Good and Evil: An Interview with Mark Waid
One of the true comics legends, Mark Waid has written most of the biggest names in the superhero business. Whether it’s for Marvel or DC, he’s taken on the hero genre and redefined it—most notably in the groundbreaking epic Kingdom Come and sequel The Kingdom, both of which took DC’s greatest heroes and imagined them in a very human and apocalyptic setting.
He’s now the editor-in-chief of Boom! Studios, where he’s doing some of the best work of his career in the monthly series Irredeemable, about a superpowered hero known as the Plutonian who goes rogue and becomes the ultimate evil. He’s also just announced that he’ll start a new companion series to Irredeemable in December, showing the flip side: Incorruptible will showcase villain Max Damage, who has a change of heart and becomes a hero known as Max Daring.
We talked with Waid about his ongoing work.
What was the inspiration behind Irredeemable?
There was no lightning-bolt, bat-flew-through-my-window moment; it was more the gradual distillation of some of the thinking I’ve been doing about heroes and superheroes all through my forties. Specifically, it’s in part my answer to how a fragile mind and a damaged ego can’t cope with the demands of the job (a superhero’s job, not mine, I hasten to add—a fragile mind and a damaged ego are prerequisites for my job). The Plutonian, the focus of Irredeemable, is someone with unbridled power who should be, could be, almost universally loved—but he doesn’t have the emotional stability to withstand the constant tearing-down-of-heroes mentality that is so emblematic of the 21st century. The pressure snaps him, and he turns rogue. He becomes irredeemable.
You’ve worked on some of the most famous comics characters of all time. How do those characters relate to the Plutonian?
We (both as an audience and as writers) tend to take for granted that our superheroes, flawed though they may be, are basically well-adjusted enough to fight the good fight regardless of how the world responds to them. That’s true of Superman, of Spider-Man, of the X-Men, and of everyone in between. But as the Plutonian’s backstory and upbringing slowly spools out in Irredeemable, it becomes painfully apparent that the fortitude he shares with other comics characters is purely physical; his emotional makeup is scarred beyond belief.
Obvious comparisons to Superman exist with the Plutonian. But is he the first and foremost comic-book character who should spring to mind when readers look at Irredeemable?
Not necessarily. Superman’s a fair comparison, but so is Dr. Doom. So is Lex Luthor. Frankly, for pure emotional maturity, so is Donald Duck.
A lot of your work seems to build up the mythology of superheroes yet then tear it down, or at least humanize them in a way that brings about an imminent downfall (as with Irredeemable and Kingdom Come). What draws you to that aspect of it?
Funny, I’d never thought of myself as “drawn to that aspect” until you asked, but I suppose it’s fair. I’d argue that it’s never about “tearing down” the mythology of superheroes as much as it is reinforcing it by contrast. Even in Irredeemable, which by its premise seems like the bleakest, darkest take on superheroes conceivable, there’s still always a ray of hope and a ray of heroism present. You may have to search hard for it sometimes, but I can’t wrap my own head around the idea of writing an utterly nonheroic cast.
Do you still love the superhero genre of comics as much as you did when you were a child?
I probably do. I don’t love the comics themselves as much as I did when I was a child, but that’s not a failing of the material; that’s just because it’s difficult to recapture the glee of childhood, when all the colors of the world were brighter, no matter where your passion lies. And the adult mind is more critical than the child mind, and that can’t be helped. But a really good superhero story, one that really speaks to the kid in me—be it Grant Morrison’s All-Star Superman or the movie The Incredibles or even certain moments in Superman Returns—that will always bring a smile to my face. I really want to believe in superheroes with the same verve and excitement that children have for Santa Claus, and I don’t see anything wrong with that.
Were you surprised at the reaction readers at large had to Kingdom Come and how much of an influence it’s continued to have on comic-book storytelling today?
I’ve always been surprised by that. Flattered, but surprised. But I’ll probably go to my grave believing that its impact had more to do with the art and less to do with the story; while it has some moments I’m very proud of, it’s also a little muddled near the end because Alex Ross and I were sort of working at cross-purposes during the climax, and I can see the seams (as, I’m sure, can Alex). But that’s not to denigrate it; again, I’m flattered. But I’m gonna need someone to more specifically explain how it’s “continued to have” an influence on comics storytelling today, because I’m not sure I see it.
Do you remember your first comic book?
Sure. It’s hanging over my desk so I can look up at it whenever I need my batteries recharged. It’s Batman #180 from 1966, a comic my father brought home for me when I was about three and enamored of the Adam West TV show. Everything about it sticks with me—the vivid colors, the simple drawings, the villain in a skeleton costume, the rainswept tombstone that reads “R.I.P. Batman and Robin”—everything.
You’ve done some pretty impressive work for DC on Legion of Super-Heroes. Would you like to return to the team?
Nope. Paul Levitz, the best Legion writer of all time, has it now and I can’t wait to read what he has in store. And as much as I enjoyed my turns with the series, it’s more fun being able to read the Legion than it is to write it.
Where do you see the LSH headed now? Is there a viable audience for it after all of its incarnations and revised continuity?
I wouldn’t have thought you could re-(re-re-re-re-)launch LSH by basing it on twenty-year-old continuity, but I’m obviously mistaken. I think there’s always a viable audience for the core concept—alien teenagers in a utopian future who work together like a galactic Knights of the Round Table to create peace in the universe. And, again, Levitz gets that better than anyone.
How long do you see Irredeemable continuing as a series?
Indefinitely. I’ve got the first two years or so pretty well planned out, and I’ve built a back-of-the-envelope skeleton for where we could go for at least five years. The trick is in giving the rest of the cast the same care and attention that I’ve given the Plutonian—and I think Arc Two (issues 5–8) and Arc Three (issues 9–12) are big steps in that direction. It’s easier now that I’ve laid down a solid foundation for the series.
Also, there’s obviously an appetite out there for the art of Peter Krause, and that cannot be underestimated (and neither can Pete!).
The level of violence in Irredeemable is often gory and extreme. Was it your intent to show the price of this superpowered violence in all its bloodiness?
Honestly? I think Irredeemable is far, far less gory and bloody than your average DC or Image comic. There were moments early on in the series, as I was myself trying to find the right tone, that were a bit graphic, but I found before we even hit the end of the first arc that I’d rather put evil in the stories than violence. Violence is easy; evil is hard. And while Irredeemable is sometimes as much a horror comic as a superhero riff, I’d never ask Peter to draw something sensational just to be sensational.
After all your years in the comics business, on both the editorial and the writing sides of things, how do you see the industry has evolved since you started working in it? How has it stagnated?
The answer to both questions is the same: in the audience we reach.
It’s evolved in that when I began working in comics in the late 1980s, they were still considered largely “kids’ stuff,” and the 2009 public is smarter than that now. Not only are we dealing with a readership who were too young to read The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen as serial comics and thus have had “mature comics” around them all their lives, but studio heads in TV and film also realize they’re not selling “kids’ stuff” when they do adaptations for other media. Twenty years ago, television and movies perpetuated the “comics are just for kids” myth because studios were run by older men; now they’re run by the guys who grew up reading Watchmen and Love and Rockets.
Conversely, however, comics has stagnated because we’re not very good at reaching to an adolescent, non-diehard audience because we’ve spent so much of the last quarter-century catering to adults who’ve made reading superhero comics their lifelong mission. Not to knock it—but comics has become very jaded about pulling in a new readership, and that’s the impetus for BOOM! Kids and how we’ve been reaching out through the newsstand and through bookstores and other now-nontraditional distribution outlets. And we’re grateful for the success. I’ve always said there’s an existing market out there for young-readers comics; we just have to be better about getting the material to them.
Do you have any other future projects you’re working on?
Tons. December sees the release of Irredeemable’s sister book: Incorruptible, the flip-side to the concept—what happens when the world’s greatest and toughest supervillain decides to reform and become a traditional superhero? That’s with an artist named Neil Edwards, and it’s turning out to be a nice balance of dark crime and dark humor.
Artist Minck Oosterveer and I are also hard at work on the sequel to The Unknown, called The Unknown: The Devil Made Flesh, and it really scratches an itch that I have to write nonsuperpowered, life-sized characters in a detective fiction setting.
And writer Landry Walker is joining me on the ongoing The Incredibles monthly to chronicle the ongoing adventures of Pixar’s greatest superheroes. And beyond that, there’ll be other BOOM! projects by me announced early next year. I’m having the time of my life!
-- John Hogan
