COMICS: Paul Levits Discusses DC's EARTH-2 AND WORLD'S FINEST

Speaking to Newsarama, writer Paul Levits shares some details about the upcoming Earth-2 and World's Finest titles.

Question: The description of this series is that the characters are stranded on a parallel earth and are trying to get home to Earth 2. How does Earth 2 work in the New 52 universe? Is it still part of 52 Earths?

LEVITS: "Most of that is James Robinson's territory, and I will leave that to him. My turf is to look at these two women who are interestingly complex human beings, reacting to an extraordinarily disruptive situation in very different ways.

And yet they're good friends, and they're surviving — maybe arguably thriving — in an alien world, with each others' help.

But their priorities are very different. Their approach to what's happening to them is very different. And that's cool territory to explore.

These are kids I love playing with, and yet they're in a new form, so I can do a new, more modern take on them.

The joy of any book where you're taking characters who come from our two core character families is to counterpoint between them. And the neat thing, when you're playing that not with Superman and Batman but Huntress and Power Girl, is that they're freer characters, in some ways, than the iconic characters. You can develop more nuances. They stand on their own a little bit more. And you can hopefully make that a more interesting journey, since they don't have to support eight titles each. So you have the room to tell their story.

But we also have plenty of stuff that blows up, plenty of drama and action in the process of introducing a new, modern take on these two great characters."

Question: You mentioned that you were planting seeds in your Huntress mini. Were you setting this book up?

LEVITS: "Pieces of it. The things that are set up in the mini-series are really the ambiguities to make people wonder — and there's been this lovely, fierce online debate about Helena Wayne/Helena Bertinelli. And "is it taking place on Earth 2?" or "is it taking place on the New 52 Earth?" And "oh, she says she's more of a cat person than a dog person, so what does that mean?" You know? Going back and forth.

It's kind of beautiful to see people get involved that much and care that much about the characters just as you're wrapping up the story.

So there are a few things like that being set up."

Question: That name Bertinelli in there is a fun tease, but this is Helena Wayne, right?

LEVITS: "We will ultimately know that she's Helena Wayne of Earth 2, but whether Bruce will know that she's Helena Wayne, or how Bruce or Selina Kyle will come to know that and react to that, we'll see. I'm still working out all the dramatic potential in it. Obviously, there's enormous pent up possibility in those moments, and you want to make all that drama work. And you don't want to do all that in issue #1, panel #1. You want to take people on an interesting ride.

It's going to be very connected both to Earth 2 and to the New 52 Earth. In a sense, it's the bridge book between the two. It should be a very rich, exciting experience, if we do it right."

Question: We've seen Karen Starr in [the now canceled] Mr. Terrific, but only briefly. Is she like the Power Girl we've know in the past, before the relaunch?

LEVITS: "I think she'll be a little bit different from what you've seen in the past. I'm building off the facts that are established about her in Mr. Terrific. I'm trying to pick up on things that happened in those issues and connect them in properly. But there's a lot more to her story.

She's got a very defined sense of mission about going home. She needs to get back there. She feels that world needs her there. And hopefully that will play out in a very interesting fashion.

These two gals got dumped here in a confusing and challenging circumstance, in a world that's a lot like theirs, but not the same. And each of them has different sets of things they want to do as a result."

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