The Very Novel Marv Wolfman

By John Voulieris

Marv Wolfman is seasoned veteran of the comic book industry who has given fans classic runs on Amazing Spider-Man, Tomb of Dracula, Superman, Batman, and Teen Titans. He is the co-creator of Blade, and most of the Teen Titans characters appearing in the modern day cartoon series.

It was in 1985 that Marv Wolfman along with frequent artistic collaborator George Perez gave fandom what was arguably one of the best comic book crossovers of all time: the 12-part Crisis on infinite Earths.

Crisis helped redefine and re-shape the DC Universe, and served as springboard for the re-launching of all the core DC titles. It featured almost every character in DC’s rich history, while giving readers an amazing story that included shocking moments like the death of Supergirl and the Flash.

For me Crisis was an introduction to the DC Universe and all its characters. I felt it was ambitious in terms of scope and told a great story that still holds up today.

Almost 20 years later, Marv Wolfman is putting together a novelization of that tale, and he took the time to talk to us about it.

John Voulieris: How did you come about writing the Crisis novel? Was this something you always wanted to do after the mini? Whose idea was it?

Marv Wolfman: First of all, the Crisis on Infinite Earths novel will be published in April. I know it can be pre-ordered at Amazon.com here.

I gather there is a 32% discount for ordering it early which brings the
price to $15.61. Which, as far as I can tell, is a really great deal. The business section of this interview is now concluded. Now for the fun stuff.

I was approached by John Nee from DC who asked if I'd be interested in doing a novel based on Crisis. I immediately said yes, and only later panicked. How could I actually get a 450 some-odd page comic down to an 80,000 word, 300 page novel, and why would anyone want to read a prose story when it was obviously a story meant to be drawn. These were only two of the questions I had.

But what happens is your mind starts thinking and I realized almost immediately that I would have to approach the story very differently, not only for myself but for the readers. I would have to give them a very different experience from the comic in order to make them want to read this book. Because of the nature of the concept, the Crisis comic was a vast, sprawling cosmic event with no central characters and no clear spine to the story. The Crisis novel would have to be a more intimate character-specific book where we'd spend more time with the people as well as events that we never saw in the comic.

To make this book very different and special, I decided it would be narrated by one of the heroes, to give an insight not only into the events, but also into the other heroes that we'd not seen done before. The hero I picked is The Flash who seemingly had little to do with the original comic other than get killed. Now he's involved with almost every major event that occurred. I sent my concept to DC and to Byron Press, whose iBooks imprint would actually publish the book and they loved it. I got the contract and immediately set about to work.

JV: Did DC mandate any changes? What were their guidelines in regards
to the novel?

MW: DC had no mandated changes and no guidelines other than do a good book. When I was done, Paul Kupperberg, the DC editor on the project, suggested I add one other chapter featuring a character who needed to react to what had just happened in the book. I slapped my head because I should have come up with that on my own. Aside from that, Paul only made a few suggestions here and there along the way and then later proofed the book. It was a great experience.

JV: How different/difficult is it adapting a graphic novel into prose format? How do you approach action scenes (before you could let George Perez run with a scene, but now its all in your hands)? How many scenes did you cut or add? Is there anything you wanted to include in the comic that you could not but now have put into the novel (ie: the crisis "missing" issue you did with Paul Ryan a few years back)?

MW: The Crisis novel contains maybe 60-70% new material. I cover the story you saw in the comic but from such a different way and with so many new ideas that it's a vastly different experience. I'm hoping the death of Supergirl will still affect you, hopefully more than even before. It's very touching.

Also, because it is being narrated by Flash, you have insights into characters that we've never seen before. And, lastly, because it's the Flash, it's also a true love story between Barry Allen and his wife Iris. Because of how the Flash got involved with the Crisis, Barry has no knowledge of whether Iris survived it or not. I'm extremely pleased with this aspect of the story, and I am willing to bet that you won't be able to read the final chapter without crying. Flash is also hands-on is responsible for the origin of one of the other characters who appeared in The Crisis. This should be a pretty good surprise to everyone.

As for the action, I realized up front that one of the incredibly great strengths of the original was not only George Pérez's dynamic art but his other contributions as well. That's another reason I had to tell the story differently. There was no reason to ever try to duplicate in words what every one of his brilliant pictures brought to the Crisis. Instead, I needed to find a more character-driven approach that depended on my being able to create new images in the reader's mind that weren't necessarily influenced by the original.

As for your last question, none of the material in this was something I had planned to do back then - unlike Crisis 4 1/2, which is referenced in the novel - it's all material that, with a 20 year perspective - I came up with now.

JV: Do you think readers familiar with the comic series will enjoy the
novelization? Will casual readers who are unfamiliar find it accessible?

MW: Obviously I'm hoping the readers will enjoy this. There's no other reason to do it. Despite what people may believe, unless you're Stephen King or in that company, novels don't pay all that well, not even as well as comics. So you don't do something like this for the money. I did it because I wanted to revisit that world and tell a story that would affect the readers in the same way as the original but give them a completely new experience. I also wrote it so people who never read the Crisis, or even comics, would, I hope, be able not only to follow and understand it, but to enjoy the character-driven story.

JV: Who do you consider the main character in this novel? Looking back
at the comic series the Golden Age Superman is definetly a major player as is the Flash - is there a specific POV you want to be guiding the book?

MW: Strangely, in the original the Flash was not a major player. He appeared - dying and decaying - a few times. Then we saw him held captive and he was killed an issue or two later. There were no central characters in the original comic other than The Monitor, Anti-Monitor, Harbinger, Pariah, Psycho Pirate and Alexander Luthor. All of them are, of course, vital to this story, too, but the Flash, who is narrating 90% of the novel, is the point of view character.

JV: I remember that Crisis was my introduction to the DCU - I did not
know many of the characters, but was intrigued even by the little cameos to find out more. Any Easter eggs and/or cameos for DCU fans in the novel? Any minor characters you would like to include and give a voice to?

MW: I think that because I could spend more time with the characters, even minor ones, that all the characters may come alive more than they did in the comic. I can't think of anyone in this book that didn't appear in the original, but we now spend paragraphs or chapters with them rather than one random panel.

JV: Any major plot beats or characters you wanted to add into the novelization? Did you want to use Hal Jordan (who was unavailable during the original mini)? Any characters you had to change in order to be more in tune with the current version (ie: I loved your version of Brainiac but did you have to make him the in continuity character for the novel?)

MW: There is a long section that takes place at Ferris Aircraft, but I won't say more than that. I changed nothing to keep in tune with current continuity. This story, although dates are never given (least I don't think so) takes place in 1985 and it's that version you're reading about, otherwise, how could I do the death of Supergirl and so many of the other scenes? There are, however, vast sections of the comic that are not recounted here because this version of the story has a very focused plot as opposed to the rambling, branching nature of the comic.

JV: As a story that stands on its own - disregarding the need for a continuity cleanup that was required at the time for the DCU - what is in your opinion are the major themes of the Crisis? Especially for someone who does not know the DCU or even comics in general? What would attract readers to this tale?

MW: I think if you like super-hero stories on a vast scale, the Crisis is, modesty aside, one of the best that's ever been done. What should attract readers to the novel is a chance to really understand the characters, to see a new story and a new view that they haven't ever seen before and to see events that were never explained in the original. I was very surprised that, as I started plotting this book, how much material that is unexplained in the comic could be explained now because of the Flash's involvement.

The core of any good comic is the characters. You don't always care about the monthly action, but if you're hooked on the characters you come back month after month to see more. The Crisis comic had some good characterization, but because of the vast nature of the story, it was doled about a panel here and a panel there. I think the characters in the novel are richer and deeper than before and the new situations interesting enough and different enough to make this a page turner, even for people who have read the original. I'm hoping that is what people will want to read the novel for.

JV: Any other novelizations you would like to do? Some Teen Titans work
perhaps? I think the Judas Contract would read great as a novel..any
plans for more in the near future?

MW: I would LOVE to do the Judas Contract. It has all the pacing of a really good novel. And I intend to be doing original novels as well. I had such a ball writing this one that I don't want to stop.

JV: Any other future projects you would like to plug? What else are
you working on these days?

MW: I just finished writing an direct-to-video animated movie called "El Lobo," which I believe will be out either the end of this year or early next year, and I'm working on a graphic History of the State of Israel, a daunting but exciting project that should be published in the spring of 2006. I also have other projects that pop up here and now.

By the way, updates on what I'm doing as well as all my convention appearances can be found on the weblog page of my website at http://www.marvwolfman.com

	John Voulieris is a part time staff writer at SBC and hopes that he doesn’t run into any parallel earth counterparts of his that like to sport goatees!