DC's Young Animal imprint may be set in the DC Universe, but books like Doom Patrol and Shade: The Changing Girl tend to focus on weirder and more obscure heroes. That's not the case with the latest issue of Cave Carson Has a Cybernetic Eye. Issue #7 features a big team-up between the superhero spelunker and the Man of Steel himself.
We had the chance to chat on the phone with writer Jon Rivera about this new issue and the unusual dynamic between Cave Carson and Clark Kent. Rivera also talked about how his collaboration with Young Animal "showrunner" Gerard Way was evovled over the past year and how this Superman team-up ties into the larger story Rivera and artist Michael Avon Oeming are telling.
Scroll down to see what Rivera had to say, and let us know what you think of this team-up in the comments below.
IGN: You guys have been working on these Young Animal books, from what I can tell, for at least a year now. Has there been any change in Gerard's involvement or just the general creative process?
Rivera: Well, initially we were co-writing the book on those first three issues. And now Gerard is concentrating on Doom Patrol and running the higher functions of the line. That would be the only change in terms of cave Carson. We still do the story together. The first year of cave Carson is based on a story we came up with together. We still have regular story meetings about it, but then when it comes time to write the actual issue, I'm the writer.
IGN: Has your collaboration with Mike changed at all?
Rivera: Oh, yeah. If anything, it comes closer as time goes on. Mike is really great collaborator. He loves getting suggestions and adding his own perspective to the book. Nick [Filardi] and Mike have worked closely together for years, so of anyone on the team, they probably have the longest working relationship. It's been a great experience seeing our team come closer and kind of develop a shorthand with each other as the book goes forward. Which really helps, because the book constantly changes setting and we're constantly adding characters and creating new creatures. It makes it easier to tackle those challenges with a team that's very cohesive.
IGN: It seems like there's a lot of difficult visual information to work with and a lot of psychedelic imagery in this book. I imagine it helps a lot having someone you can communicate with easily and try to get those ideas across on the page.
Rivera: It's very important. When we first started, I had not ever met Mike or Nick. Of course, I had had a working relationship with Gerard, and a friendship, for many years. But the team was all pretty new. When we started the book, I gave Mike a bunch of visual reference - stills from movies like At the Earth's Core - and we talked a lot about, like, Mario Bava and his use of lighting. It was a real concern because, natural lighting isn't the most dynamically interesting thing for a long-form book. We wanted to be able to dynamically change the colors and explore the psychedelic nature of the book, as well. They got all of those references right off the bat - Mike and Nick - and it made it much easier to tackle these challenges, since everybody was on the same page.
IGN: It seems like readers are pretty enthusiastic about these Young Animal books, maybe in a way they weren't with some of the stuff DC tried before with the DC You relaunch a couple years ago. Why do you think these books have found an audience where books like Prez struggled before?
Rivera: Gerard does bring his own fanbase and his own excitement level. I think that's really exciting for a lot of people. It helps bring in a lot of people who otherwise may have had difficulty finding their own entry point into the world of comics. It's a good motivator for fans to check out some of his books, and in doing so, get a chance to fall in love with comics the way we all did when we were younger. I think what's cool about it too is you're having some pretty interesting creators working on these books. It gives you a fresh perspective. DC has been very good about being fairly hands-off and just letting us tell the stories we want to tell. It comes through in these books. Our intent was to capture that initial creative vibe from the Vertigo books in the '90s. And, you know, at a time when Vertigo was still a part of the DC Universe. It still pulled stories and characters from the traditional DCU. I think older fans remember that era, like myself and Gerard, and that may have helped garner excitement for a new line.
I also think when you have a new line, it just doesn't have a lot of baggage. We're using a lot of older characters and stuff, but some of them haven't been around in a long time. I feel like there's this air that gives people a fresh entry point. That's always exciting, when you can just jump into a book not needing prior knowledge. We were very big on letting people know that - that they they wouldn't need any prior knowledge of these books to jump in. Because I think that can sometimes be a barrier, as well, for getting into any kind of long-running story.
IGN: And from what I've read, it sounds like you personally weren't familiar with this character before Gerard approached you for the book. Do you feel like that in turn helped you make the book more approachable for readers?
Rivera: Oh, totally. 100%. That's the thing. I had the perspective of getting to know Cave while I was working on a book where I had to entice people to get to know Cave. [laughs] I was definitely sympathetic to the reader in those terms. And the thing is, once Gerard introduced me to the character, I immediately fell in love with the character. The more we learned about him, the better it got. It was cool seeing that some of our initial ideas about the character were actually backed up in his actions in the classic stories. I think getting that clean slate was a real blessing in terms of getting the chance to tell the story we wanted to tell without being completely beholden to referencing all these moments from Cave's past or trying to laboriously get everyone up to speed. You've got to hit the ground running with the book and join Cave right at the beginning of a new chapter in his life. I think that made the book very accessible.
IGN: Issue #7 featured the big team-up between Cave and Superman, and it's something Cave alluded to several times over the course of the first story arc. Is this a story you've been itching to tell for a while?
Rivera: It kind of came up initially as a joke. We were talking about how Cave had met Superman in the older comics. Before we even got a chance to read them, we figured Cave never really took off. He went back to living a normal life. We always thought that someone who did that, the time they met Superman or helped Superman would probably become one of those stories that they told ad nauseum to everyone they knew. We liked the idea of Cave not being able to let that go. And as I did more research in those old team-up stories, I saw that Cave was kind of a jerk to Superman. I feel like maybe that's something he would regret years later. You know, the one or two times he got to hang out with Superman he was kind of a jerk to him. That seed was definitely the beginning of the story we're telling in issue #7.
IGN: There's this great line in issue #7 where Superman tells Cave "Superman isn't my name, it's a challenge." Does that pretty much sum up your take on the character?
Rivera: Yeah, yeah. That's the thing. We had joked about how to use him in the story and the way it was told, but when it came time to actually use him and DC made the offer to put Superman in Cave Carson, we had to start thinking of an actual story for him. I started thinking about the things I wanted to say about the character and how to have as much fun with him as we could for the time we had him. That was definitely something that I feel about Superman. In this issue, Cave and Superman are talking, and Cave's trying to put up walls, yet Superman's trying to inspire him. And Cave says, "It's easy for you, because you're Superman." He's trying to pass that. Superman has to remind Cave that even though he has these powers, it takes something more than that to be Superman. It's not just the powers; it's the man behind the powers. And that's something I've always felt about Superman.
IGN: There's another great moment between the two where Superman points out how Cave is the only person he's ever rescued that doesn't enjoy the view. I feel like that says a lot about Cave and what separates him from pretty much every other DC character.
Rivera: [laughs] Yeah, he's not impressed. He's not a big fan of soaring through the sky. He doesn't see the point. He loves the underground. That's a part of cave's personality that we're hoping to explore in later issues, talking about how he was part of a spelunking counterculture. At a time when people were looking towards the stars in both society and popular culture, Cave couldn't understand how people could be fascinated by space when under the earth was so much more interesting to him.
IGN: I couldn't help but notice that, even tough this was kind of, sort of a flashback story, Superman was drawn in a more classical style rather than his New 52 look.
Rivera: Mmhmm.
IGN: You were talking about how Young Animal is like the old Vertigo line where it's its own thing but still set in the DC Universe. In your mind, do you see this taking place in the current DC Universe with Rebirth and everything else that's going on, or is this a more timeless, ambiguous DCU?
Rivera: Yeah, it gets a little ambiguous. I know Gerard has kind of talked about Young Animal's place in the DCU, and we do take place in DC, but it's a little fuzzy. We're on the outskirts of it. Setting the story in the past helps develop the tone for it. I didn't feel like I needed to make Superman sound current, you know? In the first half of the issue you can kind of tell that it's written in a slightly older style - the dialogue and the way the exchanges are written. And as the story progressed and we started seeing some of the twists and turns unfold, the storytelling becomes more modern and a little more mature. I really just wanted a classic Superman.
Also, as we've talked about before, I wanted to respect the fact that a lot of our Young Animal readers are fairly new to comics. I wanted them to be able to just open this issue up. Most people understand the basics of Superman. We didn't have to reach. But I wanted to present a very classic Superman that anyone could recognize, regardless of what's going on in the current DCU.
IGN: It seems like Mike's Superman has some elements of the Bruce Timm animated style as well as the old Flesicher cartoons.
Rivera: Yep.
IGN: How much did you guys discuss the design of the character and how to fit him into this weird corner of the DCU?
Rivera: That was the thing. The first thing I said to the team was that I wanted it to be a classic Superman. Of course, we wanted his costume to reflect the costume DC is using, but in terms of his general representation, we wanted it to have a very classic feel. To me, personally, those Fleischer cartoons and the Bruce Timm animated style - when I think of Superman, that's my Superman. It's animation. And Mike has that animated style taht I think works so well for adventure books. We didn't have to art direct him too much. He pretty much knocked it out of the park right away.
IGN: The flashback approach to this issue allowed you to work with some of the classic Cave Carson characters that aren't around anymore. Are we going to see more of them as you explore what happened to his old team and the tragedy behind that story?
Rivera: Oh yeah, definitely. In an issue that was full of interesting challenges, I really wanted to take some time and show Cave's old team. We haven't had a lot of time to catch up with them, other than Johnny, in the first story arc, so I thought this was a great opportunity to show the good old days. And, at the same time, do a little bit of foreshadowing for things we're going to address in the book. There's certain elements that will come into play later. Certain relationship dynamics that are shown in that issue that will come into play by the end of this arc. I thought it was a great opportunity to start setting some of that stuff up, as well. So even though it's a flashback, it is important to the current story arc. I definitely didn't want it to feel like we were taking a break from the current story to tell a Superman story. I wanted it to still be relevant.
IGN: Before we ended, I did want to ask about the backup strips you've been running. I've been enjoying the Super Powers strips Tom [Scioli] has been doing, but it looks like you're trying something different for this arc?
Rivera: For the new arc, we're having Mark Russell write "The Wonderful World of Rocks: With Professor Mark Bartow," who's a character who will be premiering in comic form very soon. Mark Bartow is a character that Gerard made up as a kind of Carl Sagan-esque mentor to Cave Carson. He's an important part of Cave's past and that spelunking counterculture storyline I mentioned early on. It's nice that we were able to give some detail on that character before he shows up in the book. Also, we're going to use him to illuminate some of the stranger science that exists in the world of cave Carson. It's got a cool Ripley's Believe It or Not feel to it, which we always enjoy. Gerard and I are fans of world-building in general. Especially Gerard - he loves tiny details.This is going to be a really great opportunity to switch things up. After you're done reading an issue of cave Carson, you can kind of delve into some of the nitty gritty of his world.
We try to do that as much as possible. Even with the Record Store Day release that's coming out, on side B there's an excerpt that Gerard had recorded. Even in that, ther'es mentions of night pudding, which I believe was used in issue #5 and 6. We like doing that. We like seeding little details outside of the book and working them into the main story.
Cave Carson Has a Cybernetic Eye #7 is available in print and digital formats now. For more on the Young Animal imprint, check out our recent interview with Mother Panic writer Jody Houser.
Jesse is a mild-mannered writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter, or Kicksplode on MyIGN.
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