's a combination of a spreadsheet and what's already in here [*points to head].
Brad: How often are you going to that spreadsheet? How often are you talking to the other offices at DC to keep all these storylines straight?
Mark Waid: That's the good news. To answer the first question, I go back to it at the top of every issue. But beyond that, what I have really appreciated about DC in the last couple of years and the last year, especially now that the All In initiative has taken hold, is the communication between all the editors, all the creative people. We talk to each other.
We're making sure that everything jives, but at the same time, not in any way that interferes with our stories. So, it's a delicate balancing act. You want to be able to tie in and reflect what other people are doing, but you don't want to stop your story dead in the middle of it just to make some reference to The Question or whatever. But that's the magic of Paul Kaminski and his editorial team, which I think is doing a yeoman's job of making sure that there is a sense of connectivity to all these books without, as they say, being onerous or making you feel like you're missing part of the story if you're not picking up, say, Challengers of the Unknown or whatever.
Brad: And how often do you have to correct a script? Is it like every time you put one in something comes back like, "Oh, actually you can't use Aquaman at this point?"
Mark Waid: Not really. I've gotten much better about letting my editors know at the top of everything, "Here's the core list of characters I want to use." And Aquaman's a good example because of what's going on in his own book. I think I had him in issue five, and I planned him for issue five, but I didn't write the script yet. I just flagged it. And then they came back and said, "He's busy doing his Jeremy Adams stuff." But when you get to the B-listers, I don't think I need to clear Thunderlord with anybody. I think I'm pretty good.
Brad: Got it.
Mark Waid and the Problems of a Justice League Unlimited
Lisa: Of course, Justice League Unlimited is about the idea of rebuilding the Justice League on this new principle of "all heroes welcome." Our resources are your resources. And right from the first issue, we get the obvious reasons why that can be a problem.
As in we've got Air Wave who seems to have some nefarious intentions. Batman and Mr. Terrific, they said they were going to do a thing and now they're not doing that thing. And the most compelling storyline to me right now is J'onn J'onzz. Martian Manhunter is hiding that his powers have not returned because he gets much of his self-worth from being an A-lister and having people rely on him. Can you speak a little bit about setting up the issues with having this Unlimited Justice League while still upholding the principle that all heroes are welcome? Just send us two stamps from your cereal box, and you can get a card, right?
Mark Waid: Right. You make me want to make a note that I probably should be more careful in upcoming issues about making sure that it's clear the benefits of being a member.
Lisa: The benefits are obvious!
Mark Waid: But you make a good point; I haven't demonstrated the benefits of a pooled group. I've been focusing more on character work. That's my favorite thing to do is take a couple of characters like Martian Manhunter and Doctor Occult, who have never shared a scene together and putting them together, finding conflict there, finding agreement there, finding conversation there. And using that duo, whoever the pairing is, whether it's Star Sapphire and John Stewart or Black Lightning, to illuminate these characters in a way we haven't seen before.
Lisa: And that is a great example of my favorite thing that you do.
Mark Waid: Thank you.
Lisa: I was going to say, the message of Mark Waid books is we all have commonalities, and those commonalities can bring us closer together like Martian Manhunter and Doctor Occult, but it also can tear us apart because we hate seeing ourselves. When we hate something about ourselves, we hate to see it in other people.
Mark Waid: This is where the couples counseling part comes in, right?
Brad: That's right.
Mark Waid: Yep.
Brad: When you pair Martian Manhunter with Doctor Occult, you give them an antagonist, the Parademons. And this particular Parademon in Justice League Unlimited #2 is suffering. He doesn't even know why he's suffering, but it's because Darkseid is no longer in charge.
Mark Waid: That's what I'm constantly looking for. Ensuring that villains have interesting motivations rather than just going to take over the world. It's just better stories. It's just better drama if there is some parity of some sort between the antagonist and the protagonist because otherwise, it's just people punching each other. So, there was no real laborious process to getting there. It just kind of baked into the way I approach stuff.
Brad: So then, looking at the larger story of this first arc and having to create an opposing force with Inferno - I know you can't talk too much about the details of why they're doing what they're doing. But how did you land on this as the big bad of the first arc?
Mark Waid: Well, if you've got Justice League Unlimited, you need to throw something up against them that they've never seen before and something that has scope. And the idea of a super terrorist group that is not doing things for a political reason in one country or in one regime. Instead, I guess I stepped back and asked myself, "Okay, if you're going to take over the world in a way that is realistic, it's not a matter of just knocking off a couple of people and spreading your power around knowing that you've got muscle." That's the dumb way of taking over the world, and you won't do it. You're not going to win.
The more interesting way of taking over the world is, as you saw in issue one, we're going to make a play for the world's economy. In issue three, we will take over the Green, which gives us complete control over Earth's ecosystem. So those are big, big swings, and that's because again, you've got the power of the entire DC universe behind you, the villains need to be taking big swings.
Mark Waid, Justice League Unlimited, and the Air Wave Interloper
Lisa: That's what gets me so excited about Justice League Unlimited because it is these opposite intentions, and it will test how well the Justice League can uphold its principles, even when what they are doing is not practical. It's not a practicality to accept everyone, but I think that that principle is more important than it functioning 100% all of the time.
Mark Waid: I do too. And I think that it's baked into these people. With that many heroes, that many characters, there's going to be some stuff that's not going to work out. But other than Air Wave, I think that's my nod in that direction. Beyond that, I don't want to want to do stories where the Justice League looks like idiots because they let this guy, this person in.
So, we will touch upon that later in the year, but by and large, I... It's so trendy, it has been trendy for 30 years to write superheroes as, "Oh, they're great, but there's a dark side there too." And that just doesn't interest me because it's easy, and it's been done so much over the last 30 years. I like a DC Universe where people trust Superman. I like a DC Universe where people trust the characters, and there will always be people who are against them. There are going to be people who are rallying against Superman, but those are stories that other people can tell better than I can.
Brad: And that's what we've always loved about your comics. The hope and optimism that is always there, the mission to strive for something better.
Mark Waid: Right. Thank you.
Brad: And that's why I was so surprised that we had the Air Wave reveal at the end of the first -
Mark Waid: Surprise. Yep.
Brad: I was like, "This doesn't feel like Mark Waid." So, there must be something going on here beyond my gut reaction to, "Oh, there's a nefarious agent, a sleeper agent within the Justice League Watchtower."
Mark Waid: There is much more beyond that because his bombshell revelation immediately raised questions: why? Why would you do this? What is motivating you to, quote-unquote, plot against the Justice League? And how do you think you can kill the Justice League in total? Are you working with someone else? And we've hinted that, and we're starting to hint at that. But again, that was a last-second thing. I got to page 22 and I felt like I needed something to spice up the issue. Something to leave you hanging on with an ominous note that would draw you back. So that came first, and then the working out of it became later, frankly.
Brad: So was Air Wave initially your POV character, and then when he got to that page, "Oh, I need him to be more?"
Mark Waid: Yeah.
Brad: Oh, okay. Fascinating.
Mark Waid: Yeah. It's not so much I need him to be more; this issue's missing something, and I'm not sure what it is. And it is some driver that will make you raise your eyebrows and say, "Oh, I got to know more."
Justice League Unlimited #3 is on sale now wherever rad comics are sold. And don't forget, you can listen to this unedited conversation on the CBCC Patreon.
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