Wolfman Returns for Another Crisis

This story originally appeared in PW Comics Week on January 17, 2006 Sign up now!

by Ian Brill -- Publishers Weekly, 1/17/2006

In the 1980s, writer Marv Wolfman was propelling DC to great heights. New Teen Titans, with artist George Perez, was DC’s first big hit that could stand up against the success of Marvel's X-Men line. Wolfman and Perez then changed the face of the DC superhero universe forever in 1986 when Crisis on Infinite Earths simplified DC's multiple universes, and made the world of DC Comics sleeker and easier for new readers to understand.

However, superhero comics have a habit of getting complicated and now, on the 20th anniversary of Crisis, DC has produced a sequel called Infinite Crisis. Written by Geoff Johns (The Flash, JSA) and drawn by Phil Jimenez (Wonder Woman, New X-Men) the book continues the story that began two decades ago. Wolfman has been brought back to the series, penning Infinite Crisis Secret Files and Origins, which will explain the bridge between the two series. Wolfman will also co-write the Teen Titans Annual with Geoff Johns, available mid-February. With a catalogue of some of comics' greatest hits behind him (including Tomb of Dracula for Marvel) Wolfman talks about his projects both past and present.

PWCW: It's been a while since you've written a high profile DC comic before. Why are you writing for them now?

Wolfman: Actually, it was a matter of being asked to do it. I've always wanted to work with DC—the people there are all good and I love the characters. And when they asked, I said yes. As styles and tastes change, I think writers come and go in waves, and for awhile most of us '80s-'90s writers were not always being used, but now a few are coming back. Hopefully I can do more comics work for DC as well as other places, as comics have always been my first love.

PWCW: DC's current Infinite Crisis story is a sequel to the Crisis on Infinite Earths story you wrote in the mid-'80s. Do you feel you bring a different perspective when you write for the current storyline?

MW: I'm fulfilling a very different role here since I'm working to realize someone else's ideas. In the original book I was instigating the ideas. In this one I'm providing a story that helps Geoff Johns tell his story. He has the overall story in mind and I'm playing to one part of it. I was allowed to tell the story my way and to write it the way I felt best, but it still is a segment of his overall Crisis concept. Which is great since the pressure is off in some ways. All I need to do is concentrate on my little part in the whole tapestry.

PWCW: Have your thoughts changed about the original series since when it was first published?

MW: No. I still feel pretty much the same as I did then, except, in re-reading it now, I'm sort of amazed that the book was so tightly plotted. I knew the book was going to be big but I could never have foreseen that there would still be this interest in what we did 20 years later. George and I worked very hard to present something special, and considering how much interest there still is in the series, I guess we succeeded. It's always hard to judge one's own work, but modesty aside, I think even as better and better stories are published, the Crisis, because it was the first and it was well done, will probably remain the template for all such crossovers in the future.

PWCW: You've spoken about how company-wide continuity can often restrict creativity. How do find working with continuity in writing for DC Comics now?

MW: I haven't had to worry about that, fortunately. My Infinite Crisis story is built off my original. That allowed me to be somewhat insular. As far as intra-company continuity goes, my view has always been that the best writers at a company are held hostage by the worst. Poor ideas become part of the whole, which hurts everyone. But readers seem to enjoy the overall company concept.

I always thought characters could meet but that each title should be independent from the others. So if there was, for example, an Atlantis in Superman and an Atlantis in Aquaman, they didn't need to be the same Atlantis. That way writers could let their imaginations go for the most incredible concepts without worrying what was done in a 1959 issue of Action Comics or even in last month's Batman. Part of my Crisis was to get rid of all those continuity elements and start all over again. The problem comes as readers get older and they want to have some sort of link between the titles; they ask how could the JLA characters get together while there are different Atlantises. I believe very strongly in continuity within a title—so everything within, say, The New Titans, was consistent. But I didn't feel it needed to be consistent with what was happening in Green Lantern. Still, that's not what most readers like, so I've never written books with that attitude. But if I had my druthers....

PWCW: You've said that you wish at the end of Crisis on Infinite Earths every book would start over at number one. Do you feel DC is achieving something similar in their "One Year Later" event? [DC’s Crisis series will jump ahead one year in the life the characters. ]. p>

MW: Absolutely. This seems to be coming from the same place. I approve 100%.

PWCW: You've written a Crisis novel and have a Superman Returns novel coming out in June. How is writing superhero stories for novels different than writing them for comics?

MW: In the Crisis novel I had to find a spine and an emotional hook to a story that was not about any one person but about hundreds of characters. Comics like Crisis can be like a tree with branches that go in many directions, but novels can't be. They should be about someone or many someones with a clear storyline. So where the original Crisis comic was about 450 heroes trying to stop a villain operating in all places and all times simultaneously, the novel was about the Flash's experience in the Crisis, focusing on him, his wife and his reactions. I took a huge cosmic story and personalized it, and I think I got a very good companion piece to the original comic. Some of the reactions I've gotten say it's better; others wish their favorite scenes were in it, but I think it would have been folly to have written a novel that simply reiterated the story that was already told as best as George Perez and I were able to. I thought the novel should be able to stand on its own and have a compelling story and reason for it to be a novel instead of another comic.

As for Superman Returns, I'm taking a movie script and fleshing it out. I can't change anything major, although I can, and did, add scenes that talk more about the characters and some of the situations. In fact, I was asked to do that by the movie writers as well as by Bryan Singer, the director. I think the trick with movie novelizations is to make the reader think the movie was adapted from the book and not the other way around. That way the book has its own reason to exist.