“This Book is the Spine of the DC Universe for the Next Few Years” Mark Waid Talks Justice League Unlimited

After the events of Absolute Power, the heroes of the DC Universe realized that they never should have broken up the Justice League, at least for anything longer than a short break, and so they vowed to reform the League. In DC All In Special #1 right after Absolute Power ended, we see that the League has reformed as Justice League UNLIMITED, a massive team making up pretty much every superhero in the DC Universe.

The first issue of the series starring this new massive Justice League, Justice League Unlimited, is due out next month (final orders are due this Monday for comic book retailers looking to order the book), and the writer of the series, Mark Waid, took time with CBR to discuss the series, and Waid’s long journey with the Justice League (having written the series thirty years ago, twenty years ago, and now today).

CBR: Congratulations on Justice League Unlimited #1. It was a really fun first issue.

Mark Waid:
Thank you. Glad to hear it. We’re really, really proud of it.

So, what was the impetus for Justice League Unlimited? Was it an editorial decision, or was it driven from World’s Finest, or what?

It was a little bit of both. It was mostly an editorial thing in that we haven’t had a Justice League book for a couple of years, and Absolute Power was, in part, designed to reinforce the notion of why we do need one in the DC universe – why there needs to be a bigger Justice League and a more proactive Justice League. As to the Unlimited part of it, I think some of that was spurred by what Dan and I have been able to do in World’s Finest, which is in same continuity, but slightly in the past, and because of this we’re able to deal with whatever DC characters we feel like dealing with, and use whatever heroes we feel like using. So it’s a completely open palette, but at the same time, because in the past, there are still characters that we can’t use because, you know, they haven’t appeared yet. Cyborg or, you know, the Spirit World characters or whatever. So the idea was, okay, well, we like what Mark and Dan are doing in World’s Finest when they’ve got the DC universe of that era to play with. Why don’t we give them the DC universe of THIS era? And so that was kind of how this came about. But we’re all happy to be here.

For the the first issue, I’ve noticed that the approach almost seems like it reminds me of the old Gardner Fox “Split them up into teams.”

Yeah, yeah. That’s kind of it. I mean, it’s a mission-specific book. To a large extent, for instance, it is about, say, “This is happening in the Amazon Rain Forest, so who’s the best for this mission?” And in that sense, it is actually a little bit less like the Garner Fox way of splitting the team up into small teams, because that they never really gave much consideration to why they’re split up.

This is more purposeful. This is, you know, Kid Flash, your powers are best here, or, you know, Air Wave, your powers are best in this circumstance. So that’s what we’re doing. So it’s a little more modern in the idea that it’s more mission specific, in the sense that the original Justice League Unlimited cartoon was that as well. So we’re taking a cue from that.

What’s interesting is that looking back, that idea of “Everyone’s a Justice League member,” and also the idea of a “Mission Impossible-esque” Justice League were both things that they tried about 30 years ago, but editorial is so much different nowadays than it was 30 years ago that the approach is completely different. Can you speak a little bit just how different the interncoonnectivity is at DC now?

Yeah, it’s, it’s much more coordinated, and it’s much tighter continuity, in part because we’re just not publishing as many books as we were at the same time 30 years ago. And the DC “All In” initiative, which is, again, not a reboot, not a continuity restart, just a sort of “Start here!” marker for new readers. All the writers and all the editors were all in constant communication. More so than I think I’ve ever seen DC writers and editors are in such a tight knight group. Cooperation and communication with each other to make sure that we are all pulling in the same direction. I don’t think I’ve seen that level of cooperation in DC editorial for a long time, and it’s really making a difference.

I guess also just modern communication helps a lot. You couldn’t very well text each other in 1991, after all

Exactly, yes. “I’m going to send a telegram to Julie Schwartz to ask him a question about the Flash.”

Now, when it comes to picking your team, how much impact does Dan have on what superheroes you’re using on the team?

I go into this often asking him, “Who do you feel like drawing?” Oh, Swamp Thing. You want to draw Swamp Thing? Great. Let’s figure out a way to put Swamp Thing in there. It’s less of that because Dan is so eager to draw everybody, right? And so mostly, I guess, the rule of thumb is, if they have a line of dialogue, it’s somebody that I probably asked for, or Dan perhaps asked me to put in. But if it’s somebody who doesn’t have a line of dialogue, and they’re just standing there, it’s probably just somebody Dan drew in there.

In terms of assembling the team, deciding who is in each issue and then assembling the teams, it really is kind of a three-tier system. This is speaking about, you know, from a creative standpoint, rather than an in-continuity standpoint. From a creative standpoint, I want a mix of a few of the regulars; Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, the A players. I want one or two of the second stringers like Green Arrow or Black Canary or Mary Marvel or The Captain, or whoever. And I want at least one deep cut character in every issue that you haven’t heard from or seen in a long time, like Dr Occult, or, you know, Air Wave, as an example in issue one. The characters who I think have a lot of potential in them, and they just haven’t been seen for a while. So this gives us a chance to put the spotlight on them.

Now, obviously, you’ve been away from DC for a while now before returning a few years back. So, continuity wise, does it really matter that much? Are you doing that much research when you add in a minor character to this book nowadays?

I do, especially the modern characters. You know, the older characters I know by heart, but it’s fun going through books like, you know, City Boy or Batman: The Brave and the Bold, and sifting out some of the newer characters and getting to know them. Like Xanthe Zhou, from The Spirit World book, they shows up in issue three. That’s part of the fun of it to me. Oh, wait, Swamp Thing is a different guy now. Okay, I didn’t know that. Let’s go do the research on that. So there’s a lot I know, but there’s still a lot to be learned.

What’s funny is that, if you go back, people, fans, especially, they think of certain things like Hawkman and Green Arrow having a rivalry as, like, it was just sent down from the heavens when, obviously, it didn’t even pop up until Len Wien was writing the book around issue #100 so. So are you doing a similar thing? Asking, “Hey, which characters might not get along?”

Yes, very much so. So the fun of it to me is not so much the punching. The fun of it to me is, you know, what do Wonder Woman and Mary Marvel talk about as they’re punching and thumping, because they both realize they have the powers of the gods, but some of them are the same and some of them are different. Or what kind of relationship does Star Sapphire, who is fairly new at this, relatively speaking, have with Jefferson Pierce (Black Lightning), who is a professional coach and teacher. So it is about who’s going to get along, who’s not going to get along, who is going to fall in love, who’s going to fall in hate. You know, there we have so many characters to play with here and so many relationships we can play with here that we get to go all over the map.

That’s a fascinating thing about the DC Universe. I remember writing articles in recent years like, did Catwoman ever meet Supergirl? And it’s all these things that you would think obviously, but they just never actually happens. And now this is the case for all those people, right?

Exactly. The whole reason the Super Girl/Wonder Woman or the Super Girl/Robin stuff happened in World’s Finest is because I realized I’ve never seen Dick Grayson and Kara have a conversation for more than one panel after all these years. So that’s part of the fun of it is. Who has not met? Who has interacted with who? What is that relationship like?

Batman and Midnighter took over two decades before they actually met, which is amazing.

Yeah, crazy.

Can you speak a little bit about The Atom Project. How much is that going to be part of Justice League Unlimited? Or is it more going to be its own thing?

It starts in Justice League Unlimited, and it plays out for the first several issues there, and then sets up Justice League: The Atom Project miniseries, which is really all about, as we’ll see in the first couple of three issues of Justice League Unlimited, Ray Palmer and Ryan Choi figuring out how to track down the loose superpowers. And, you know, all the missing superpowers and reapportioned superpowers, they’ve been floating around since the end of Absolute Power.

What can you tell us about the new villain group that we meet in the first issue, The Inferno?

Yes, I will say that Brian, as an old-time Justice League reader, there’s a big clue about Inferno that is staring you right in the face. And I’m interested to see whether you pick up on it or not. We will hit you over the head with it again, an issue three to remind you. And Flash will be looking at the clue going, “This is ringing a bell. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but there’s something there.” But The Inferno, as we meet them in issue one, seems to be a terrorist group. But that is really belittling, because here’s the thing, they seem to have unlimited resources. They seem to have unlimited power. They seem to have unlimited manpower. Why are they terrorists then? Like, what are they trying to do if they’ve got everything already? And that’s the question that the Justice League has to deal with in the first few issues.

Now, going back to Gardner Fox for a moment, when he would write those early Justice League issues, the funny thing was always that, how did kryptonite somehow show up? So Superman isn’t just going to take care of everything himself. How is magic going to show up? How are you handling that sort of thing in this series, so that same issue doesn’t pop up.

It will come up, and sometimes Superman just won’t be here this week.

When you last did Justice League, the arcs tended to be a little shorter than some people of the era. You know, there was not the six issue arc standard. How about Justice League Unlimited?

So far, breaking down in your mind, the first arc is five issues. There is that, because we have a lot to set up, we have a lot to get in place. And you know, as you can see from the first issue, there’s a lot of ground to cover. But following that, I’m looking at shorter arcs. But beyond all of that, there is the fact that Darkseid seemed to explode in DC All In Special #1, which set the tone for and set the need for a Justice League in this universe. So, that is a looming threat. That is a hovering cloud that will be present throughout that first year. There are other little subplot elements or things that will be continuing art bits, but I’m trying to set it up much like Paul Levitz Legion. It’s a, “Here’s your big story, and then here’s your B story, and then here’s your C story, and maybe next month, your B story elevates to your A story, and your C story elevates to your B story, and something new starts. So that’s kind of the approach we’re taking, as well.

That’s a good point. That’s fascinating, because when you look back on The Great Darkness saga, for instance, it’s hilarious when you reprint it. Some of it has to be three pages from this issue, two pages from this one, because it was not a matter of part one here and part two, you know, it just slowly built to that level.

Yeah, that’s the beauty of doing an ongoing series like this.

Have you looked towards Levitz and Giffen’s Legion in terms of all the cast you have to deal with here?

I have, actually, I mean, I’ve done that. I did that when I relaunched Legion a couple of times as well. I think that it’s it’s less about how they handle the sheer number of characters. Because I think, especially after doing something like Absolute Power, I think I pretty much got a handle on that. It is more the story structure that I look to. It’s not so much how do you handle 25 characters, but more, how do you build threats that you can throw some members against without having to feel like you got to throw all 25 members against.

What’s interesting to me is looking back at what I believe was your first regular DC assignment. It was Justice League International Quarterly, right? And what’s fascinating looking back at those stories, it’s a similar approach of, you know, just throwing together heroes who just happened to fit the story that you wanted to write that issue pretty much.

Yeah.

So, in your mind, it’s got to be so weird that you got your 30-year-old Justice League run, your 20-year-old Justice League run, and now your 2024 Justice League run. How is it all? Is it just a matter of you being a different writer now, or are you thinking of these things in terms of what editorial was like at the time?

Some of it is that I’m a different writer, but a lot of it is that the DC Universe is just bigger and broader and more diverse than it was 20 or 30 years ago, and the stable of characters that I have to choose from is much larger. So in that sense, it’s a completely different assignment.

It’s so funny to think when you mention that you always want to have the Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman there as the basics to build around, and yet, it’s amazing to know how many years that was just fought to NOT let those heroes all be in the League at the same time.

Right, right, but I think we have, sort of as a civilization, sort of cumulatively decided that they are the “Holy Trinity.” So it’s hard to imagine anything lasting very long without at least two of those characters at any given time.

Could you speak a little bit as to why AIRWAVE? What appeals to you about that character?

A lot of it is just because, like everyone in comics, like everyone who retails comics, or buys comics, or is in comics, I have my own little pet favorites that nobody else really knows about. Like, that’s, you know, that’s how Max Mercury got started, because I really dug that Quicksilver character, even though I’d only read one story with him in it as a kid, so Airwave is the same thing. I hadn’t read that many Airwave stories, but I just like the original character in the golden age. I like the fact that this guy is a generational hero, because he’s the son of the original and when Geoff brought him back into the DC Universe in that Star Girl Lost Children miniseries, I thought, okay, great, now is my chance to do something with this character that I have a weird fascination for. But I didn’t know what to do with him. And then I realized with issue one, he’s the perfect character. He’s our “Gosh, wow!” window to the Justice League that the readers can see through. And he fits the bill perfectly.

You mentioned the “Gosh Wow!” aspect, and that’s obviously really well done with Airwave. I just wonder how, when it comes to “Everyone, could be a member of the Justice League!” How many heroes would still be too daunted to even try that?

There’s a few. We’re gonna we’re going to come across at least one or two interactions in the first few issues with characters who either didn’t want to join, like Damien Wayne, I think, deliberately, just kind of tut tutted it away, and other characters who were nervous about stepping up, even more nervous than Airwave. And you know, Dan Mora created a couple of characters for Absolute Power, a couple of superheroes that we used in there that might be good for this sort of thing.

Gotcha. What I always like about your stuff is that idea of, you know DC history so well, obviously, and so there’s almost the synthesizing of multiple approaches in your work. Like, for instance, Superman Birthright was an excellent example of you taking the best of these various eras and saying, “Here’s what we should do here.” So what are you pulling from in your mind for this book?

I’m definitely pulling from the Grant Morrison era. And I’m definitely pulling from the Garner Fox era in terms of the scope of the threats and the craziness of some of the threats. Those are the two big ones. I was a big fan of what Scott Snyder did. I’m a big fan of what Geoff Johns did. So there’s a little bit of their stuff in their approach there as well. And all of it is sort of filtered through the World’s Finest approach, which is, let’s just throw as many characters into this thing as we can and have fun as long as we can.

I love that, how it’s that “fun.” Fun is, obviously, as we know for years, has almost been a dirty word.

Yeah.

But what you and Dan have pulled off in World Finest (and so far, in Justice League Unlimited), is being fun without seeming like retro.

That’s exactly it. Dan is the secret sauce there. I mean, Dan can take anything from any era of comics and make it look contemporary. And that is a skill that is apparently unique to him, as near as I can tell, because he is just stellar at it. So there’s no obscure character I can pull out of nowhere that Dan cannot take a look at and go. I will draw him exactly as what Meskin drew him in 1963, but you will like him, and he will look cool today. And so, Dan, between Dan and Tamra Bonvillain, who’s doing the coloring, the artwork is what, as much as anything, makes it feel super contemporary.

Yeah, with Bonvillain and Ariana Maher, you guys have a nice little all-star team there.

Yeah, we do.

Now, this new approach was introduced, obviously, in the DC All In Special. How much input did you have on that story? Or did you talk much with Joshua and Scott?

Not much, only because I was busy with Absolute Power. But Josh and I talk all the time, and Editor Paul Kaminski, who is in charge of all this stuff, has made sure the lines of communication are open the whole time. So nothing came as a surprise to me. And I saw some cool stuff in the All In special that we could tee off of, like Booster Gold being missing, or some of the Darkseid stuff. So I’m as excited as anybody about a chance to play with some of the stuff they set up.

Would you say, then, with all the other big books, that there is not really one FLAGSHIP book now?

I actually would say that this IS a flagship. This book is the spine of the DC Universe for the next couple of years. This book is where the big stuff happens. A lot of that is coordination. A lot of that is just making sure that I’m kept up to date with what’s happening in Flash and Green Lantern and Green Arrow and 18 other books. And everybody’s really good about swapping information back and forth like that. So if i something big happens, at least in the DC Universe, it will either be in Justice League Unimited, or be reflected in Justice League Unlimited. That’s very much the narrative spine of the DC Universe.

Justice League Unlimited #1 is out next month.