For the first time in decades, Jack Kirby's iconic creations have returned to headline their own series in a new New Gods series as part of its All In initiative.
As seen in the villainous Darkseid is dead, and his death has had major consequences for the DC Universe. Screen Rant sat down with New Gods' creative team to discuss their series and discover what lies ahead for the Fourth World as this new chapter in DC Comics' history continues.
Screen Rant: Ram, DC All In began with Darkseid's death during the All In Special, we've seen how that has had major consequences for the DCU, particularly with the birth of the Absolute Universe. But how does Darkseid's death impact your story?
Ram V: It is the catalyst that kind of sets everything off. I was going to say the preview pages for issue one quite literally dropped a few hours ago, and Darkseid's death is on page one of this book. So essentially, it has multiple consequences, as the death of such a being should, right? One of the things that happens is that Darkseid's death kind of triggers the Source into making a prophecy to Metron, who is the Source's favorite New God and s***-stirrer extraordinaire.
Ram V: And so I think that kind of sets off a sequence of events whose endings are perhaps known only to Metron, and so he sets off a bunch of machinations, providing unknown motivations for characters across planets, Earths, New Genesis, Apokolips, if you will. And so that forms a bedrock of the conflict in this story. And then, beyond that, I also thought it was exciting to think we know of Darkseid as this sort of big bad in the DCU. What if other things in the DCU also knew him as this big bad and were staying away from our part of the cosmos because Darkseid was the pillar holding that side up. And now that that pillar is gone, they're like, "Well, this place is out of balance, and I feel like we can step in now without fear of what Darkseid might do.". The story's antagonists don't quite see themselves as gods. They see themselves as scavengers of the universe. So they come in, and they go "Well, this place has lost its balance, and it needs to be purged and reset.". And that kind of threat is coming to this book. So yeah, the big antagonist and the overall plot is all set off by Darkseid.
Evan, you and Ram have collaborated several times before with Detective Comics, Dawnrunner, your series for Dark Horse. Talk to us about getting involved with New Gods and what that means for you.
Evan Cagle: So Ram really had to twist my arm. I was expecting to take a long, long vacation after years of working on Dawnrunner. But, you know, I think it was probably about halfway through Dawnrunner that Ram started talking about New Gods, like "Want to do this thing? This is going to be a thing. We're going to do this thing.". And that's kind of how it happened. I was like "But what about, what about my vacation?" and Ram was like "Well, you'll have, like, a week.".
Ram V: No I said you have the rest of your life ahead of you.
Evan Cagle : (laughs) Yeah, something equally as dismissive as that. So he had to twist my arm. But I think one of the things that I like about working with Ram is that no matter how I feel about an initial pitch that he gives me, or an initial idea that he has, even if I can't sort of see my way into it, or I don't see how I fit into the scheme of things, by the time I've sort of accepted it as an eventuality, I begin to see like "Oh, this is actually going to be really amazing.". I see exactly how I can add to this and make it interesting, make it beautiful. Which is not to say that I went into this completely resistant, but, yeah, I wanted my vacation.
Ram V: Sometimes you can see what other people's work is going to look like before they can see it. Maybe because they're too close.
Evan Cagle: And I trust that you are that person. Yeah, time and time again, you've been right where I've been wary.
Ram, the last time we spoke, you discussed fatherhood and how it relates to your story. I will say, I really got a kick out of seeing Mister Miracle as this overworked dad figure. It's very funny, and provides a lot of levity for the first issue, which was great. But I like that you don't only approach this story from the perspective of a father, but also from the son of a father. We have Orion playing a really big role in this first issue. You want to talk a little bit about these perspectives in your book, both for Mister Miracle and Orion?
Ram V: From a big picture sense of things, I think it's fascinating, because I articulated this yesterday while I was talking with someone about New Gods. And I said "Look, all the great mythologies of the world are essentially about family, right? Yes, they're about planetary consequences and the births of civilizations. But fundamentally, it's like fathers and brothers and children and family helping family, family eating family.". And so I wanted to approach New Gods as contemporary mythology. And so it made complete sense that the emotional conflict of the story hangs entirely upon these family dynamics. And obviously, fatherhood is something that was a part of that dynamic, right from the get-go with Kirby, right? What can you say of a father who is willing to sacrifice his own child for the promise of eternal peace and safety? What can you say about a father who cares not enough about a child to go "Great, I can send you away, and it'll be fine. You will become me in the future anyway.". And so I think these are all things that are metaphors for the kind of relationships that we see in our own lives. And I think placing them in the context of gods lets us talk about more intimate things. Oddly enough, as the scale gets bigger, it becomes easier to talk about them rather than talk about them as personal conflicts, if you will. Case in point, that page of Scott kind of struggling with diapering the baby for the first time, literally going like "Oh my God, everything is spraying!" is taken right out of my life.
Obviously, aside from from Mister Miracle, Big Barda, Orion, we've got a lot of New Gods in the story. Highfather, Metron, Lightray. And I know the last time we talked, you mentioned wanting to go deep into the mythology.
Ram V: Even a new New God called Akala, who's right next to Highfather.
Do you want to speak a little bit about the New Gods you chose for your story? And Evan, what was it like updating, refining and putting your own spin on these characters?
Ram V: I always intended for this to be a massive cast. I think with every book that I have done, not only at DC, but also creator-owned stuff, I always think "Okay, this book is going to have something new for me that's just for me and not necessarily for the readers.". And I don't even know that I discussed this with Evan. This book's challenge for me was "Can I tell a story with a massive cast?". A Game of Thrones, a Dune, a contemporary mythology. There's at least 20-30, characters involved and as this series goes on, the cast is going to get even bigger. I think by the middle of the series, it crashes into the DCU, and all of a sudden, the Justice League is involved, and all those characters come in.I'm telling the story about intimate things, like fatherhood, worrying about your own past traumas, and how that affects the characters. So my challenge for this is "Can I tell a story with 50 characters that still feels intimate and lets you invest personally into it?".
Evan Cagle: It's a little bit of a tight rope, because there are times when I would want to take a bigger brush and erase more or add more. And a character is so established or the silhouette is so established that there's just no messing with it. And then there are other times where a character is of smaller scale, and it's one nobody particularly cares if my spin on it is wildly different than anyone else's. I mean, as long as he's still, you know, sort of within the bounds of what we think of as that character. So it's a little bit of a tight rope, but honestly, when we were doing a Scott and Barda page, one of the only 'police tape lines' that I got around any of the characters was, was Scott and Barda. But it just so happens that those happen to be my favorite character designs of Kirby's in the whole pantheon, they're just remarkable. They're really, really good.
Evan Cagle: And so, yeah, there are times like that where it's like "I wouldn't touch this, even if it were okay to.". Because I think it's perfect as it is, which kills me. I mean, there's so many moving parts on Barda. She's got so many elements. She has so much detail. And I would love to pare it down and make her easier to draw. But the simple fact is, when she's all drawn, you're just struck by the magnificence character design.
Was the red line "Don't draw her shorter than Scott"? I mean, she has to be giant compared to him at all times, right?
Evan Cagle: (laughs) no, no, it was. It was nothing like that. It's more making sure that the characters who are appearing at the same time in other books, remain the same. Obviously, of course, you want the consistency. It wouldn't do for Barda to have a completely different look than she does in Birds of Prey
That actually does bring up a good point, Ram, because you are dealing with Barda at the same time that she's become a big, huge part of Birds of Prey. And you've got this element in the story about how she's so exhausted dealing with the baby, dealing with the Birds of Prey. What's Barda's role in this big story? You've talked about fatherhood. Are we going to be seeing a motherhood aspect as well?
Ram V: Barda's role is to kick Scott's butt into gear on some level, and we see that sort of play into issue two. I feel like he's this really sensitive, thin-skinned character. He perceives the world and its people and its conflicts quite intensely. And he can become a bit sort of bogged down with it, almost navel-gazing at his own situation. And sometimes you just need to, like, drive a 16 Wheeler through that. And Barda is very much that 16 Wheeler like "Get up off the floor, stop self-pitying and go save the world.".
Scott and Barda really are two my favorite characters, and I love this new role for them. I'm glad you're not injecting relationship drama and that you're progressing their relationship, giving them a kid. There's so much reluctance to change characters that have been around for as long as they have.
Ram V: I don't think they've had an infant daughter in any continuity before and I think that's going to be a cool thing to work with. Also considering, Barda's size and the fact that she has a tiny, little baby is just hilariouswhen you see it on pages, yeah,
Evan Cagle: There's lots of room for for visual fun.
Evan, this book really is gorgeous. Do you guys want to talk a little bit about the creative process? Like Ram, do you just let Evan go hog wild on it. Or are you very specific when it comes to details, settings, character, etc?
Ram V: I don't really let Evan do anything. In fact, if anything, when I do have specific ideas, they are stickman ideas. Like, I can take three minutes to draw a whole page. Be like "Here, this is what we have to do.". And then Evan has to look at it and pretend that it makes any kind of sense to him. But when it comes back, it's such a great feeling to be able to go to an artist and be like "Here's my sort of weird stick figure thing." and boom, you've got this amazing mind-blowing 3D page in front of you. It is an absolute joy. But also, if I may, Evan, this is not Evan's first comic work, but it is definitely early comic work. I mean, obviously we did so much in Dawnrunner, but this is also the first time Evan's on a monthly book, and that can have its challenges. And I feel like, if anything, my contribution is "Hey, how do we navigate this? How do we make things easier in places?". But Evan probably knows more tricks of the trade than I do.
Evan Cagle: You've had some really swell tricks. I have to say, you've given me lots of insight. No, it's true. This is the first time that I've had to do a monthly ongoing series. So a lot of it is trial and error. And, you know, I think mistakes or missteps, particularly in of scheduling and time, I think those things just get ironed out as you progress. And the working relationship that we had on Dawnrunner is by this point much mutated, because we don't have the luxury of time the way that we did before. But fortunately, we've sort of gotten a bit of shorthand in there. So yes, I feel like the process at this point is fairly streamlined and getting better. But Ram also does himself a huge disservice, because I don't know if you've seen, but Ram actually can draw. He talks about stick figures and triangle houses and what have you, but he's full of s***. He can, he can actually draw. So when he gives me an idea for a layout or a spread or something, it is absolutely navigable. I can absolutely see what's going on there, because you actually can draw.
We've heard from other creators about what's going on with All In and how this is a giant epic that DC is telling right now. What do you want to say about how New Gods fits into All In?
Ram V: The New Gods was originally conceptualized three years before any talk of All In began. But I had a chance to talk about what I was doing on this book with Scott. And also, I think it might have been Jim Lee who came in and suggested "Hey, if you guys do this one tweak, New Gods kind of becomes central to the whole thing. And so, without too many spoilers, I will say yes, Scott and Orion's journey, and the fact that the New Gods are squarely in the DCU on Earth by the middle of this run, I would say it kind of makes New Gods very much a part of what is happening in the DCU. And then, as a sort of look into things to come, I would like to say that New Gods are uniquely positioned as being the connective tissue between the All In and the Absolute Universes. They're the only characters who sit outside of the duality conflux point, even if they don't know it, they're the only ones who have access to both the universes.
New Gods #1 is available from DC Comics on December 18th.
