I had the pleasure of doing an interview with J. Michael Straczynski about his work on Before Watchmen and Superman: Earth One – Volume 2.
Both of them are worth your time to check out, I particularly loved Superman: Earth One, both volumes of it. Straczynski has an understanding of the character in this alternate universe that is at once fresh and unique, but also familiar. It’s everything I love about the character.
But first, we spoke of his work on Before Watchmen.
Big Shiny Robot!: As news of this series broke, you seemed to be one of the lone sane voices about the situation. Now that people have had some time to adjust to the fact that it was happening, how has the reaction changed for you?
JMS: It’s really settled down out there. I think it was more the idea of it than the reality of it that got folks heated up. As I said at the time, ultimately the books would have to stand or fall on their own merits. Once people were able to see that all of us involved in the books were being genuinely respectful to the source material, andtelling good stories, a lot of the angst seemed to go away for most of the readers, absent a few core groups who will never, ever accept this idea (and who still cannot perceive the irony of their position while still defending Alan Moore’s use of other people’s characters — Jekyll and Hyde, Dorothy of Oz, Alice and others — in his own work).
BSR!: As far as Moloch’s story, was this something you pitched because you wanted to tell it? Or did DC ask you to handle it personally?
JMS: It was something that Dan DiDio wanted to do from day one, but once we had all picked or been given the main characters we were to handle, adding one more book into that mix might’ve been too much for this small group. As it turned out, I got all of my work in early and was free to take on this one as well, which I considered a very happy development as I very much wanted to tackle the Moloch characters. He’s really the only villain of note we hear much about during the original book, but by the same token his background wasn’t terribly well established, so there was a lot of room to play and develop his story.
BSR!: Can you elaborate a little on what you’re bringing to the character? In the original Watchmen, we saw him barely at the end of his life, how far back are you taking him?
JMS: It’s the story of his life, end to end, birth to death. The first issue is all about the circumstances that propelled him into a life of crime, his growing disillusionment with both that life as well as his own existence, and his search for redemption and salvation that led him to embrace God. The second book is about his slow fall, manipulated and used by Ozymandias for the latter’s own purposes. It’s a classic tragedy, in that he leaves prison determined to start fresh, to begin a new and better life…only to fall into a darkness he could never have anticipated.
BSR!: How is writing for this particular villain in the Watchmen universe different than writing for the heroes, like Nite Owl and Dr. Manhattan?
JMS: Storytelling is all about choices. In some of the other books we see the heroes having endured difficult or painful childhoods, which makes sense in that if you grow up in a normal, conventional home without much angst you’re not likely to put on a costume and go out fighting crime. That comes when you’ve been hurt enough to viscerally want to strike out against injustice. But the other way to go is to decide to do unto others what was done to you. Writing Moloch’s journey gave me the venue to explore the other side of that equation.
BSR!: What’s been the best and worst parts of playing in this sandbox that DC and Alan Moore created?
JMS: The best part has just been the joy of playing with these characters in this universe. Writing Dr. Manhattan in particular has pushed my abilities to the edge, especially when you see what happens in issues 3 and 4. I wanted to use quantum physics to answer some of the big questions from the original Watchmen, including Dr. Manhattan’s seeming paralysis when it comes to taking any actions that he — from a quantum superposition — knows he’s already taken in a given way. How did he get to that understanding? So asking those sorts of questions is the best part. The worst part will be leaving it behind.
Then, we turned the questions to Superman: Earth One – Volume 2:
BSR!: I think my favorite moment in this book was the story of Superman’s cat. This is a slightly more emotional and grounded Superman than we’ve seen. Where did that take come from?
JMS: It’s interesting that in all of the emails and reviews of the book, that one scene is singled out the most often for comment, almost invariably positive. From the online comments, a lot of folks teared up at that sequence. I think I almost accidentally tapped into something more than I’d expected with that story. That scene speaks to kindness, and courage, and I think people see a bit of themselves in the cat: threatened, outnumbered, but saved in an act of undiluted compassion. The scene is also meant to echo, and in some ways foreshadow, Clark’s actions later when he saves his neighbor Lisa from a different kind of predator.
For me, emotion is at the core of any kind of good writing. Mark Twain said that in a good story, you must feel something for the characters, the good to succeed and the bad to fail. (In a bad story, he said, you want them all to land in hell, together, as quickly as possible.) With Superman, we tend to focus so much on the S on his chest that we forget there’s a beating hart on the other side. For a contemporary audience, it’s not enough that he’s just really, really, really strong; Clark has to be as interesting a character as Superman, and the only way to do that is to dive more deeply into his personality and emotions.
BSR!: What made you choose Parasite for the second installment of this series?
JMS: For reasons that become evident later in the book, I wanted an antagonist who could reduce Superman to a depowered, human state for a bit, exposing him to feelings and situations he’d never before encountered. How well can someone who can’t be physically hurt or endangered really relate to those who can? Answer: he can’t, not until he’s put in that position. The result is that he discovers a genuine sense of awe for the human condition, for our ability to go out into the world knowing that with every step we have no guarantee of returning home safely again.
BSR!: What’s been the most satisfying thing about creating your own alternate version of Superman?
JMS: The most honest answer is also the most indulgent. Growing up as a kid in the hard streets of Newark and elsewhere, and adults who said kids like me didn’t become writers, they ended up working at gas stations (not that there’s anything wrong with that) or in prison and that I should put such lofty notions behind me…where the tyranny of reasonable voices said “forget about it kid”… Superman was an icon for me. In many ways, that character and his ideals formed the core of my personality, my code of ethics. Now I get to turn around and in some ways insert my own personality and ideas into Superman. It’s come full-circle, and there is something deeply and profoundly satisfying and humbling about that.
BSR!: Do you see the Superman of Earth One in the same universe as Geoff’s Batman of Earth One?
JMS: Yeah, they’re in the same world. In fact, there’s a tiny little nod toward Batman in the Daily Planet articles in the back of the book.
BSR!: Any hints of what villains we might see in the next volume?
JMS: Books 1-3 are a trilogy in that the issues raised in volumes 1 and 2 are further explored and codified in three. Questions asked earlier are answered here, such as: who was really behind the destruction of Krypton? I pointed a bit toward who that person might be with the name of the villain in book one, Tyrrell, which is a nod to RIchard III. In the play, Tyrrell is sent by King Richard to kill the princes, his nephews, who might threaten his rule, and thus solidify his rule. If you follow that line of thought to its ultimate conclusion, you can get a hint of what’s coming in volume three.
Before Watchmen is currently in comic book stores in single issue form, and Superman: Earth One – Volume 2 is available wherever comic books are sold, as well as Amazon.