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The cliche goes that there are three things you should never talk about at the dinner table: sex, religion and politics. The League of Explorers didn't start out as something you shouldn't talk about over dinner. It just turned out that way. I set out to do an experiment to see if those of us at Collector Times with a more creative vein might have a little fun.
It turned out better than I had anticipated. Most of the characters turned out incredibly fleshed out, almost real. Real people have religions- whether Andrew's atheistic attitude, Lucas's 'live and let live' demeanor to the almost insane rantings of the Church of Histhology. Real people have varying political views. I got a real kick out of Sheryl's contribution of Major Primeaux particularly in the scenes where she interacted with Lucas. In some ways it reminded meof Green Arrow and Hawkman which has always been one of my favorite "friendships" in the Justice League. Yes, real people have sex. (Well, lucky people anyway.)
Working with everyone has been a blast. My chapters were draining to write. Not only was I trying to find each of the character's voice, guide the story so the diverse elements made sense but I also wanted to play with as many of the new toys people gave me to play with as possible. The later we got in the series, the more time each issue took. I wrote the rough draft of chapter one in under a week. Chapter five took me about three weeks though it did require me to look back over previous issues and character sheets. I also did some real world research. Due many weird problems cropping up at the time, chapter nine was a logistical nightmare. I blame stress and a Red Dwarf binge on how that issue turned out.
None of this would have been possible if not for Sheryl, AJ, Chris, Mat, Paul, and Joe. Not to mention Jason who was one of the two people to recruit me into this insane asylum to begin with.
I haven't gotten to read the final version of the final chapter yet but I do know the following things you won't see- but easily could have.
- The Death of Andrew Weinstein: Early on I wanted to the closing of the book to kill him off. It book one was the closing of the series it would almost redeem the character. If we went on and a did a book two it be all about finding out who and why.
- The true rebirth of Malcolm Weinstein: After Sheryl convinced me the team needed the 'man you love to hate', I toyed with bringing Malcolm back- went so far as to let him narrate. As I got a better handle on the type of person Malcolm was I became more in more interested in the idea of a super hero who is like the cat in Schroedinger's Box. I decided to keep him there. We'll see him but he'll still be dead or alive. Whichever he is.
- Something really twisted with Josh that I'm not going to say anything about other than it would really have made Sheryl laugh her ass off. It's still a really good idea. It didn't use it because I have it on good authority that we will probably do any another run after a break of a year or so.
- The whole thing being one of Chloe's precognitive dreams. We're aren't that cheap. At least I'd like to think we aren't. Plus, I'm pretty sure that'd be a violation of the rules.
- Scenes ripping off Steve Gerber's final issue of Man-Thing, featuring an argument between Sheryl and I. Again, this is something I thought about but rejected because that ending has had several homages over the years. Though did think it'd be funny to work in all my rejected endings into our dialogue in order to spare the audience an annoying text piece. Oh and I'd have her grow a mustache and start calling Spider-Man a menace. Unfortunately, my instinct to stay alive is larger than my instinct to make people laugh. Well that and our ideas were (up to a point) actually quite similar.
Well- see ya next year. And I'm not kidding about the mustache.
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