Where were we?
So, the DC2. I’ve been here since before day one, met David (our original EiC) on another fan-fiction site we don’t talk about and then had fun with him on an original fiction site. We eventually came together with a small group of creatives and founded this site, made it massive, and now we’re in a low, but who cares? Let’s keep creating cool shit. Good times.
Justice League #50 is a celebration of the last ten years of the DC2. It’s not part of the
Ten Years Later celebration, but it originally was going to tie-in to
Omega Crisis, like I’ve mentioned elsewhere. That fell through, but I still wanted to tell this kind of story.
See, I take this stuff quite seriously. DC2 stuff. When we started the site, David called dibs on a Bat-book,
Detective Comics, and I wanted to do one too, but I was precocious and probably very irritating (I was fifteen, cut me some slack) and wanted to tell a Year One-type book, so we launched
Batman and it was set in the very early days of the Dark Knight.
Semi-interesting fact I: The majority of the DC2 titles that launched with #0 were set six years into the past, when Superman debuted. Of course, Batman debuted a year before that (in-universe) and that’s where I wanted to tell my stories.Batman was fun and all, I had a massive plan involving the Riddler being the master villain behind a series of brilliant crimes*, I had Ra’s Al Ghul lurking in the background, and there this thing called the Lazarus Pyramid I wanted to explore, it being the base of operations for the League of Assassins. I plot and I plot and I plot and sometimes I actually get round to writing the damn stories.
*Only now do I realise the familiarity in concept with Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo’s Year Zero mega-arc. Disappointed I didn’t write it now so I can claim they copied me!
Semi-interesting fact II: I was in New York around 2010, talking to a friend I met through the DC2, Masoud aka Crow, and explaining my mega Green Lantern plans involving Red Lanterns, Sinestro, Kyle Rayner… I eventually wrote that story (Scarlet Reign) in 2013, and it was pretty much as I ranted and spilled it out to Mas (I was twenty, cut me some slack).But I had all these ideas and lacked the opportunity or timing to tell them. I always wanted to tell the tale about Bruce Wayne’s time wearing the Mask of Tengu and being a student of Ra’s Al Ghul, being groomed to become the new Head of the Demon, but I kept missing out. I had this story planned with a younger Bruce and Oliver Queen being imprisoned on Santa Prisca, in Peña Duro, meeting Bane for the first time, but never got the opportunity. Oh, and then there’s that subplot from numerous
Green Lantern issues with Hal Jordan’s ring talking in his father’s voice…
Now, you’ll see these events referenced across the site if you know what to look for. Obviously, because I’m a weirdo, you’ll never know what you’re looking for, because I’m all over the place and laying seeds for stories that won’t come to fruition for years, apparently. But I keep doing it and I don’t think there’s a chance I’m going to be able to stop.
Semi-interesting fact III: I recently realised I’ve been laying seeds for so many stories in Justice League that I probably should stop, else I won’t be able to tell them all before I’m thirty. I’m going to try and actively stop adding more Chris Claremont-level dense subplots and teases to the book until I wrap up all the ones I’ve got already… which should be around Justice League #100.
Okay, so regarding
Justice League #50, I know where the Big Seven were before they debuted. We know that in the DC2, Superman made his debut in Metropolis fighting the Parasite side-by-side by the elder statesman of the superheroing world, Captain Marvel (the first Captain Marvel, CC Batson). We also know he had adventures in Smallville, like the television show (it was on while we were creating, can you blame us?), so there was going to be a point that those points collided. I read Grant Morrison’s
Action Comics and loved socialist, dynamic, t-shirt Superman, and thought it made perfect sense to slip that iteration in before the cape-version. I know that’s combining old and new thinking, but what the hell-- I’m digressing!
I wanted to tell a story that had my present day Justice League meeting or having an adventure parallel to a different version of the team. Don and I were going to go ancient Justice League at first think-through. A team led by the original Ra’s Al Ghul and a version of Vandal Savage. We were going to see a load of medieval guys united by the Order of St Dumas to do
something but that never clicked. I still have the notes, so we may still see it. Then the idea came to have the Justice League of
Ten Years Later collide with the team of the present day due to the events of the as-yet not-written
Omega Crisis. When that didn’t materialise, I went back and realised I could finally do all the crazy stuff I wanted to do with the origins of the characters, and do the return of the Big Seven—but not the Big Seven anybody ever knew or saw on the DC2!
So we had Bruce finally being in his Tengu-persona, no hint of the Bat. Diana fighting crime pre-The Contest. J’onn marooned on Mars, pre-Erskine. Barry just discovering he can run faster than he ever knew. Arthur on the run from Atlantis, pre-Vulko and definitely pre-Mera. Clark in a t-shirt (standard). I wanted to utilise Hal too, but didn’t want him unpowered, so we get a “slip-in” scene from the early issues of
Tales of the Green Lantern Corps. These were the guys either as they debuted (we see Roy Flinchum drawing the Scott Kruger Green Lantern costume from the early days!) or as I always saw them prior to their first appearances.
I can’t say the issue was easy to write. I doubt Mark found it fun to edit! What should have been an extra-sized celebration turned into about four issues of content appearing in one MEGA-sized event issue, and I hope it reads well if you give it a chance.
I anticipate causing confusion with Rip Hunter appearing as a woman. It’s based off a concept put forward by Don, about how time is always changing, so while Rip is somewhat of a constant, doesn’t mean he’s always going to be a blonde-haired, white-skinned time traveller. Sometimes he could be a brunette, a woman, a Japanese man,
whatever, but he’ll always be Rip Hunter. She’ll be back (as early as
Justice League #54) but I think this is a nice primer for her moving into 2016.
And yes, if you read
Green Lantern Corps #60 you’ll see my thematic-crossover continue here, and somewhat bookended by
The Authority: A Finer World. Let’s get these characters out of their comfort zone, let’s take them to new worlds and new dimensions. I hope you enjoyed the ride!
A final thing, and probably the most important thing—of all the artists on the DC2, I think Roy Flinchum and Jamie Rimmer delivered the most
Justice League covers. It was only write that they share duties on the fiftieth issue, and so we had past and present collide with Roy illustrating the Big Seven, and Jamie delivering the present day roster he had a massive hand in putting together with me. I think it’s a beautiful piece and I’m glad that they could work together on it! Thanks, gents!
