JEMM originally started out
as a MARTIAN MANHUNTER series.
The concept was just too radical for the Manhunter.

Let me get back to JLA for a moment.

Sure.

What can you tell us about the rosters of the Injustice League and the Crime Syndicate? I understand that those are going to be figuring ... prominently into your epic.

Yeah. Well, the epic, it’s based around the war between the Justice League and the Injustice Gang, or the new Injustice Gang. ... [T]he thing with that Justice League—the guns, the "big guns"—what it’s going to take for the big guns are the arch-enemies of those guys: Lex Luthor, the Joker, Mirror Master, Ocean Master, Dr. Light, and Circe. The Martian Manhunter is going to be opposed by a resurrected Jemm, Son of Saturn, who’s working for Luthor.

Jemm, Son of Saturn!

Yeah, he’s back.

Wow. That’s a bit of continuity I didn’t expect anyone to remember.

Yeah, well, the interesting thing was that JEMM originally started out as a MARTIAN MANHUNTER series. The concept was just too radical for the Manhunter, so they went for the change and turned it [in]to JEMM, SON OF SATURN. But if you read the series again you’ll know ... .

I haven’t read that since it originally came out.

Yeah, I was assuming no one did. Except me.

[Laugh.] That leads to another question I was going to ask you in a bit: How many comics do you read? You seem to have an amazing grasp of what’s going on in the shared universe in general.

... I read everything Mark Waid does; I read Alan Moore; I read Kurt Busiek; and a few others. Basically, I read all the good super-hero stuff.

And as far as [continuity], I’m a bit of an odd guy: Where I can, I just make it up. [Laugh.] It seems to work for that sort of thing.

Well, it’s convincing.

Yeah. I hope so.

If you know the character, you know enough to fill in the blank spots. That’s one of the reasons I think a lot of people are looking forward to your run on THE FLASH. You’re going to be working on that with Mark Millar, aren’t you?

Yeah.

Let me ask you a question about your collaborations with Millar in the past: How do you two work together when you co-write stories?

The idea is basically—I mean, we get on. We live in the same town. And, you know, we met up because we were doing the same stuff, and we expected that we would get on.

Basically, we sit and get drunk, and we write these comics. Whenever we do a collaboration, we sit there and we work the thing out, do a thumbnail sketch for it. Then we figure out the basics of the dialogue; we work out the plot together; then one or the other of us takes it away and just sends it in.

So one of you is standing there ranting, and the other is playing pencil-man and drawing out the page?

Yeah, pretty much.

AZTEK seemed to read a bit differently than, say, the SWAMP THING story the two of you worked on together, or SKRULL KILL KREW. Was there something different that the two of you did when you were plotting those out, or—?

Ah, no, I think it’s just a different approach, that’s all.

What’s the status of Mark’s ZAURIEL mini-series? I haven’t heard anything about that in a while.

It’s ongoing. It’s going to be out in time to coincide with Zauriel’s return to the Justice League in issue 15.

Is there an artist assigned for that yet?

I’ve heard and all, but I don’t know who it is.

And it’s going to be a regular format, $1.95 book?

Yeah, and it kind of fills in the gaps between JLA # 7 and # 15.

So, is there any more leeway in DC letting you call Zauriel "Hawkman"?

No, these guys will not let me do it, and I think it’s stupid.

[Both laugh.]

It was a great subject of debate at the Heroes Con last weekend.

Yeah, to me it seems awfully silly, and I think what they should do is to call the guy Hawkman. And if they want to bring back the Katar Hol character—and I don’t know why they’d want to, ‘cause nobody can seem to make him work anymore—

Exactly.

And if they do anything about it, it’s the great battle of the Hawkmen, you know. What a great way to sell this comic, when you see this Zauriel and Katar Hol in battle.

He’s very visually powerful, too. I love the look of Zauriel. Who designed him?

Well, Howard designed that version, but the new version we’re using [in JLA # 15] ... is in his dress uniform from Heaven ... . So that’s a new look for him.

I’ll be looking forward to that.

Yeah.