Firestorm Writer Stuart Moore: Q&A

Posted: Monday, May 30, 2005
Posted By: Tim O'Shea

Stuart Moore is a highly respected industry veteran. Unfortunately or fortunately, that doesn’t spare him being placed under the Internet microscope with the June 1, 2005, release of his first issue as the writer of Firestorm (Firestorm 14). Moore recently took the time to answer my questions about his upcoming work at DC, as well as projects for Penny Farthing, Avatar, Hoarse and Buggy, and Games Workshop. It’s not every day that one gets to interview a founding editor of DC’s Vertigo line, but I get lucky once and awhile. My thanks to Moore for his time and thoughts.

Tim O’Shea: OK, tough question first. When will you be bring Kyle Rayner back as Firestorm?

Stuart Moore: I'm REALLY going to have to reread those old John Ostrander issues...

O’Shea: Seriously though, every interviewer is legally required to say Ronnie in a Firestorm interview. How frustrating is it to be a writer, trying to tell new stories and go forward with a character, when many of the folks giving you feedback (thanks to the Internet) are people wishing for you to revive characters of the past?

Moore: It's not frustrating at all. There's actually a very lively debate going on -- Jason Rusch, the new Firestorm character, has a lot of fans, too, though they don't always post as loudly or repeatedly as Ronnie's guys.

Look -- ultimately, it's the stories that matter. That's my #1 focus. I've been doing internet promotion for quite a while and I really appreciate the fact that people come on and feel so passionately about these books. You can never make everyone 100% happy -- especially before they've read the books -- but you can treat everyone with respect and hope they decide to put down their good money to try your work. Then you've just got to do your best and hope people get into it.

O’Shea: Given the Raymond faithful that swear they would buy a Firestorm with Ronnie, but pass on the Jason incarnation, has DC ever considered bringing back the old concept of a back-up tale in the book? Would you entertain the concept of an Untold Tales of Firestorm kind of format, or would that undermine the current day Firestorm narrative you're trying to build?

Moore: I've always liked backups -- I added them, briefly, when I was editing BOOKS OF MAGIC the second time. But they tend not to go over very well with comics fans. Very few readers are happy with both stories; they tend to want to read one or the other. I suspect this is more of an issue now that comics cost more than they used to.

It's actually a funny thing: Comics readers say they like multi-story and anthology titles, but they tend not to buy too many of those books. (I'm speaking strictly of American-format comics here -- not the larger Japanese anthologies, which are very cheap because they consist entirely of foreign reprint material.) I sympathize...when I have the bad luck to pick up an anthology and only like half the material, I'm usually not too happy, either.

But that's probably a larger discussion...

O’Shea: By establishing the new status quo (Jason's job at STAR Labs), you're allowing the book to access a whole new set of supporting characters. Will Jason's father be relegated to his past or will he still play a role?

Moore: There's an important scene with Jason and his father in #14, and then dad will be taking a back seat for a while. There's no giant break between them or anything; it's more that you reach certain points in your life where you have to back off from old, difficult relationships and give yourself a chance to grow in other directions. Jason's just turning 18 and he needs a break from his dad. We're not ignoring the relationship -- it's too big a part of who Jason is -- and we'll get back to it eventually.

O’Shea: In evaluating whether or not to take this assignment, did you appreciate that this is a rare opportunity to tackle a minority character in a mainstream book?

Moore: That's very much on my mind, yes. To be honest, as a white writer writing the only African-American superhero with his own book on the market, I'm not too comfortable bragging about what an incredible job I'm doing in that area. But I'm very conscious of it. Racial issues are not a main focus of FIRESTORM, but I'm trying to layer in some stuff under the surface.

O’Shea: As the son of a nuclear physicist and a writer who is most recently known for PARA (a project you did a great deal of research for, as detailed in last year's interview), what kind of research and subject matter did you delve into for Firestorm? There's a hint with your second issue, when Firestorm takes on a guy who is "made of the primal forces of the universe".

Moore: I did an incredible amount of research for PARA, and that's come in handy on Firestorm as well. I'm a real layman when it comes to quantum physics, but it's fascinating stuff and I like to bang my head against it every once in a while. Right now I'm looking into the phenomenon where some subatomic particles appear, from their behavior, to travel backwards in time. Firestorm may be able to tap into that power, eventually...

Incidentally, Penny-Farthing Press is planning to collect PARA in July. I think they're planning to premiere the trade paperback at Comicon San Diego and then solicit it through the direct market afterward.

O’Shea: As a former editor, do you feel you're better prepared as a writer to deal with the myriad special miniseries crisscrossing the DC universe in the coming months and hopefully be able to minimize the narrative flow of your own tale (while acknowledging the exterior storyline impacts)?

Moore: Hmm...as a former editor, yes, I'm used to dealing with other writers and editors and working out solutions to story problems. But you've summed up what I'm trying to do very well, and it's more of a writerly challenge than one that uses my editorial skills. I was just telling Steve Wacker, my editor, that the main thing I wanted to avoid was having the crossover issues be the "missing fight scene" in the crossover miniseries. We're all determined that Firestorm has to read well on its own, while giving readers of (say) Villains United an extra dimension if they read that as well.

The trick is having as much information as possible before you write the script. So far, the crossovers have slotted in very smoothly. For instance, I had issue #18 mostly plotted out, but I needed an external catalyst for some physical conflict and to blow the plot wide open. The OMACs are running around the DC Universe that month, causing chaos -- why not use one of them? So yeah, it's an organic process, but it's a challenge I'm happy to take on. There's no reason crossovers have to be offputting to casual readers.

O’Shea: What can you tell folks about Stargate Atlantis (for Avatar)? Are there certain continuity guidelines that the TV producers mandate, or were you given an element of freedom (as writers like John Ostrander find to some extent on the Star Wars work)?

Moore: It's been pretty easy so far. The only bumps I've had involve the tech details of how the Stargates work -- it's much more complicated than it seems! But everyone liked my initial storyline and the first issue is being drawn now.

As for the story: The key to it, for me, was clicking onto one of the main characters' personal dilemmas -- in this case, Major Sheppard's feelings of guilt for having loosed the Wraith, the life-energy vampires, on the Pegasus Galaxy. Nobody else really blames him for that, but he does. So he's willing to take some stupid chances and put himself at great risk to stop them.

There should be a preview special coming out sometime in the next month, I think. The approvals process has been slowed down a little by the MGM/Sony merger, so the miniseries will probably debut in late summer or early fall now.

O’Shea: Does contributing to the fourth issue of Hoarse and Buggy's Western Tales of Terror allow you to exercise that Western genre writing muscle you developed on Rocket/Dark Horse's Lone?

Moore: A little, but it's actually a very different kind of story. Lone was a Mad-Max-ish pulpy adventure story; "Other Folks' Troubles," the Western Tales story, is more of a dark-humored tale of ordinary people acting badly in a bad situation. Jason Copland's done some terrific art for it. That'll be out in June.

O’Shea: You're working on American Meat, a prose novel for Games Workshop. I have a feeling you've really tapped into the key of attracting comic book fans, when I read two words: "robot monkey". How did this project land in your lap and is this your first prose novel?

Moore: Important things first. Not only is there a robot monkey in this novel -- it's a robot monkey with a real monkey brain. So he thinks he's a real monkey, but he's got all kinds of sensors and remote cameras built into him.

I'd heard about some of the things Games Workshop was doing, and my friend, artist Steve Pugh, put me in touch with them. They were in the process of reviving a series called DARK FUTURE, which has a bit of a following in England. It's fast-moving, satirical adventure set about twenty years from now, in an America that's just kind of collapsed -- no giant war or anything, just fallen into a state of despair and economic depression. Corporations rule the world, and demons secretly rule the corporations. Law enforcement is mostly the province of freelance "Sanctioned Operatives," and violent gangcults roam the land.

I proposed some madness about a militant vegetarian gangcult and an Operative named Ratcatcher MacKay, who specializes in mostly-violent solutions to animal problems. (The robot monkey is his pet.) We threw some demons and animal experimentation into the mix, a few talking animals, a Native-American-style Dreamquest, and a generous portion of biker laser fights, and the result is pretty damn interesting, I think. The current political situation gave it a lot of juice, for me -- the Dark Future of the title, unfortunately, seems more plausible now than it did fifteen years ago, when the first novels in the series were written.

American Meat will be out in December 2005.

O’Shea: Are there any other projects you're willing to discuss? I've heard names like Dark Horse, Tokyopop and others whispered about with your name also being mentioned. Any details?

Moore: Let's see...I've just written a second Escapist story for Dark Horse. I'm negotiating an original project with Tokyopop now, which I'm very excited about. I've got a couple more things pending at DC and Marvel, and I've written a graphic novel adaptation of the bestselling fantasy novel Redwall, which will be out sometime in 2006. It's been a busy winter.

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