52 - THE EXIT INTERVIEWS: MARK WAID

[MattBrady]

by Vaneta Rogers

It would take a detective as good as, say, Ralph Dibny to have successfully unraveled all the mysteries of 52 before they were each resolved and revealed.

As 52 unfolded over the last year, most of what we thought was happening in the first half of the series wasn't what was really happening at all. Ralph wasn't actually going to blow his brains out. Booster didn't really hate Supernova. Sobek wasn't Osiris' friend. And Skeets wasn't just experiencing a few programming problems.

Booster wasn't dead. Animal Man wasn't either. And Ralph was playing everyone for fools -- even us.

If only we were like Ralph -- sipping on Gingold and savoring our knowledge of the secrets behind the mystery all along.

Now that 52 has wrapped up, we're finding out that the creative people involved from the beginning were the ones really savoring the secrets. And while Mark Waid may not have a flask of Gingold in his jacket pocket (or does he?), the writer clearly sat on a lot of secrets during the last year as one of the four writers of the series.

As we look back on 52, Waid sat down with Newsarama to talk about the project and give some insight into how the mysteries of 52 evolved. And as we chatted about detectives and mysteries, we delved into the world of Ralph Dibny -- and how the idea to make him and Sue into "ghost detectives" was one of the first 52 endings the writers decided upon and solidified.

Newsarama: Let's start with your earliest discussions about 52, before you even got started on the project. What were your expectations going in?

Mark Waid: Honestly, it never occurred to me that it would be as impossible a task as Dan [Didio] kept trying to say it would. When Dan called me in, he said, "I want to talk to you about something, but it's this huge, incredible, big thing that nobody's ever done before, and I don't know if it can be done." And then he told me about 52. And I said, "That's interesting. Now what's this incredible, big, amazing thing that you think can't be done?"

I mean, I thought it was cool and I understood the scope of it, but I didn't for a second think that with four of us working on it that we couldn't do it. I never had any doubt that it could be done.

NRAMA: But you were involved with another weekly at DC before, right?

MW: Yyyyyeah. Yeah.

NRAMA: Uh oh. I shouldn't have brought that up?

MW: [laughs] It's just that Action Comics Weekly was one of the most ironically titled comics in history. That was a production nightmare from the get-go. That was where everything had to stop on a Friday afternoon at DC Comics so that we could get Action Comics Weekly out. It was a good vision, and I thought it was a noble experiment, but it clearly never came together, and it was never a must-buy for anybody.

NRAMA: But you didn't feel that this weekly might turn out the same way?

MW: I realized it would be a lot of work, and I realized there would be a lot of production nightmares along the way, but the notion of telling the story between the four of us that took place in real time over 52 weeks -- that just seemed like an interesting challenge, and not like an impossibility. I just never felt intimidated by the challenge.

NRAMA: It's been said that you guys built the "weekly machine." They're even going to continue with that machine as they start another weekly after 52.

MW: Yeah. [laughs] Good luck with that!

NRAMA: Well, was there anything about putting together that machine and making it work that was a surprise to you?

MW: Well, I think the biggest surprise was that we had to throw out a lot of tools from our storytelling toolbox. We've talked about this before, but we couldn't use a traditional cliffhanger in a scene. Because you can't cliffhanger a scene on Day 5 of Week 21 and not come back to it until Week 22. You can't have someone open the door and say, "It's you!!," and save the reveal until next issue.

So that made pacing all the scenes a lot more difficult, especially if you've got, say, two pages to do something with Ralph Dibny this week. That scene has to have a beginning, a middle and an end, and you maybe have eight or nine panels in which to do it. There was a real economy of storytelling that we were forced to use. We had to make sure all the scenes had a purpose and all the scenes had an opening and a closure.

NRAMA: And having to always find a closure without being able to use that type of cliffhanger was probably a little different for you guys after doing it another way until now.

MW: It was really different. We had to really fight against our instincts a lot of times in terms of how we would structure scenes and structure plotlines.

NRAMA: And make sure it still worked and had impact.

MW: Yeah.

NRAMA: How difficult was it to juggle other work with 52?

MW: Oh, it was pretty difficult. It was a little easier in that everybody at DC gave us a pretty wide berth. It's not like in school when your chemistry teacher doesn't care that you have Spanish homework. This is a little more coordinated an effort and it was such an important deal for DC that, to the credit of all the other editors I worked with during the year, everybody was pretty understanding that, when push came to shove, triage on 52 always took precedence over everything.

NRAMA: You use the word "triage" -- were there any times when last minute deadlines were particularly harrowing?

MW: Are you kidding me? Starting with Week 2! Yes! Every week was like that. There were no easy weeks. Every week, it seemed like there was something that, like, at the last second, we'd find out these two scenes that Geoff and I wrote separately don't work together, or you know, we're using a character that somebody else has staked out for another series, or any number of things that were always a last minute race to the finish. And as we got closer and closer to the finish, it just got more manic that way to the point where I'm sure we all spent every portion of our lives working on this thing.

NRAMA: It seems like that's a big difference between what they're doing on Countdown, where one writer is taking the lead and tying up only one other writer once a month or so, where you guys had four people all tied up in this thing every single week, trading emails and calling each other all the time. You had that weekly conference call with the editor, but there was a lot of time spent communicating every week, wasn't there?

MW: Oh yeah. We were in constant contact all the time. We had to be. But luckily, we worked well together, we got along well together and our strengths and weaknesses complemented each other. It could have been a nightmare if anybody in that group, you know, wasn't interested in playing, or didn't have the same commitment to it.

NRAMA: That group was unique wasn't it? It's been quoted all over the place that you guys were like a band.

MW: Yeah.

NRAMA: If you were using that analogy, what was the role that was played by each person in that group?

MW: Wow. Let me think. The other guys are easier to say. I mean, Grant always has the giant ideas. Grant has the grand, sweeping sense of scope and impact. And Grant's the guy who comes to the table and is often not afraid of throwing a giant monkey wrench in the thing. Like it's Grant who said, about 11 weeks in, "What if Skeets is a bad guy?" Which was never on the table. It was never, ever part of our original discussions.

NRAMA: And it changed everything.

MW: It changed everything. And you know, we didn't have to go with it. No one was demanding it. He just threw out an interesting idea. But the grandeur of Grant's ideas are always proportionate to how long we're silent after he says them. You know, after he just throws them out. And the longer the silence, as we all just sit there and let it sink in, the better the idea it is. With Skeets, I think we were all silent for about 30 seconds, just trying to figure out what that meant.

And Greg probably worked harder than anybody in terms of the nuts and bolts details of everything, keeping track of the storylines, keeping track of the characters, keeping track of the holidays and how real time impacted the series. You know, "Oh, look, this is Halloween, so we should do a Halloween thing." Or, "Oh, look, it's Kwanza this week. We should nod to that."

NRAMA: Do you think some of his attention to detail on the overall story could be linked to him being a novelist?

MW: Yeah. I think that he was a great addition for several additions, but one of the big ones was because -- unlike the rest of us -- he makes a career as a novelist. He's more practiced than we are at seeing the big picture of what a 1,000-page novel looks like, and has a better feel for it, whereas Geoff and I in particular tend to write more toward installments with kind of a vague idea of where we're going, but we don't have a whole lot of things plotted out. Greg just has this sort of obsessive-compulsive attention to detail that would, frankly, make him a good detective.

NRAMA: Alright then, Geoff?

MW: Geoff? The misapprehension about our roles continues to amaze me. The party line on me seems to be that I was the guy who knew all the characters and knew the DC Universe, and that was what I brought to the table. And I'm here to tell ya, my knowledge of DC continuity stops dead about the time I discovered girls. [laughs] I said that over and over again. So it's really Geoff who had a much better handle all the time on the current, modern-day DC Universe and the status of the players right this second. So the fact that he loves these characters as much as I do and had a really good take on where they were at the time and just kind of -- you know, Geoff was always the one you could turn to and go, "OK, we need a villain for this sequence," or "we need a throwaway hero for this sequence." And it was Geoff, not me, who would pipe up and go, "Hey, Terra-Man would be good." Because he knows. He keeps up with the contemporary stuff a little bit more than I do.

That, and just the fact that, you know, whenever you need somebody torn in half [laughs], Geoff's the guy to go to!

NRAMA: [laughs] A body part removal expert.

MW: Yeah! He's really good at the dismemberment, at the limb-shearing -- whenever you need it bloody, Geoff's the guy to go to. [laughs]

NRAMA: He really needs to put that on his resume. [laughs] I'm sure some of the more negative fans are latching onto that label already, unfortunately. But what about you? What was your role?

MW: Oh, man. I ... I think more than anything, I have a real -- after all these years of writing comics -- I have a real inherent sense of what works and what doesn't on a page. Like how to condense information. How to make the read dense and not overexpanded or decompressed. I have a way of compressing storylines that ... ugh, I'm kind of babbling now. This isn't easy. I just think I have a sense of structure. I have a real solid sense of, "OK, here's what we need to get across in this issue, and here's some interesting visuals," and I have some good suggestions on how to tie it all together.

NRAMA: And having some of the tools in your writer's toolbox unavailable, you probably had to fall back on that basic sense of structure a lot.

MW: Yeah. There's that. And you know, not to pat myself on the back too much here, I think what I was able to bring to the table was that constant challenge to myself and the others of, you know, "don't give me something I've seen before." I mean, if you're going to do a standard comic book thing we've seen before, find some twist on it. Find some new way of doing it. Find some interesting take visually or on a character level that we've never seen before.

NRAMA: Now, do you think that you grew as a writer or as a collaborator from participating in this?

MW: I certainly grew as a collaborator. I do collaborate a lot, but I'm also [laughs] really fussy about it. And you know, I'm a real control freak. And this forced me to loosen the reins a little bit and sort of relax into the flow of it, and trust that there was the safety net of the three other guys.

And as a writer, I think it made me better in that it exposed me repeatedly to different styles. You know, Greg writes in a style that is completely alien to me, and Geoff's got his own storytelling style going too -- although Geoff is probably the most similar to me in the way we approach stories and the way we approach characters -- but between Grant and Greg, the way their minds work is fascinating to me as a reader, and being able to read those scripts and talk to them about process couldn't help but make me better at what I do.

NRAMA: What do you think you've learned about your readers? It's a weekly, so you have constant feedback. We've seen you on the web a bit, so we know you've seen the response to the weekly format and this type of story. This is such a different comic -- it's been called an "experiment," even. With the sales numbers being higher than expected and seeing the way people have reacted, what have you learned about the people who read your comic books?

MW: Wow. That's a hard one. That's such a hard question. I think that what we've learned that most pleases me is that, when we decided that this story was not about the minutia about the DC Universe and tying up loose ends but was instead about six or seven strong characters, the fact that the fans, by and large, supported that -- that was a really good thing to learn. That was a leap of faith on our part because, certainly, there have been the people online who have pilloried us for the fact that we didn't explain every tiny, little One Year Later blip and every One Year Later bit of minutia. And they have a right to be upset about that, I suppose, because I think that was part of what DC intended going in, but the thing is that we got into it, and nobody had ever done this before, and we realized that doing that kind of thing is pretty dry reading. Sitting there and doing a laundry list of what happened to Aquaman or to Harvey Dent. Those things are great touchstones to hit, but only in the service of great stories about great characters.

NRAMA: Well, there's something to be said for Aquaman's story during the "missing year" being explained within a story that is actually about Aquaman.

MW: Yeah. And you know, we tried. We certainly tried to pay service to that whenever we could, but never at the expense of telling a story about our main characters.

NRAMA: One of the more controversial moments in the series came outside the comic when Dan Didio's DC Nation revealed, through a puzzle, that the secret behind 52 was the existence of a multiverse. Was that spoiler planned?

MW: No! I had no idea. All I know is that I was sitting there reading whatever it is that I was reading that Wednesday, and reading my DC Nation, and -- there it is. And you know, the telephone company made a lot of money that day as the 52 writers called each other screaming. [laughs]

NRAMA: Some people thought that was a set-up. Guess it wasn't, huh?

MW: No. Nope, it wasn't a set-up. It's odd that we had to read about it the same way the fans did. It's odd that we didn't get a heads up. That was weird. But I hope it didn't completely undercut the expectation of what we ended up with.

NRAMA: We talked a little about weeklies already, but what do you think the staying power is of the weekly format now? Can it survive, and should it survive?

MW: If there's a good enough story, sure. I understand the appeal of it. Even as a reader, I like the idea that when I go into the store every week, there's one thing that will pull you back week after week. Especially in a marketplace that is more and more filled with books that just come out whenever they come out.

When I started reading comics, I knew every comic's schedule. I knew exactly. I knew that Detective Comics came out every fourth week; I knew that Superman comics came out every second week; I knew that the Hulk came out every third week of the month. It was part of my genetic coding that I knew this as a teenager. So I knew what to expect when I went into the store. But that part of my brain died a long time ago, because we just started playing hob with the schedule, and now books just come out whenever they come out. So I understand how appealing it is to have one thing you know you can count on every week, that you know is going to be there.

NRAMA: We'll get to some details about the story later, but in a general sense, now that it's done, what's something that maybe, as you look back, you regret, but also, what's one thing you look back toward with pride?

MW: Wow. I think I'm proudest of the fact that the Supernova storyline came together as well as it did. I'm also proud of the fact that Grant was able to take a character like Egg Fu and make him interesting. That's the thing that I'm proudest of in general is that we were able to take some of the lesser characters of the DC Universe -- the ones whose time had seemingly passed, like Doc Magnus -- and do something really interesting with them. I mean, T.O. Morrow is a great character now; Doc Magnus is a great character now. And that's what I'm proudest of, is how we sort of shined these characters up.

I'm also very proud that we were able to give Ralph Dibny and Sue Dibny a happy ending. 'Cause that was something we campaigned for since the first time we met on this series. It was of paramount importance to us all along that Ralph and Sue would be reunited in such a way that they have a whole new world of adventure to face.

NRAMA: You totally ignored the regret part of that question.

MW: Yeah, I know. I regret that we didn't ... find more ways to use the number 52 in the book. [laughs] And I regret that there were some weeks where we didn't have the time to go back and do that final polish on bits of dialogue or make that final tweak.

NRAMA: OK, then, getting back to the characters. There were nine main characters, but you've touched upon some that got a lot of time in the comic, like Doc Magnus and such. But going back to the beginning of the process, how did you choose those main nine, and which ones interested you as a writer the most?

MW: Well, originally, the whole DC Universe was open to us with the exception of Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. And because we were telling the stories of characters that wouldn't be appearing in the DC Universe for a year, that left out the characters who would be appearing in their own titles, obviously. So we had to go to the Booster Golds of the world or whatever. What I'm saying is that the list of characters was narrowed from the start.

But where the characters really came from was that we started not with characters. We started with, "what are the big ideas of the DC Universe that we want to redefine and explore?" We wanted to give a real sense of what the DC Universe space is like. We want to touch upon religion, we want to touch upon commerce, we want to touch upon technology, we want to touch upon the afterlife and mysticism. That's where we started. "Let's talk about those arenas. And then let's see what characters we have that can play into them." So with Ralph, it was him missing Sue and wondering why she can't come back in a world where that happens. You know, heaven seems to have a revolving door in the DC Universe, and why can't Sue come back? So that made him an obvious character for magic and mysticism and exploring that world. Same with Steel. He was an obvious candidate for exploring the world of technology in the DC Universe, and exploring the notion of commerce in the DC Universe, which linked to Luthor. So that's really how we narrowed the characters down.

NRAMA: By beginning with the themes of the comic.

MW: Yeah. We started with themes first, and then found characters that would fit the theme.

NRAMA: OK, what characters in that group interested you the most when you started?

MW: When we started, seriously, most everybody -- but certainly Ralph. I've just always had a huge attachment to him. I've just always loved that character. And the Booster God/Supernova/Clark Kent stuff. I just love those characters. In fact, if they had let me go, I could have written 52 weeks of just Clark Kent without powers. Because I never had more fun in this series than writing Clark Kent without his powers. Just doing his thing. And I regret that as the story built into the second and third act, there ended up being less and less time for Clark.

NRAMA: You need to go back and do that mini-series.

MW: I would love to! I just think it's so much fun to write him as a guy who doesn't have his powers.

NRAMA: OK, Mark, which character grew on you as you went?

MW: Well, Steel certainly grew on me. And really, I never "got" Steel before this. I guess I wasn't apparently interested. But we really made him into something. And now I'm really intrigued by the idea of a guy who is there by the sweat of his brow, and is all about earning the powers and is a real hard-ass about it, and doesn't have much more than contempt for guys who just happen to stumble into their superpowers -- that you have to work for it.

And Renee Montoya. I think Renee Montoya grew on me. Again, she was a character that I hadn't given a lot of thought to. But by the time her story was over, she was great.

NRAMA: As the story went along, were there ever any major changes? You mentioned that Skeets became evil around Week 11. Did that kind of thing happen much?

MW: There weren't huge changes. We had to keep it flexible, not just because of outside forces -- because we'd get a call saying, you know, "listen, we're doing something with this character after 52, so be careful" -- but it was more along the lines of the story growing. The story would go in weird directions that we didn't see it going. And Skeets being evil was one of the big ones. Because the entire Supernova/Clark/Booster Gold thing -- our original plan, and it was still our plan six or seven weeks going in -- was to have Booster and Supernova operating side by side, but hating each other. And Clark Kent's story in 52 would be trying to figure out who Supernova is, in a constant attempt to figure out and unmask Supernova to the point that the reveal on Supernova would be very, very, very late in the series. And all the stuff about being taken by Rip Hunter and all that stuff -- the time aspect of it -- that was something we came up with later, because the original idea was that Booster was taking Superman's place in the DC Universe, but he had to adopt the Supernova identity because nobody took Booster seriously.

And another thing that we changed, and lost, which breaks my heart a little, was that we were going to do more with Clark Kent and Lex Luthor. The idea was that Clark becomes so obsessed during the year with trying to bring Luthor down that he begins flirting with the edge of his principles. He starts going right up to the edge. The question becomes, how far is Clark Kent willing to go?

NRAMA: OK, you need to stop, because you're telling us what's going to be in your mini-series. [laughs] I'm telling you.

MW: [laughs] I know! Someday! I know! It's just the idea of Clark Kent being to Lex Luthor what Lex Luthor is to Superman. It really was a great concept, and I'm sorry that ended up on the cutting room floor.

NRAMA: With so many different writers and artists and editors with their fingers in this process, and because this story was important to the DCU, were there ever disagreements either between you guys and editorial, or even among the four of you, about what should happen and how did you work through those with so many people involved?

MW: Well, Steve Wacker was the great mediator at the beginning. And Mike Siglain was later on between us, but by that time the four writers had kind of developed the flow. But at first, if there were any differences of opinion or disagreements, Steve just had a really good way about him about being able to step in and isolate the problem and facilitate a solution that made everybody happy.

But again, the thing that surprises me the most -- and it's not just some retroactive whitewash on our part; it's true -- we never had any major disagreements on how the story should go. Part of that is just a function of the fact that no one can keep 1,000 pages all straight in their head all the time. Not one of us could. So there's a level of trust. There's a point at which, if Greg wants to do something with the Question, for instance, that at first doesn't sound like something I would do or doesn't sound quite right to me, I'll speak up, but at the end of the day, if he's written the Question for 36 weeks, I trust his vision more than I trust mine on this. And everybody sort of had that, I think. Nobody ever gave Grant any grief about anything he wanted to do with Adam Strange or Starfire, and nobody gave Geoff any grief about what he wanted to do with Black Adam -- partly because we were all on the same page, but partly because if there were little disagreements about how the characters might behave or what might happen next, you know ... just let it go. You know? The other guy's just as good as you are. Let it go. You trust the team.

NRAMA: You mentioned Steve Wacker being such an important mediator at the beginning. At the point when he left, were there any big changes, or more likely, were there any fears? And how did you guys scramble through that transition?

MW: Oh, well, Mike really deserves a huge medal of honor on this, 'cause he just had a completely thankless job. He was thrown into the deep end of the pool and was told at best, he can keep his job, and at worst, he's the guy who screwed 52 up and he'll be out of a job. It was a really terrible place to put that guy. He acquitted himself beautifully, but it was a shakedown at first. He didn't know how we all worked together. He hadn't seen the formation of the team. He wasn't really hip to the sort of shorthand language we'd all developed with each other. So it was a learning process for him, but I think we were pretty patient with him. And he with us. He certain gave us as wide a berth as he possibly could. That was helpful.

But the transition -- I won't lie -- the transition was very, very rough because Steve was such a gargantuan part of the brainstorming and the organizational process. And Steve was there for 26 or 27 weeks, and man, it just .... there was a moment, when he left, where we all thought, I'm not sure we can do this now. Retroactively, I think we can say, there was a point about halfway through where we were all like, "You know, we don't have to do this. If this is going to be a problem, we can just quit."

NRAMA: Yikes! I'd guess readers are glad you didn't.

MW: Well, me too. I am too. But it was weird to just suddenly not have him. He was such a big part of the team. It was such a blow.

NRAMA: The proverbial rug pulled out from under you.

MW: Yeah.

NRAMA: OK, getting back to the story -- and I know you all try to avoid saying who wrote what -- but can you share any favorite moments that someone else wrote?

MW: Um, I really like the whole death of Vic Sage issue that Greg wrote. I really liked the whole dragging him through the snow and trying desperately to get to Nanda Parbat -- all that stuff was terrific.

NRAMA: Her fighting against death, fighting against the snow. And the blood on the mask. So intense.

MW: Yes! Yeah. That was a great moment. Other favorite moments were ... when [laughs] Osiris got his head bitten off by the crocodile. That was great! That was the last thing in the world that anybody expected at that point. And well done.

NRAMA: And that was Geoff.

MW: That was Geoff. Yeah. And I think with Grant, I think just really the moment when the tiny little Metal Men show up finally. Oh, that was just genius on Grant's part. The notion that Doc Magnus is slowly assembling the Metal Men out of any loose parts he can find on the island. That was just inspired on Grant's part.

NRAMA: OK, favorite moment you wrote? Or more than one?

MW: I don't know. I think early on, Clark throwing himself out a window to get Supernova's attention was, up to that point, my favorite thing I'd ever written. I think the thing that made me laugh the most among moments I'd written was during Rain of the Supermen, when all of the characters are falling from the sky, and Luthor's on his cell phone. I don't know why, but I really like the two-panel moment where Luthor, on the phone, says, "hold on a second," and he just steps three feet to the left, and another guy smashes down where he was and he just keeps talking. Like Luthor's treating it like it's a rainstorm. I was fond of that.

NRAMA: Lex Luthor has to be fun to write.

MW: I love writing Luthor. I mean, I loooove writing Luthor. He's just such a prick.

NRAMA: I think this mini-series you're going to do about Clark in the missing year needs to have a lot of him.

MW: Yep! That'd be great.

NRAMA: I'm not going to be the only one campaigning for you to write it, you know.

MW: Campaign. Do it.

NRAMA: In 52, you spent a lot of time writing Ralph Dibny.

MW: Yeah.

NRAMA: And his story, in the beginning, opened with him feeling so lost. It opened with that scene where we all thought he was killing himself, although we found out later there was much more to that gun he was holding, but he definitely came a long way during this story. Can you talk about his evolution during the series?

MW: Yeah. Yeah. But to be honest with you, in our heads, it wasn't much of an evolution. We all knew where he was going. Out of all the characters, we had the clearest, most concrete idea of what his final fate would be. So, what was interesting about writing Ralph was that the only deviation we made off the general plan was that Ralph was supposed to be a little more lost and out of sorts and manic and frantic throughout Act 2. He was supposed to be more of a student.

NRAMA: That changed?

MW: Yeah. There was a turning point around Week 7. The turning point came when we had the first of our crossovers between storylines, when Ralph shows up in Booster's apartment. And Ralph is talking to Booster, and they're interacting, and there was something missing from that scene, and I couldn't figure out what it was at first. But then I realized what's missing from that scene was Ralph. I mean, he was kind of standing there and he had all this stuff happening to him, and I was just sick of having stuff happen to him. He's a hero: Make him do things. And so the moment he slammed Booster up against the wall and demanded answers from Booster, and then later in the issue, deliberately brought Booster down in front of the media, that set up a whole new tone for Ralph for the rest of the series in my head. I never wanted to lose the fact that Ralph is a detective, that Ralph is smart, and that Ralph is driven.

When we gave him Dr. Fate's helmet in Issue #13, I'd already figured out the whole mystery of Felix Faust at that point; I knew everything except Neron at that point; I knew everything that would happen in Issue #42 when I wrote Issue #13 -- about the fingerprints on the helmet, the fact that the helmet is a murder weapon, all that stuff, and that Ralph would know it too. So it showed patience on all our parts, as we wrote Ralph for 29 more weeks, to not tip the reader off to the fact that Ralph knew something we didn't, for 29 weeks.

NRAMA: Which was really rude, you know.

MW: Yeah, I know.

NRAMA: But that just made the reveal so much better. We were fooled.

MW: I think where I got that was, I had a lot of ideas for Issue #13 in terms of the Ralph stuff, but I kept reminding myself: He's a detective, and if this is a murder mystery, which is what we're setting up in Issue #13, he's a failure unless he solves the mystery. And only in Issue #42 do you really put it all together and go, "It was a locked room mystery." That Tim Trench guy was a locked room mystery, and Ralph had to solve it, because otherwise, he's a loser of a character because he's a detective. And that's what Ralph does. He solves impossible crimes.

NRAMA: And let's talk about where Ralph is now, and what's going to happen with him now.

MW: I know what I'd like to see happen. I don't know if there's any concrete plan past 52.

NRAMA: What you'd like to happen is a series dedicated to him and Sue?

MW: I'd love something like that.

NRAMA: Well, this ghost detective status he's got with Sue -- you said you had his ending planned from the start, right?

MW: What happened was, we were talking about what to do with Ralph, and you know, something had to be done with the character because you couldn't leave him in the same place where you started out with him. And we talked about killing him, but nobody really wanted to kill Ralph, because we all love Ralph and it would just be insult upon injury to do that to Sue and then do it to Ralph. And my memory is that at the exact same moment -- and my memory always favors me, by the way, and makes me look good -- my memory is that at the exact same moment that everybody was discussing something else, Grant and I were sitting next to each other and we both suddenly said the words, "ghost detectives" at the same exact moment. And it was like lightning struck. At that moment we knew everything. Ghost detective. How perfect for the Dibnys. They could be our -- you know, it's a little bit of Beetlejuice, it's a little bit of Topper, it's a little bit of all that stuff. Now they can be spirits from beyond the veil who are still doing detective stuff, but they're ghosts. And we cannot necessarily see them or hear them or interact with them, but they're dealing with a whole new level of mystery. It's no longer about who painted a pony purple or who stole a barn door -- the kind of mysteries that Ralph used to deal with in the '60s -- he's now a student of the supernatural. He's kind of a fledgling student of the supernatural. But the notion that he can do what he's always wanted to do.

NRAMA: And be with Sue.

MW: And be with Sue! That was important. Ralph's wish in Issue #42 -- his original wish -- was that he was with Sue. And he says in Issue #42 that he's changed the wish. And what he meant by that -- and I'm sorry we didn't get that more clearly across -- was he had come to
realize that his wish about getting Sue back had taken him away from all the things that he loved. It had made him not a hero anymore. For 42 weeks, he hadn't done anything heroic at all. He'd been self-obsessed, and he'd been pushing his moral boundaries, and he's been going down a very dark road. So he changed his wish. His wish was simply, I want it back the way it was. I want to be a hero with Sue at my side. That's what I want.

NRAMA: And that's what he got.

MW: Yeah.

NRAMA: You know, a lot of 52 was about what it takes to be a hero, or what it means to be a hero. And obviously Infinity Inc. explored that idea. Can you talk about how that team and Lex Luthor's "gift" of superpowers to them spoke to that overall theme?

MW: I just always loved the idea that, when push comes to shove, these American Idol, Real World, Road Rules superheroes, when World War III comes, they go, "Nuh uh! I'm not doing that!" And they walk away. That's something we had in our back pocket for a long time. When the JSA gives up in Issue #29 and says maybe it's time to hang it up, because we don't matter anymore -- the way World War III went down proved who the true heroes were.

NRAMA: Wow, we've covered a lot of ground, Mark. Is there anything else you'd like to tell your readers about 52?

MW: I'd just like to say that, besides the fact that Steve and Mike both did a great job pulling it all together, the unsung hero of 52 every week without fail -- the two unsung heroes -- were J.G. Jones and Alex Sinclair, because those covers are phenomenal. Those covers are just, without fail, gripping and well-thought-out. I'm sure there are people out there buying 52 just because the covers are great.

NRAMA: J.G.'s been nominated for an Eisner for his cover work this year.

MW: Yeah, and good for him. He absolutely deserves it.

And I'd also like to give props to the artists who bailed us out time and again, who would be asked to come in and do three times the work that they could normally do in that amount of time because we were on a weekly schedule.

But the guys who deserve the purple hearts in this are the guys in the production department. DC's production department just -- we cannot thank them enough for being the last guys in line every week, and we sometimes would leave them very, very little time to do their jobs and they always got the book out, so God bless them.

[Ace_ETP]

I swear to God that I'm not making this up...

This day, 5/2/2007, the same day in which 52 Week 52 came out, I was given the results of a 140-question multiple choice English exam. The only question which I answered wrong was number 52.

You have no idea how incredibly happy I am to have made that particular mistake.

[choisez]

The "ghost detectives" is a great bit for Ralph and Sue w/o taking anything away from "Identity Crisis."

Looking forward to more of these interviews!

-Eddy

[Knotman]

Mr. Waid and all the creators,
Thank you for this great ride. I enjoyed every issue.
Hobbs

[PatrickG]

I gotta say...

If the time stuff came later and the writers didn't know about the multiverse until the readers did...

What did they think 52 was?

Because the answer in 52 #52, which I think is a fair answer and a pretty exciting one, apparently wasn't what they were writing.

How do you write a mystery without knowing who the killer is?

[LunarDaydreamer]

Great writer and a wonderful, humble, honest interview.

[nietoperz]

I REALLY want to see a Ralph and Sue Dibney: Ghost Detectives book now!

[ZAXILLA2]

52 was fantastic! thanks for every week of this wonderful, exciting story!

[Midgarn]

I have to say, that 52 has been a fantastic ride. Everyone involved made it a tremendous success.

And, thank you, thank you, THANK YOU for "Ralph and Sue Dibny, Phantom Investigators." Or, some other synonym of ghost that starts with "P" to keep the P.I. pun.

[durkadurka]

I enjoyed 52, some parts more than others, and i thought the whole thing was pretty damn good and well handled. I had my doubts at first, what with the no Batman and all, but the fellas over at DC pulled it off. Kudos.
Now Paul Dini shall rock my face off with Countdown.

[Sean Walsh]

I cannot wait to read this whole series again - this time all in 1 sitting.

I'll go insane.........but by God, it'll be a marvelous collapse into dementia.

Originally Posted by PatrickG

I gotta say...

If the time stuff came later and the writers didn't know about the multiverse until the readers did...

What did they think 52 was?

Because the answer in 52 #52, which I think is a fair answer and a pretty exciting one, apparently wasn't what they were writing.

How do you write a mystery without knowing who the killer is?

No, I believe it was Didio spoiling to us readers the bit about the multiverses in the DC Nation column was what got the writers mad.

[Lucifer]

Did anybody notice the Flash's baby blues? Looks like Barry!

[Moonbeam]

Originally Posted by PatrickG

I gotta say...

If the time stuff came later and the writers didn't know about the multiverse until the readers did...

What did they think 52 was?

Because the answer in 52 #52, which I think is a fair answer and a pretty exciting one, apparently wasn't what they were writing.

How do you write a mystery without knowing who the killer is?

You misunderstood. They didn't just now find out.

After all, you remember Rip Hunter's lab in Issue #6? It was all nailed down by the time that issue was published, obviously, because we had clues on the chalkboard like "World War III" and "time is broken" way back then. Looking back now, they told us the ending right then. Arrows pointing at Skeets, "it's all his fault," time is broken, and 52 circles with the number 52 in them ... we just had to keep reading to understand what it all meant.

Yeah, and like Sean said -- the comment that they didn't know until readers knew is about the DC Nation column. They didn't know about that column until they read it, the same day we did.

- Vaneta

[Street Carp]

I just heard from my shop's owner that all of the DC books got delayed until Friday. But it's good to know that the only delay in the entire series wasn't experienced everywhere else.

And to all of the creators who made 52 such an immensely enjoyable experience, I thank you. It's been a long time since I anticipated a book's arrival, and the fact that you guys were able to keep up that weekly schedule is absolutely amazing to me. I can't wait to read #52!

(ian)

[TCJohnson]

Originally Posted by choisez

The "ghost detectives" is a great bit for Ralph and Sue w/o taking anything away from "Identity Crisis."

Now let's hope somebody else runs with the idea.

[Sean Walsh]

Oh, and I hope Newsarama does these "exit interviews" with all the other writers - as well as Didio and Giffen.

It's nice learning - here and there - who wrote what in the series, how certain plot twists and developments came to be and how final ideas replaced others.

[tralfaz]

I WANT A CLARK KENT MINI SERIES!!!

lets start mailing those letters to Dan and Bob

[DJ PopTart]

Beetlejuice, Topper, Nick and Nora Charles, X-Files, the witty banter, the bwahaha, thrills, chills, mystery, romance, the works!
This idea has so much fun potential, it's unreal.
They could have all of the DC magic and supernatural toys to play with, and even act as a bridge between the DC mainstream and Vertigo.
And there are SO many writers and artists that could do this right, you wouldn't even need a regular team on an ongoing...
Micheal Kaluta has to be the cover artist, though...

[ticknart]

Originally Posted by MattBrady

NRAMA: One of the more controversial moments in the series came outside the comic when Dan Didio's DC Nation revealed, through a puzzle, that the secret behind 52 was the existence of a multiverse. Was that spoiler planned?

MW: No! I had no idea. All I know is that I was sitting there reading whatever it is that I was reading that Wednesday, and reading my DC Nation, and -- there it is. And you know, the telephone company made a lot of money that day as the 52 writers called each other screaming. [laughs]

NRAMA: Some people thought that was a set-up. Guess it wasn't, huh?

MW: No. Nope, it wasn't a set-up. It's odd that we had to read about it the same way the fans did. It's odd that we didn't get a heads up. That was weird. But I hope it didn't completely undercut the expectation of what we ended up with.

I don't think that knowing the multiverse existed again ruined the ending for me, but not knowing would have made the ending have a much greater impact on me.

I know this was hashed to death when the secret was giving in that DC Nation, so long ago, but I would have preferred to have been surprised.

[KyleV]

I gotta say...

If the time stuff came later and the writers didn't know about the multiverse until the readers did...

What did they think 52 was?

Because the answer in 52 #52, which I think is a fair answer and a pretty exciting one, apparently wasn't what they were writing.

How do you write a mystery without knowing who the killer is?

Yeah, what Sean Walsh said -- he was talking about the reveal in DC Nation, not the fact that there would be multi-verses.

[M. Bloom]

52 #52 was an amazing conclusion to the series, and the semi-return of Ralph and Sue was the highlight for me. I'm a little ashamed to admit something this silly, but I literally put the book down and applauded when I read that page.

[TCJohnson]

Originally Posted by MattBrady

MW: What happened was, we were talking about what to do with Ralph, and you know, something had to be done with the character because you couldn't leave him in the same place where you started out with him. And we talked about killing him, but nobody really wanted to kill Ralph, because we all love Ralph and it would just be insult upon injury to do that to Sue and then do it to Ralph.

I am very happy to hear this. It seems like every time I hear people speaking at DC Nation panels, they talk about how they are all excited about the next character they are going to kill off.

[TCJohnson]

by the way, this is one of the best interviews I have read in a while.

[Not From Around]

Well, they did it. They got all 52 issues done and in the stores on time. I haven't been following the story, but I admire how they managed to rise to the challenge.

[Lucifer]

I'm sure this is a question for DiDio but I'd like to know when we will start seeing the "fallout" from 52? Such as characters we haven't seen in awhile or when the Multi or Mega-verse will start showing up...

...besides Booster Gold, Black Adam & Infinity Inc.