The New Gods #1 is now on stands, and with it the reveal of the central conceit of the book. Spoilers past this point, but a new god has been born, and Orion is sworn to kill it, while Mister Miracle needs to decide whether to protect it.
But according to writer Ram V, that’s just the beginning of the story. “The heart of the pitch, weirdly enough, was what if we had to get seven of the most powerful characters in the DCU, not the Fourth World, to raise a new god?” Ram V told Comic Book Club over Zoom. “The pitch blossomed from there, and that continues to be the central idea of this. With the new god who is born, there’s a prophecy made that says he must meet seven immortals and take gifts slash powers from them.”
To find out more about the issue, including the genesis of those Jorge Fornés pages, and whether Barda will ever wake up from her nap, read on.
Comic Book Club: You reveal this new god on the last page of the book… I assume that was central to the pitch, shifting from New Gods to actual new gods?
Ram V: Yeah, it’s central to the pitch, central to the concept. Actually, the heart of the pitch, weirdly enough, was what if we had to get seven of the most powerful characters in the DCU, not the Fourth World, to raise a new god? The pitch blossomed from there, and that continues to be the central idea of this. With the new god who is born, there’s a prophecy made that says he must meet seven immortals and take gifts slash powers from them. This is something oddly that was also prefaced in Morrison’s Seven Soldiers, but also is part of Hindu mythology. It’s the Hindu equivalent of the Ragnarok myth, the last avatar of God shall be born and shall be given seven gifts from seven immortals who have lived on earth forever. So, yeah, interesting thing to throw into the midst.
If we are getting seven different folks giving gifts to this new god, are we going to see other characters that we’re familiar with from the DC Universe?
Yeah, absolutely. I mean spoiler territory, but I’ve teased a big involvement from Wonder Woman. And I think Wonder Woman is the first big immortal who shall bestow a gift upon this new god. And in similar ways, there are other characters from the DCU involved. I don’t know how many I can actually reveal, or if we shall tease them in the future. Or if you look at some of the new covers coming out, there are hints as to who these characters might be. But yeah, they’re not necessarily all heroes, because there are obviously villainous immortals in the DCU as well.
I did want to jump back and talk about this Jorge Fornés pages, in particular you have that two page spread where you’re showing Metron breaking out of the 16-panel grid and going over to the Source Wall that I just looked at for five solid minutes. What was the inspiration behind that? Because I thought it was wonderful.
Part of what I wanted to do with that guest segment was to transmit the idea that this is a mythological story happening on a different scale. I didn’t actually arrive at it so directly. But the idea of the grid breaking to essentially what is an empty double-page spread was that we are now leaving the constraints of more earthly storytelling and reaching a plane where the storytelling happens on these vast vistas, if you will. And I think that spread really, with Jorge’s work, transmits that scale, [that] change of scale, if you will, really well.
You have a character there called Amaxazu, who I’m not familiar with. I don’t know if she’s popped up before. What can you tell us about her?
It’s just a random old god who witnessed Darkseid’s death and it killed her. That’s how powerful Darkseid was. Part of the joy of writing The New Gods is, if you go back and read Kirby, he did this kind of thing all the time. Every second issue, they’d be like, a random character showed up, never saw them again for like, 15 issues, and they showed up again 17 issues later. I love that sort of incidental world building, where we don’t have to have a history for everything. Don’t have to have a plan for everything. Sometimes, you just witness things happening in the cosmos that may have repercussions later on.
You’ve got Mr. Miracle and Barda here… Tom King and Mitch Gerad’s series seems to have been so important, so defining a take on these characters. Why do you think that is, and how much were you taking directly from that?
Tom and Mitch, his take on Mr. Miracle was certainly part of my reading for this book, even though technically it is not an in-continuity book, it’s its own thing. It stands off on the side. But I love the characterization. I love the interiority of those characters being explored. And that’s part of the reason why it had the impact that it did. Because these were characters that were archetypal, emblematic, suddenly you had this book where they were intensely human in almost inhuman ways. What that book did is it balanced the big concepts with the small interiority. That is essential to almost any good comic book storytelling, regardless of whether you’re doing a Black Label thing that stands on its own, or you’re doing mainstream continuity. The first question, as we said, is, why do people care? And Tom and Mitch presented a reason for people to care about these characters, beyond the spandex and costumes and the punching of supervillains and all of that.
Last question: Is Barda going to wake up from her nap in issue two?
Um, yes, in a big way.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
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