Back in February we had the chance to talk to several DC creators about the new titles and directions beginning in June, after Convergence. When the New 52 started, we saw a new start for the Justice League. As the stories continued and the characters were allowed to grow, many noticed that one of the members, Cyborg, was left without his own ongoing series. All that changes on July 22 as David Walker will be writing the new series with Ivan Reis and Joe Prado doing the art. We spoke with David about the series and how he sees Victor Stone.
COMIC VINE: What took Cyborg so long to get his own book?
DAVID WALKER: I really can’t answer that. The funny thing is, when DC approached me I said, “Okay, yeah. Has he ever had his own series?” I think four or five years ago they did a miniseries. I know that Ken Lashley was one of the artists on it. There’s been a few stories here and there but I don’t know why. To me, that’s beautiful. That means there’s more character to play with. I really don’t know why. But it’s really because it took them this long to find me.
CV: That’s right.
[laughs]
CV: What’s going to be the direction of the book?
DW: The direction of the book is going to be…I mean, this is the pitch and what we’re working on, and now it’s the fine tuning. It’s really about Cyborg—Vic Stone finding himself. The thing we keep forgetting and we’ll look at him from the context whether it’s the New 52 or the original incarnation, when he became Cyborg, he was eighteen-years-old. He was still a teenager and he’s thrust into this world of greatness. There’s been a few stories here and there, but I don’t think there’s been much in terms of getting into that inner-conflict he has.
When you look at some other characters that have sort of been touched by the gods, in that sense of the archetype, they can all hide behind their secret identities. There’s no hiding for Vic. There’s no ever leading a normal life. He’s always going to be ‘the other,’ and that’s a huge part of what draws me to the character. That’s part of what’s driving the story. In a lot of ways, it’s like he’s like the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz. It’s like he wants a heart. He already has a heart. He just doesn’t realize it. That’s a lot of what I’m trying to do. I’m surrounding him by a cast of supporting characters and some are pulling him towards his humanity. Others are more interested in him as Cyborg. It’s that conflict, that duality between, not just man and machine, but that conflict between how we connect with our own humanity.
This interview is different than if it was over the phone or emails. I mean, I have pants on. If it was over the phone, I wouldn’t have pants on. If you had emailed me the questions, I’d be like, “Oh man, I gotta type up these answers.” There’s this connect that’s very human. You’re seeing my terrible posture right now and that’s what I want to sort of get into. We live in a day and age where that’s lost. We look at somebody’s Facebook or Twitter and think we know them. You look at Vic and think, “Oh, I know him. He’s a guy trapped in a tin can suit and can never get out.” But is that who he really is? That’s the driving thing, the humanity of Vic Stone.
CV: So Cyborg has bad posture?
DW: Yeah. I was thinking, we need to design chair legs that extend from his back because he would break a chair. Those are the impractical questions I ask all the time.
CV: Will we see what he does in his down time? Pretty much since he’s joined the Justice League, since he became Cyborg, he’s kind of been stuck in the Watchtower on monitor duty since he’s connected to everything. Is he going to be able to get out?
DW: Yeah. He’s gone. He’s in Detroit. He is at S.T.A.R. Labs. It’s like I’m shooting for the moon and we’re slowly scaling things back, but it’s him going, “I’m done. I’m done being a superhero. I just wanna be a regular guy.” How does this guy be a regular guy? It’s him working at S.T.A.R. Labs and really discovering, for the first time, the hero that he really is. A lot of times in order to discover the hero you truly are, you have to step outside of yourself. In the original pitch that I made, I said, “Let’s look at the creation of Cyborg and everything that happened in the New 52 as his hero’s journey. Let’s start this series after that’s over.” Now, he’s come home. He has the magic elixir. He’s fought with Superman, Batman, and everybody. Now he’s going home and he’s going to discover who he is outside of all of these other factors. What we’re still ironing out is some of the post-Convergence players that will be involved. No matter what, I’ll make it great. What can I say?
CV: Will he be able to have a normal civilian life? Could he get a fake/prosthetic face or something to cover all the metal?
DW: That’s a good question. He tried that years and years ago. There was a story where they tried to do that. It’s on my list of notes of things to explore, but I’m looking at him in terms of his cybernetics being a manifestation of a disability. There’s people that can’t change their disabilities. Does he want to hide or does he want to be out there in the open with it. That’s what we’re still playing with. The thing is, when the character was created, he was total sci-fi in 1980, right? If you look at where prosthetic technology or where biomechatronics are, there are bionic people out there right now. It doesn’t look anything like what he looks like. Maybe we need to rethink certain aspects of how he interacts with his body and how his body interacts with him and how it defines him. We’re still playing with it. There are a couple big things I have planned that I haven’t even told everybody. I’m going to shake the pillars of DC with my plans.
CV: Interesting. Is his dad still going to be around?
DW: His dad is a major player. So is Doctor Thomas Morrow. The Metal Men will be in it for a bit. There’s also some new characters I’m bringing in because he doesn’t have a huge cast of supporting characters. Right now we’re playing around in Detroit. I’m looking at what Detroit is like as a city now and it’s going through some really interesting things that are reflective of what’s going on in America in terms of urban centers that have fallen on decay and are now being reclaimed by corporations and urban renewal. There’s a huge disparity. You see it up in San Francisco a lot, when you’re in downtown San Francisco. There’s a high end store over here and then a bunch of homeless right outside.
CV: What about Billy Batson/Shazam? In JUSTICE LEAGUE they formed a friendship.
DW: I will bring in Shazam at some point, but right now, the focus is really on Cyborg. I keep saying it’s really on Vic Stone. There’s a couple bits I have with Shazam in there. Whether or not they stay, initially, up front really depends on we’re still trying to figure out, from an editorial standpoint, who’s going to be available in what books at what times and not have it become the Cyborg/Shazam Show. I’m not interested in doing that right now because Shazam has had so many incarnations—Bily Batson, Captain Marvel, where as there’s only really basically been two versions of Vic, three if you count Teen Titans Go! All three of those are still not as fully developed as they could be.
CV: Will there be any follow up on what he went through in FOREVER EVIL with Grid taking him over.
DW: Yeah, I’m playing off a lot of that sort of stuff and really looking at like the technology that was used to build him, stuff going on in the Red Room, and really getting into this concept of his dad, Doctor Morrow, and everyone at S.T.A.R. Labs is doing. They’re playing with stuff that they shouldn’t necessarily be playing with. We’re examining how is that going to manifest itself into a threat and do you even know what your son’s arms are made out of? Do you know what’s keeping him alive? Do you fully understand that?
It’s toying with the things that we do, I’m toying with the things that parents do to their kids in that “Well this is for your own good. This is for the benefit of society.” Is that what’s really going on. So we’ll see some interesting stuff like that.
CV: I know everyone’s excited about this. They’re always like, “Why doesn’t Cyborg have his own book?!?” So, no pressure.
DW: No, it freaks me out because, really, I was not expecting the response that I got, a lot from my friends with kids. Again, I didn’t know their kids liked comics. What it is, they watched Teen Titans Go! It was the same with the kids watching the Justice League cartoon with John Stewart. They loved John Stewart and then the Green Lantern movie came out and they were like, “Wait a minute, how come it isn’t John Stewart?” I’m cognizant of that. Teen Titans Go! is for a younger audience. I want to make sure that those kids that were introduced to that show a few years ago and now are twelve or thirteen years old, they’re reading a book about someone that’s a few years older than them but it’s the same as a seventh grader reading a Harry Potter book or something like that. I want to give them something they can relate to. That concept of being trapped in a reality that’s not what you wanted, which is his body, I think is fascinating. We all deal with that in some capacity or another. So, we’ll see what happens.
And we will see what happens in July. Here's the solicit for the first issue:
CYBORG #1
Written by DAVID WALKER
Art and cover by IVAN REIS and JOE PRADO
1:25 Variant cover by TONY HARRIS
On sale JULY 22 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T
The machine that gives Cyborg his powers is evolving! The only problem is that machine is his body and he has no idea what’s causing these changes!
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