- Where did this idea actually come from?
I was rereading DC Challenge. I noticed how lots of our reviewers complained how bad super hero comics were these days. Mark Twain is always somewhere in the back of my mind. I guess I wondered if everyone was talking about the weather, would they bother doing anything about it. I was surprised when they were.
- In a previous article, you mentioned some these characters were old friends? How far do they go back?
Harmonics goes back to when I was 13. I had just begun reading super hero comics full time. I'd read assorted Spider-Man comics and Superman comics before that. At 13, I devoted about 60% of my waking time to comics. I also lost my hearing around the same time. Harmonics was my reaction to Daredevil. I was pissed that he was blind but not in a sense that really ever caused him any trouble. I wanted a super hero who really struggled with his disabilities.
Lucas didn't have an identity outside of suit in those days and wasn't a rock star. He was also a tad more of a hot head. Other than that he was basically the same wise ass with a conscience you see now.
Andrew Weinstein on the other hand, started in my friend's DC campaigns. I never knew which game I could make so I had created a force field wielding random time hopping super genius. Yes, early on Andy was an actual hero who happened to be a smug jackass made worse by the fact that he was usually right. This incarnation also wound up in some awful fanfic.
I ran a game, Andy appearred again. This time as more of a 'What if a manipulative master mind had his own super hero team?' A variant on this incarnation also appeared in a few other stories. Not as well as Explorer's handles them.
That is very similar to what I'm doing here. Only now I see Andy as someone who isn't out for himself. He's something far more dangerous. He's a man who does horrible things because he believes (rightly or wrongly) that by his doing bad things himself he spares good people from having to do bad things.
Ellie and Angelica both started out in Andy's stories. It wasn't until some stuff I mentioned before that I even realized they could and should be in the same world. They are both relatively unchanged (save for their ages) since I created them in 1997. Aside from Ellie dumping Andy and going for the guy who didn't treat her like crap. She's also a little snarkier than she used to be.
- How much of your stories are planned?
The first issue was very easy to write. I had a basic idea. A sort of 'get the calvary back together' type of story. Only we've never met the calvary. I think subconsciously I was doing an homage to Giant Size X-Men #1.
Chapter Five was much harder to write but also much more fun. I had four weeks to build on all that came before and play with everyone's toys. Some ideas came to me like that. I knew as soon as Sheryl gave me the nugget that Major Patriot had a 'secret past' I wanted to play that out. She informed me of her intended story of Major Patriot and Shock Jock which made what I wanted to do even more fun. I love inter-team conflict. That's part of why I love classic Fantastic Four.
Sheryl wanted some history on the cult to be revealed. Nobody had touched on it since #3. I had a rather silly yet at the same time full fleshed out spoof on a certain religious order in mind. As nuts as it is-- I think it works.
What got me coming back two issues earlier than I planned was a plotline Sheryl started with Ellie that I didn't quite like. (It is also gets covered/retconned.) (Editors Note: Jesse just tweaked it to his satisfaction and opened up a whole lot of interesting possibilities down the road. I wouldn't call it a retcon, more of an interesting twist of an event)
Three scenes surprised me. First up, I did not intend to bring back Mr. Amir. I reread Sheryl's chapter about Poupette serving at Gitmo and having had made hard choices. My fingers (or maybe the Dayquill) wrote that scene itself. On the plus side, I think it allowed me to open up the door on some bits of Andrew's family. (Questions even I can't answer.)
Secondly, the scene with Angelica came almost completely from my fingers and not my brain. I like Angelica. She's a real fun character. Very quirky-- one part girl next door, one part Yomiko Readman. What's not to like?
Then there was the scene I almost cut -- which I found out later was one Sheryl really liked so I'm glad I didn't. I thought it was a good scene but the jokes didn't quite pack enough punch for me. Then again, to this day Woody Allen says Annie Hall and Purple Rose of Cairo are amongst the worst films he ever made.
- Did they rumored event in Dr. Bridge-Traeger's past (as rumored on the character sheet) happen?
You're supposed to try for a PG-13 rating. If by PG-13 rating you mean an actual PG-13 rated film then no. No it didn't. If you mean 'If a Comics Code Approved book like Action Comics can do it, then so can we'- than yes. She instigated the whole thing. There would be another joke here- but it wouldn't pass the comics code. Plus it might make Andy nervous.
- How could that comic writer have become President in 1976 when he wasn't at least 35 at the time?
To make the homage work, it was a universe with an alternate version of the U.S. Constitution.
