Letters to Checkmate #10

I always appreciate you taking the time, O. I’ve been writing for the site since day one and I’ve decided to implement an “I’ll-Comment-Yours-If-You-Comment-Mine” policy (after an initial period of posted feedback on my part, of course… I’ve got to be fair). Sufficed to say, you’ve earned feedback on every issue you post on site, and I can’t wait for you to start producing again.

And don’t count your conclusions before they... conclude! Season 1 still has its grand finale coming, because this issue couldn’t contain everything I wanted to get out there before Season 2. Checkmate undertake their biggest and most precarious operation ever in the final chapter… they attempt to steal the democratic process out from under the United Nations. More on that to come…



Checkmate has been my consistently favourite book to write in the last twelve months, even more so than Justice League. I can put so much more into it than I initially thought possible, and it’s just fun to write a spy thriller with superhero trappings.

I’ve been thinking a lot about writing action as prose, and the thought of it both baffles and terrifies me. How do you convey that kind of physicality without seeing it yourself? How do you choreograph a fight scene prosaically? I’m enjoying the challenges Checkmate offers, and I’m glad you are too! It’s nice to write a story where everyone can be cool and sexy without any constraints. Justice League has constraints. It’s functionally an All-Ages book at its most mainstream, though with the story planned post-hiatus, that’s all going to change…


Initially, Valentina Vostok was set up as an antagonistic figure, but it dawned on me that she was a caricature of what was expected of her, this almost pantomime, performative negative force to act as a counter to all the degrees of positive going on across the spectrum of the organisation. And that was my bad writing, basically.

But it dawned on me-- if she’s running the Active Operations side of Checkmate Black, she’s not evil, is she? She can’t be! Not in the New World Order version of the organisation created with the UN reset. But what if she’s playing the villain? Getting everyone’s back up because that’s what’s expected of her now?

That doesn’t mean she’s all good. I think she’d like to be in charge, but she’s also nobody’s woman. She’s not a pawn. We’ll be exploring that in Season 2, which is exciting. We’ll get to meet DC2’s Russian premier! We’ll keep expanding the world outside of North America!

Another factor that pushed the Vostok “reveal” to this issue was the debut of the HBO series Chernobyl which made me despise certain aspects of Russian government and society more so than I did before. All these abstract feelings I had for a nation that is actively trying to sabotage our own solidified, and I wanted to explore that. Valentina is a victim of her government’s ineptidue in dealing with the Pripyat explosion, her parents died because of it, and she was dosed to high heaven with the radiation that triggered—or created?—her metagene. She burned her way out of her mother’s body. And she remembers. She remembers. How does that warp a person’s sense of self?

And I finally got to introduce Russia’s black ops super soldier program! We’ll be seeing more of the Red Shadow in Season 2.


The cover was simply perfection, I was really glad to get permission to use it. The quality of work we now have access to for our covers is absolutely stellar, and I hope we get more books out on the site so we can start seeing more of them!


That’s a relief. My big concern with “Spinning Plate Plots” is that you—as the reader—will spin story threads off in directions before the story itself is ready for you to do so.

I want the story to be told at the same pace as a reader’s cognisance of the plot details s that you aren’t screaming at the characters who the killer is when they should know at the same time as you. They’re all super-smart, so they should be smarter than the reader, right?

Obviously, there’s dramatic tension to consider, moments where we reveal things to the reader that the leads aren’t privy to, but let’s let the characters be smart and not stupid.


Lian is not going to die. I have too much reverence for a certain era of DC comics to let that happen. I don’t like the idea of killing children, or anything bad happening to children, so that’s not something I’m interested in writing for a major protagonist. But that said, Jade is Lian’s mother, so if she’s been taken by Cheshire then it might be coming from a place of malice, right?

I’m a bit torn with how I want to approach Season 2. I played with the idea of spinning miniseries out of pertinent events from Season 1, and a mocked up a prospective logo for the Cheshire threads:


But who knows what’ll happen? I have other priorities right now!

The Donna x Roy relationship is new to the site. There’s no foreshadowing in other books because it’s retroactively introduced here, but it’s inspired by the recent Dan Abnett run on Titans and I thought it was a nice and new and interesting thing that would work on the DC2.

I want to get into the formation of the Teen Titans at some point because I don’t think it’s been seen on the DC2, but I see young Roy as this really confident, stupid kid who talks a big game and then there’s Donna, raised by the Amazons, taught this hippie warrior lifestyle about free love and, to put it bluntly, pleasure through domination, and the two of them colliding when they’re both in their formative years. Of course they got it on. But I don’t know if I’m the writer to explore those themes. But of course they fuuuuucked. And now they’re picking up where they left off!


Next issue will feature the first time all four royals are in the same room at the same time. But will they be on the same page? And will the heist take place without a hitch?

Spoilers: No.

…

What am I up to right now? Well, I’m currently adapting my Checkmate stories into original content. Season 1 of the series will make up the first novel in what could be a series, but it’s something I’m hyped for, so that’s why I don’t see the season finale of Season 1 landing any time soon. I think it’ll be a case of writing it for the novel, and then back engineering it into a Checkmate story.

I’m having a lot of fun, because I’m finally digging out all the original characters and concepts I’ve been developing across the years for unrelated superhero stories, and smashing it together with this high concept spy series that I’m passionate about.

I’m 15,000 words in, having to write new stuff and connective tissue, removing mentions of DC2 events and Justice League characters, but it’s fun! So, yeah, that’s why there’s not been any new DC2 issues from me recently. But you know what I’m like, I love talking about this nonsense.

Thanks for reading, O!