POST MORTEM: DAY OF VENGEANCE

MattBrady · 10-06-2005, 05:19 PM

As next Wednesday draws closer, more and more pieces of the Crisis have begun to fall into place. One of the first to land was the conclusion of Day of Vengeance, the six issue miniseries by Bill Willingham and Justiniano that took the magic side of the DC Universe and shook it, snowglobe style.

Of course, if you can’t guess: SPOILER WARNING!

In the story, a new, female Eclipso (Jean Loring, the murderer from Identity Crisis) seduced the Spectre (who’d been without a counterbalancing human host since Hal Jordan returned to being Green Lantern) and convinced him that magic was the root of all evil in the universe. It was a corruption of the natural order of things, Eclipso argued, thus an aberration, and had to be destroyed.

The Spectre, the embodiment of God’s vengeance (and apparently really, really hard up) bought the argument, did the nasty with Eclipso (eu) and went after magic users. Firstly, the Spectre took the major power players off the board, which allowed for the formation of a new team of…relatively foolhardy souls to stand against the might of the vengeance of God.

Lots of fighting, double-dealing, destruction, and explosions happened, and, in the end, well, the Spectre was pretty successful. As shown in issue #6, the Wizard Shazam is apparently dead, the Rock of Eternity (the Wizard’s seat of power and magical artifact warehouse), destroyed. Artifacts and a very mortal Bill Batson fall from the sky, and the team of heroes (consisting of Blue Devil, Ragman, the Enchantress, Nightmaster, Nightshade, and Detective Chimp – and calling themselves the ShdaowPact) opted to stay together and keep fighting.

Phew.

We sat down with Willingham to get his viewpoint on the series and its conclusion.

Newsarama: First off Bill, Dan DiDio explained that the point of the four “Countdown” miniseries was to look at four separate regions of the DCU, with Day of Vengeance looking at magic. That said, what were your marching orders in regards to what had to happen in the miniseries?

Bill Willingham: It would be nice to say it all happened in one concise conversation where everything was discussed. Unfortunately…or fortunately, it was more chaotic than that. It was a few conversations, with the first one being when Dan DiDio and Joey Cavaleri called me with the idea of the miniseries. They were doing things so fast that, by the time that approached me with the idea, told me what needed to happen, and what I could fill in myself, it was very nearly time for the first issue’s script to be turned in.

NRAMA: No pressure, no pressure…

BW: Actually, it got to be kind of a good thing in the sense that there was no time to agonize over it. It needed to be done, so I had to dive right in and do it. In subsequent conversations, more details were shipped my way. Following the miniseries, for example, each will have a special that happens during Infinite Crisis. In that, many of the dangling plotlines form Day of Vengeance that people online were howling about get wrapped up.

So anyway, all of this came about in a series of phone calls, many along the lines of “Ooo, ooo, ooo – I forgot that this had to happen as well!” as we were going. It was a kind of fun, but very chaotic experience.

I think it was Mark Wheatley who pointed out, back in the early days of my career, was that the joy of coming up with something yourself was that you didn’t have to sit on it, and tweak it and refine it endlessly. You could come up with it, and get working right away. In the old days, DC used to be just the opposite of that – proposing and getting a new series for DC would take sometimes many months to a year or more. This was entirely not like that. It was done so quickly that literally, many times, on the day an idea came up, it got tossed into the story. There was no delay between coming up with the things and getting to work on them. So that kind of enthusiasm of it being a brand new idea and not having to wait to get to it was pretty helpful.

NRAMA: With things as they ended, things changed from the Spectre versus all magic to the Spectre versus the Wizard Shazam, with the Rock of Eternity being both the final stronghold of magic in the DCU and the lynchpin of magic in the DCU. Is that an accurate way of looking at it?

BW: As far as stories that DC has told before, and things that are planned for the suture, sure. It was very, very important.

Part of the structure relayed to me was almost “Do anything you want to do in this series, but make sure that the final showdown is the Spectre fighting Shazam.” I could live with that – play the cards in my hand so those two ended up there in the end. People will see why the Rock and that battle was so important as we go along. Part of the impact of having the Rock of Eternity blowing up was having these thousands – or millions, as I didn’t stop to count – of magic-impregnated chunks are just thrown everywhere. It may not have been all that important while it was intact…or, more accurately, it was full of potential energy when it was intact. Now that it has blown up, all of those chunks…it’s like magical radioactivity that was just sent out everywhere.

NRAMA: So – running down the list of your players from the miniseries at the end: Eclipso – she’s in orbit around the sun?

BW: Yep.

NRAMA: And Billy Batson is falling, and unable to remember the word that turns him into Captain Marvel. That’s the last time we see him…how long does he fall? Was that one of the guidelines from your original marching orders?

BW: Not exactly. The way this worked was that each of us was doing a miniseries that had a small roadmap. We had our start point and an end point. I assume that it was the same for all of us, that as long as we could hit these points along the way, we could take pretty much any route we wanted to take to get there. That’s what I was doing.

As I was working, Crisis was being done, plans for post-Crisis was coming, and everyone was coming up with ideas. It wasn’t just Joe and Dan at this point. There were all these calls going back and forth, daily, it seemed. But yes, and I won’t say who, but the Bill Batson falling moment was requested by someone along the way, because they’re going to pick up that thread.

NRAMA: How long does he fall?

BW: The normal amount of time. He’s up there, the ground’s down there. There are rules that govern these kinds of things I’m told. Whatever’s going to happen to him better happen pretty damn quick from where I left him.

NRAMA: In that respect – you pulled out three specific artifacts from the Rock at the end of Day of Vengeance #6 – the one that took the head of the girl off; the one that landed near a man and he learned forbidden words, and the scarab from the original Blue Beetle. Those were done for reasons as well?

BW: Exactly. Where the scarab landed was a request from someone else. And the other two…they were somewhat random, but indicative of what would be happening anywhere one of these chunks landed – and you’ve got millions of pieces. I picked out two weird examples – the girl who gets her head taken off, and her ghost stays for thirteen minutes, screaming foul prophecies. My main objective in doing that was to se the tone for whoever is writing magic-based books in the DCU in the next few years, to make this something they’ll have to contend with.

It was also a means to set up fun things somewhere down the road. It may be quickly, or it may be some time later when we need a plot, and someone remembers that there’s this guy in Illinois who knows the six malevolent words that were lost to human memory until then. It’s seeding for the future of episodic fiction.

The thing is, there are millions of these chunks, and one presumes that they’re going to be cleaned up, without giving things away. But…in the meantime, what happens to them. It’s along the lines of there are eight million magical chunks of the Rock in the world, and each one is a story. There’s a field of follow-up plowed, seeded, and growing.

NRAMA: As you said, there will be some kind of follow-up. Is there some feeling of responsibility on the part of the ShadowPact that this is something that they should handle or oversee, as they were a part of it?

BW: Well, the last thing that happens in the miniseries was that the members of the team agree that this was not some kind of temporary thing and they should go their own ways and move on. DC doesn’t want me to make any specific announcements, but you know what? No company is going to ask you not to comment about something they’re not going to do. Take from that what you will.

NRAMA: Fair enough. The Spectre – he’s not down for the count, or even reconsidering his stance against magic, is he? He’s still a major threat?

BW: Yep.

NRAMA: Taking a larger view of the world in light of the end of Day of Vengeance – the regular magical characters who were taken off the board by Spectre early on – where are they, and what’s their status? It’s more the peculiars of working in a shared universe, but Zatanna was active in the latest JLA arc, using her magical abilities without any visible impairment...but as a whole, where do they stand?

BW: In the miniseries, I set for myself the task of trying to revive a lot of the characters that I thought were better potentially than they had been handled recently, or, in the case of someone like Nightmaster, hadn’t been handled at all. Ion order to make them important, and bring them to the forefront, we had to get the magical big guns off the stage, which is why I did the things I did – Dr. Fate is trapped in his own helmet, Madame Xanadu is blind, the Phantom Stranger was a mouse. They had to get off stage, so the characters I wanted to use had a reason to stand up against the Spectre – the characters who would normally handle this kind of thing couldn’t.

That carried me through the end of the miniseries. With the follow-up to that in the one-shot, and now that the ShdaowPact is established and well-set as their own group, now it’s time to bring them back.

With a vengeance.

NRAMA: And they’re not happy?

BW: The Spectre destroyed their world. Their livelihood, something that was an integral part of their lives that was akin to, or in some cases, stronger than religion. Not to mention, he killed many, many of their friends and colleagues. No, they’re not happy.

So, in the special, we’ll catch up with them, and see where they are – although some show up before that. Dr. Fate, I think, just showed up in JSA, for example. So in the special, Dr. Fate will be back, as well as all of the rest of the big guns from the magical pantheon. It’s almost a reverse of the structure of the miniseries, in that the ShadowPact will be playing almost secondary roles to the major players. In addition, the special ties in to Infinite Crisis, just like the miniseries led into Infinite Crisis.

BW: The ultimate thing in it all…I didn’t realize that they were going to let me go as far as they were, until they mentioned it during a panel I was at a while back. I was allowed to play with any toy I wanted, or break them, even. Combine that with people lobbing in plot grenades and requests while it was moving…I kinda liked working that way. It was very much by the seat of your pants way to work, but it has an energy that’s very hard to compare to anything else.

ElijahSnowFan · 10-06-2005, 05:25 PM

this series FREAKING ROCKED.

the battle between the Spectre and the Wizard Shazam was brief, but it was an all-timer.

JLAJRC · 10-06-2005, 05:30 PM

Am I the only one disturbed by the notion that the Spectre could get horny? I knew he was a man, but he's also a ghost. Blech!

Aaron · 10-06-2005, 05:31 PM

Wow, spell check Matty...

Anyway, I was a bit disappointed in the series. It had a lot of great moments, but it still ultimately came down to treading water until Crisis. The main conflict (Shadowpact vs Spectre) ended in failure, which was a bit of a let down. But I'll still be checking things out. Just wish they'd managed to bring him down and not go through all of that just to let someone else do it.

Aaron

EmeraldGuy32 · 10-06-2005, 05:36 PM

did Brady conduct this interview? nice job.

jedifish · 10-06-2005, 05:38 PM

Agreed. Who knew Detective Chimp could be such a viable character, but he's one of my favorites now.

CCGuy · 10-06-2005, 05:38 PM

Wonderful interview. I really enjoyed it. No matter what people say, I throughly enjoyed the DoV mini. Fannntastic.

I'd be very happy to see a Shadowpact series pop up after all the Crisis is done. I think it has a tremendous potential to be awesome.

Ironhorse · 10-06-2005, 05:43 PM

The only awful thing is that I have to wait till next year to know the consequences of DoV, for that 'one-shot' stuff.

Peace.

BlueThunderArmy · 10-06-2005, 05:44 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by MattBrady
BW: Not exactly. The way this worked was that each of us was doing a miniseries that had a small roadmap. We had our start point and an end point. I assume that it was the same for all of us, that as long as we could hit these points along the way, we could take pretty much any route we wanted to take to get there. That’s what I was doing.

I found this pretty interesting. It seems to suggest that the post-IC effects of the four miniseries will bear a not insignificant mark from these creators.

That said, I think the miniseries that have ended so far (and DoV in particular) have set up a bunch of really cool scenarios... but have no conclusions in and of themselves. OMAC had somewhat of an ending (though it was a tad weak), but DoV and Rann/Than really didn't resolve much of anything. Rann/Than, in fact, could have been done in a couple panels, since after six issues we're left with not much changed from the conclusion of the Adam Strange mini.

Of the three concluded so far, DoV is the winner. I've enjoyed them all, but would have liked to see stronger endings all around.

punjeb · 10-06-2005, 05:52 PM

I only had one complaint about DoV. I wish somewhere DC would have reprinted that SHOWCASE issue from the 60s which was the first (and only until now, I think) appearance of Nightmaster. I had heard of him but really didn't know anything about him.

csGuy · 10-06-2005, 05:53 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by CCGuy
Wonderful interview. I really enjoyed it. No matter what people say, I throughly enjoyed the DoV mini. Fannntastic.

I'd be very happy to see a Shadowpact series pop up after all the Crisis is done. I think it has a tremendous potential to be awesome.

CCGuy? what in the world?!

Phobophobe · 10-06-2005, 06:14 PM

Am I the only one disturbed by the notion that the Spectre could get horny? I knew he was a man, but he's also a ghost.

The Spectre isn't a man. The Spectre is genderless, a sexless entity paired with a gendered ghost. The Spectre has been a woman in the past. Anyone who actually read the Spectre's old series would know this; apparently Dan Didio and Bill Willingham haven't.

Phobophobe · 10-06-2005, 06:18 PM

And what exactly has this interview said about the aftereffects of "Day of Vengeance"? Captain Marvel might be dead, he might not be - that's for someone else to figure out. The Spectre's still a villain, but who knows what he's going to do at this point - somebody else is handling that. Oh, and in the future, there will still be magical characters, only their magical powers will come from big chunks of rock instead of, y'know, magic. Pretty damn stupid.

Volunteer · 10-06-2005, 06:22 PM

The Billy Batson thing sounds like such a ripoff of Miracleman it isn't even funny. That was basically Alan Moore's premise for the Miracleman/Marvelman's series.

Volunteer

Punchy · 10-06-2005, 06:26 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Volunteer
The Billy Batson thing sounds like such a ripoff of Miracleman it isn't even funny. That was basically Alan Moore's premise for the Miracleman/Marvelman's series.

Volunteer

Marvelman was originally created as a UK rip-off of Captain Marvel!

And it wasn't even Moore's idea!

Good god!

Blackhawkaaaa! · 10-06-2005, 06:26 PM

I thought DOV was just ok...the Shadowpact heroes were really second-tier heroes, and while I realize that was the point, they still continued to be second-tier heroes. There was no break-out character, not even Detective Chimp, who despite the novelty of his return, probably could not support more than a mini-series on his own (if that). And basically they were all overshadowed by Captain Marvel, and the group really didn't accomplish anything until they recruited Black Alice. The Eclipso "solution" seemed rushed (and I'm sure by no means resolved)- no one thought to do that in issue #1? They all were pretty much aware of Eclipso's powers etc., the character's been around in vaious incarnations for years, and has fought enough heroes for them to know you can stop him/her with a big flashlight. Maybe they should have got Mulder & Scully to go after him!
I just got the feeling that the powers that be decreed a magic series but then hamstrung the creative team by not allowing them to use the big guns, or make significant changes excepting those plot twists they wanted created, and this whole thing has been biding time until the release of IC. Atleast so far as DOV & Rann-Thanagar...OMAC was better, it seemed to advance the plotline, and Villains United was just Freakin' Sweet!
And Spectre is a ghost...do ghosts even have biological/sexual abilities? I'm thinking Jim Corrigan , back from Heaven to reassume the Spectre role, albeit now with the rest of the heroic community distrusting someone with this much power ...wait a minute, they already did that particular bit with Hal Jordan as Spec....hmmmmm
And the wizard Shazam is also a ghost...he died immediately after giving Billy Batson his powers...so how can you kill someone who's already dead...Shazam will be back, I'm sure.

protege · 10-06-2005, 06:34 PM

I had a feeling it wasn't random, but the blue beetle scarab landing in the midwest had a definite purpose. I wonder what the plan is...

CJB · 10-06-2005, 06:39 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Aaron
Wow, spell check Matty...

Anyway, I was a bit disappointed in the series. It had a lot of great moments, but it still ultimately came down to treading water until Crisis. The main conflict (Shadowpact vs Spectre) ended in failure, which was a bit of a let down.
Aaron

Seems to me you were rooting for the wrong side if you thought this.

Groovie Mann · 10-06-2005, 06:41 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Punchy

Marvelman was originally created as a UK rip-off of Captain Marvel!

And it wasn't even Moore's idea!

Good god!

yeah, some people are just idiots. i mean, for god sakes, moore in an interview once said capt. marvel was one of his favorite heroes.

astronato · 10-06-2005, 06:42 PM

Detective Chimp is such a great character. I'd never heard of him until this series. Nightshade is another fave. If the intention of DOV was to get me to care about some of the lesser known characters from the magical corner of the DCU and get me excited about Infinite Crisis it succeeded on both counts.

I would love to see all the denizens of the Oblivion bar as supporting players in a Dr Fate book.

That beetle scarab had better have landed on Ted Kords ashes

BriGuy · 10-06-2005, 06:59 PM

Jim Rook, Nightmaster, was in the tail end of the Primal Force series that spun out of Zero Hour.

Spaz_Monkey · 10-06-2005, 07:12 PM

I've been a fan of BoBo* for years now! It was so good to see him as a featured character again! On top of that, he was a major player in the story! How can you go wrong?

*Detective Chimp

Lord Ice · 10-06-2005, 07:16 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by JLAJRC
Am I the only one disturbed by the notion that the Spectre could get horny? I knew he was a man, but he's also a ghost. Blech!

We've seen him in that state before in an issue from his series in the 80's which basically spent the entire issue of him having very freaky sex with Madame Xanadu.

vicvondoom · 10-06-2005, 07:19 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Punchy

Marvelman was originally created as a UK rip-off of Captain Marvel!

And it wasn't even Moore's idea!

Good god!

He was just joking. He didn't use a

but he was joking. Right? Please tell me he was joking. Or maybe he never heard of Billy Batson before, in which case he needs to have his Newsarama priviledges revoked for not knowing the classics. One of THE classics in fact.

sephiroth617 · 10-06-2005, 07:36 PM

Off Topic: My brother is in a band named Post Mortem. They even have hoodies!

On Topic: Yes, this series was great. I can't wait for the one-shot!