Meeting created at: 22nd Oct, 2025 - 3:30 PM1 00:00:01,440 --> 00:00:01,760 JM DeMatteis: Hey. 2 00:00:02,160 --> 00:00:02,720 Case: Hi. 3 00:00:06,240 --> 00:00:07,040 JM DeMatteis: How you doing? 4 00:00:07,280 --> 00:00:08,480 Case: Good, good. 5 00:00:09,520 --> 00:00:13,600 Case: So thank you so much for coming on our show. 6 00:00:14,400 --> 00:00:15,760 Case: Really, really appreciate this. 7 00:00:16,160 --> 00:00:17,120 JM DeMatteis: Happy to do it. 8 00:00:17,200 --> 00:00:18,160 JM DeMatteis: Happy to do it. 9 00:00:19,280 --> 00:00:20,720 Case: Before we get started, do you. 10 00:00:22,800 --> 00:00:23,800 Case: How should we address you? 11 00:00:23,800 --> 00:00:25,120 Case: Do you prefer Mr. Damattaez? 12 00:00:25,120 --> 00:00:27,640 JM DeMatteis: Do you prefer JM is fine, Jamie. 13 00:00:27,790 --> 00:00:29,270 JM DeMatteis: Okay, yeah, that's fine. 14 00:00:29,270 --> 00:00:30,590 JM DeMatteis: No, no misters, please. 15 00:00:30,590 --> 00:00:31,150 JM DeMatteis: That's. 16 00:00:33,070 --> 00:00:33,870 JM DeMatteis: Please don't. 17 00:00:33,870 --> 00:00:34,510 JM DeMatteis: I beg. 18 00:01:02,890 --> 00:01:05,450 Case: Hey, everyone, and welcome back to the Men of Steel podcast. 19 00:01:05,450 --> 00:01:08,970 Case: I'm Case Aiken and as always, I'm joined by my co host, Jmike Folson. 20 00:01:08,970 --> 00:01:09,690 Jmike: Hey, everybody. 21 00:01:09,690 --> 00:01:10,730 Jmike: Welcome back to the show. 22 00:01:11,690 --> 00:01:13,210 Case: Welcome back indeed. 23 00:01:13,530 --> 00:01:19,530 Case: Today we are doing something a little different from our usual format of talking about a story or some kind of character. 24 00:01:19,530 --> 00:01:20,330 Case: We have an interview. 25 00:01:20,330 --> 00:01:23,090 Case: We are joined by the legendary comics creator, J.M. 26 00:01:23,090 --> 00:01:23,930 Case: DeMatteis. 27 00:01:24,410 --> 00:01:25,210 JM DeMatteis: Is here? 28 00:01:27,930 --> 00:01:29,690 JM DeMatteis: I've wanted to talk to him for years. 29 00:01:29,850 --> 00:01:30,730 JM DeMatteis: It's incredible. 30 00:01:32,330 --> 00:01:32,970 Case: Well, it's. 31 00:01:32,970 --> 00:01:34,930 Case: I mean, going off of years jam. 32 00:01:34,930 --> 00:01:40,610 Case: Like, I was looking through your bibliography and I was trying to figure out like, well, what's the thing that I want to talk about most? 33 00:01:40,610 --> 00:01:42,250 Case: Because you've been, frankly, writing comic books. 34 00:01:42,250 --> 00:01:44,890 JM DeMatteis: My entire life and most of mine as well. 35 00:01:48,010 --> 00:01:51,490 Case: So I was looking at it and I was like, man, there's that, there's that. 36 00:01:51,490 --> 00:01:53,650 Case: Yeah, yeah, you know what? 37 00:01:53,650 --> 00:01:56,730 JM DeMatteis: People have tried to like, interview me and go through my career chronologically. 38 00:01:57,410 --> 00:01:59,170 JM DeMatteis: And an hour goes by. 39 00:01:59,170 --> 00:02:00,690 JM DeMatteis: We're like in 1983. 40 00:02:00,770 --> 00:02:02,770 JM DeMatteis: So it doesn't really work right. 41 00:02:02,770 --> 00:02:03,090 JM DeMatteis: Well. 42 00:02:03,170 --> 00:02:03,890 Case: And that's the thing. 43 00:02:04,130 --> 00:02:11,890 Case: You're extremely prolific, but you've done plenty of huge things that are strictly Superman related, but also just tons of material. 44 00:02:11,970 --> 00:02:15,650 Case: Like you worked on the Adventures of Superboy, the live action TV show. 45 00:02:15,810 --> 00:02:18,290 Case: You were a writer for Justice League Unlimited. 46 00:02:18,690 --> 00:02:20,770 Case: You have done tons of comics. 47 00:02:20,930 --> 00:02:24,050 Case: We just talked about, actually the last episode, not the last episode. 48 00:02:24,130 --> 00:02:24,930 Case: Two episodes ago. 49 00:02:24,930 --> 00:02:26,050 Case: We just talked about Superman. 50 00:02:26,050 --> 00:02:26,530 Case: Red Sun. 51 00:02:26,760 --> 00:02:27,120 Case: Yep. 52 00:02:27,120 --> 00:02:30,120 Case: So there's all kinds of material that is. 53 00:02:30,120 --> 00:02:31,560 Case: Is super relevant to. 54 00:02:31,560 --> 00:02:32,360 Case: To the show. 55 00:02:32,600 --> 00:02:41,960 Case: But I wanted to start with sort of a weird question, which is I was just kind of thinking about this, which is you write a lot of stuff, like a lot of types of stuff, not just a lot of one format. 56 00:02:42,120 --> 00:02:48,680 Case: And when you switch between formats, do you like, does your writing style dramatically change? 57 00:02:48,680 --> 00:02:53,800 Case: And what I'm getting at is when you're doing comic books, do you ever do it Marvel style or is it full script? 58 00:02:54,050 --> 00:02:54,690 JM DeMatteis: I do both. 59 00:02:54,850 --> 00:02:55,330 Jmike: Yeah. 60 00:02:55,330 --> 00:02:59,090 JM DeMatteis: I go back and forth between both, depending upon my whim. 61 00:02:59,250 --> 00:02:59,650 JM DeMatteis: Really? 62 00:02:59,810 --> 00:03:01,970 JM DeMatteis: Yeah, you know, I just. 63 00:03:01,970 --> 00:03:08,330 JM DeMatteis: I've been doing on Kickstarter the past few years, this thing called the Demultiverse, where I launched like four new series simultaneously. 64 00:03:08,330 --> 00:03:10,530 JM DeMatteis: We just last year did the second round. 65 00:03:10,530 --> 00:03:12,530 JM DeMatteis: We've been kickstarting each new issue. 66 00:03:12,610 --> 00:03:15,570 JM DeMatteis: So four new number ones and we did four new number twos. 67 00:03:15,570 --> 00:03:17,490 JM DeMatteis: We'll go ahead soon and do four new number threes. 68 00:03:17,570 --> 00:03:19,170 JM DeMatteis: Two of them we did plot first. 69 00:03:19,660 --> 00:03:20,700 JM DeMatteis: Two of them were full script. 70 00:03:20,700 --> 00:03:23,180 JM DeMatteis: It really depends who I'm working with, how I'm feeling. 71 00:03:23,660 --> 00:03:29,220 JM DeMatteis: And also, people have a very distorted impression of what Marvel style is based on. 72 00:03:29,220 --> 00:03:35,900 JM DeMatteis: The old stories about Stan Lee telling Jack Kirby, well, let's bring back Dr. Doom, and Jack goes home and does four issues of the story. 73 00:03:36,700 --> 00:03:38,740 JM DeMatteis: As if that is not Marvel style. 74 00:03:38,740 --> 00:03:45,820 JM DeMatteis: That may have been Stan Lee and Jack Kirby Marvel style, but Marvel style as it exists today, which even to call it Marvel style. 75 00:03:45,820 --> 00:03:46,460 JM DeMatteis: It's plot first. 76 00:03:47,580 --> 00:03:54,590 JM DeMatteis: My plots are very detailed, page by page, usually panel by panel, sometimes camera angle by camera angle. 77 00:03:54,830 --> 00:04:00,510 JM DeMatteis: You know, lots of the suggest I have room to tweak the dialogue later, but I put in lots of suggested dialogue. 78 00:04:00,510 --> 00:04:05,390 JM DeMatteis: You know, the psychological nuance, what's going on within the character's heads, all that goes into the plot. 79 00:04:05,630 --> 00:04:11,310 JM DeMatteis: The joy of working that way is that I don't put in the final copy until I get the art. 80 00:04:11,790 --> 00:04:14,750 JM DeMatteis: So they will draw the story from this detailed plot. 81 00:04:15,230 --> 00:04:20,310 JM DeMatteis: And then in a way, the fun of it is I'm sort of collaborating with myself because things I may have laid out in the plot. 82 00:04:20,310 --> 00:04:22,280 JM DeMatteis: Well, I wanted to do that on page three. 83 00:04:22,440 --> 00:04:24,520 JM DeMatteis: It's going to work better over here on page six. 84 00:04:24,680 --> 00:04:26,840 JM DeMatteis: Maybe I don't need that speech over there at all. 85 00:04:26,840 --> 00:04:33,320 JM DeMatteis: Maybe I need to add something here so I get to play with the story and most importantly, react to the artwork. 86 00:04:33,560 --> 00:04:40,840 JM DeMatteis: Because you give the same story, whether it's full script or plot first to five different artists, it's going to come back in five very different ways. 87 00:04:41,320 --> 00:04:50,980 JM DeMatteis: That's why sometimes when people are working plot first and you get the artwork back and you thought some section was going to be really clear as the bell, you wouldn't have to write anything. 88 00:04:50,980 --> 00:04:53,540 JM DeMatteis: You just most minimal dialogue or nothing at all. 89 00:04:53,700 --> 00:05:02,580 JM DeMatteis: And suddenly you see that the art's not clear, which is why you get bits of dialogue like the guy running and, oh, I've just tripped over something on the roof and I'm falling. 90 00:05:02,820 --> 00:05:05,260 JM DeMatteis: And why are they writing such obvious dialogue? 91 00:05:05,260 --> 00:05:06,820 JM DeMatteis: Because it wasn't clear in the artwork. 92 00:05:06,900 --> 00:05:08,980 JM DeMatteis: So you have to clarify it that way. 93 00:05:08,980 --> 00:05:10,740 JM DeMatteis: Otherwise, a flip side is you get. 94 00:05:10,740 --> 00:05:20,110 JM DeMatteis: You get artwork back where you Thought you'd have to write something in great detail and the artist hit everything that you asked for, and you just shut up and let the pictures tell the story, you know? 95 00:05:20,750 --> 00:05:22,670 JM DeMatteis: But it's really the same thing with full script. 96 00:05:22,750 --> 00:05:29,070 JM DeMatteis: I could give the same full script to five different guys, and things will come back differently, and you'll have to go in and tweak and do little things. 97 00:05:29,390 --> 00:05:30,630 JM DeMatteis: So I really enjoy them both. 98 00:05:30,630 --> 00:05:34,430 JM DeMatteis: With full script, you kind of feel like, you know, you're getting it all done in the moment. 99 00:05:34,430 --> 00:05:38,950 JM DeMatteis: It's like writing a screen, you know, not like writing a screenplay, because then the director comes in and messes around with it. 100 00:05:38,950 --> 00:05:40,270 JM DeMatteis: So that's a bad analogy. 101 00:05:40,750 --> 00:05:41,230 JM DeMatteis: You're. 102 00:05:41,470 --> 00:05:46,070 JM DeMatteis: You're in control, where the playwright is like, yeah. 103 00:05:46,620 --> 00:05:51,180 JM DeMatteis: But again, you know, it's all comics is art and story together. 104 00:05:51,180 --> 00:05:57,820 JM DeMatteis: So anyone that puts too much emphasis on saying the writers are the geniuses behind the stories or the artists are, it's not either. 105 00:05:57,900 --> 00:05:59,180 JM DeMatteis: It's that fusion of both. 106 00:05:59,180 --> 00:06:03,660 JM DeMatteis: And if you don't have that balance and that magical chemistry between both, it's not going to work. 107 00:06:04,300 --> 00:06:05,900 Case: Yeah, we recently were looking. 108 00:06:05,900 --> 00:06:07,380 Case: This is not one of yours, but this was. 109 00:06:07,380 --> 00:06:12,460 Case: We looked at the Superman vs the Amazing Spider man crossover, the first, like, big Marvel DC crossover. 110 00:06:13,020 --> 00:06:17,500 Case: And there was a section that we got to where it was, like, very clear that just a panel was just not there. 111 00:06:17,580 --> 00:06:24,200 Case: And that led us to suspect that there might have been a little bit of finagling going on, a little bit of plot first in that one. 112 00:06:24,360 --> 00:06:37,680 Case: And it was just very interesting to hit a spot where it was just like, oh, yeah, they're definitely using a caption box to cover up an omission that probably at some point you could. 113 00:06:37,680 --> 00:06:39,520 JM DeMatteis: Go back and look at the old Lee Kirby stuff. 114 00:06:39,520 --> 00:06:49,870 JM DeMatteis: And you can see clearly in some spaces where Jack is telling one story and Stan wants to tell another one, and there's a bunch of balloons there talking about things that aren't there. 115 00:06:50,260 --> 00:06:51,060 JM DeMatteis: Do you know what I mean? 116 00:06:52,340 --> 00:06:54,220 JM DeMatteis: And that's also the fun of it, too. 117 00:06:54,220 --> 00:06:56,900 JM DeMatteis: When I work with Keith, Giff and Keith would do the plots. 118 00:06:57,220 --> 00:07:02,180 JM DeMatteis: And when Keith's plots were done as little mini comics, you draw them out, and then I would do the scripting. 119 00:07:02,740 --> 00:07:05,220 JM DeMatteis: But what you learn is that through the scripting. 120 00:07:05,860 --> 00:07:09,620 JM DeMatteis: And that's why I like plot first, because I get to do this with myself as well. 121 00:07:09,700 --> 00:07:13,300 JM DeMatteis: You can write a whole other story on top of what's there in the plot. 122 00:07:14,420 --> 00:07:18,400 JM DeMatteis: I would introduce subplots and character interactions that weren't there in Keith's plots. 123 00:07:19,190 --> 00:07:23,230 JM DeMatteis: And because I was working with Keith, I always had the freedom to do that because Keith had no creative ego. 124 00:07:23,230 --> 00:07:26,470 JM DeMatteis: And we just loved bouncing that tennis ball back and forth between us. 125 00:07:26,630 --> 00:07:33,910 JM DeMatteis: But there's a lot that can be done just in the scripting stage to completely transform a story and add things that weren't there in the plot. 126 00:07:34,150 --> 00:07:39,190 JM DeMatteis: I've also worked with people where I've dialogued their plots, and they hate it if you change anything. 127 00:07:39,510 --> 00:07:43,270 JM DeMatteis: Which is why it was such a joy working with Keith, because I had the freedom to play. 128 00:07:43,350 --> 00:07:46,710 JM DeMatteis: He'd see what I would do, and he would spin it and do crazy things that I didn't expect. 129 00:07:47,160 --> 00:07:48,280 JM DeMatteis: I would do things he didn't expect. 130 00:07:48,280 --> 00:07:56,120 JM DeMatteis: And between the two of us, essentially not paying attention to each other, we made something better than either one of us could have done alone. 131 00:07:57,160 --> 00:07:57,520 Case: Yeah. 132 00:07:57,520 --> 00:07:57,800 Case: No. 133 00:07:58,120 --> 00:08:08,960 Case: Your Justice League run going into Justice League International is, I mean, it's famous and it's well loved, and it meant a ton to me over my life. 134 00:08:08,960 --> 00:08:11,520 Case: So I just wanted to say give a hearty. 135 00:08:11,520 --> 00:08:12,360 Case: Bwaha. 136 00:08:12,920 --> 00:08:13,160 Jmike: See? 137 00:08:13,720 --> 00:08:14,240 JM DeMatteis: Yeah. 138 00:08:14,240 --> 00:08:14,800 JM DeMatteis: Thank you. 139 00:08:14,800 --> 00:08:15,240 JM DeMatteis: Thank you. 140 00:08:15,240 --> 00:08:16,280 JM DeMatteis: Couldn't happen without Keith. 141 00:08:16,280 --> 00:08:16,560 JM DeMatteis: Keith. 142 00:08:16,560 --> 00:08:22,760 JM DeMatteis: Keith Giffen was one of the single most creative human beings I've ever encountered anywhere. 143 00:08:22,760 --> 00:08:24,320 JM DeMatteis: Not just in comics, but anywhere. 144 00:08:24,320 --> 00:08:26,760 JM DeMatteis: Keith was just like an idea machine. 145 00:08:26,840 --> 00:08:27,800 JM DeMatteis: It was amazing. 146 00:08:27,880 --> 00:08:28,440 JM DeMatteis: Amazing. 147 00:08:28,519 --> 00:08:29,880 JM DeMatteis: Amazing creative force. 148 00:08:30,120 --> 00:08:31,800 JM DeMatteis: And an amazing person as well. 149 00:08:32,520 --> 00:08:33,000 Case: Yeah. 150 00:08:33,240 --> 00:08:34,039 Case: Actually, when I. 151 00:08:34,440 --> 00:08:38,280 Case: So behind the curtains, the reason this interview is happening is that I know your daughter. 152 00:08:38,280 --> 00:08:39,640 Case: And when I met her, I was actually. 153 00:08:39,799 --> 00:08:40,679 JM DeMatteis: I know her too. 154 00:08:40,679 --> 00:08:41,360 Case: I know, right? 155 00:08:41,360 --> 00:08:42,039 Case: It's crazy. 156 00:08:44,739 --> 00:08:45,699 JM DeMatteis: What a coincidence. 157 00:08:46,819 --> 00:08:53,539 Case: I, I, I was actively reading, like, not literally the night that we first hung out, but like, while were hanging out over the weekend that we first met. 158 00:08:53,619 --> 00:08:57,219 Case: I was reading the Legion of Superheroes five years later, Omnibi. 159 00:08:57,219 --> 00:09:00,499 Case: And that was sort of a, a connection point because of it was by Keith. 160 00:09:00,739 --> 00:09:09,130 Case: And one of the things that sort of dawned on me while I was reading this was just the wealth of material he was working on simultaneously at that point. 161 00:09:09,210 --> 00:09:09,770 JM DeMatteis: Yeah. 162 00:09:09,930 --> 00:09:14,330 Case: So just a true talent that is a huge loss to the community. 163 00:09:14,490 --> 00:09:15,370 JM DeMatteis: Yeah, totally. 164 00:09:15,450 --> 00:09:15,930 JM DeMatteis: Totally. 165 00:09:15,930 --> 00:09:20,130 JM DeMatteis: I still, it's still hard for me to wrap my head around the idea that he's not here anymore, but. 166 00:09:20,130 --> 00:09:22,330 Case: Why don't we, why don't we step back a little bit? 167 00:09:22,410 --> 00:09:28,010 Case: I know we're not going to go too much chronologically throughout your career, but what was the driving force that got you into comics in the first place? 168 00:09:28,730 --> 00:09:32,650 JM DeMatteis: You know, I was always creative as a kid. 169 00:09:32,650 --> 00:09:33,930 JM DeMatteis: It's just who I am. 170 00:09:34,250 --> 00:09:38,250 JM DeMatteis: I've often said, and it sounds like a joke, but it's really not. 171 00:09:38,410 --> 00:09:41,750 JM DeMatteis: I am not equipped to do anything else but what I'm doing. 172 00:09:42,390 --> 00:09:48,230 JM DeMatteis: If I had, if I had to survive in the 9 to 5 world, it would have been a disaster, an absolute disaster. 173 00:09:48,710 --> 00:09:53,710 JM DeMatteis: I spent my whole childhood on the floor with paper and crayons, drawing. 174 00:09:53,710 --> 00:09:55,350 JM DeMatteis: That was my thing when I was a kid. 175 00:09:55,510 --> 00:09:58,590 JM DeMatteis: Then along came rock and roll, came the Beatles, and it blew my mind. 176 00:09:58,590 --> 00:09:59,190 JM DeMatteis: I had to get. 177 00:09:59,270 --> 00:10:01,950 JM DeMatteis: Had to get guitar lessons and I played in bands for years. 178 00:10:01,950 --> 00:10:05,150 JM DeMatteis: And I'm a songwriter and a singer and a guitarist. 179 00:10:05,150 --> 00:10:11,370 JM DeMatteis: And so that there was that creativity and writing was just something that always came naturally to me. 180 00:10:11,370 --> 00:10:13,690 JM DeMatteis: You know, I was thinking about this the other day. 181 00:10:13,690 --> 00:10:23,090 JM DeMatteis: I remember being like 7 years old or something and getting the Yellow Pages for those of you that remember what the yellow Pages was and opening it up and looking for a publisher for my novel. 182 00:10:23,170 --> 00:10:27,730 JM DeMatteis: Now I'm seven years old, I haven't written a novel, but I decided I had to find a publisher first. 183 00:10:27,890 --> 00:10:28,530 JM DeMatteis: So I just. 184 00:10:28,930 --> 00:10:37,510 JM DeMatteis: I also remember being 14 years old and being on the phone with a friend of mine and saying to him, At 14, I will never have a job in the 9 to 5 world. 185 00:10:37,510 --> 00:10:38,710 JM DeMatteis: I will not do that. 186 00:10:38,710 --> 00:10:40,550 JM DeMatteis: I'm going to do something creative with my life. 187 00:10:40,550 --> 00:10:48,869 JM DeMatteis: I just knew it, and thank God, you know, I think that's one of the reasons I was able to succeed, because I knew if I didn't do this, I would be in deep trouble. 188 00:10:51,350 --> 00:10:53,790 Case: Was that vow fully taken up? 189 00:10:53,790 --> 00:10:56,870 Case: Like, did you ever end up with a nine to fiver at any time? 190 00:10:56,870 --> 00:11:02,470 JM DeMatteis: I occasionally did, you know, I would be playing in a band that I need some money, so I'd get like a temp job for like a week or two. 191 00:11:02,880 --> 00:11:06,000 JM DeMatteis: There would be these jobs in the New York Times saying, get a job in publishing. 192 00:11:06,000 --> 00:11:12,320 JM DeMatteis: You know, they needed somebody for two weeks to come in and do something and it'd be some horrible, miserable job, you know, that you do for two weeks. 193 00:11:12,320 --> 00:11:13,760 JM DeMatteis: And that's the closest I ever came. 194 00:11:13,840 --> 00:11:17,240 JM DeMatteis: I think I worked in a bookstore on and off for a while, but that's about it. 195 00:11:17,240 --> 00:11:22,120 JM DeMatteis: Mostly in my life, I've made my living creatively, whether it was playing in bands. 196 00:11:22,120 --> 00:11:24,840 JM DeMatteis: I was a music journalist and comics came along. 197 00:11:24,840 --> 00:11:28,400 JM DeMatteis: And of course comics led to TV work and prose work and all these other things. 198 00:11:29,140 --> 00:11:31,780 JM DeMatteis: So I've been very fortunate, very lucky. 199 00:11:32,180 --> 00:11:45,620 Case: Now, when you say comics came along, speaking as someone who like it, frankly, it took me 10 years to actually finish, like writing My, like, first comic script it, like, and just now, like, trying to figure out how to publish it. 200 00:11:45,620 --> 00:11:49,140 Case: Comics get, like, getting into comics has always been like a dream of mine. 201 00:11:49,140 --> 00:11:52,020 Case: Like, but you make it sound like you stumbled into it. 202 00:11:52,020 --> 00:11:52,660 Case: Like, where? 203 00:11:52,660 --> 00:11:54,420 JM DeMatteis: No, no, I didn't stumble into it. 204 00:11:54,420 --> 00:11:54,900 JM DeMatteis: No, no. 205 00:11:55,140 --> 00:12:03,820 JM DeMatteis: You know, I always say to people, if you want to make it in the freelance life, you need a hard head and a thick skin and a really fierce will. 206 00:12:04,140 --> 00:12:12,540 JM DeMatteis: Because the nature of the beast, even after doing this for 40 plus years, rejection is a huge part of the freelance life. 207 00:12:12,540 --> 00:12:13,100 JM DeMatteis: It just is. 208 00:12:13,100 --> 00:12:17,980 JM DeMatteis: Doesn't matter how successful you are, there are still always doors slamming in your face and disappointments. 209 00:12:17,980 --> 00:12:27,280 JM DeMatteis: And if you don't have the nervous system for that, if you don't have the nervous system for not knowing 100% where that money's coming from tomorrow, you know, you can't do it. 210 00:12:27,600 --> 00:12:30,240 JM DeMatteis: You have to want it really more than anything. 211 00:12:30,720 --> 00:12:31,720 JM DeMatteis: And I just did. 212 00:12:31,720 --> 00:12:33,360 JM DeMatteis: I wanted it more than anything. 213 00:12:33,680 --> 00:12:36,840 JM DeMatteis: You know, I had two very practical goals as a teenager. 214 00:12:36,840 --> 00:12:39,520 JM DeMatteis: I was either going to be a writer or a rock and roll star. 215 00:12:41,360 --> 00:12:46,000 JM DeMatteis: So it gives you a sense of my nature, you know, go big or go home. 216 00:12:46,000 --> 00:12:46,480 JM DeMatteis: Yeah. 217 00:12:46,960 --> 00:12:52,210 JM DeMatteis: So really I just kept banging my head against the wall until I got through, you know, early. 218 00:12:52,370 --> 00:12:58,970 JM DeMatteis: I remember being about 18 and I, I, I had never, I had no idea what a comic book script looked like. 219 00:12:58,970 --> 00:13:07,529 JM DeMatteis: And I just wrote up some script of my own imagining in my own format and sent it off to Marvel thinking, you know, oh, this is probably going to be great, isn't it? 220 00:13:07,529 --> 00:13:15,890 JM DeMatteis: And I got a letter back that just completely in, in, in the most unkind way eviscerated me. 221 00:13:15,970 --> 00:13:21,220 JM DeMatteis: And just that alone could have been enough for some other person to make them go, I'm not going to do this. 222 00:13:21,220 --> 00:13:22,180 JM DeMatteis: But to me it was like, okay. 223 00:13:22,180 --> 00:13:22,860 JM DeMatteis: They didn't like that. 224 00:13:22,860 --> 00:13:23,820 JM DeMatteis: Onto the next thing. 225 00:13:24,220 --> 00:13:32,500 JM DeMatteis: And like a year later, DC Comics was doing an apprenticeship program where people could become a writer apprentices and artist apprentices. 226 00:13:32,500 --> 00:13:34,620 JM DeMatteis: And I thought, oh, I'll try that. 227 00:13:34,620 --> 00:13:36,180 JM DeMatteis: And I wrote a script and I sent it in. 228 00:13:36,180 --> 00:13:40,620 JM DeMatteis: And I didn't get into the program, but I got some great feedback that I felt was really helpful. 229 00:13:40,860 --> 00:13:42,180 JM DeMatteis: And the process went like that. 230 00:13:42,180 --> 00:13:45,260 JM DeMatteis: And I knew a guy from Brooklyn College who was working at Marvel. 231 00:13:45,260 --> 00:13:49,540 JM DeMatteis: He was selling stuff to Crazy Magazine, which was their Mad Magazine knockoff. 232 00:13:49,540 --> 00:13:50,540 JM DeMatteis: He said, you should send them something. 233 00:13:50,540 --> 00:13:52,020 JM DeMatteis: And I'm like, I don't know. 234 00:13:52,020 --> 00:13:55,820 JM DeMatteis: Crazy, it's not my forte, but I sent them Something and I actually sold them something. 235 00:13:56,220 --> 00:13:57,940 JM DeMatteis: Got a check with Spider Man's face on. 236 00:13:57,940 --> 00:14:02,900 JM DeMatteis: It was very exciting and I thought that would open the door for me into the comic book side of things. 237 00:14:02,900 --> 00:14:03,660 JM DeMatteis: But it didn't. 238 00:14:04,059 --> 00:14:08,540 JM DeMatteis: So the what finally broke me in was I wrote up some more samples for dc. 239 00:14:08,860 --> 00:14:13,260 JM DeMatteis: I sent them in blind and someone said, you know, well, you know, we're not going to buy. 240 00:14:13,260 --> 00:14:15,020 JM DeMatteis: And one of them was actually a Superman story. 241 00:14:15,020 --> 00:14:24,790 JM DeMatteis: So there we are, we've justified the whole conversation and whoever got the sample said, well, we're not going to buy a Superman story for some writer we've never heard of. 242 00:14:24,790 --> 00:14:33,070 JM DeMatteis: But Paul Levitz is buying stories for what they used to call the mystery books, which were the anthology books, House of Mystery, Weird War Tales, House of Secrets. 243 00:14:33,070 --> 00:14:34,670 JM DeMatteis: That's where people broke in those days. 244 00:14:34,670 --> 00:14:39,950 JM DeMatteis: They were little five to eight page twist ending, kind of supernatural, Twilight Zone kind of stories. 245 00:14:40,270 --> 00:14:47,330 JM DeMatteis: And I just kept pitching Paul and pitching Paul, who graciously kept reading my stuff even when it was awful, until I sold him something. 246 00:14:47,330 --> 00:14:49,730 JM DeMatteis: And that was the beginning of my career. 247 00:14:51,250 --> 00:14:53,650 JM DeMatteis: That's like I said, hard head, thick skin. 248 00:14:54,050 --> 00:14:58,690 JM DeMatteis: The very first letter that I got back from Paul, he tore my stories apart. 249 00:14:58,929 --> 00:15:00,850 JM DeMatteis: He criticized my typing. 250 00:15:02,290 --> 00:15:04,850 JM DeMatteis: I mean, like there was no stone left unturned. 251 00:15:05,010 --> 00:15:07,730 JM DeMatteis: But he said, feel free to submit again. 252 00:15:07,810 --> 00:15:12,910 JM DeMatteis: So in my mind all I really saw was feel free to submit again. 253 00:15:12,910 --> 00:15:16,350 JM DeMatteis: And I am so grateful to Paul that he even read the stuff in the first place. 254 00:15:16,350 --> 00:15:19,150 JM DeMatteis: It's amazing that he did and he took the time with me. 255 00:15:19,230 --> 00:15:22,910 JM DeMatteis: But through those interactions that got me in the door, pretty cool. 256 00:15:23,390 --> 00:15:24,350 Case: That's awesome. 257 00:15:24,750 --> 00:15:36,360 Case: Now, jumping forward in your career, how did it feel then to then be working on the Twilight Zone TV show when it had its 80s relaunch, if that was sort of like a how you broke into. 258 00:15:36,520 --> 00:15:38,040 JM DeMatteis: Yeah, that was the same kind of thing. 259 00:15:38,040 --> 00:15:45,960 JM DeMatteis: You know, I didn't really know much of anybody out there and I used to, you know, write letters to people on TV shows and try to get through the crack in the door. 260 00:15:46,360 --> 00:15:50,560 JM DeMatteis: And same thing I was reading an article about, oh, they're reviving the Twilight Zone. 261 00:15:50,560 --> 00:15:57,160 JM DeMatteis: And I saw that Alan Brennert, very well known TV writer who had also done some comic book work, was one of the guys on staff. 262 00:15:57,640 --> 00:16:00,400 JM DeMatteis: So this is back in the days, no email, back in the days of letters. 263 00:16:00,400 --> 00:16:12,370 JM DeMatteis: You know, I sat down, I wrote him a letter, stuck it in the mail and he actually wrote back to me, allowed me to pitch to the show and eventually I sold them the story and that got me and that was the first TV script I ever sold. 264 00:16:12,370 --> 00:16:24,930 JM DeMatteis: And for me, a kid who grew up just loving, if not actually living in the Twilight Zone, which I guess I pretty much didn't still do, it was a great thrill to have that be my first sale, to be part of the Twilight Sony. 265 00:16:25,010 --> 00:16:28,770 JM DeMatteis: Obviously the 1980s version, not the 1960s version, right? 266 00:16:30,380 --> 00:16:31,460 Case: No, but that's very cool. 267 00:16:31,460 --> 00:16:45,460 Case: And it makes a lot of sense that you would have been given the opportunity by way of these short form stories that are really riding on the twists or on how well you can spin the narrative to surprise people. 268 00:16:45,460 --> 00:16:47,020 Case: And that's very cool. 269 00:16:47,100 --> 00:16:52,540 JM DeMatteis: It was a great way to learn also, because you had six or eight pages in these comic book stories to tell this story. 270 00:16:52,540 --> 00:16:56,710 JM DeMatteis: And in six or eight pages you needed a strong plot and you needed a character arc. 271 00:16:56,710 --> 00:16:57,310 JM DeMatteis: You know what I mean? 272 00:16:57,310 --> 00:16:59,750 JM DeMatteis: You needed everything that you need in a giant novel. 273 00:16:59,750 --> 00:17:02,150 JM DeMatteis: You needed to telescope down to six or eight pages. 274 00:17:02,310 --> 00:17:07,589 JM DeMatteis: And it was a fantastic way to learn the nuts and bolts of how to write a comic book script. 275 00:17:08,550 --> 00:17:11,669 Case: In that process, what would you say was the most important thing you learned there? 276 00:17:12,310 --> 00:17:12,710 JM DeMatteis: Everything. 277 00:17:13,190 --> 00:17:13,990 JM DeMatteis: You know what I mean? 278 00:17:14,310 --> 00:17:20,150 JM DeMatteis: It was really in those days, honestly, that they were paying me anything that they were even going to print the stories. 279 00:17:20,230 --> 00:17:21,030 JM DeMatteis: I didn't care. 280 00:17:21,790 --> 00:17:26,750 JM DeMatteis: This guy at DC Comic Book Comics was letting me write this script and he was teaching me along the way. 281 00:17:26,750 --> 00:17:29,870 JM DeMatteis: You know, I always say those early days were like comic book college for me. 282 00:17:29,950 --> 00:17:31,230 JM DeMatteis: I worked with Paul Levitz. 283 00:17:31,230 --> 00:17:33,390 JM DeMatteis: I worked with another wonderful editor named Jack Harris. 284 00:17:33,390 --> 00:17:41,910 JM DeMatteis: Then I started working with Len Wein, you know, one of the legends of the business and who took a great interest in my work and became not just my editor, but my mentor and my friend. 285 00:17:41,910 --> 00:17:44,470 JM DeMatteis: And then I worked with Jim Shooter at Marvel. 286 00:17:44,470 --> 00:17:47,490 JM DeMatteis: All these guys were like my professors at comic book companies college. 287 00:17:47,730 --> 00:17:51,330 JM DeMatteis: And it was just a fantastic way to learn and to get paid while I was learning. 288 00:17:51,810 --> 00:17:55,890 JM DeMatteis: Now, obviously they saw something in my work or they wouldn't have kept working with me and paying me. 289 00:17:55,970 --> 00:18:01,930 JM DeMatteis: But for me, it was just like when I see people that start out in any discipline and they already think they know it all. 290 00:18:01,930 --> 00:18:06,290 JM DeMatteis: And I've encountered those people over the years where they ask for your feedback and then you give it and they. 291 00:18:06,290 --> 00:18:09,650 JM DeMatteis: They basically tell you they don't really want it, they just want your stamp of approval. 292 00:18:09,650 --> 00:18:11,730 JM DeMatteis: You know, I was just a sponge. 293 00:18:11,970 --> 00:18:14,270 JM DeMatteis: Teach me, tell me where I'm wrong. 294 00:18:14,270 --> 00:18:15,470 JM DeMatteis: Tell me how to do it right. 295 00:18:15,470 --> 00:18:16,310 JM DeMatteis: I want to learn. 296 00:18:16,310 --> 00:18:17,030 JM DeMatteis: I want to grow. 297 00:18:17,110 --> 00:18:22,630 JM DeMatteis: I still remember Jim Schruted saying to me, you know, you're different than a lot of the guys I work with because you listen to what I say. 298 00:18:22,870 --> 00:18:26,230 JM DeMatteis: And I'm thinking, you're the editor in chief of Marvel Comics. 299 00:18:26,390 --> 00:18:28,709 JM DeMatteis: Why wouldn't I listen to what you have to say? 300 00:18:28,709 --> 00:18:37,870 JM DeMatteis: I want to work here, you know, but there are people out there that are just sort of locked into their little narrow vision that they don't want to expand that vision. 301 00:18:37,870 --> 00:18:38,590 JM DeMatteis: They don't want to learn. 302 00:18:38,590 --> 00:18:39,150 JM DeMatteis: They don't want to grow. 303 00:18:39,150 --> 00:18:40,700 JM DeMatteis: They just want to do it the way they see it. 304 00:18:41,170 --> 00:18:42,610 Case: No, that makes a lot of sense. 305 00:18:43,730 --> 00:18:49,570 Case: Certainly, as you said, hard head is part of the ingredients to go out there. 306 00:18:49,570 --> 00:19:03,890 Case: And so a lot of people are probably not willing to really take in, or a lot of people who think that they have what it takes to be a writer probably are coming at it with that degree of stubbornness that isn't necessarily as open to advice into learning. 307 00:19:04,050 --> 00:19:04,330 JM DeMatteis: Right. 308 00:19:04,330 --> 00:19:06,730 JM DeMatteis: You need that hard head because you're facing rejection. 309 00:19:06,730 --> 00:19:08,410 JM DeMatteis: You're going to get slammed into brick walls. 310 00:19:08,410 --> 00:19:09,490 JM DeMatteis: That's why you need a hard head. 311 00:19:09,710 --> 00:19:12,790 JM DeMatteis: You don't need a hard head to reject the people that are trying to help you. 312 00:19:12,790 --> 00:19:13,310 Jmike: You know? 313 00:19:13,550 --> 00:19:13,950 JM DeMatteis: Right. 314 00:19:14,350 --> 00:19:22,270 JM DeMatteis: Maybe there's one guy in a million or 2 million or 5 million who's so brilliant when he walks in the door that he doesn't need to hear any of this. 315 00:19:22,430 --> 00:19:27,950 JM DeMatteis: But that's not 99% of us, you know, the rest of us, you know, we all have a learning, a growth curve. 316 00:19:28,030 --> 00:19:30,350 JM DeMatteis: You have to, because you walk in and. 317 00:19:30,590 --> 00:19:35,710 JM DeMatteis: All right, just the simple thing about learning what a comic book script is, how it's laid out, how you. 318 00:19:35,710 --> 00:19:36,830 JM DeMatteis: How you write the captions. 319 00:19:37,610 --> 00:19:40,530 JM DeMatteis: When I started with Paul, he gave me a list of rules. 320 00:19:40,530 --> 00:19:48,770 JM DeMatteis: It was like, no more than 35 words per panel, no more than 5.5 panels a page, because it was very strict, because that was a great way to learn. 321 00:19:48,770 --> 00:19:53,770 JM DeMatteis: And I used to sit there and count every word in every caption to make sure I didn't go over. 322 00:19:53,850 --> 00:19:56,170 JM DeMatteis: I would average out the panels on every page. 323 00:19:56,490 --> 00:19:58,170 JM DeMatteis: Now, you've read Justice League. 324 00:19:58,170 --> 00:19:59,890 JM DeMatteis: You know how I blather on in my dialogue. 325 00:19:59,890 --> 00:20:04,730 JM DeMatteis: It's not just 35 words of panel, but it's like, you know, it's like learning a haiku or something. 326 00:20:04,730 --> 00:20:06,000 JM DeMatteis: You learn in. 327 00:20:06,000 --> 00:20:08,320 JM DeMatteis: In it with a very definitive set of rules. 328 00:20:08,400 --> 00:20:10,760 JM DeMatteis: And that's how you learn the basics of the form. 329 00:20:10,760 --> 00:20:16,080 JM DeMatteis: And once you learn the rules, as Paul said to me back then you can break the rules, but learn the rules. 330 00:20:16,080 --> 00:20:16,400 JM DeMatteis: First. 331 00:20:17,840 --> 00:20:20,000 Case: That makes a ton of sense there. 332 00:20:20,000 --> 00:20:22,920 Case: I, I, I'm curious if you still have that sheet. 333 00:20:22,920 --> 00:20:23,440 Case: I would love to. 334 00:20:23,520 --> 00:20:24,080 JM DeMatteis: I do. 335 00:20:24,240 --> 00:20:25,280 Case: I would love to see what that. 336 00:20:25,280 --> 00:20:25,720 JM DeMatteis: I do. 337 00:20:25,720 --> 00:20:26,720 JM DeMatteis: I will email it to you. 338 00:20:26,720 --> 00:20:30,480 JM DeMatteis: I think I have, I think I scanned it because I think I, I put it on my website at one point. 339 00:20:30,720 --> 00:20:33,390 JM DeMatteis: So I will, I will send that off to you. 340 00:20:33,470 --> 00:20:38,110 Case: That, that would be fantastic because I'd love to see what, what the rules are. 341 00:20:40,350 --> 00:20:52,590 JM DeMatteis: Those were the rules said, you know, it doesn't mean someone would say that to you today, but I'm saying it was a fantastic way to learn to not be able to have the freedom to run off at the mouth, to know I have to be as concise as possible to get this information across. 342 00:20:53,390 --> 00:20:56,030 Case: Yeah, that's very cool in that regard. 343 00:20:56,430 --> 00:21:12,520 Case: So you break into comics, you start getting more and more work, and then eventually you jump over to Marvel and you start a fantastic run on Spider man where I'm trying to get to Kraven's Last Hunt is what I'm trying to get to. 344 00:21:12,680 --> 00:21:15,720 Case: Because that's a monumental work there, right? 345 00:21:16,200 --> 00:21:17,080 JM DeMatteis: So they tell me. 346 00:21:19,320 --> 00:21:21,920 Case: Did you know that it was going to be like one of, like the definitive. 347 00:21:21,920 --> 00:21:23,480 JM DeMatteis: No, no, of course not. 348 00:21:23,560 --> 00:21:32,230 JM DeMatteis: There's, you know, any, I always say, anyone that sits down and says, I'm now going to write a monumental work that will be remembered 40 years from now is an idiot. 349 00:21:33,190 --> 00:21:34,630 JM DeMatteis: There's no way of knowing that. 350 00:21:34,710 --> 00:21:38,190 JM DeMatteis: You just, at any given time, at least I can only speak for myself. 351 00:21:38,190 --> 00:21:41,790 JM DeMatteis: You're just trying to write the best story you can write in that moment. 352 00:21:41,790 --> 00:21:42,790 JM DeMatteis: That's all you can do. 353 00:21:42,950 --> 00:21:49,270 JM DeMatteis: And if it hits with the audience and it gets reprinted and reprinted, well, that's the icing on the cake. 354 00:21:49,270 --> 00:21:55,970 JM DeMatteis: But you have no way of knowing that I've written stories that I think are, this is a great story and it goes out there and sinks like a stone. 355 00:21:55,970 --> 00:21:58,450 JM DeMatteis: It's still a great story, but it just didn't connect with the audience. 356 00:21:58,850 --> 00:21:59,450 JM DeMatteis: Other things. 357 00:21:59,450 --> 00:22:07,490 JM DeMatteis: You know, I think Craven is an excellent story, but I don't even think it's the best Spider man story I ever wrote, you know, but that's, it's not up to me. 358 00:22:07,490 --> 00:22:08,529 JM DeMatteis: It's up to the story. 359 00:22:08,529 --> 00:22:13,730 JM DeMatteis: And the audience has a chemistry and the audience chooses which stories are going to lock in that way. 360 00:22:14,130 --> 00:22:16,850 JM DeMatteis: And so, you know, with Craven, it just happened. 361 00:22:16,930 --> 00:22:19,970 JM DeMatteis: And it couldn't have happened for me if I hadn't written Moonshadow first. 362 00:22:19,970 --> 00:22:27,100 JM DeMatteis: Moonshadow was My first book, big creator owned project that I originally did for Epic Comics and later we took it to Vertigo and added more to the story. 363 00:22:27,420 --> 00:22:36,940 JM DeMatteis: But writing Moonshadow, I was able to step out of that Marvel and DC mindset of like, this is how you write comics and just write as if I was writing a novel. 364 00:22:37,179 --> 00:22:38,340 JM DeMatteis: And that freed me up. 365 00:22:38,340 --> 00:22:41,580 JM DeMatteis: It allowed me to find my voice as a writer in a way I never had before. 366 00:22:42,140 --> 00:22:57,670 JM DeMatteis: And that freedom of approach, when I went to step back into the Marvel universe to work on Craven's last hunt, I think that's what allowed me to write that story in the way that I did, along with the fact that I was working with Mike Zack, who's one of the greatest visual storytellers to ever work in mainstream comics. 367 00:22:58,630 --> 00:23:02,150 JM DeMatteis: But that goes back to what I was saying before, when you're working Marvel style. 368 00:23:02,390 --> 00:23:05,030 JM DeMatteis: So Mike Zach is an impeccable storyteller. 369 00:23:05,270 --> 00:23:08,390 JM DeMatteis: Everything I put in that plot is there on the page. 370 00:23:08,710 --> 00:23:10,790 JM DeMatteis: All the surface emotions are there. 371 00:23:10,790 --> 00:23:11,750 JM DeMatteis: I don't have to explain. 372 00:23:12,070 --> 00:23:15,910 JM DeMatteis: I'm angry now, you know, because it's there on the character's face. 373 00:23:16,240 --> 00:23:19,280 JM DeMatteis: The actions as they move from panel to panel are really clear. 374 00:23:19,360 --> 00:23:25,200 JM DeMatteis: So if you look at Craven, 80% of that narrative is interior monologue. 375 00:23:26,400 --> 00:23:31,360 JM DeMatteis: If someone else had drawn that story, I might have had to spend half the time explaining what's in the pictures. 376 00:23:31,680 --> 00:23:38,960 JM DeMatteis: But with Mike, because everything was so clear, I was free to go deeper and deeper into the characters heads, which is my favorite thing to do. 377 00:23:39,520 --> 00:23:40,000 Case: Yeah. 378 00:23:40,480 --> 00:23:44,160 Case: Now we talked a little bit about Justice League and I'm kind of curious about this one. 379 00:23:44,160 --> 00:23:47,600 Case: So I know that you were brought in after to script it from Keith. 380 00:23:48,170 --> 00:23:48,410 Case: What. 381 00:23:49,130 --> 00:23:50,570 Case: How did that process start? 382 00:23:50,570 --> 00:23:51,530 Case: And then how. 383 00:23:51,930 --> 00:23:52,890 Case: What was it like? 384 00:23:53,770 --> 00:23:58,730 Case: Was that the first time you were like scripting from someone else's plot or had you been doing that for other people at that point? 385 00:23:58,730 --> 00:24:00,570 JM DeMatteis: I think I had done it once or twice. 386 00:24:00,570 --> 00:24:06,250 JM DeMatteis: You know, I remember there was a Spider man story that Denny o' Neill had plotted and I dialogued and maybe one other time, something. 387 00:24:06,650 --> 00:24:10,210 JM DeMatteis: But this was different because this became an active collaboration. 388 00:24:10,210 --> 00:24:17,130 JM DeMatteis: But in the beginning, the way it started was, you know, originally I think, you know, they thought Keith would write the book himself, but Keith hadn't. 389 00:24:17,370 --> 00:24:22,570 JM DeMatteis: Keith, as great as he is, as a plotter at that point, didn't feel that he. 390 00:24:22,570 --> 00:24:24,850 JM DeMatteis: He didn't have the confidence to go ahead and do the scripting. 391 00:24:24,850 --> 00:24:28,810 JM DeMatteis: I think he was more than capable, honestly, but he didn't have the confidence at that point. 392 00:24:29,210 --> 00:24:33,530 JM DeMatteis: And Andy Helfer, our editor, one of the best editors to ever sit behind a desk at DC Comics. 393 00:24:33,850 --> 00:24:36,930 JM DeMatteis: I had worked with him on the end of the previous Justice League. 394 00:24:36,930 --> 00:24:40,850 JM DeMatteis: I wrote the last six or eight issues where we wrapped up that Detroit Justice League sleep. 395 00:24:41,090 --> 00:24:43,610 JM DeMatteis: So he wanted to bring me on to script Keith's stuff. 396 00:24:43,610 --> 00:24:46,290 JM DeMatteis: And I'm reading Keith's plots and I'm thinking, this guy doesn't need me. 397 00:24:46,290 --> 00:24:48,850 JM DeMatteis: I really fought with him for the first six months or so. 398 00:24:48,850 --> 00:24:49,690 JM DeMatteis: You don't need a couple. 399 00:24:49,690 --> 00:24:50,210 JM DeMatteis: You don't need me. 400 00:24:50,210 --> 00:24:50,690 JM DeMatteis: You don't need me. 401 00:24:50,690 --> 00:24:54,290 JM DeMatteis: And then I realized, oh my God, I'm having such a good time working on this book. 402 00:24:54,770 --> 00:24:58,170 JM DeMatteis: My, my fear was that this is so easy and effortless. 403 00:24:58,170 --> 00:25:00,130 JM DeMatteis: There something must be wrong, you know. 404 00:25:00,290 --> 00:25:04,130 JM DeMatteis: Then I realized, oh no, wait, it's easy, it's effortless and it's good and I'm having fun. 405 00:25:04,130 --> 00:25:04,850 JM DeMatteis: I think I'll stick around. 406 00:25:04,850 --> 00:25:11,590 JM DeMatteis: And the next thing I knew, it was five years later of Justice League Europe, Justice League Quarterly, all these spin off miniseries, all these other projects. 407 00:25:11,910 --> 00:25:14,950 JM DeMatteis: Justice League consumed my life for like a good five years there. 408 00:25:15,110 --> 00:25:20,070 JM DeMatteis: And it's just, we just naturally, you know, in the beginning there's always a little self consciousness. 409 00:25:20,070 --> 00:25:21,470 JM DeMatteis: How far can I go with the script? 410 00:25:21,470 --> 00:25:22,710 JM DeMatteis: How far can I push this? 411 00:25:22,950 --> 00:25:27,110 JM DeMatteis: And then I saw that Keith andy gave me lots of leeway to play through the scripts. 412 00:25:27,430 --> 00:25:31,990 JM DeMatteis: Keith's plots were brilliant and he was always surprising me with his amazing ideas. 413 00:25:32,480 --> 00:25:35,200 JM DeMatteis: And he gave me all the freedom I needed to do what I wanted to do. 414 00:25:35,360 --> 00:25:37,520 JM DeMatteis: And we just got into a rhythm together. 415 00:25:38,400 --> 00:25:50,240 JM DeMatteis: And, and of course we also had, in the beginning, first year and a half, we had Kevin McGuire who was perfect for that series because it depended so much not on superhero action, but on character interaction. 416 00:25:50,400 --> 00:25:55,480 JM DeMatteis: And Kevin does acting on the comic book page better than anybody in the history of comics as far as I'm concerned. 417 00:25:55,480 --> 00:25:57,360 Case: Oh yeah, his faces are just amazing. 418 00:25:57,520 --> 00:26:01,600 JM DeMatteis: I always say, if Kevin had not been drawing that book in the beginning, we might not be talking about it today. 419 00:26:01,820 --> 00:26:04,820 JM DeMatteis: Was the right group of people that Andy pulled us together. 420 00:26:04,820 --> 00:26:06,140 JM DeMatteis: And Andy was a great editor. 421 00:26:06,380 --> 00:26:12,620 JM DeMatteis: He knew when to restrain Keith because Keith left to his own will, go as far out into the far reaches as anyone. 422 00:26:12,620 --> 00:26:15,220 JM DeMatteis: And he also added, you say to me, just write as much as you want. 423 00:26:15,220 --> 00:26:15,540 JM DeMatteis: If you. 424 00:26:15,540 --> 00:26:18,059 JM DeMatteis: If there's too much dialogue on the page, I'll just cut it back. 425 00:26:18,140 --> 00:26:20,140 JM DeMatteis: So I was free to just blather on. 426 00:26:20,940 --> 00:26:22,780 JM DeMatteis: And it all somehow worked. 427 00:26:23,020 --> 00:26:25,980 JM DeMatteis: But I always say the joke of it was you know, we did that for five years. 428 00:26:26,460 --> 00:26:28,020 JM DeMatteis: But same thing as you said before. 429 00:26:28,020 --> 00:26:29,780 JM DeMatteis: We're not thinking, oh, this is a great book. 430 00:26:29,780 --> 00:26:31,660 JM DeMatteis: We knew it was very successful at the time. 431 00:26:32,160 --> 00:26:33,520 JM DeMatteis: People liked it sold well. 432 00:26:33,600 --> 00:26:36,280 JM DeMatteis: But once the gig was over. 433 00:26:36,280 --> 00:26:39,400 JM DeMatteis: It was just, you know, as a freelancer, you're just moving on to your next gig. 434 00:26:39,400 --> 00:26:43,840 JM DeMatteis: You're not looking back thinking, what a great achievement I just concluded, you know, or anything like that. 435 00:26:43,920 --> 00:26:45,920 JM DeMatteis: You're just like, how am I going to pay the rent next month? 436 00:26:47,360 --> 00:26:50,880 JM DeMatteis: And so we didn't come back together again for 10 years till we did. 437 00:26:50,880 --> 00:26:52,480 JM DeMatteis: Formerly known as the Justice League. 438 00:26:52,480 --> 00:26:52,800 JM DeMatteis: Right. 439 00:26:52,800 --> 00:26:55,320 Case: Which I wanted to bring up just because I love that. 440 00:26:55,320 --> 00:26:56,840 Case: And I can't believe it's not Justice League. 441 00:26:56,840 --> 00:26:57,280 Case: Yeah. 442 00:26:57,440 --> 00:26:57,920 JM DeMatteis: Yeah. 443 00:26:58,080 --> 00:27:00,320 JM DeMatteis: And that's when we all kind of went. 444 00:27:01,200 --> 00:27:01,960 JM DeMatteis: And this is true. 445 00:27:01,960 --> 00:27:05,560 JM DeMatteis: It took us 10 years later to go, so this is really good, what we do together. 446 00:27:05,560 --> 00:27:07,040 JM DeMatteis: We should really keep doing this. 447 00:27:07,040 --> 00:27:07,720 JM DeMatteis: And we did. 448 00:27:07,720 --> 00:27:10,400 JM DeMatteis: Especially Keith and I did many more projects together. 449 00:27:10,640 --> 00:27:13,160 JM DeMatteis: We did several more projects with Kevin along the way. 450 00:27:13,160 --> 00:27:19,200 JM DeMatteis: I'm working on a project with Kevin right now for Dark Horse, for the Minor Threats universe that Pat Noswal and Jordan Blum have created. 451 00:27:19,600 --> 00:27:22,600 JM DeMatteis: So that was the first time we kind of went, this is really good. 452 00:27:22,600 --> 00:27:23,600 JM DeMatteis: Let's keep doing it. 453 00:27:23,600 --> 00:27:32,670 JM DeMatteis: And the longer Keith and I did it, the looser it became, the more, you know, if Keith and I would discuss a story, then he'd go and do the plot and he'd change everything. 454 00:27:32,670 --> 00:27:34,070 JM DeMatteis: And by the time I got the plot, I didn't. 455 00:27:34,070 --> 00:27:34,350 JM DeMatteis: It was. 456 00:27:34,350 --> 00:27:36,710 JM DeMatteis: Had no relation to what he first told me, and. 457 00:27:36,710 --> 00:27:38,750 JM DeMatteis: And I was free to do the same thing with the script. 458 00:27:38,750 --> 00:27:41,230 JM DeMatteis: And it just always worked it with Keith. 459 00:27:41,230 --> 00:27:42,670 JM DeMatteis: It became like a mind meld. 460 00:27:43,550 --> 00:27:44,990 JM DeMatteis: If I didn't even need. 461 00:27:45,470 --> 00:27:46,910 JM DeMatteis: On some level, I could have. 462 00:27:46,910 --> 00:27:49,910 JM DeMatteis: I could sit down and Write a Giffen DeMattea story right now. 463 00:27:49,910 --> 00:27:51,470 JM DeMatteis: Because Keith lives in my head. 464 00:27:51,550 --> 00:27:56,480 JM DeMatteis: Do you know, there's a certain space I would get into when we're working together. 465 00:27:57,040 --> 00:28:02,560 JM DeMatteis: And it brought out a certain aspect of my personality and my writing that didn't come out otherwise. 466 00:28:02,880 --> 00:28:08,320 JM DeMatteis: So, as I said before, kind of we came together to create something together that we couldn't really do individually. 467 00:28:09,200 --> 00:28:09,560 Case: Yeah. 468 00:28:09,560 --> 00:28:12,200 Case: And it created something that has stood the test of time. 469 00:28:12,200 --> 00:28:13,680 Case: There's so many reprints of it. 470 00:28:13,680 --> 00:28:17,040 Case: There's just wonderful stuff. 471 00:28:17,520 --> 00:28:24,150 Case: Regarding the I Can't Believe It's Not Justice League era, whose decision was it to have Fire and Mary Marvel have. 472 00:28:24,220 --> 00:28:27,380 Case: Have this sort of like, kind of like Sisterly bond in it or like. 473 00:28:27,380 --> 00:28:28,620 JM DeMatteis: I think that came from Keith. 474 00:28:28,620 --> 00:28:29,740 JM DeMatteis: That was there in the plot. 475 00:28:29,740 --> 00:28:31,420 JM DeMatteis: Yeah, that was there in the plot. 476 00:28:31,740 --> 00:28:36,220 JM DeMatteis: You know, the other funny thing about that formerly known as was we hadn't done it for 10 years. 477 00:28:36,380 --> 00:28:47,500 JM DeMatteis: And my fear going in was, I don't know if you've ever seen these like, TV reunion movies where like, it's like 20 years after, you know, Andy of Mayberry or whatever, they get the whole cast back together and usually it's just awful. 478 00:28:48,060 --> 00:28:54,740 JM DeMatteis: And that was my fear, is that were going to get together and it was just going to just fall apart and be like a terrible TV reunion movie. 479 00:28:54,820 --> 00:29:01,500 JM DeMatteis: And I remember being maybe four or five pages in and realizing, oh, I'm having more fun than I ever had with this and this is just great. 480 00:29:01,500 --> 00:29:02,980 JM DeMatteis: And it just took off from there. 481 00:29:02,980 --> 00:29:04,420 JM DeMatteis: But it could have gone the other way. 482 00:29:05,700 --> 00:29:16,900 Case: Well, as far as things that live rent free in people's heads, the scene of Mary Marvel beating up Captain Atom is always a scene that I'm going to remember just because I am a gigantic Shazam fanboy. 483 00:29:18,170 --> 00:29:29,530 JM DeMatteis: Yeah, that's one of the things from the original Justice League because we had Captain Marvel in the original, in our original JLI issues and there was some rights thing that we couldn't keep him around for more than X number of issues, so we had to leave the book. 484 00:29:29,610 --> 00:29:30,490 JM DeMatteis: But we could have. 485 00:29:30,650 --> 00:29:40,210 JM DeMatteis: I would have kept him around forever because I love that split of the fact that he was played at that point in time he was in an adult body, but he was basically a kid. 486 00:29:40,210 --> 00:29:45,360 JM DeMatteis: And we played him like a very innocent kid in this super body and he was great. 487 00:29:45,360 --> 00:29:48,880 JM DeMatteis: To have someone like that playing off Guy Gardner was just perfect. 488 00:29:51,280 --> 00:29:52,720 Case: Yeah, Captain White Bread, right? 489 00:29:52,800 --> 00:29:54,000 JM DeMatteis: Yeah, Captain White Bread. 490 00:29:54,000 --> 00:29:54,640 JM DeMatteis: Exactly. 491 00:29:54,720 --> 00:29:55,520 JM DeMatteis: Exactly. 492 00:29:56,480 --> 00:30:01,160 Case: So moving on or circling back to Marvel and I'm sorry for just jumping all over the place. 493 00:30:01,160 --> 00:30:01,880 JM DeMatteis: No, no, it's okay. 494 00:30:01,880 --> 00:30:02,960 JM DeMatteis: Jump wherever you want to jump. 495 00:30:03,120 --> 00:30:21,350 Case: I want to talk about Maximum Carnage for a moment there because I think even though it's a Spider man book and not a Spider man or not a Superman thing, I think that the thesis of it, at least as far as I understand it really fills in like, is the archetype of that. 496 00:30:21,350 --> 00:30:35,670 Case: We try to talk about a very optimistic one in the long run of it that a, that even in the face of like just truly vile evil, Spider man doesn't give in to being like a Punisher style vigilante in that moment. 497 00:30:35,670 --> 00:30:35,950 JM DeMatteis: Right. 498 00:30:35,950 --> 00:30:36,630 JM DeMatteis: Has, Right. 499 00:30:36,630 --> 00:30:41,840 Case: It has this sort of like the. 500 00:30:42,080 --> 00:30:43,600 Case: Where he comes through it all is. 501 00:30:43,600 --> 00:30:43,920 JM DeMatteis: He. 502 00:30:44,000 --> 00:30:47,520 Case: He truly is a hero at the end of the day, that he really defeats. 503 00:30:47,840 --> 00:30:50,720 Case: He defeats Carnage and doesn't give up on his morals. 504 00:30:51,120 --> 00:30:51,600 JM DeMatteis: Yeah. 505 00:30:51,600 --> 00:31:00,960 Case: And I always thought that was such a great just distillation of the superhero on paper right there. 506 00:31:01,200 --> 00:31:01,600 JM DeMatteis: And. 507 00:31:01,600 --> 00:31:02,400 Case: And what. 508 00:31:04,160 --> 00:31:05,120 Case: How much of that is. 509 00:31:05,120 --> 00:31:05,680 Case: Is you. 510 00:31:05,680 --> 00:31:06,080 Case: Because. 511 00:31:06,080 --> 00:31:08,240 Case: Because there were a bunch of writers on Maximum Carnage. 512 00:31:08,240 --> 00:31:10,000 Case: But I believe you wrote the last issue, right? 513 00:31:10,920 --> 00:31:11,160 JM DeMatteis: I. 514 00:31:11,240 --> 00:31:14,600 JM DeMatteis: It's been so long, I don't know, I couldn't tell you. 515 00:31:14,840 --> 00:31:17,120 JM DeMatteis: I think maybe Tom DeFalco and I wrapped it up. 516 00:31:17,120 --> 00:31:21,800 JM DeMatteis: I. I think I wrote maybe the last regular issue and then Tom did some. 517 00:31:22,040 --> 00:31:22,480 JM DeMatteis: There was. 518 00:31:22,480 --> 00:31:26,360 JM DeMatteis: Was there a Spider Man Quarterly or something where they wrapped the story up with a longer story? 519 00:31:26,760 --> 00:31:27,160 JM DeMatteis: I. 520 00:31:27,240 --> 00:31:28,600 JM DeMatteis: But you know, it was the 90s. 521 00:31:28,600 --> 00:31:29,200 JM DeMatteis: I don't remember. 522 00:31:29,200 --> 00:31:29,640 Case: It's been. 523 00:31:29,640 --> 00:31:30,800 Case: It's been a little while for me too. 524 00:31:30,800 --> 00:31:35,720 Case: But it stands out because like back, I mean 99. 525 00:31:36,500 --> 00:31:36,780 Case: Okay. 526 00:31:36,780 --> 00:31:39,180 Case: So again, part of this is child of the 80s and 90s. 527 00:31:39,180 --> 00:31:42,260 Case: So like that is a comic book that's always just going to stick out for me. 528 00:31:42,500 --> 00:31:45,780 Case: But it had, you know, a huge amount of cultural cachet. 529 00:31:45,780 --> 00:31:51,220 Case: Like we often talk on the show about how things that spin off into other media often are remembered really well. 530 00:31:51,620 --> 00:31:52,420 Case: It's one of the. 531 00:31:52,580 --> 00:32:01,220 Case: And it had a video game that while not the most successful video game, I probably bought it just in terms of the amount of times I've rented it back in the day. 532 00:32:01,220 --> 00:32:04,230 JM DeMatteis: And again, that's another story that's been reprinted again and again over the. 533 00:32:04,380 --> 00:32:04,780 JM DeMatteis: The years. 534 00:32:05,580 --> 00:32:05,980 JM DeMatteis: It. 535 00:32:05,980 --> 00:32:07,740 JM DeMatteis: And actually they just put out. 536 00:32:07,900 --> 00:32:09,300 JM DeMatteis: It's coming out I think next week. 537 00:32:09,300 --> 00:32:12,300 JM DeMatteis: The Spectacular Spider man omnibus of my work with Sal Buscema. 538 00:32:12,460 --> 00:32:15,420 JM DeMatteis: And it's got all our Maximum Carnage chapters in there as well. 539 00:32:16,060 --> 00:32:16,700 Case: Fantastic. 540 00:32:17,020 --> 00:32:19,300 JM DeMatteis: So, yeah, so yeah, I mean my favorite. 541 00:32:19,300 --> 00:32:20,339 JM DeMatteis: My favorite thing in. 542 00:32:20,339 --> 00:32:25,020 JM DeMatteis: In all of Maximum Carnage because I had some problems with it as well, which we don't have to get into. 543 00:32:25,340 --> 00:32:29,740 JM DeMatteis: And it's the problem with a lot of these crossovers for one thing that they just go on too long, you know. 544 00:32:30,050 --> 00:32:35,410 JM DeMatteis: But there is a scene where basically Spider Man's had the crap kicked out of him. 545 00:32:35,650 --> 00:32:41,970 JM DeMatteis: And it's like, I think I can't remember whether it's like a 9 or a 12 panel grid of Spider man kind of crawling through the dirt. 546 00:32:42,210 --> 00:32:43,210 JM DeMatteis: They're in Central Park. 547 00:32:43,210 --> 00:32:46,530 JM DeMatteis: I think getting closer to the camera in the last panel, you see these boots. 548 00:32:46,770 --> 00:32:53,970 JM DeMatteis: Then you open up to this beautiful Sal Busamet double page spread and it's Captain America reaching out a hand to Spider Man. 549 00:32:54,210 --> 00:32:58,850 JM DeMatteis: And, you know, Captain America embodies all those things you talk about that are there in Superman. 550 00:32:59,840 --> 00:33:04,440 JM DeMatteis: And that was sort of the turning point of the story when Captain America entered it, you know, because here's. 551 00:33:04,440 --> 00:33:05,200 JM DeMatteis: Here's Peter. 552 00:33:05,200 --> 00:33:14,600 JM DeMatteis: He's doing his best, and that's Peter's thing, you know, he'll always do his best, but he's flawed and he will screw up and things will go wrong, but he'll keep trying. 553 00:33:14,600 --> 00:33:20,360 JM DeMatteis: And then Captain America is there as far as the embodiment of all those qualities, and Peter reaching out a hand to lift him up. 554 00:33:20,360 --> 00:33:25,450 JM DeMatteis: And I purposely wrote it that way because Sal is one of the best Captain America artists ever in my book. 555 00:33:25,690 --> 00:33:29,530 JM DeMatteis: So to get that double page spread of a sale, Captain America was just like, fantastic. 556 00:33:29,530 --> 00:33:32,010 JM DeMatteis: It's one of my favorite Sal pages of all time. 557 00:33:32,650 --> 00:33:33,290 Case: Fantastic. 558 00:33:33,290 --> 00:33:38,570 Case: Yeah, I remember the panel, and it is truly just awesome stuff. 559 00:33:40,570 --> 00:33:40,970 JM DeMatteis: Sal. 560 00:33:41,050 --> 00:33:42,890 JM DeMatteis: Sal, phenomenal storyteller. 561 00:33:42,890 --> 00:33:45,370 JM DeMatteis: And I think our work on Spectacular is. 562 00:33:45,530 --> 00:33:51,010 JM DeMatteis: It was one of those things where, you know, I always say, you can't create just the way you can't create chemistry between two people. 563 00:33:51,010 --> 00:33:57,840 JM DeMatteis: You meet somebody, you can't force that chemistry and force yourself to like them, even if they're the nicest person on the planet. 564 00:33:57,920 --> 00:34:00,160 JM DeMatteis: You just have chemistry with someone or you don't. 565 00:34:00,240 --> 00:34:02,040 JM DeMatteis: And it's the same thing with a writer and artist. 566 00:34:02,040 --> 00:34:06,720 JM DeMatteis: You can have a great writer and a great artist, and you put them together on the page and it doesn't work. 567 00:34:06,880 --> 00:34:14,960 JM DeMatteis: And with Sal on that run from the first page, first panel, something clicked and it was just fantastic working with him on that. 568 00:34:15,120 --> 00:34:15,760 JM DeMatteis: We just. 569 00:34:16,000 --> 00:34:16,440 JM DeMatteis: Same thing. 570 00:34:16,440 --> 00:34:20,370 JM DeMatteis: You get into a mind meld and you just understand each other and you flow together. 571 00:34:20,690 --> 00:34:22,170 JM DeMatteis: I love working with him. 572 00:34:22,170 --> 00:34:23,170 JM DeMatteis: And I'm so happy. 573 00:34:23,570 --> 00:34:27,730 JM DeMatteis: I've been waiting literally decades for them to finally collect this stuff. 574 00:34:27,730 --> 00:34:31,850 JM DeMatteis: And I got advanced copies of this omnibus last week, and it's just beautiful. 575 00:34:31,850 --> 00:34:32,929 JM DeMatteis: I'm so happy about it. 576 00:34:33,090 --> 00:34:33,810 Case: That's so cool. 577 00:34:33,810 --> 00:34:36,610 Case: I can't wait to see that in the store and pick that up. 578 00:34:36,850 --> 00:34:37,330 JM DeMatteis: Yeah. 579 00:34:37,570 --> 00:34:41,010 Case: Shifting from Maximum Carnage to maximum Clonage. 580 00:34:42,210 --> 00:34:42,770 Case: Okay. 581 00:34:42,770 --> 00:34:44,530 Case: I don't really have much to say about Maximum Clone. 582 00:34:44,850 --> 00:34:47,370 Case: Talk about a run or a crossover that went on too long. 583 00:34:48,239 --> 00:34:48,520 JM DeMatteis: Yes. 584 00:34:48,520 --> 00:34:53,520 JM DeMatteis: And I put on my parachute and jumped out about, I don't know, a third of the way through. 585 00:34:54,080 --> 00:34:57,840 Case: But I always appreciated that you have championed Ben Reilly, a character that I have. 586 00:34:57,840 --> 00:34:58,720 JM DeMatteis: I love Ben. 587 00:34:58,720 --> 00:35:03,720 JM DeMatteis: I mean, a lot of great, you know, the clone saga, actually, it's Funny, it did go on too long, but there was a lot. 588 00:35:03,720 --> 00:35:04,640 JM DeMatteis: And it went on too long. 589 00:35:04,640 --> 00:35:08,960 JM DeMatteis: Not because of the creators, but because the marketing said, this is a big hit. 590 00:35:08,960 --> 00:35:09,520 JM DeMatteis: Keep it going. 591 00:35:09,920 --> 00:35:12,720 JM DeMatteis: And kept going and going and going. 592 00:35:14,160 --> 00:35:22,150 JM DeMatteis: And then when it came to the end, from what I gather from the folks that were working on at the time, you know, nobody in the position of power could agree on how they wanted it to end. 593 00:35:22,150 --> 00:35:23,350 JM DeMatteis: So it was just a lot of. 594 00:35:23,990 --> 00:35:27,510 JM DeMatteis: A lot of struggle there for them, the guys that working on the books at the time. 595 00:35:27,590 --> 00:35:30,310 JM DeMatteis: But you had great characters like Ben Reilly and Kane. 596 00:35:30,310 --> 00:35:33,030 JM DeMatteis: There was a lot of great stuff in those stories. 597 00:35:33,350 --> 00:35:35,670 JM DeMatteis: And I got to do some of my favorite Spider man stories. 598 00:35:35,670 --> 00:35:37,990 JM DeMatteis: I did a miniseries with Ben Reilly called the Lost Years. 599 00:35:38,070 --> 00:35:38,430 Case: Yeah. 600 00:35:38,430 --> 00:35:40,150 JM DeMatteis: Which I think is one of the best things I've ever done. 601 00:35:40,230 --> 00:35:43,070 JM DeMatteis: I did Amazing Spider Man 400 with the death of Aunt May. 602 00:35:43,070 --> 00:35:45,150 JM DeMatteis: I think one of the best Spider man stories I've ever done. 603 00:35:45,230 --> 00:35:46,830 JM DeMatteis: There was a lot of great stuff in there. 604 00:35:46,830 --> 00:35:58,790 JM DeMatteis: So whenever it was three years ago, when Marvel called and said, hey, do you want to do a story with Ben Reilly story set right in that moment when he took over the Spider man identity, I didn't. 605 00:35:58,790 --> 00:36:00,350 JM DeMatteis: I didn't have to think about it because I. 606 00:36:00,670 --> 00:36:08,590 JM DeMatteis: You get to know these characters in a very intimate way, to the point where, as crazy as it sounds, or if you're a writer, then it won't sound crazy to you. 607 00:36:08,830 --> 00:36:10,510 JM DeMatteis: They're not characters, they're people. 608 00:36:11,380 --> 00:36:16,660 JM DeMatteis: I've often said I know Peter Parker better than I know some of my friends because I know every thought in his head when I'm writing him. 609 00:36:17,300 --> 00:36:19,620 JM DeMatteis: And the same way with Ben, I got to know Ben so well. 610 00:36:19,620 --> 00:36:23,460 JM DeMatteis: So to write that series was like, oh, Ben Reilly, I haven't seen you in a few years. 611 00:36:23,460 --> 00:36:26,340 JM DeMatteis: Let's sit down and have lunch and catch up, you know, and. 612 00:36:26,900 --> 00:36:34,820 JM DeMatteis: And you get to know them again and all, you know, those friendships where you haven't seen somebody in five years and you start talking and instantaneously you pick up where you left off before. 613 00:36:35,060 --> 00:36:36,100 JM DeMatteis: That's how it was with. 614 00:36:36,100 --> 00:36:37,340 JM DeMatteis: With that Ben Reilly series. 615 00:36:37,340 --> 00:36:38,880 JM DeMatteis: I just had a great time with it. 616 00:36:38,880 --> 00:36:42,480 Case: Well, I just wanted to thank you for that as a giant Ben Reilly fan. 617 00:36:43,600 --> 00:36:48,480 Case: When I saw the more recent Ben Reilly book that came out a couple of years ago, I was like, thank God. 618 00:36:50,400 --> 00:36:51,920 Case: Snapping back into that era for the. 619 00:36:51,920 --> 00:36:54,080 JM DeMatteis: Character was, yeah, I loved it. 620 00:36:54,080 --> 00:36:54,519 JM DeMatteis: I loved it. 621 00:36:54,519 --> 00:36:59,280 JM DeMatteis: And that we got to work in a little crack where we didn't know there were stories to be told that hadn't been told before. 622 00:36:59,920 --> 00:37:09,300 JM DeMatteis: Marvel has done a bunch of these sort of retro stories in recent years, and I've done, I don't know, working on what may be my fourth Spider man miniseries in the past three or four years right now. 623 00:37:09,460 --> 00:37:13,060 JM DeMatteis: But if you just do it as a nostalgia piece, it's useless. 624 00:37:14,260 --> 00:37:15,940 JM DeMatteis: The story has to mean something. 625 00:37:16,340 --> 00:37:17,300 JM DeMatteis: You know, just to go back. 626 00:37:17,300 --> 00:37:19,420 JM DeMatteis: Let's go back to the old days and recapture that. 627 00:37:19,420 --> 00:37:22,900 JM DeMatteis: You know, that's like, okay, I'll go listen to a record I liked when I was 12. 628 00:37:23,540 --> 00:37:24,540 JM DeMatteis: That's not what you want. 629 00:37:24,540 --> 00:37:28,500 JM DeMatteis: You want something fresh, some new insights into the character, some new depth. 630 00:37:28,500 --> 00:37:29,380 JM DeMatteis: And that's what I've. 631 00:37:29,460 --> 00:37:30,300 JM DeMatteis: I've tried to do. 632 00:37:30,300 --> 00:37:30,940 JM DeMatteis: I did with that. 633 00:37:30,940 --> 00:37:34,250 JM DeMatteis: With that Ben Reilly series and all the other minis that I've done since then. 634 00:37:34,250 --> 00:37:35,170 JM DeMatteis: You want to go back? 635 00:37:35,250 --> 00:37:42,450 JM DeMatteis: I did one called Shadow of the Green Goblin last year, and it took place within the first couple of weeks of Peter becoming Spider Man. 636 00:37:43,410 --> 00:37:45,290 JM DeMatteis: And it's like, okay, let's really look at that. 637 00:37:45,290 --> 00:37:46,410 JM DeMatteis: Let's see where Peter was. 638 00:37:46,410 --> 00:37:47,850 JM DeMatteis: Let's see where Norman Osborn was. 639 00:37:47,850 --> 00:37:53,250 JM DeMatteis: Let's see where Gwen and Harry and all these characters were, and show them in a light that maybe we haven't seen before. 640 00:37:53,490 --> 00:37:59,260 JM DeMatteis: Because if you can't find something new to say, then you shouldn't be saying anything that. 641 00:38:00,460 --> 00:38:00,940 Case: Yeah. 642 00:38:01,180 --> 00:38:11,900 Case: Especially now with the availability of so much material just in the DC and the Marvel apps, for example, you can go back and read those books. 643 00:38:12,140 --> 00:38:20,140 Case: I keep being astounded at the number of fans that I find online that are in their teens or 20s who are deeply invested in books from the 80s and 90s. 644 00:38:20,860 --> 00:38:21,340 JM DeMatteis: Yeah. 645 00:38:21,420 --> 00:38:22,540 JM DeMatteis: I'm always astonished. 646 00:38:22,540 --> 00:38:26,470 JM DeMatteis: I was just at San Diego Comic Con for the first time since 2005. 647 00:38:26,470 --> 00:38:27,430 JM DeMatteis: It was quite a trip. 648 00:38:27,910 --> 00:38:48,990 JM DeMatteis: And I'm doing a signing, and these two girls come up, and they look like maybe at most they're 20 or 21, and they're dressed like Beetle and Booster from JLI, and they are completely into this stuff, you know, so obviously, you know, the whole new generations of fans are finding this older material and taking it to heart. 649 00:38:48,990 --> 00:38:49,390 JM DeMatteis: It's. 650 00:38:49,390 --> 00:38:50,390 JM DeMatteis: It's an amazing thing. 651 00:38:50,880 --> 00:38:51,040 Case: Yeah. 652 00:38:51,040 --> 00:38:54,120 Case: We should pause and just note that J. Mike is a gigantic Booster Gold fan. 653 00:38:54,120 --> 00:38:54,560 JM DeMatteis: Yep. 654 00:38:55,760 --> 00:38:56,600 Jmike: It was gonna come up. 655 00:38:56,600 --> 00:38:57,320 Jmike: It was gonna come up. 656 00:38:57,320 --> 00:38:58,160 Jmike: I was waiting for it. 657 00:38:58,720 --> 00:39:00,680 Case: J Mike, I've been doing a lot of the talking. 658 00:39:00,680 --> 00:39:03,360 Case: Do you have any Booster Gold questions or anything else you want to throw? 659 00:39:03,360 --> 00:39:04,080 Jmike: Oh, my God. 660 00:39:04,880 --> 00:39:06,240 Jmike: Well, I mean, because it's. 661 00:39:06,399 --> 00:39:07,520 Jmike: The series is Coming up. 662 00:39:07,520 --> 00:39:09,760 Jmike: Was that on the max soon, I hope. 663 00:39:09,920 --> 00:39:11,040 Jmike: Super excited for it. 664 00:39:11,040 --> 00:39:12,280 Jmike: But, like, what was it like? 665 00:39:12,280 --> 00:39:15,280 Jmike: Like pinning the stories and coming up with ideas and stuff for that series. 666 00:39:15,280 --> 00:39:16,120 Jmike: Plus, I see Dr. 667 00:39:16,120 --> 00:39:16,960 Jmike: Fate behind you, too. 668 00:39:17,350 --> 00:39:19,270 Jmike: He's also another one of my favorite characters. 669 00:39:19,670 --> 00:39:21,310 JM DeMatteis: Yeah, they just collected my Dr. 670 00:39:21,310 --> 00:39:22,710 JM DeMatteis: Fate run, just came out last month. 671 00:39:22,710 --> 00:39:26,150 JM DeMatteis: And another one I've been waiting years for them to collect. 672 00:39:26,310 --> 00:39:39,830 JM DeMatteis: You know, with the characters kind of going back to what I was saying about Ben Reilly, it's really about following the characters, you know, Keith and I didn't sit down and say, let's put Beetle and Booster together and kind of make them the Abbott and Costello in between. 673 00:39:39,990 --> 00:39:40,790 JM DeMatteis: You know what I mean? 674 00:39:42,070 --> 00:39:44,990 JM DeMatteis: If we had thought about it consciously, it probably wouldn't work. 675 00:39:44,990 --> 00:39:54,450 JM DeMatteis: But there were a couple of scenes where they were together and Keith set up some really fun situations and I got them talking to each other and there was something there on the page that we hit it off. 676 00:39:54,610 --> 00:39:56,450 JM DeMatteis: Yeah, exactly Right. 677 00:39:56,530 --> 00:39:57,570 JM DeMatteis: They hit it off. 678 00:39:57,650 --> 00:39:58,890 JM DeMatteis: So we followed that. 679 00:39:58,890 --> 00:39:59,730 JM DeMatteis: They led us. 680 00:39:59,730 --> 00:40:00,810 JM DeMatteis: We didn't lead them. 681 00:40:00,810 --> 00:40:09,370 JM DeMatteis: You know, I, I, I, I, I, I hesitate to admit this, but before I worked on jli, I had no clue who Booster Gold even was. 682 00:40:09,370 --> 00:40:10,930 JM DeMatteis: I knew the character existed. 683 00:40:11,250 --> 00:40:14,690 JM DeMatteis: I'd never read the story, so I would follow Keith's lead in the plot. 684 00:40:15,500 --> 00:40:22,940 JM DeMatteis: And, and we developed basically our version of Booster, you know, and I've never heard a negative word about it from Dan Jurgens. 685 00:40:22,940 --> 00:40:29,460 JM DeMatteis: So God bless him for liking what we did, you know, because it's his character, that we wouldn't have been able to do anything without Dan Jurgens. 686 00:40:29,460 --> 00:40:29,740 JM DeMatteis: Right. 687 00:40:29,820 --> 00:40:31,820 JM DeMatteis: But the same thing, the characters let us through. 688 00:40:31,820 --> 00:40:38,940 JM DeMatteis: And years later, maybe like, I don't know, 10 years ago, Keith and I did a run on the regular Booster Gold book and suddenly. 689 00:40:38,940 --> 00:40:40,100 JM DeMatteis: What was the robot's name was? 690 00:40:40,100 --> 00:40:40,500 JM DeMatteis: Skeets. 691 00:40:40,500 --> 00:40:40,700 JM DeMatteis: Right. 692 00:40:40,700 --> 00:40:41,100 Jmike: Yeah. 693 00:40:42,850 --> 00:40:46,210 JM DeMatteis: The whole time were writing jli, Skeets was never there. 694 00:40:46,370 --> 00:40:46,770 JM DeMatteis: Right. 695 00:40:47,250 --> 00:40:56,010 JM DeMatteis: I didn't notice because I didn't even know who Skeets was, you know, so here we are, like, you know, 20 years later, and suddenly I'm writing, oh, who's this? 696 00:40:56,010 --> 00:40:58,010 JM DeMatteis: Oh, he's been there since the beginning of the character. 697 00:40:58,010 --> 00:40:58,850 JM DeMatteis: I didn't even know. 698 00:40:58,930 --> 00:41:01,930 JM DeMatteis: Yeah, but it all seemed to work out. 699 00:41:01,930 --> 00:41:03,170 JM DeMatteis: It all seemed to work out. 700 00:41:03,890 --> 00:41:12,850 JM DeMatteis: And, you know, it's a great thing because, you know, when Booster Girl started out, he was a fairly, you know, he was a semi successful character, but he was certainly wasn't a big gun at dc. 701 00:41:13,720 --> 00:41:17,240 JM DeMatteis: I think in jli, we elevated, we Elevated him. 702 00:41:17,240 --> 00:41:18,600 JM DeMatteis: So he became more well known. 703 00:41:18,600 --> 00:41:27,640 JM DeMatteis: And then Dan came back to the character and did great work with him, and Jeff Johns did great work with him, and suddenly he became a major character in the DC universe. 704 00:41:27,800 --> 00:41:29,440 JM DeMatteis: So that's the fun thing about comics, too. 705 00:41:29,440 --> 00:41:31,560 JM DeMatteis: That's one of the reasons why I think JLI worked and. 706 00:41:31,640 --> 00:41:34,080 JM DeMatteis: And I like working with more obscure characters. 707 00:41:34,080 --> 00:41:38,380 JM DeMatteis: When I did Defenders from Marvel, when I first started there, almost every character in the book. 708 00:41:38,530 --> 00:41:47,330 JM DeMatteis: Book was a B or C level character, because then no editor is going to come marching into your editor's office and complain about what you're doing with that character, because nobody cares. 709 00:41:48,290 --> 00:41:50,570 JM DeMatteis: You get to take these characters and make them their own. 710 00:41:50,570 --> 00:41:55,570 JM DeMatteis: So in the beginning, although it was probably disappointing, I know Kevin McGuire talks about he got the Justice League gig. 711 00:41:55,570 --> 00:42:00,810 JM DeMatteis: He thought he's gonna be writing, drawing Superman, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Flash, all the classic characters. 712 00:42:00,810 --> 00:42:02,010 JM DeMatteis: He didn't get any of them. 713 00:42:02,010 --> 00:42:03,130 JM DeMatteis: You know, we had Batman. 714 00:42:03,130 --> 00:42:04,210 JM DeMatteis: That was the only one we had. 715 00:42:04,210 --> 00:42:06,930 Case: Well, he had a Green Lantern, and we had a. 716 00:42:07,010 --> 00:42:08,050 JM DeMatteis: But not the Green Lantern. 717 00:42:09,330 --> 00:42:16,910 JM DeMatteis: But it was the greatest gift they could have possibly given us because then we got to take these characters and make them our own, and no one cared. 718 00:42:16,910 --> 00:42:20,030 JM DeMatteis: And Denny o', Neil, thank God, allowed us to have Batman and was. 719 00:42:20,030 --> 00:42:23,510 JM DeMatteis: Was not upset with us at all by what we did with him, you know, but. 720 00:42:23,510 --> 00:42:30,350 JM DeMatteis: But, you know, it would have been a very different book had we gotten all the A list characters, because basically all those A list characters were starring in their own books. 721 00:42:30,350 --> 00:42:34,750 JM DeMatteis: They were very important, and we would have had every other editor breathing down our necks the whole time. 722 00:42:35,550 --> 00:42:36,030 Case: Yeah. 723 00:42:36,440 --> 00:42:41,320 Case: Now, why don't we shift actually into some Superman stuff since this is a Superman show. 724 00:42:41,480 --> 00:42:43,320 Case: I wanted to thank you again. 725 00:42:43,800 --> 00:42:47,800 Case: You've written so many things that I have huge emotional reactions to. 726 00:42:47,960 --> 00:42:48,440 Case: Superman. 727 00:42:48,440 --> 00:42:55,080 Case: Speeding Bullets is a book that I was obsessed with from a concept standpoint. 728 00:42:55,080 --> 00:43:06,360 Case: But the first AD I saw for it, and when I understood that it was an Elseworld, where Superman landed at what the pitch was, where Superman lands in Bruce Wayne's or at the Wayne Manor and is adopted. 729 00:43:06,360 --> 00:43:07,950 Case: And so Bruce Wayne is never born. 730 00:43:08,100 --> 00:43:12,340 Case: And thus Superman grows up as Batman. 731 00:43:12,340 --> 00:43:12,740 Case: Yeah. 732 00:43:12,740 --> 00:43:13,220 JM DeMatteis: Yeah. 733 00:43:13,780 --> 00:43:14,060 Case: 1. 734 00:43:14,060 --> 00:43:20,260 Case: I just want to thank you for it because, like, I even have video of me at, like, 9 talking to my friends, like a home video. 735 00:43:20,260 --> 00:43:21,220 Case: And I'm just like. 736 00:43:21,220 --> 00:43:23,940 Case: Because I'm a little, like, neurospicy little boy being like. 737 00:43:23,940 --> 00:43:26,020 Case: I just wouldn't shut up about comic books. 738 00:43:26,020 --> 00:43:28,180 Case: So I was talking about, like, oh, man. 739 00:43:28,180 --> 00:43:30,700 Case: I like, I can't wait to get this one comic. 740 00:43:30,700 --> 00:43:31,220 Case: It's so cool. 741 00:43:31,220 --> 00:43:32,260 Case: It's such a great premise. 742 00:43:32,340 --> 00:43:38,110 Case: Like, and just like gushing about this thing in a home video, like a home movie, where it's supposed to be just like. 743 00:43:38,510 --> 00:43:39,230 Case: And so forth. 744 00:43:39,470 --> 00:43:41,350 Case: But how did that idea come up? 745 00:43:41,350 --> 00:43:41,910 Case: Because that's. 746 00:43:41,910 --> 00:43:42,750 Case: It's such a cool. 747 00:43:42,990 --> 00:43:43,630 Case: A cool. 748 00:43:43,710 --> 00:43:49,710 JM DeMatteis: You know, I think I was just pitching Elseworld's ideas and it just seemed really obvious. 749 00:43:49,790 --> 00:43:56,230 JM DeMatteis: I found out like 25 years later that they had done some little story years before, like what they used to call imaginary tales, you know? 750 00:43:56,230 --> 00:43:56,430 Case: Right. 751 00:43:56,430 --> 00:43:56,710 Case: Yeah. 752 00:43:56,710 --> 00:43:57,710 JM DeMatteis: With a similar premise. 753 00:43:57,710 --> 00:44:06,230 JM DeMatteis: I had never read it and I just thought that's like the coolest idea to merge these two characters and see what would happen to. 754 00:44:06,310 --> 00:44:07,190 JM DeMatteis: Because it's. 755 00:44:07,190 --> 00:44:09,470 JM DeMatteis: It's a test of Superman's essential nature. 756 00:44:09,470 --> 00:44:09,830 JM DeMatteis: Right. 757 00:44:09,990 --> 00:44:17,190 JM DeMatteis: All the things you're talking about, who Superman is, to put him through this terrible trauma, to have him become this dark character. 758 00:44:17,590 --> 00:44:24,790 JM DeMatteis: And, and really with my feeling with Superman is no matter how much you try to twist him that way, he'll always bounce back to his essential nature. 759 00:44:24,790 --> 00:44:27,470 JM DeMatteis: Which is why by the end of that story, he's Superman. 760 00:44:27,470 --> 00:44:27,710 Case: Right. 761 00:44:27,710 --> 00:44:28,750 JM DeMatteis: He's not Batman anymore. 762 00:44:28,750 --> 00:44:30,070 JM DeMatteis: Because that's not who he is. 763 00:44:30,670 --> 00:44:38,510 JM DeMatteis: Even with the trauma of witnessing his parents death and all the things that he went through, his essential nature is vastly different. 764 00:44:38,670 --> 00:44:39,710 JM DeMatteis: And he will always. 765 00:44:39,870 --> 00:44:41,870 JM DeMatteis: He will always be Superman in the end. 766 00:44:42,270 --> 00:44:43,550 Case: Yeah, that's. 767 00:44:44,110 --> 00:44:46,350 Case: Even though in the story itself, Lois's. 768 00:44:46,350 --> 00:44:47,190 Case: Lois Lane is like. 769 00:44:47,190 --> 00:44:50,190 Case: I can't imagine any other scenario creating Superman. 770 00:44:50,750 --> 00:44:52,550 JM DeMatteis: Right, right, exactly. 771 00:44:52,550 --> 00:44:56,990 JM DeMatteis: You know, it's funny, around the same time I pitch them an idea that they turned down and I understand why. 772 00:44:57,230 --> 00:45:07,790 JM DeMatteis: That I thought would have been really interesting, which was what if the rocket landed in the deep SM Deep south and it was found by a KKK family and Superman had been raised. 773 00:45:08,110 --> 00:45:09,470 Case: I understand why they didn't. 774 00:45:10,590 --> 00:45:15,630 JM DeMatteis: Now in the end, again, his nature would have restored itself and he would have taken them on, you know. 775 00:45:15,790 --> 00:45:17,790 JM DeMatteis: But I understand why they rejected it. 776 00:45:17,790 --> 00:45:19,790 Case: Superman smashes the clan from within. 777 00:45:20,670 --> 00:45:21,350 JM DeMatteis: Exactly. 778 00:45:21,350 --> 00:45:21,950 JM DeMatteis: Exactly. 779 00:45:21,950 --> 00:45:22,920 JM DeMatteis: You know, I guess you don't want to. 780 00:45:23,550 --> 00:45:26,590 JM DeMatteis: A white hooded character with an S on his chest would have been a bad look. 781 00:45:26,590 --> 00:45:26,990 JM DeMatteis: No. 782 00:45:27,710 --> 00:45:28,190 JM DeMatteis: Yeah. 783 00:45:28,190 --> 00:45:30,110 Case: Although it would have been a cool story. 784 00:45:31,150 --> 00:45:31,590 Case: Yes. 785 00:45:31,590 --> 00:45:37,950 Case: Although the episode we're recording tomorrow is on supreme, the Return and Alan Moore did do a Confederate flag version of the character. 786 00:45:37,950 --> 00:45:38,510 JM DeMatteis: Oh, really? 787 00:45:38,510 --> 00:45:39,630 JM DeMatteis: Okay, well, there you go. 788 00:45:39,710 --> 00:45:40,350 JM DeMatteis: There you go. 789 00:45:40,830 --> 00:45:41,190 JM DeMatteis: Yeah. 790 00:45:41,190 --> 00:45:41,990 JM DeMatteis: Speeding pulse was. 791 00:45:41,990 --> 00:45:42,830 JM DeMatteis: It was a lot of fun. 792 00:45:43,070 --> 00:45:46,310 JM DeMatteis: It was one of those stories that just kind of flowed out and was. 793 00:45:46,310 --> 00:45:48,780 JM DeMatteis: And Eduardo Barreto did the art and just did a. 794 00:45:48,930 --> 00:45:50,210 JM DeMatteis: A beautiful job with the art. 795 00:45:50,370 --> 00:45:57,170 JM DeMatteis: And last year, McFarlane Toys put out a speeding bullet Batman figure, which is sitting over there in my office, which is great. 796 00:45:57,490 --> 00:46:00,770 Case: Yeah, I love the sort of fused design of the character. 797 00:46:00,770 --> 00:46:06,050 Case: Like a little bit of the Pentagon shape to the bat symbol and all that very cool stuff. 798 00:46:06,370 --> 00:46:08,210 Case: So actually, this brings up a question I have. 799 00:46:08,290 --> 00:46:11,090 Case: So the 90s seemed to be the era of Elseworlds. 800 00:46:11,090 --> 00:46:15,490 Case: Was there, like a general call for Elseworld submission concepts? 801 00:46:15,490 --> 00:46:17,570 Case: Like, it just, like the idea rolled out. 802 00:46:17,570 --> 00:46:22,830 Case: There was that one year where the annuals were all Elseworlds, and then it just seemed like there were just a ton of Elseworlds. 803 00:46:22,830 --> 00:46:23,070 Case: And then. 804 00:46:23,070 --> 00:46:25,950 Case: Then it kind of died off around, like the 2000s. 805 00:46:26,270 --> 00:46:27,870 Case: Was there not. 806 00:46:27,870 --> 00:46:30,430 Case: I guess, not the 2000, I guess, like, closer to 2010. 807 00:46:30,590 --> 00:46:30,990 Case: Was. 808 00:46:30,990 --> 00:46:34,190 Case: Was there, like a call for writers to submit those kind of things? 809 00:46:34,190 --> 00:46:35,550 Case: Like, how did that process work? 810 00:46:35,550 --> 00:46:37,310 JM DeMatteis: You know, I honestly don't remember. 811 00:46:37,310 --> 00:46:37,590 JM DeMatteis: I. 812 00:46:37,590 --> 00:46:39,790 JM DeMatteis: All I remember is that I had the idea and I pitched it. 813 00:46:39,790 --> 00:46:42,470 JM DeMatteis: You know, it wasn't like someone said, oh, do you want to do an Elseworlds? 814 00:46:42,470 --> 00:46:43,830 JM DeMatteis: Or it could be that they did. 815 00:46:43,830 --> 00:46:44,710 JM DeMatteis: It was a long time ago. 816 00:46:44,710 --> 00:46:45,990 JM DeMatteis: But my memory is that I just. 817 00:46:45,990 --> 00:46:47,020 JM DeMatteis: I had, oh, what a cool idea. 818 00:46:47,090 --> 00:46:47,290 JM DeMatteis: Idea. 819 00:46:47,290 --> 00:46:47,850 JM DeMatteis: Let me pitch this. 820 00:46:47,850 --> 00:46:48,930 JM DeMatteis: And they said, sure, let's do it. 821 00:46:48,930 --> 00:46:49,570 JM DeMatteis: And off went. 822 00:46:49,730 --> 00:46:50,970 JM DeMatteis: You know, the funny thing is, so. 823 00:46:50,970 --> 00:46:58,290 JM DeMatteis: So maybe the else worlds died off, but then what came in is all this, you know, multiverse parallel universe stuff, which is all basically Elseworlds. 824 00:46:58,290 --> 00:47:00,330 JM DeMatteis: Let's go to this universe and see this version of the characters. 825 00:47:00,330 --> 00:47:03,250 JM DeMatteis: Let's go to that universe to the point where it's been done to death. 826 00:47:03,250 --> 00:47:13,180 JM DeMatteis: I think at this point, I. I think we need to take a breath and lock up the multiverse for a while, you know, because it's been in, like, every comic book and every TV show and every movie a hundred times over now. 827 00:47:14,130 --> 00:47:14,410 Case: Yeah. 828 00:47:14,410 --> 00:47:22,650 Case: And even when it's you as well, like in your Justice League Unlimited comic run that happened recently, where we had like, the wonderful moment of the two Supermen meeting each other and just like. 829 00:47:22,650 --> 00:47:22,930 JM DeMatteis: Yeah. 830 00:47:22,930 --> 00:47:23,970 Case: Immediately vibing. 831 00:47:23,970 --> 00:47:27,250 Case: Because it's just like, oh, yeah, you're Superman. 832 00:47:27,250 --> 00:47:27,770 JM DeMatteis: I'm Superman. 833 00:47:27,770 --> 00:47:28,770 JM DeMatteis: Right, exactly. 834 00:47:28,770 --> 00:47:29,410 Case: Exactly. 835 00:47:29,410 --> 00:47:29,730 JM DeMatteis: Yeah. 836 00:47:29,730 --> 00:47:30,010 JM DeMatteis: That was. 837 00:47:30,010 --> 00:47:33,010 JM DeMatteis: That was really fun to return to Justice League Unlimited and. 838 00:47:33,010 --> 00:47:33,890 JM DeMatteis: And it was. 839 00:47:33,890 --> 00:47:34,530 JM DeMatteis: It was great. 840 00:47:35,010 --> 00:47:37,410 JM DeMatteis: I keep hoping that they're going to revive that show and. 841 00:47:37,410 --> 00:47:38,920 JM DeMatteis: And bring it back because it was such a. 842 00:47:39,630 --> 00:47:39,910 JM DeMatteis: Same thing. 843 00:47:39,910 --> 00:47:41,430 JM DeMatteis: When you talk about, you know, when. 844 00:47:41,430 --> 00:47:47,950 JM DeMatteis: When that show was coming out, it was popular, but I've seen in the years since, it's taken on this. 845 00:47:47,950 --> 00:47:48,830 JM DeMatteis: This glow. 846 00:47:48,830 --> 00:47:53,590 JM DeMatteis: You know, people really look at that show as, like, a peak of Justice League storytelling. 847 00:47:53,590 --> 00:47:57,950 JM DeMatteis: And I think it's one of the best versions of the Justice League in any medium, Comics, movies, whatever. 848 00:47:58,110 --> 00:47:59,190 JM DeMatteis: And it's not because of me. 849 00:47:59,190 --> 00:48:01,950 JM DeMatteis: It's because of the, you know, Bruce Timm and all those guys working on that show. 850 00:48:02,030 --> 00:48:03,390 JM DeMatteis: I would love to see it come back. 851 00:48:03,390 --> 00:48:03,750 JM DeMatteis: We were. 852 00:48:03,750 --> 00:48:04,990 JM DeMatteis: We were secretly hoping that. 853 00:48:04,990 --> 00:48:09,190 JM DeMatteis: That maybe that miniseries would be a door in and they would adapt that. 854 00:48:09,190 --> 00:48:11,750 JM DeMatteis: You know, it would be a great story for a revival of that show. 855 00:48:11,910 --> 00:48:15,030 JM DeMatteis: Despite the fact that I just said, I'm sick of the multiverse, I'll write that story. 856 00:48:16,870 --> 00:48:19,350 Jmike: Oh, man, if the JLU came back, that'd be amazing. 857 00:48:19,830 --> 00:48:22,150 Case: Yeah, yeah. 858 00:48:22,230 --> 00:48:27,590 Case: That's definitely a soft spot for a lot of people, but my age and younger who grew up on that show. 859 00:48:27,750 --> 00:48:30,750 JM DeMatteis: And speaking of Superman, my first episode of that show was for the man. 860 00:48:30,750 --> 00:48:34,560 Case: Who Has Everything, which is just a fantastic episode. 861 00:48:36,400 --> 00:48:37,280 Jmike: Oh, man. 862 00:48:38,160 --> 00:48:42,280 Case: So here's a question going, like, down the barrel of Superman stuff. 863 00:48:42,280 --> 00:48:47,799 Case: When you're writing Superman, like, the way you say, you know Peter Parker better than, you know, some of your friends, like, how. 864 00:48:47,799 --> 00:48:50,160 Case: Like, how in the head of Superman do you get. 865 00:48:50,160 --> 00:48:50,760 Case: And like, what. 866 00:48:50,760 --> 00:48:53,240 Case: What is sort of your writing process for a character like that? 867 00:48:53,240 --> 00:48:58,080 JM DeMatteis: It's interesting as you say that, and I never thought about this before, so you'll get answer I never gave before. 868 00:48:58,640 --> 00:49:01,280 JM DeMatteis: With Superman, I'm thinking, I'm not in his head. 869 00:49:01,280 --> 00:49:02,240 JM DeMatteis: I'm in his heart. 870 00:49:03,840 --> 00:49:04,320 JM DeMatteis: It's. 871 00:49:04,320 --> 00:49:05,680 JM DeMatteis: It's a different quality. 872 00:49:05,760 --> 00:49:10,800 JM DeMatteis: There is some essence of Superman that I think we all intuitively understand, and. 873 00:49:10,800 --> 00:49:12,640 JM DeMatteis: And it's to be found in the heart. 874 00:49:12,640 --> 00:49:14,960 JM DeMatteis: That's one of the things I loved about the James Gunn movie. 875 00:49:14,960 --> 00:49:15,360 JM DeMatteis: I just. 876 00:49:15,360 --> 00:49:15,840 JM DeMatteis: It really. 877 00:49:16,080 --> 00:49:18,000 JM DeMatteis: It got the heart of Superman. 878 00:49:18,080 --> 00:49:18,480 Jmike: Yes. 879 00:49:18,480 --> 00:49:19,800 JM DeMatteis: It really got it just. 880 00:49:19,800 --> 00:49:20,480 JM DeMatteis: Just right. 881 00:49:20,640 --> 00:49:24,170 JM DeMatteis: Because I'm thinking of working on that Justice League Unlimited series, which. 882 00:49:24,250 --> 00:49:31,210 JM DeMatteis: Which ended up being called Justice League Infinity, where I think, in retrospect, we just should have called it Justice League Unlimited Phase 2 or something. 883 00:49:31,610 --> 00:49:39,610 JM DeMatteis: And there's a scene where he's in one of these parallel worlds, and it's basically a bunch of Neo Nazis in the park, you know, and. 884 00:49:39,689 --> 00:49:43,610 JM DeMatteis: And it's like Charlottesville was a chart, you know, with all the torches and the whole thing. 885 00:49:44,170 --> 00:49:44,570 JM DeMatteis: And. 886 00:49:44,570 --> 00:50:00,510 JM DeMatteis: And his first response is he gets really upset and then instantly thinks about something his father said to him about, you know, the struggles that people go through and what brings them to these moments in their lives and reaches out to them with compassion and that. 887 00:50:00,830 --> 00:50:04,430 JM DeMatteis: First of all, I think that's my favorite Superman scene that I've ever written anywhere. 888 00:50:04,830 --> 00:50:06,950 JM DeMatteis: But it also is the essence of the character. 889 00:50:06,950 --> 00:50:08,310 JM DeMatteis: You know, he's not. 890 00:50:08,310 --> 00:50:12,030 JM DeMatteis: His first instinct is not to punch you in the face or drop a building on your head. 891 00:50:12,350 --> 00:50:14,630 JM DeMatteis: His first instinct is to find that door in. 892 00:50:14,630 --> 00:50:17,480 JM DeMatteis: Because he is some characters. 893 00:50:17,960 --> 00:50:22,480 JM DeMatteis: You know, Peter Parker is an inherently decent person, but he has a lot of flaws, and he's a. 894 00:50:22,480 --> 00:50:24,480 JM DeMatteis: He screws up and he has to pick himself up again. 895 00:50:24,480 --> 00:50:30,160 JM DeMatteis: I think for Superman, he's inherently so decent that it just comes natural to him. 896 00:50:30,160 --> 00:50:31,559 JM DeMatteis: You know, it's just. 897 00:50:31,559 --> 00:50:33,160 JM DeMatteis: It's just baked in there. 898 00:50:33,480 --> 00:50:34,360 JM DeMatteis: I think the problem. 899 00:50:34,440 --> 00:50:41,840 JM DeMatteis: The hardest part with Superman is to keep him human and not just have him be a symbol, because he is a symbol. 900 00:50:41,840 --> 00:50:45,590 JM DeMatteis: I. I feel like periodically, you know, down through. 901 00:50:45,990 --> 00:50:47,590 JM DeMatteis: Through history, we. 902 00:50:48,150 --> 00:50:52,710 JM DeMatteis: Our collective unconscious as a species, we create these symbols that we need. 903 00:50:53,110 --> 00:51:01,750 JM DeMatteis: Whether in the old days, you know, it might have been the gods that people dreamed up, you know, And I think collectively, we all needed to dream Superman, to dream. 904 00:51:02,230 --> 00:51:05,990 JM DeMatteis: Sort of the best of us rising up out of our collective unconscious. 905 00:51:06,150 --> 00:51:07,270 JM DeMatteis: This symbol that. 906 00:51:07,270 --> 00:51:09,190 JM DeMatteis: That means that you can go all around the world. 907 00:51:09,190 --> 00:51:11,170 JM DeMatteis: Even people that have never read a comic book will see that. 908 00:51:11,170 --> 00:51:12,690 JM DeMatteis: S. They know what it is. 909 00:51:12,770 --> 00:51:13,810 JM DeMatteis: They know what it means. 910 00:51:14,690 --> 00:51:15,490 JM DeMatteis: And the. 911 00:51:15,490 --> 00:51:18,410 JM DeMatteis: The challenge is to also remember that he's human. 912 00:51:18,410 --> 00:51:23,410 JM DeMatteis: And I think that's what James Gunn got really nailed so well in that movie. 913 00:51:23,410 --> 00:51:27,170 JM DeMatteis: He was all the things we love about Superman, but he also was. 914 00:51:27,170 --> 00:51:27,970 JM DeMatteis: Was his. 915 00:51:28,210 --> 00:51:30,810 JM DeMatteis: Was human, you know, and he makes that speech at the end. 916 00:51:30,810 --> 00:51:32,930 JM DeMatteis: He said, that's my greatest gift, is my humanity. 917 00:51:33,090 --> 00:51:39,700 JM DeMatteis: And I always said that, you know, Superman's greatest power, you know, isn't that he can, you know, punch you and knock you across the world. 918 00:51:39,700 --> 00:51:43,020 JM DeMatteis: His greatest power is his inherent decency. 919 00:51:43,980 --> 00:51:50,460 JM DeMatteis: And also, I think, especially in the movie versions, his other greatest power is that he's so damn charming. 920 00:51:51,500 --> 00:51:55,700 JM DeMatteis: You think about Christopher Reeve, you don't remember that he's, like, got all these powers. 921 00:51:55,700 --> 00:52:01,870 JM DeMatteis: It's just he's so charming and decent, you know, and his charm is a very important part of what the character is. 922 00:52:02,420 --> 00:52:05,860 JM DeMatteis: Now all these things evolve, you know, every decade gets a slightly different Superman. 923 00:52:06,500 --> 00:52:07,620 JM DeMatteis: And if you look at the early. 924 00:52:07,780 --> 00:52:11,500 JM DeMatteis: The early Superman stories, he was more like a rough and tough, you know. 925 00:52:11,500 --> 00:52:16,580 JM DeMatteis: James Cagney, 1940 kind of character, but he was still fighting for the right things. 926 00:52:16,980 --> 00:52:21,380 JM DeMatteis: My favorite Superman story probably of all time is the one, and I'm going to get the details wrong, but. 927 00:52:21,780 --> 00:52:25,540 JM DeMatteis: But he was really upset that there were all these slums in Metropolis and. 928 00:52:25,540 --> 00:52:25,820 JM DeMatteis: And. 929 00:52:25,820 --> 00:52:26,060 JM DeMatteis: And. 930 00:52:26,060 --> 00:52:27,620 JM DeMatteis: And he was still sort of viewed as an outlaw. 931 00:52:27,620 --> 00:52:30,730 JM DeMatteis: So he gets the army after he clears out the slum so there's no people there. 932 00:52:30,730 --> 00:52:34,210 JM DeMatteis: He gets the army to chase him into these slums, and they're like, dropping bombs on him. 933 00:52:34,210 --> 00:52:39,690 JM DeMatteis: So they completely destroy the Metropolis slums so that they have to come and build new housing for these people. 934 00:52:41,130 --> 00:52:44,490 JM DeMatteis: Now, I don't think logically that would really work that way, but what a great story. 935 00:52:44,490 --> 00:52:46,930 JM DeMatteis: What an essence of that version of Superman is. 936 00:52:46,930 --> 00:52:47,930 JM DeMatteis: Like, I want to help these. 937 00:52:48,090 --> 00:52:56,260 JM DeMatteis: These poorest of the poor, the most oppressed of the oppressed, and I'm going to get these idiots in authority to destroy this so they can build new housing for these guys, you know? 938 00:52:56,500 --> 00:52:57,940 Case: Yeah, I remember that story. 939 00:52:58,020 --> 00:52:58,580 Case: It is. 940 00:52:59,060 --> 00:52:59,500 Case: Yeah. 941 00:52:59,500 --> 00:53:02,340 Case: I remember thinking, logistically, that's not how it would go, but. 942 00:53:02,420 --> 00:53:02,980 JM DeMatteis: Right, right. 943 00:53:02,980 --> 00:53:04,780 JM DeMatteis: But you know, you buy into the fantasy. 944 00:53:04,780 --> 00:53:06,700 JM DeMatteis: You know, you buy into the fantasy and it's. 945 00:53:06,700 --> 00:53:09,860 JM DeMatteis: But it spoke to the essence of what the character was at that time. 946 00:53:09,860 --> 00:53:16,180 Case: Yeah, no, it's the sort of revolutionary figure of Superman in his earliest incarnation. 947 00:53:16,180 --> 00:53:17,220 Case: And then, of course, we. 948 00:53:17,300 --> 00:53:20,660 Case: He transforms, like you said, every decade we get a different Superman. 949 00:53:20,660 --> 00:53:22,180 Case: He becomes more of a law and order figure. 950 00:53:22,180 --> 00:53:24,500 Case: Especially when the comics code, like, really, like, came into play. 951 00:53:24,500 --> 00:53:24,970 Case: And then. 952 00:53:25,760 --> 00:53:30,080 Case: And now I feel like we are getting back into that more revolutionary type character. 953 00:53:30,080 --> 00:53:33,440 Case: I think, especially starting with, like, Grant Morrison's new 52, that. 954 00:53:33,440 --> 00:53:35,880 Case: That I think, like, really, like, galvanized people into. 955 00:53:35,880 --> 00:53:37,280 Case: To sort of seeing the character again. 956 00:53:37,360 --> 00:53:37,640 JM DeMatteis: Right. 957 00:53:37,640 --> 00:53:42,520 JM DeMatteis: And the whole theme of the James Gunn movie, which is that, you know, we live in a. 958 00:53:42,520 --> 00:53:45,760 JM DeMatteis: You know, once upon a time, to be the good and decent guy was corny. 959 00:53:46,080 --> 00:53:57,440 JM DeMatteis: But in a time like this where we're dealing with a world where people seem to revere arrogance and cruelty and stupidity, to be the decent guy is the outsider. 960 00:53:57,440 --> 00:53:59,000 JM DeMatteis: To be, as they say in the movie, be the guy. 961 00:53:59,000 --> 00:54:01,400 JM DeMatteis: That's the punk rock stance, you know, to be. 962 00:54:01,560 --> 00:54:08,200 JM DeMatteis: To be decent, to be moral, to treat people with kindness and compassion, that's the revolutionary stance, you know, and. 963 00:54:08,200 --> 00:54:10,600 JM DeMatteis: And that's the essence of all the best of these characters. 964 00:54:10,600 --> 00:54:12,320 JM DeMatteis: I think Superman embodies it. 965 00:54:12,320 --> 00:54:13,720 JM DeMatteis: Captain America embodies it. 966 00:54:13,720 --> 00:54:15,640 JM DeMatteis: Peter Parker embodies it in his way. 967 00:54:16,040 --> 00:54:19,880 JM DeMatteis: Peter Parker, I think, is more relatable than Superman, you know, Superman is always. 968 00:54:20,140 --> 00:54:22,460 JM DeMatteis: No matter how we try, he's a little bit up there. 969 00:54:22,460 --> 00:54:25,420 JM DeMatteis: Peter is right on our level, you know, he's right here with us. 970 00:54:25,580 --> 00:54:26,860 JM DeMatteis: But we need Superman. 971 00:54:26,860 --> 00:54:28,060 JM DeMatteis: We need that symbol. 972 00:54:28,060 --> 00:54:29,260 JM DeMatteis: It's really important. 973 00:54:29,820 --> 00:54:41,340 JM DeMatteis: I feel like, you know, maybe 10,000 years ago, we dreamed some other thing, some other essence of some being that symbolized that for us, you know, but now this is what it is. 974 00:54:41,820 --> 00:54:42,620 JM DeMatteis: It's Superman. 975 00:54:42,620 --> 00:54:47,320 JM DeMatteis: And maybe, you know, 500 years from now, there'll be something else that embodies that thing. 976 00:54:47,320 --> 00:54:48,400 JM DeMatteis: But it's almost, it's. 977 00:54:49,360 --> 00:54:57,080 JM DeMatteis: It's almost as if it's the same when I say God, lower G. God, you know, he just comes in different forms, and we. 978 00:54:57,080 --> 00:54:59,000 JM DeMatteis: Or we project different forms onto him. 979 00:54:59,000 --> 00:55:02,720 JM DeMatteis: But, but we need that symbol in our lives, and we need Superman. 980 00:55:02,720 --> 00:55:08,400 JM DeMatteis: We need what that means to all of us, not just individually as comic book fans, but collectively as a culture. 981 00:55:08,560 --> 00:55:08,880 Jmike: Yeah. 982 00:55:08,880 --> 00:55:11,440 Case: Like, we need a moral paragon for us to actually look to. 983 00:55:11,920 --> 00:55:12,400 JM DeMatteis: Exactly. 984 00:55:12,400 --> 00:55:20,510 JM DeMatteis: And, and right now, certainly when we look to our authority figures, it's really hard to find anyone that could come even within 10,000 miles of that, you know. 985 00:55:20,510 --> 00:55:21,470 Jmike: Yep, yep. 986 00:55:21,470 --> 00:55:22,030 Jmike: Yeah. 987 00:55:23,630 --> 00:55:24,430 Case: Oh, the world. 988 00:55:24,590 --> 00:55:25,070 Case: The world. 989 00:55:25,070 --> 00:55:26,110 Case: The world is what it is. 990 00:55:27,070 --> 00:55:27,830 JM DeMatteis: Yes, it is. 991 00:55:27,830 --> 00:55:28,670 JM DeMatteis: And it will change. 992 00:55:28,830 --> 00:55:31,150 JM DeMatteis: I, I, I like Superman. 993 00:55:31,150 --> 00:55:32,710 JM DeMatteis: I am, I am an optimist. 994 00:55:32,710 --> 00:55:33,710 JM DeMatteis: I'm an idealist. 995 00:55:33,710 --> 00:55:38,670 JM DeMatteis: And I believe that as at, as ugly as things seem right now, things will change. 996 00:55:40,360 --> 00:55:45,480 Case: Well, that's an optimistic stance, and one that I hope is true. 997 00:55:45,640 --> 00:55:45,960 Jmike: Yeah. 998 00:55:45,960 --> 00:55:51,160 JM DeMatteis: And, well, that's the other essence of Superman and it's the essence of Peter Parker and all these characters is hope. 999 00:55:51,160 --> 00:55:58,440 JM DeMatteis: You know, as a writer, I'm more than willing to dive deep into the darkness and crawl through that dark tunnel filled with broken glass. 1000 00:55:58,840 --> 00:56:02,680 JM DeMatteis: But I don't want to leave my readers there in the tunnel with the broken glass. 1001 00:56:02,680 --> 00:56:04,930 JM DeMatteis: I want to come out of the tunnel and back into the light. 1002 00:56:05,080 --> 00:56:11,120 JM DeMatteis: Light, which is what, for all its flaws, what Maximum Carnage was about as well, you know, because that's how. 1003 00:56:11,120 --> 00:56:15,000 JM DeMatteis: That's what I believe about life in general, and that's what I want to communicate. 1004 00:56:15,000 --> 00:56:22,280 JM DeMatteis: I don't want to leave people in a place where they, you know, the feeling of life sucks and it's just miserable, and it's all we can do to survive. 1005 00:56:22,360 --> 00:56:27,160 JM DeMatteis: I don't believe that there is more to our lives than that, and I want my stories to communicate that. 1006 00:56:27,640 --> 00:56:33,320 Case: Yeah, that, and I feel like you've done a really good job in having those elements of your stories. 1007 00:56:33,320 --> 00:56:35,320 Case: Come, come through like it's always been. 1008 00:56:36,060 --> 00:56:41,580 Case: I don't want to say everything you've ever written has been uplifting, but like there's always an optimistic beat to it. 1009 00:56:41,660 --> 00:56:42,060 JM DeMatteis: Yeah. 1010 00:56:42,060 --> 00:56:43,500 Case: And I've always appreciated that. 1011 00:56:44,140 --> 00:56:48,100 Case: Looking back on your career, what is the work that you're the most proud of? 1012 00:56:48,100 --> 00:56:53,180 JM DeMatteis: Frankly, you know, when you've been doing something for like 40 plus years, it's hard to. 1013 00:56:54,540 --> 00:56:59,860 JM DeMatteis: I did something on my website a while back where I listed like 10 or 15 things that are my favorite things that I've ever done. 1014 00:56:59,860 --> 00:57:04,950 JM DeMatteis: And if anyone wants to dig around on my website, they can find it if I was going to pick my absolute favorite things. 1015 00:57:05,590 --> 00:57:09,670 JM DeMatteis: And again, my favorite thing doesn't necessarily mean it's the audience's favorite thing. 1016 00:57:09,670 --> 00:57:10,710 JM DeMatteis: It doesn't even necessarily. 1017 00:57:10,710 --> 00:57:16,590 JM DeMatteis: It means it's that it's the best thing, but it's the things that mean the most to me that I feel encapsulated. 1018 00:57:16,590 --> 00:57:17,430 JM DeMatteis: What I try to do. 1019 00:57:17,510 --> 00:57:27,510 JM DeMatteis: One is Moonshadow that I did with John J. Muth, which is my first creator owned series, which Dark Horse just put out a new edition back in May, which I'm beautiful edition. 1020 00:57:28,050 --> 00:57:35,090 JM DeMatteis: Another is Brooklyn Dreams, which is my autobiographical graphic novel that I did with a wonderful artist named Glenn Barr. 1021 00:57:35,250 --> 00:57:44,210 JM DeMatteis: And the third one is one that most people have probably never heard of, which is called Abadazade, which was a fantasy series I did for Cross Gen, if anyone remembers CrossGen. 1022 00:57:44,210 --> 00:57:46,570 Case: I remember CrossGen and by the time. 1023 00:57:46,570 --> 00:57:52,370 JM DeMatteis: The ink was dry on the contracts, Crossgen was already sinking into a swamp of bankruptcy. 1024 00:57:52,450 --> 00:57:56,010 JM DeMatteis: We didn't know it at the time, so we got through three, we wrote four issues. 1025 00:57:56,010 --> 00:58:00,170 JM DeMatteis: I did, I worked with an amazing artist, Mike Plug, one of the best artists ever work in comics. 1026 00:58:00,650 --> 00:58:01,690 JM DeMatteis: We did four issues. 1027 00:58:01,930 --> 00:58:03,930 JM DeMatteis: By the third issue, the company was gone. 1028 00:58:03,930 --> 00:58:08,090 JM DeMatteis: Long story short, Disney came along and bought Cross Gen in order to get a Batizade. 1029 00:58:08,330 --> 00:58:08,770 JM DeMatteis: We did. 1030 00:58:08,770 --> 00:58:13,050 JM DeMatteis: We turned it into a book series that was half prose and half comics. 1031 00:58:13,530 --> 00:58:15,130 JM DeMatteis: And the same thing happened. 1032 00:58:15,130 --> 00:58:19,170 JM DeMatteis: We did four books and by the third book they pulled the plug on the series. 1033 00:58:19,170 --> 00:58:26,360 JM DeMatteis: So one of the reasons why it means so much to me is A, it's one of the best things I've ever written, but B, they just truncated it and stopped it before I could finish the story. 1034 00:58:26,680 --> 00:58:31,040 JM DeMatteis: So there's a part of me inside that is still like just waiting to. 1035 00:58:31,040 --> 00:58:32,880 Case: Explode with that because I never got. 1036 00:58:32,880 --> 00:58:34,240 JM DeMatteis: To finish the story. 1037 00:58:34,240 --> 00:58:39,920 JM DeMatteis: I actually wrote a novel that came out I guess 2010 called Imaginalis, which was born out of the. 1038 00:58:39,920 --> 00:58:42,840 JM DeMatteis: The grief of not getting to finish that story. 1039 00:58:43,320 --> 00:58:45,360 JM DeMatteis: So those three are really special to me. 1040 00:58:45,360 --> 00:58:47,320 JM DeMatteis: But my work with Keith is really special to me. 1041 00:58:47,320 --> 00:58:47,920 JM DeMatteis: I look at that. 1042 00:58:48,230 --> 00:58:48,790 JM DeMatteis: All of a piece. 1043 00:58:48,790 --> 00:58:53,950 JM DeMatteis: My work on Spider man, all of a piece, and so many other different projects that I've done. 1044 00:58:53,950 --> 00:58:57,910 JM DeMatteis: You know, I've been lucky enough to work with some of the best artists in the business and. 1045 00:58:57,910 --> 00:59:01,030 JM DeMatteis: And just do projects that are really deeply meaningful to me. 1046 00:59:01,110 --> 00:59:03,670 JM DeMatteis: All my stuff for Vertigo, so many things. 1047 00:59:03,670 --> 00:59:06,150 JM DeMatteis: So, I mean, we could just talk about my favorites for an hour. 1048 00:59:06,230 --> 00:59:09,030 JM DeMatteis: Yeah, but those three are probably the top of the list. 1049 00:59:09,910 --> 00:59:20,890 JM DeMatteis: And right now, I have to say, working on this demultiverse project where I'm launching all these new series at once with all, you know, all these different wonderful artists, has just been one of the creative highlights of my whole career. 1050 00:59:22,570 --> 00:59:26,490 Case: Yeah, I've been happy to be able to back the Kickstarter on that. 1051 00:59:26,490 --> 00:59:27,090 JM DeMatteis: Oh, so that's. 1052 00:59:27,090 --> 00:59:27,690 JM DeMatteis: God bless you. 1053 00:59:29,050 --> 00:59:34,050 JM DeMatteis: You know, the Kickstarter thing is really interesting because it, like, you know, the wall between creator and audience is gone. 1054 00:59:34,050 --> 00:59:37,130 JM DeMatteis: So every single person that backs that Kickstarter is really important. 1055 00:59:37,450 --> 00:59:39,490 JM DeMatteis: So when I say God bless you, I really mean it. 1056 00:59:39,490 --> 00:59:47,070 Case: You know, how is shifting from working in, like, traditional publishing to something like a Kickstarter kind of format? 1057 00:59:47,390 --> 00:59:50,750 JM DeMatteis: It's exhilarating, and it's also really hard work. 1058 00:59:50,750 --> 00:59:58,990 JM DeMatteis: Luckily, I had a partner in this, my friend David Baldy, who was TV writer and producer and with a lot of experience and also with a business mind that I do not have. 1059 00:59:59,630 --> 01:00:04,750 JM DeMatteis: So I don't think I could have done this Kickstarter on my own because there's a lot of work that goes into it. 1060 01:00:05,470 --> 01:00:13,160 JM DeMatteis: Not to mention the month that the Kickstarter is running when you have to basically drop all shame and flog mercilessly on social media. 1061 01:00:13,960 --> 01:00:18,080 JM DeMatteis: Because what I learned was, you know, I think I'm just being so shameless and just, oh, I can't. 1062 01:00:18,080 --> 01:00:19,640 JM DeMatteis: Can I post again about this thing? 1063 01:00:19,640 --> 01:00:23,560 JM DeMatteis: And then a month goes by, you know, when it's all over and someone says, oh, you had a Kickstarter? 1064 01:00:23,560 --> 01:00:24,200 JM DeMatteis: I didn't know that. 1065 01:00:24,280 --> 01:00:26,440 JM DeMatteis: You know, there's a lot of work that goes into. 1066 01:00:26,440 --> 01:00:28,640 JM DeMatteis: The creative part of it is just pure joy. 1067 01:00:28,640 --> 01:00:31,760 JM DeMatteis: I mean, I worked with so many great artists on this project and it was just fun. 1068 01:00:31,760 --> 01:00:33,960 JM DeMatteis: And David has been a great partner and. 1069 01:00:34,280 --> 01:00:36,520 JM DeMatteis: And a great creative voice to bounce off of. 1070 01:00:37,150 --> 01:00:42,230 JM DeMatteis: But, you know, there's a lot of other work that goes into a Kickstarter, but it's Yours, you know what I mean? 1071 01:00:42,230 --> 01:00:45,670 JM DeMatteis: It's you and the audience going on this journey together with nobody else in between. 1072 01:00:45,670 --> 01:00:46,830 JM DeMatteis: And that's very exciting. 1073 01:00:47,310 --> 01:00:48,350 Case: On that note, do. 1074 01:00:48,750 --> 01:00:52,990 Case: What is the timetable for the next wave of things? 1075 01:00:52,990 --> 01:00:54,750 Case: Like what have you got coming up? 1076 01:00:54,830 --> 01:00:55,190 JM DeMatteis: Yeah. 1077 01:00:55,190 --> 01:00:55,950 Case: That people should be. 1078 01:00:55,950 --> 01:00:57,510 JM DeMatteis: Oh, just what I'm working on. 1079 01:00:57,510 --> 01:01:00,510 Case: Well, specifically Kickstarter, but moving on to like right from there. 1080 01:01:00,510 --> 01:01:04,190 JM DeMatteis: We don't have a definite timeline for the next round of the Multiverse books, but there will be. 1081 01:01:04,420 --> 01:01:09,540 JM DeMatteis: There will be the next round of Demtiverse books and I'm very excited to plunge back into that other work. 1082 01:01:09,540 --> 01:01:16,580 JM DeMatteis: I've got a Spider man miniseries coming out next month, Spider Man 94, which is kind of like the Justice League Unlimited series. 1083 01:01:16,580 --> 01:01:18,740 JM DeMatteis: It's the, it's the next season of the. 1084 01:01:19,060 --> 01:01:21,700 JM DeMatteis: The 1990s Spider man animated series. 1085 01:01:22,660 --> 01:01:23,020 JM DeMatteis: Yeah. 1086 01:01:23,020 --> 01:01:23,420 JM DeMatteis: So that's. 1087 01:01:23,420 --> 01:01:24,420 JM DeMatteis: That's been a lot of fun. 1088 01:01:24,580 --> 01:01:27,140 JM DeMatteis: I know there's other things and I'm blanking on them. 1089 01:01:27,140 --> 01:01:29,220 JM DeMatteis: I just finished a novel that will be out. 1090 01:01:29,220 --> 01:01:29,580 JM DeMatteis: I've. 1091 01:01:29,580 --> 01:01:39,690 JM DeMatteis: The past few years I've been working with the company called Neotex and I did two novellas for them, one called the Excavator, one called the Witness that I think are absolutely two of the best things I've ever written. 1092 01:01:39,690 --> 01:01:41,810 JM DeMatteis: And it's been great to get back to writing prose again. 1093 01:01:42,290 --> 01:01:45,730 JM DeMatteis: And so my latest novella grew into a novel. 1094 01:01:45,810 --> 01:01:47,010 JM DeMatteis: It's called Dark Future. 1095 01:01:47,330 --> 01:01:52,850 JM DeMatteis: I really think this is one of the best things I've ever done and that should be out either by the end of the year, early next year. 1096 01:01:53,570 --> 01:01:57,010 JM DeMatteis: So I'm trying to think the De Multiverse, the novel, Spider Man. 1097 01:01:57,460 --> 01:02:02,780 JM DeMatteis: I. Oh, and I've been working for the animated Batman Caped Crusader show. 1098 01:02:02,780 --> 01:02:04,740 JM DeMatteis: The second season should be coming along soon. 1099 01:02:05,060 --> 01:02:09,500 JM DeMatteis: I have an episode there and hopefully there will be more to come for that show. 1100 01:02:09,500 --> 01:02:10,300 JM DeMatteis: It's been really fun. 1101 01:02:10,300 --> 01:02:20,620 JM DeMatteis: You know, obviously I've done a lot of animation work over the past 20 plus years or so and this is a lot of the same folks that worked on Batman the Animated Series, but it's another reimagining. 1102 01:02:20,620 --> 01:02:23,230 JM DeMatteis: It's sort of Batman as 1940s film noir. 1103 01:02:24,420 --> 01:02:28,180 JM DeMatteis: And I don't know if you saw the first season on when it came out on Amazon last year. 1104 01:02:28,180 --> 01:02:29,020 JM DeMatteis: If you haven't, check it out. 1105 01:02:29,020 --> 01:02:32,260 JM DeMatteis: It's a really fun show and they just build on that with the second season. 1106 01:02:32,820 --> 01:02:43,220 JM DeMatteis: And so, yeah, so there's always, you know, it's always, you know, so for me to be working on a book, to be working on animated project, working on comical projects for those classic characters. 1107 01:02:43,220 --> 01:02:44,580 JM DeMatteis: Working on my own characters. 1108 01:02:44,900 --> 01:02:47,540 JM DeMatteis: I like to bounce back and forth between these things that. 1109 01:02:47,540 --> 01:02:54,350 JM DeMatteis: That's the reason why I still do it after all this time because it's still challenging and it's still fun and I keep it diverse. 1110 01:02:54,830 --> 01:02:57,630 Case: Well, on that note, I don't want to. 1111 01:02:57,630 --> 01:02:58,590 Case: We've been an hour. 1112 01:02:58,670 --> 01:03:00,110 Case: I don't want to keep you too long. 1113 01:03:00,510 --> 01:03:02,230 JM DeMatteis: If you have like one or two final questions. 1114 01:03:02,230 --> 01:03:03,510 JM DeMatteis: I'm happy to wrap up that way. 1115 01:03:03,510 --> 01:03:04,190 JM DeMatteis: Or if you're done. 1116 01:03:04,270 --> 01:03:06,510 Case: Well, no, I just wanted to. 1117 01:03:07,230 --> 01:03:08,750 Case: As the Superman movie did. 1118 01:03:08,830 --> 01:03:09,470 Case: Thank you. 1119 01:03:13,230 --> 01:03:13,830 Case: Give your website. 1120 01:03:13,830 --> 01:03:15,950 Case: Where should people find the stuff that you're working on? 1121 01:03:16,270 --> 01:03:17,230 JM DeMatteis: Website is JMD. 1122 01:03:17,790 --> 01:03:19,950 JM DeMatteis: Did I just mispronounce my own name? 1123 01:03:21,710 --> 01:03:26,110 JM DeMatteis: JFD Matthias.com I'm on Blue Sky a lot. 1124 01:03:26,110 --> 01:03:26,910 JM DeMatteis: I have. 1125 01:03:26,910 --> 01:03:28,990 JM DeMatteis: I am not on Twitter X anymore. 1126 01:03:28,990 --> 01:03:30,030 JM DeMatteis: I have dumped that. 1127 01:03:30,590 --> 01:03:36,310 JM DeMatteis: You can find me on Facebook as well and a little bit of smattering on threads, but mostly on. 1128 01:03:36,310 --> 01:03:38,270 JM DeMatteis: On, on Blue sky and my website. 1129 01:03:38,670 --> 01:03:40,110 JM DeMatteis: So you can always find me there. 1130 01:03:40,510 --> 01:03:41,030 Case: That's. 1131 01:03:41,030 --> 01:03:42,030 Case: That's so wonderful. 1132 01:03:42,030 --> 01:03:45,790 Case: J Mike, do you have any last minute questions for JM before we go? 1133 01:03:46,450 --> 01:03:48,450 Jmike: Thank you for making Booster Gold so awesome. 1134 01:03:50,450 --> 01:03:51,330 JM DeMatteis: You're very welcome. 1135 01:03:51,410 --> 01:03:58,130 Case: The relationship between Booster and Blue Beetle is definitely a thing that has sealed the character in many of our hearts. 1136 01:03:58,370 --> 01:03:58,770 JM DeMatteis: Yeah. 1137 01:03:58,770 --> 01:03:59,050 JM DeMatteis: Yeah. 1138 01:03:59,050 --> 01:04:00,450 JM DeMatteis: No, I love those guys. 1139 01:04:00,450 --> 01:04:01,010 JM DeMatteis: Same thing. 1140 01:04:01,410 --> 01:04:02,770 JM DeMatteis: They're not characters to me. 1141 01:04:02,770 --> 01:04:03,570 JM DeMatteis: I know those guys. 1142 01:04:03,570 --> 01:04:04,330 JM DeMatteis: I love those guys. 1143 01:04:04,330 --> 01:04:06,130 JM DeMatteis: I would hang out with them on a Saturday night. 1144 01:04:06,290 --> 01:04:11,730 JM DeMatteis: There are certain characters you can enjoy, but I don't think I would want to hang out with Bruce Wayne on a Saturday night. 1145 01:04:12,690 --> 01:04:13,870 JM DeMatteis: I don't want to be hanging out with. 1146 01:04:13,940 --> 01:04:15,540 JM DeMatteis: With Reed Richards on a Saturday night. 1147 01:04:15,940 --> 01:04:17,060 JM DeMatteis: Beetle and Booster. 1148 01:04:17,220 --> 01:04:18,020 JM DeMatteis: Absolutely. 1149 01:04:18,340 --> 01:04:19,060 JM DeMatteis: Absolutely. 1150 01:04:19,060 --> 01:04:23,500 Jmike: You know, yeah, I used to work with kids not too long ago and like what's a good character? 1151 01:04:23,500 --> 01:04:26,340 Jmike: I'm like, well, let me tell you about Booster Golden. 1152 01:04:28,100 --> 01:04:28,820 Jmike: You'll love him. 1153 01:04:28,820 --> 01:04:29,340 JM DeMatteis: That's great. 1154 01:04:29,340 --> 01:04:29,940 JM DeMatteis: That's great. 1155 01:04:31,220 --> 01:04:32,660 Case: So yeah, thank you again. 1156 01:04:32,980 --> 01:04:33,300 Case: We. 1157 01:04:33,300 --> 01:04:34,820 Case: We have our own plugs to get into. 1158 01:04:34,980 --> 01:04:36,980 Case: J Mike, where can people find you and follow you? 1159 01:04:37,220 --> 01:04:39,520 Jmike: Oh, I am also not on the X anymore. 1160 01:04:39,830 --> 01:04:43,350 Jmike: I am on Bluesky at J5 Bluesky Social. 1161 01:04:43,510 --> 01:04:44,070 Jmike: I'm there. 1162 01:04:44,070 --> 01:04:47,670 Jmike: I occasionally respond to Case and his questions and things sometimes. 1163 01:04:47,670 --> 01:04:48,790 Jmike: And we're also in the Discord. 1164 01:04:49,910 --> 01:04:54,150 Case: Yeah, the Discord is a great place to find us the certain POV Discord. 1165 01:04:54,230 --> 01:05:15,170 Case: You can find a link to that in the show notes for this episode or on our website certainpov.com as for me, you can find me on the Discord, you can find me on the Blueski at Case Aiken, you can find me on Instagram where I'm holding on to dear Life to my AIM screen name from high school, which is Quetzalcoatl5Q u e t z l c o a t l 5 because I was pretentious in high school as well. 1166 01:05:15,970 --> 01:05:17,170 Jmike: Got that down packed. 1167 01:05:17,330 --> 01:05:18,130 JM DeMatteis: Weren't we all? 1168 01:05:18,130 --> 01:05:18,930 JM DeMatteis: Weren't we all? 1169 01:05:20,530 --> 01:05:24,650 Case: We also have some people to thank in addition to jm, who is wonderful for being here. 1170 01:05:24,650 --> 01:05:27,890 Case: But we have a Patreon running now and that has been going really well. 1171 01:05:28,050 --> 01:05:50,290 Case: So if you want to come and support the show and keep the lights on here, check us out@patreon.com cpovmedia but in the meantime, we have our executive producers to thank and that is Micah McCaw, Carter Howlett, Sean Muir, Lee Greger, Memento Young, Logan Crowley, Joe Mastropiero, Casey and Nancy Aiken, Adam Santer and Keith Letinen. 1172 01:05:50,450 --> 01:05:55,930 Case: If you want to be an awesome person like them and sign up, we would really appreciate it. 1173 01:05:55,930 --> 01:06:01,170 Case: We're putting out advanced clips of the episodes before they or before each episode drops. 1174 01:06:01,170 --> 01:06:06,210 Case: I'm doing two essays a week, one on a nerdy topic of my choice and another one on a D and D related thing. 1175 01:06:06,690 --> 01:06:08,810 Case: So those are all fun things to check out. 1176 01:06:08,810 --> 01:06:14,050 Case: And we're continuing to develop more stuff for people on the Patreon, so that would be really cool to check out. 1177 01:06:14,210 --> 01:06:20,410 Case: You should also check out our YouTube channel if you're not watching this on YouTube right now, because that has been going really strong. 1178 01:06:20,410 --> 01:06:23,650 Case: It's, it's grown exponentially in the last couple of weeks. 1179 01:06:24,130 --> 01:06:30,210 Case: We are really hitting it off in really great ways and very excited to do new content there. 1180 01:06:30,370 --> 01:06:31,210 Case: So check that out. 1181 01:06:31,210 --> 01:06:33,710 Case: That's also certain POV media on YouTube. 1182 01:06:33,790 --> 01:06:35,790 Case: Check all of that out. 1183 01:06:36,030 --> 01:06:38,070 Case: JM thank you again for coming on. 1184 01:06:38,070 --> 01:06:40,430 Case: This has been a wonderful time talking with you. 1185 01:06:40,430 --> 01:06:41,350 JM DeMatteis: Oh, my pleasure. 1186 01:06:41,350 --> 01:06:42,030 JM DeMatteis: My pleasure. 1187 01:06:42,110 --> 01:06:46,110 Case: And listeners, until next time, stay super man. 1188 01:06:53,710 --> 01:06:56,430 Jmike: Men of Steel is a certain POV production. 1189 01:06:57,150 --> 01:06:59,840 Jmike: Our hosts are J. Mike Full and Case Aiken. 1190 01:07:00,240 --> 01:07:03,600 Jmike: The show is edited by Sofia Ricciardi. 1191 01:07:04,000 --> 01:07:08,240 Jmike: Our logo is by Chris Bautista and episode art is by Case Aiken. 1192 01:07:08,720 --> 01:07:10,800 Jmike: Our theme is by Jeff Moonan. 1193 01:07:14,720 --> 01:07:17,360 Case: Do you have a comic book you just can't stop thinking about? 1194 01:07:17,840 --> 01:07:28,360 Case: One that stuck with you years later on Trade school, guest hosts get the mic to talk about a graphic novel that changed the way they see the world or just made them fall in love with comics. 1195 01:07:28,360 --> 01:07:29,160 Case: All over again. 1196 01:07:29,560 --> 01:07:34,680 Case: In just five to 15 minutes, you'll hear stories about the stories that real people love the most. 1197 01:07:35,160 --> 01:07:41,560 Case: Trade School a short form ongoing series about the comic book trade paperbacks we love and why we love them. 1198 01:07:41,960 --> 01:07:44,040 Case: Find it wherever you get your podcasts. 1199 01:07:47,400 --> 01:07:51,240 Case: CPOV certainpov.com.