"It opens in France in the 1920s, which immediately for a superhero story is a very different location. We start on a bunch of explorers kind of like that opening from 'King Kong,' which I love, and they're doing an exploration of the ancient world – these rich Americans who have put together an expedition to find something you'll hear about in the story. From those first few pages, and a doomed expedition, we cut to the present day, and they came home from that trip altered and with a plan to save the American idea. In historical context, the Russian revolution is relatively recent and Europe is in a state of turmoil and they're just on the cusp of the Wall Street Crash so they've gone on this trip to try and save America and then we cut to their utterly useless, meandering children in the present day essentially squandering their inheritance."
"It's not crass and celebrity focused, although it touches on that stuff. It's more Shakespearean, with the last of the old heroes, a King Lear figure, watching these teenagers and twenty-something with no altruism whatsoever. There's a massive regret in his eyes as he looks around at the world he's leaving behind, very much the world we see today with the Euro-zone collapse and industrial decline and six billion people worried about the future, he feels the children and grand-children of he and his friends just aren't up to the job. But this is just the starting point. This is like saying that Star Wars is about Darth Vader boarding a ship and kidnapping the Princess. This is the first eight or ten pages and we just run with it from here."
"I think there's something sad and quite unique where these ten or twenty, slightly damaged super-people feel they can never live up to their parents. And something even more tragic about the parents recognizing that their children, in many ways, are their failures. In the same way, Paris Hilton is the granddaughter of a man with incredible business sense and the will to build that Hilton chain of hotels. She doesn't have the skills or drive he had. She's just a vacuous party girl who was born with a silver spoon and mistakes money and fame for success or respect. In the same way, these superheroes know something enormous is missing from their lives and are daunted by the prospect of replacing their parents. That's the thread running in the background, and on top of all this is this massive adventure story with aliens and robots and amazing ships and vehicles and a whole world I've been building with respect to what's happening here in the real world."
If you're interested in reading more about how Millar and Quietly teamed up to create this rather unique sounding series, be sure to click on the link below to head on over to the site. The writer also addresses the chances of
Jupiter's Children being adapted for the big screen (it's not for sale quite yet apparently) and spills the beans on the real world inspiration behind the story.