Post by Gay Titan on May 9, 2008 11:12:11 GMT
DC Universe: Last Will and Testament
Brad Meltzer is coming back to the DC Universe.
It seems only appropriate, given that Meltzer’s Identity Crisis started the ball of the DC Universe rolling three or so years back. Now, with the payoff of much of the larger storyline coming in Final Crisis, Meltzer’s back to tell a final story.
The New York Times best-selling author jumps back into the DC Universe in August with DC Universe: Last Will and Testament, an in-continuity one-shot, positioned between issues #3 and #4 of Final Crisis. Adam Kubert and John Dell provide interior art and the cover.
The big picture of the one shot? Simple – the characters DCU, the day/night before the biggest battle of their respective lives. If Final Crisis is the day evil wins – this is the night before.
For Meltzer, while the issue has a thematic connection to Identity Crisis, it took a little more than that to get him onboard.
“Dan [DiDio] approached me and said if you did the first bookened, you should do the last one, and that’s nice and makes my ego feel good, but the reality is that the timing was just right for it,” Meltzer says. “After every novel, I love that period where I can just lose myself in comics – after The Millionaires, I did Archer’s Quest, and after Zero Game, came Identity Crisis, and after Book of Fate came JLA. I just finished the new novel, and now it’s this.”
From the very start, Meltzer says, he didn’t want to do anything that could be construed as some kind of sequel or follow-up to Identity Crisis.
“As I said in the very first interview I did with Newsarama about Identity Crisis, there was always a big picture, and there was always a big theme,” Meltzer says. “I felt like this was going to be the story that was going to, as cliché as this sounds, close one door and open another, and really show the bigger picture of the both here.”
Another thing Meltzer knew he didn’t want to do was to try and compete with Final Crisis in any way.
“I love the big moments and the big events, but for me, when it comes to the big scene, I don’t care about the world cracking in half – I care about the single person who’s standing on that crack as the world splits open beneath them,” the writer says. “I like reading about the big moment, but as a writer, I prefer the human moments.
“So as Dan and I were talking I said that I knew in some of the big books, you don’t have the time to do everything that you want to do, so I asked if I could do the story of the day before it all falls apart. What is everyone in the DC Universe do if they believe and think and worry that the next day they are going to die? That is where Last Will and Testament came from.”
So what do the respective heroes do? Good question. Seriously – it’s a “buy the book to find out” kind of good question, but Meltzer is happy to point in some general directions.
“You literally see each of the heroes faced with that question – it’s the night before the greatest battle that they’re ever going to fight. What are they going to do with that time? They all have very different emotional responses to it – some very obvious, and some completely surprising – even to themselves. It is, without a question, an emotional story, and that’s where it becomes that bookend to Identity Crisis.
“Identity Crisis, for whatever it became and whatever it turned into - so much of it out of my control – is something that I think Dan ran well with it, and I’m still very proud of. I’m proud to have created that tapestry that’s stretched now over these past three years. This is the chance to look at it, and say, ‘Okay, if the universe has been changed in this way, what’s the new effect if evil is going to win?’ The characters have been through a wringer over the past couple of years – this is a moment where you really get to pull the characters apart. To use the old Hitchcock quote: It’s not the bang that’s scary – it’s the anticipation of it. That’s what the entire moment is in this issue. ”
Identity Crisis won’t be the only title Last Will shares a common theme with, Meltzer says. “Just like you saw in DC Universe #0, you’re going to see, mixed in with the current story, things that are coming up – hints and beats of things to come that are just as important as anything else in the book.”
Brad Meltzer is coming back to the DC Universe.
It seems only appropriate, given that Meltzer’s Identity Crisis started the ball of the DC Universe rolling three or so years back. Now, with the payoff of much of the larger storyline coming in Final Crisis, Meltzer’s back to tell a final story.
The New York Times best-selling author jumps back into the DC Universe in August with DC Universe: Last Will and Testament, an in-continuity one-shot, positioned between issues #3 and #4 of Final Crisis. Adam Kubert and John Dell provide interior art and the cover.
The big picture of the one shot? Simple – the characters DCU, the day/night before the biggest battle of their respective lives. If Final Crisis is the day evil wins – this is the night before.
For Meltzer, while the issue has a thematic connection to Identity Crisis, it took a little more than that to get him onboard.
“Dan [DiDio] approached me and said if you did the first bookened, you should do the last one, and that’s nice and makes my ego feel good, but the reality is that the timing was just right for it,” Meltzer says. “After every novel, I love that period where I can just lose myself in comics – after The Millionaires, I did Archer’s Quest, and after Zero Game, came Identity Crisis, and after Book of Fate came JLA. I just finished the new novel, and now it’s this.”
From the very start, Meltzer says, he didn’t want to do anything that could be construed as some kind of sequel or follow-up to Identity Crisis.
“As I said in the very first interview I did with Newsarama about Identity Crisis, there was always a big picture, and there was always a big theme,” Meltzer says. “I felt like this was going to be the story that was going to, as cliché as this sounds, close one door and open another, and really show the bigger picture of the both here.”
Another thing Meltzer knew he didn’t want to do was to try and compete with Final Crisis in any way.
“I love the big moments and the big events, but for me, when it comes to the big scene, I don’t care about the world cracking in half – I care about the single person who’s standing on that crack as the world splits open beneath them,” the writer says. “I like reading about the big moment, but as a writer, I prefer the human moments.
“So as Dan and I were talking I said that I knew in some of the big books, you don’t have the time to do everything that you want to do, so I asked if I could do the story of the day before it all falls apart. What is everyone in the DC Universe do if they believe and think and worry that the next day they are going to die? That is where Last Will and Testament came from.”
So what do the respective heroes do? Good question. Seriously – it’s a “buy the book to find out” kind of good question, but Meltzer is happy to point in some general directions.
“You literally see each of the heroes faced with that question – it’s the night before the greatest battle that they’re ever going to fight. What are they going to do with that time? They all have very different emotional responses to it – some very obvious, and some completely surprising – even to themselves. It is, without a question, an emotional story, and that’s where it becomes that bookend to Identity Crisis.
“Identity Crisis, for whatever it became and whatever it turned into - so much of it out of my control – is something that I think Dan ran well with it, and I’m still very proud of. I’m proud to have created that tapestry that’s stretched now over these past three years. This is the chance to look at it, and say, ‘Okay, if the universe has been changed in this way, what’s the new effect if evil is going to win?’ The characters have been through a wringer over the past couple of years – this is a moment where you really get to pull the characters apart. To use the old Hitchcock quote: It’s not the bang that’s scary – it’s the anticipation of it. That’s what the entire moment is in this issue. ”
Identity Crisis won’t be the only title Last Will shares a common theme with, Meltzer says. “Just like you saw in DC Universe #0, you’re going to see, mixed in with the current story, things that are coming up – hints and beats of things to come that are just as important as anything else in the book.”