KEITH GIFFEN, GROUP THERAPIST  

Even after exporting some of the Justice League to Europe, he still commands a “L.E.G.I.O.N.” of Superheroes.  

By Eddie Berganza & Daniel Dickholtz  

Keith Giffen is a comic “fan boy”’s worst nightmare - he doesn’t take his work too seriously. In his time as a writer/artist at DC, he has had Darkseid serving burgers at McDonald’s, made clear how he regarded the Legion of Substitute Heroes as stupid and gave the once stoic Martian Manhunter an addiction to Oreo cookies. Nothing is sacred and worse yet, he says, “‘post-Crisis,’ ‘revamp’ and ‘continuity’ are three words I can do without hearing again.”

When he was asked to give the Justice League a much-needed facelift, Giffen stayed clear of the overused “back to the basics” approach. Instead of relying on the Gardner Fox era for inspiration, he went for something completely different.

With a nudge and wink from Monty Python, The Ruling Class (“a wonderful film with Peter O’Toole that nobody but me has ever seen”) and a tip from Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 and John Irving’s more humorous pieces, the camera-shy creator took an irreverent view of the Justice League. And he’s far from done.

Overcoming the initial unease that comes from the tape recorder’s pulsating red light, Giffen reveals how he plans to devote himself entirely to DC - a master plan of which his Invasion! of that universe was just the beginning. It seems America is no longer big enough for him.

Comics Scene: Why a Justice League Europe?

Keith Giffen: Because Justice League International is selling so good. [Laughs.] No. Justice League International is supposed to be a world-wide organization, and we’ve been concentrating on the New York end of it when we’ve got all these other cities that we claim have embassies and all these DC heroes can be used. We figured why not have core groups in strategic spots around the globe? It isn’t so much that Justice League Europe is a separate team as it is another precinct in the same police force, which I think is a horrible analogy.

CS: A branch office.

GIFFEN: Yeah. The characters are almost interchangeable. JLI people will be appearing in the JLE’s book and vice versa. It’s really one big group that’s split in two so they can handle emergencies in different locations. And there seems to be more of a demand for Justice League oriented stories, so we’re filling a need or a desire at least.

CS: How different a book will it be from Justice League International?

GIFFEN: You got me. I don’t know if it’s going to be as light just because of the characters that are in there. I’m not going to go into the book and say, “Ok, this one’s the Blue Beetle character and this one’s the Booster Gold character. They’re going to react to different situations in different ways. So at this point, I’m trying to familiarize myself with these guys as I go along.

CS: Who will be the beginning group?

GIFFEN: Wonder Woman part-time, the Flash, the Elongated Man, Rocket Red and Captain Atom are both going over, Animal Man, Metamorpho, and Power Girl. I think I’ve covered everybody.

CS: In that listing, with the exception of Rocket Red, there aren’t any foreign heroes.

GIFFEN: No. DC has not, well, really no comic company has populated the other countries with superheroes quite the same as they’ve populated America, so you go for the heroes who are available. We’ll also cobble up a few of our own. We’ve got a British hero that we’re going to be introducing in one of the books.

CS: How “foreign,” for lack of a better word, will Justice League Europe get? Will we see adventures set around the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame?

GIFFEN: Yeah. There are so many sites over there. It’ll be closer in flavour to the original Justice League of America in that they’ll split up into different little teams, go off and investigate something, and then they’ll all come together for the finale. But it will be more international. Before I take them into space or into another dimension, I want to bounce them around Europe, which means a massive photo reference for the artist, but let’s not mention that.

CS: What’s going to happen in the first few issues?

GIFFEN: Well, the first three issues deal with what happens when they find a dead Nazi on their doorstep. It’s sort of a who’s-behind-this-what’s-going-on. The fourth and fifth issues will deal with the membership and how they relate to one another. We really won’t be ready to do anything in terms of major conflicts and big villains until the sixth issue. I tend to plot by the seat of my pants. I talk to [editor] Andy Helfer, I sit down and put it on paper. I’m not one of those people who has it planned 12 months ahead because then you’re stuck; you’ve locked yourself in.

CS: Who will be working on Justice League Europe with you?

GIFFEN: Well, Marc DeMatteis [CS #4] is coming along for the ride, so he’s going to be dialoguing it. Bart Sears - wonderful newcomer, did the third issue of Invasion!, a couple of issues of C.O.P.S. - is pencilling the book. Joe Rubenstein, who has been the inker on Justice League International, is inking it.

CS: Wasn’t there some trouble getting Wonder Woman for JLI?

GIFFEN: When you’re dealing with a character, especially one who has her own book and it’s an ongoing concern and they’ve got big plans for the character, you can’t just go in and say, “Ok, I’m going to take Wonder Woman and do this.” I have to check in with [WW editor] Karen Berger and talk to [WW writer] George Perez, so there’s a lot of conversation back and forth.

I’m constantly in touch with Cary Bates about Captain Atom, and in return for his co-operation, there are things that are going on in his series that have to do with Justice League International that I haven’t touched on in their book.

And [Flash writer] Bill Loebs is just wonderful to work with, and he’s open to new ideas.

I have this agreement with people whose characters I’m using, and that is when they walk in the door of that embassy, they belong to me and I’ll send them back in the shape that they need them in. It takes trust on the part of the editor and they guy who’s doing the book to hand over a character to a group like this, and they pray the character will come out in one piece. So far, we’ve done good enough, I guess, because people are volunteering characters.

CS: Is there anybody you really want to get into Justice League?

GIFFEN: I would like to get as many of the original Justice League of America members as I possibly could, but I’m involved with this Aquaman mini-series, so I didn’t want to use him at this point. I really wanted [the Hal Jordan] Green Lantern, the Atom and Hawkman, but again, Hawkman has something cooking. If I kept Hawkman in Justice League International, we would be clashing, so I had to get rid of him as fast as possible.

Hawkman served his purpose, though. He became a straight man. This group needs a straight person, somebody who’s going to say, “You idiots! You people are lunatics! That man just got shot. Stop making gags!” That’s why I wanted Green Lantern.

CS: Now, what about the feelings among die-hard fans who don’t like the light-hearted treatments of the characters?

GIFFEN: Don’t read the book. If their objections are that bad, they shouldn’t read the book. Yeah, we’re doing different interpretations, but these are characters who are inter-reacting with their peers. When I get together with a group of my friends or my peers, we don’t sit around and moan, you know, this existential angst and all this. We have a good time, there’s joking around, there are practical jokes. I don’t really look upon Justice League as a humor books per se; I look upon it as a buddy book. Even though they argue, these guys obviously get along, they enjoy each other’s company, and it has to come through.

CS: It’s strange that they get along. It seems the opposite, that they’re always bickering.

GIFFEN: Well, when Andy Helfer and I get together, you would think that we were enemies because we’re always at each other’s throats, but it’s a good-natured wink-wink, nudge-nudge, you’re a dope, ha-ha. You do it with your friends, too. Why should superheroes be any different? We’re approaching superheroes as people, and then layering on the costumes and the masks.

CS: Was there any resistance to that when you first proposed JLI?

GIFFEN: No, because the humor just grew out of the book. We didn’t come in and say, “Ok, let’s do something funny and disguise it as a humor book.” They gave us a set group of characters and we said, “let’s tell some good stories around it.” As I started plotting it, and Marc started dialoguing it, the little one-liners became bits and the bits became extended fooling around on the characters’ parts. It evolved into the book it is. It was a natural outgrowth of the way we felt about the book. It took us by surprise, too.

CS: Since you’re credited with the breakdowns on JLI, how much of the characters’ facial expressions were Kevin Maguire’s?

GIFFEN: It’s all his. When I plot - I can’t type, I hate machines - I do it almost the way Mike Baron does to a certain extent and Harvey Kurtzman used to on the war books. I draw a little-itty-bitty comic breaking down the page and setting the rhythm. It’s up to the penciller if he wants to stick with my layouts or do it his own way. All I ask is that the information that I’ve got on the page is in the finished product. I don’t care how he breaks down the panels, if he gets one panel and he makes it two, or changes the layout, as long as the information fits. Kevin does follow pretty much, but if he has an idea that he wants to toss in there, he’s not shy about it.

CS: Like all the 007 spoofs in issue #16?

GIFFEN: Kevin’s a big James Bond fan, and I thought, “Well, with the group that we’ve got...” Then, we sat down and said, “Why not do a James Bond riff?” We bounce ideas back and forth, and I just work up the plot, and put it in the pencil stage. Everyone’s kind of integrated. I’ll do the plot, but all the banter, all the dialogue is Marc’s. But, I might pick up on something that Marc does and then elaborate on it in the plot and then through his dialogue. And the same with Kevin. There wasn’t as much mugging and character stuff in the first couple of issues until we realized how wonderful Kevin was at facial expression. Now we’ll take the time to have a character react that second after the incident. So, we tend to play to each other’s strengths. [Since this interview, Maguire has announced his departure. Ty Templeton has replaced him as penciller starting with JLI #25.]

CS: As far as JLI is concerned, what’s coming up?

GIFFEN: We’ve got a two-parter that involves the Blue Beetle’s futile attempts to kill Maxwell Lord and I’m not going to get into it any further than that. There’ll be some revelations about Fire and Ice. We’ll be focusing in a bit more on them ‘cause they’ve just been standing around and pointing at things. I would love to bring back the Injustice League. I had so much fun with that group of villains that nobody else wanted. And I think it’s about time Dr. Fate dropped in again. Again, these are just the germs of ideas because I really don’t plot that far ahead.

I know that in this years JLI annual, we’re going to look in every embassy at least once, so people will know where they are and who staffs them. I have no idea what the annual’s about, but Andy said, “That’s what you’re doing,” so that’s what we’re doing.

CS: Of all characters, why are Fire and Ice in the League?

GIFFEN: Kevin, to use his term, said, “I want to draw babes.” [laughs.] They were the only two female characters that nobody wanted, so we brought them in. I had no idea who they were at first. And finding out stuff like Ice Maiden was somebody’s ice goddess for a while - I’m going to have a lot of fun with that! And Green Flame had all these weird powers; she could cause hallucinations with her fire breath. I thought, “No! She’s a human butane lighter. It’s a six-inch stretch and that is it!” because every group should have a Matter-Eater Lad, you know? A character that [makes you wonder], “Why are you there?” [Laughs.] I patterned Green Flame a little bit after Iris Chacon, a bombastic [Latino] entertainer, and she’s getting by on sheer force of personality alone at this point, but there’s going to be some stuff happening to her.

CS: Whatever became of Blue Devil, who was supposed to join the team?

GIFFEN: You got me. I never announced that he was going to join to begin with! [Laughs.] I don’t know. Maybe he’s in Justice League Antarctica. [Laughs.] They’re heroes no one knows what to do with, going after penguin poachers and trying to free two whales and inadvertently killing them. Those kinds of stories. They have all these other continents to play with. Why not?

CS: Since Hawkman is leaving, is anybody going to replace him?

GIFFEN: Not really. Hawkman, Captain Atom, and Rocket Red are leaving and we’ve still got a full group. So, we’re going to lock it in for a while. I don’t want to wind up with a 20th century version of the Legion of Super-Heroes.

To Be Concluded In Part Two Coming Soon