James Harvey
09-13-2001, 11:40 AM
<a href="http://www.comicon.com/newsarama">Comic Newsarama</a> recently did an interview with upcoming JLA writer Joe Kelly. Below is an excerpt.
NRMA: What will your approach to the characters be in terms of the stories you tell? Entire team at once, or smaller groups, focusing on a smaller number of characters?
JK: When I deal with a team book, I like to focus on one or two members at a time within the depth of one story. For example, my first story arc focuses a little more on Wonder Woman and Manhunter, and how people respond to them. The next will be Plastic Man and Batman – not team-ups, per se, but picking and choosing so we can spend a little more time with them as opposed to a lot of little bits with everybody, you get a lot of bigger bits, and feel like you’re getting more of a chunky look at the characters.
NRMA: So tease – who are you going to spotlight in your first few arcs?
JK: The first story is a Wonder Woman-inspired storyline, but just because of the timing, there’s no Batman in them because of what they’re doing in the Batbooks. Aquaman’s not there either, so they only have six guys, and that helped the dynamic a bit. As the story progresses, they split up a little bit, so you’re looking at smaller groups. It’s nice to mix and match.
The first real team-up storyline is Plastic Man and Batman, which occurs after the first arc. Plastic Man goes to Batman specifically to ask him for a favor, because he knows he’s the only person that can keep a secret, and it’s something he doesn’t want anyone else knowing about. So that spins them off into this very unlikely adventure together, which should be fun. To that degree, you can have forty guys, as long as you only focus on two or three of them at a time. It also makes it more special when they all get to come together.
The thing is, they don’t all have to be in every issue, and I know that’s a change form the guys in the past. I’m happy to have just two characters in an issue, or two characters in two or three issues, because stories of the JLA include almost any time these guys get together. Not to the degree that if the Flash shows up in Superman, it’s a JLA story, but once you’ve got the two of them together, and there’s a big threat going on, or they have to split off from the group, that’s their own story, and you should flow with that. That’s going to be something that I really enjoy.
To read the whole interview, go to <a href="http://www.comicon.com/ubb/Forum12/HTML/000064.html">Comic Newsarama</a>.
NRMA: What will your approach to the characters be in terms of the stories you tell? Entire team at once, or smaller groups, focusing on a smaller number of characters?
JK: When I deal with a team book, I like to focus on one or two members at a time within the depth of one story. For example, my first story arc focuses a little more on Wonder Woman and Manhunter, and how people respond to them. The next will be Plastic Man and Batman – not team-ups, per se, but picking and choosing so we can spend a little more time with them as opposed to a lot of little bits with everybody, you get a lot of bigger bits, and feel like you’re getting more of a chunky look at the characters.
NRMA: So tease – who are you going to spotlight in your first few arcs?
JK: The first story is a Wonder Woman-inspired storyline, but just because of the timing, there’s no Batman in them because of what they’re doing in the Batbooks. Aquaman’s not there either, so they only have six guys, and that helped the dynamic a bit. As the story progresses, they split up a little bit, so you’re looking at smaller groups. It’s nice to mix and match.
The first real team-up storyline is Plastic Man and Batman, which occurs after the first arc. Plastic Man goes to Batman specifically to ask him for a favor, because he knows he’s the only person that can keep a secret, and it’s something he doesn’t want anyone else knowing about. So that spins them off into this very unlikely adventure together, which should be fun. To that degree, you can have forty guys, as long as you only focus on two or three of them at a time. It also makes it more special when they all get to come together.
The thing is, they don’t all have to be in every issue, and I know that’s a change form the guys in the past. I’m happy to have just two characters in an issue, or two characters in two or three issues, because stories of the JLA include almost any time these guys get together. Not to the degree that if the Flash shows up in Superman, it’s a JLA story, but once you’ve got the two of them together, and there’s a big threat going on, or they have to split off from the group, that’s their own story, and you should flow with that. That’s going to be something that I really enjoy.
To read the whole interview, go to <a href="http://www.comicon.com/ubb/Forum12/HTML/000064.html">Comic Newsarama</a>.