Fantasy author Tad Williams is taking over Aquaman from issue #50, due out in March. (He also has a new short story collection available from Sub Press.) Newsarama talked to him about his plans which include:
NRAMA: You say your map is a "little different." What are you keeping and what's going to uniquely define this as a Tad Williams comic?
TW: It's hard to say because I don't want to sound like I am -- and I'm not -- dissing anyone else's work on the title. If I say, "I want some humor," I don't mean no one else has done it. I mean I have an approach that almost always uses humor, coupled with some really dark stuff, too. I like big ideas, so there will be some of those. I love rich characters, including minor ones, and so there will be lots of characters, old and new. I like scope, so I'd like to bring a little Kirby flava to the whole thing. These are comics -- they're supposed to be big and outrageous.
One place I may differ from some of my predecessors, and which may surprise some people who know I'm a fantasy writer, is that I don't like overusing magic. I think it can kick away the boundaries of a story and undercut the reader's ability to reason along with the characters if someone can always pull a mystical power-rabbit out of a hat at the last second. Magic should be used like cooking spice -- sparingly, so that it has a strong effect, but doesn't overwhelmingly flavor everything.
Wiliams joins Jodi Picoult in the DC Universe, where she is taking over the reins of Wonder Woman (whose life is really screwed up) also in March. Here's Picoult's plans:
JP: Well, one of the things that we're doing now, and you're seeing some of this in Allan's run, is that Diana Prince is now an alter ego for Wonder Woman, and she's working among these humans that she wants to be with so badly. She's working at the Department of Metahuman Affairs, which brings up a whole new set of problems; because you can want to defend humans and be with humans, but that doesn't necessarily make you one of them. And it's all the little things that trip her up - things that you and I do as a matter of habit , but that would be unfamiliar to Wonder Woman -which are making her, in my mind, more human, a little more relatable to the people who read her. There's a lot of humor in the stuff that I'm writing.
The other thing that I want to bring out is how hard it is for her to maintain this secret human identity, which is something you've seen before in other superhero characters, but, except for the time she was running some dress shop or something ( laughs) she hasn't really been doing that!
NRAMA: Right, efforts to give her an identity in the past have usually involved depowering her…
JP: Right, and that takes me back to the guys who were writing her. I don't know why she's always victimized, because to me, that's one of the most attractive things about Wonder Woman – she is the most powerful woman! And that's an amazing and wonderful thing.
I think that there's a difference between having insecurities at an emotional level, and having insecurities at a physical level. And that becomes a very interesting conundrum. What if you can punch a hole through a wall, and you can get yourself out of any physical mess necessary, and you are strength-matched to someone like Superman, but you are a little unsure about who you are, deep inside, and how you want others to see you?
Nice to see someone refer to her as tough - DC has had a lot of trouble seeing its female superheroes that way lately. (Look not further than this cover of Power Girl's boobs to see how the whole boy/girl thing has gotten out of control over there lately - and I say that as a major DC fan.)
No one seems to be crying foul about these writers taking on comic book characters (iconic characters at that) compared to the whining about Cecil writing for the new Minx line. Could be the difference between YA writers and adult genres although that doesn't seem to make sense since the Minx line is for YAs.
Interestingly Guy Ritchie has also written a comic book. I guess it's the new cool thing to do. (I wonder if comic book characters will start adoping African babies...now that would be a weird crossover.)
