This was a powerful and creepy four-part story that truly showcased your writing talent, Charlie: excellent dialogue, spine-tingling ambience, and careful plotting. Very cool!
I wore my inspirations very much on my sleeve with this story, and I think I mentioned them in previous rants on this letters page. When I plotted this story, which was about a year before I wrote it, I’d recently seen John Carpenter’s “
In the Mouth of Madness”, which is clearly a massive influence on the narrative.
I’d also started reading a lot of non-fiction books on nihilism and the horror of human existence, such as Eugene Thacker’s
Horror of Philosophy series, with titles such as “
In The Dust Of This Planet”, “
Starry Speculative Corpse” and “
Tentacles Longer Than Night”; Dylan Trigg’s “
The Thing”; Thomas Ligotti’s “
The Conspiracy Against the Human Race: A Contrivance of Horror” and David Peak’s “
The Spectacle of the Void”. It was a very dark period indeed.
That’s not to say, of course, that the influences were mainly in the non-fiction and film genres; the horrible nature of Alex Nero’s yellow ring constructs from Judd Winnick’s early
Green Lantern run left a massive impression on me. The grounded terror of Alan Moore’s
Swamp Thing stories… this arc was a confluence of things!
Personally, I think it could have used one more issue based in the horror dimension of Ugthothlhem, and I initially factored that into the number of issues, but this is in the pre-#75 era of the book where I knew how many issues I had before the anniversary issue, and how many stories I
needed to tell.
That meant, when certain events “over-ran” I lost my grimy, Lovecraftian pastiche sequence, which would have been Ted interacting with all the horror tropes I could fit into an issue. Ted would have spent the entire issue being “the sane man” and getting the band back together after they’d been separated in Ugthothlhem. There’s a hint of that in the final issue, but it was intended to take place exclusively in the penultimate. The perils of plotting ahead of time and building toward something that needs a lot of groundwork laying.
I loved your idea to throw Green Lantern and Cthulhu together! I wouldn't have thought it would, but it does. You've mentioned that urban horror is your preferred bailiwick, and your passion for the material definitely shines in these issues. Your description of the Ring's hideous constructs and the haunted town were fantastic.
I’m surrounded by books in the Lovecraft-mould, and it was about time I did something with all that pent-up horror in the pages of the DC2--! Like I said before, there’s a definite inspiration from the yellow constructs generated by the paranoid schizophrenia and bi-polar Alex Nero. Having someone-- or something!-- “infect” the consciousness of a Green Lantern is a horrible thought, and I think that the corruption of a power ring, one of the most dangerous tools in all of existence, is something everyone should be scared of.
Interestingly-- perhaps only to me-- I’d been tapping into the horror genre over in the
Green Lantern Corps title at this same time; with “
Form and Void” in #57-59 and “
Elements of Chaos” in #61-63 taking place a few months before, then “
Haunted Houses” in #64-66 posting at the same-ish enough time, and most definitely later on in “
State of Decay” in #70-72 and last year's annual.
I guess it’s quite interesting for me to “talk the talk” over in
Hellblazer’s letter column about how much I enjoy writing horror and then for someone to look back at my back catalogue to see me “walking the walk” elsewhere! I love writing things that unnerve, and I know that if I feel uncomfortable writing it, then others will do too. I think it’s a case of trying to scare myself--!
My only quibble with these issues as Angela Spica - not her inclusion, she seems like a really good character (is she from the Wildstorm Universe?) but I felt like you overemphasized the biochemical influences on her mental state. This is a minor concern, I simply raised an eyebrow at how readily and easily she was manipulating her own emotions. That said, it was one hell of a situation!
I hold my hand up to that, because it was a conscious effort, every issue, to make the stories accessible to anyone picking up the book for the first time. I’ve mentioned it before, but former Marvel editor-in-chief Jim Shooter repeatedly said that every issue of a comic book series was someone’s first, so therefore each issue should contain enough information so that a new reader can quickly get up to speed.
It might have been heavy-handed, but I knew what I was doing, because I wanted the logistics of Angie’s nanotech to be clearly understood, and because I knew it would play a major role in the climax of that story-thread, I didn’t want it to seem like it was a Deus Ex Machina, or like I’d pulled it out of my arse. It was Chekhov's Gun, and because I like quoting folks:
There’s also a lot of backstory I want to get out into the DC2niverse for Angie, because it plays into the current story running in
Justice League #71-74, and again, I want to make sure there’s groundwork there, so it’s not like I’m just-this-moment coming up with these story threads I’ve been planning since I returned to the title.
Honestly, the majority of these stories have their origins circa Summer 2015, when I got my second wind on the book, and it pains me when I can’t get content out fast enough. That means, of course, that some times I’m teasing threads like they’ll be paid off next month, when in actuality they’ll be paid off in two years’ time or whatever, but I think it’s better to go for the Chris Claremont model of storytelling, rather than the OH CRAP WHERE’D THAT COME FROM THAT’S SO CONFUSING model.
And yes, Angie Spica is known as the Engineer in Wildstorm, playing a major role in
The Authority since its inception. She’s not a superhero right now, but that doesn’t mean she’s not a hero-hero!
I truly enjoyed Batman and Hawkman's different responses and how Batman was awesome without feeling untouchable (something I think I've said before, so perhaps this will be the last time I mention it! You know what you're doing.) Batman testing himself the infection was hilarious.
I think that Hawkman is a great character, so I’m always looking for ways to shift him to the forefront without overshadowing other characters. Him being so anti-social that he’d remove his credentials from the logs of Laputa was something I loved throwing in there.
Batman is Batman. He’s not untouchable, like you say-- and his state going into the conclusion of the story is indicative of that!
The thing about having such a large roster is that you can’t have all the characters in the same room at once if there’s action involved. I’ve tried to keep the team-ups between the characters fresh, and Batman and Hawkman, with Angie in tow, was a really fun one that we’ll actually be seeing again in
Justice League #73, and definitely
definitely #75.
Finally, part four delivered a strong finish. Lane and the Guardian butting heads was fun to read. Maybe there's more of a connection to Kirby's worlds hidden in these issues, waiting to be teased out in the future? I'd be down.
With the hints of an otherworldly mythos that appear here, and the concepts that have made an appearance in
Green Lantern Corps, I’m building something very different in the DC2. You’ll see a lot of entities tied together at some point in the future, but it’s not a major plot point, and I have no immediate plans.
Sufficed to say, and I don’t think it’s too big a spoiler to say, but there is a connection between the beings of the Outer Dark and the previous incarnations of reality of which we’re currently in the 4th of-- yes, the Fourth World will collide with the past at some point… but where are the New Gods presently?
Wait for May.
P.S. I hope to review more recent issues (what a bounty of titles!) A.S.A.P.!
Very exciting! Can’t wait for you to get up to speed, because
Justice League #75 and beyond is going to be a barnstormer--!
