DC Comics writer Paul Cornell has recently revealed new details about his upcoming Demon Knights and Stormwatch comic book series.
What about DC’s new 52 titles excites you the most?
PAUL CORNELL: I think giving the general public both a reason to, and the ability to, buy their first comic, at the same moment, is the single thing that will save the industry. I think DC has done a tremendous thing here, and they should be applauded tremendously for it.
How and why are you shaking up the series’ status quo?
I’m giving the Demon a bunch of comrades to smash teeth with, having him rhyme only at the end of a scene (or when it’s particularly cool for him to do so), giving the Shining Knight a continuing existence in Medieval times, showing how hard ‘Madam Xanadu’ (if that is her real name) had to be to get by, showing the moment Apollo and the Midnighter met [gay couple], giving the Martian Manhunter conflicted warrior feelings about how super heroes do what they do, making Jenny Q age with the century she’s the spirit of, making The Engineer obviously better qualified to lead her team that the man who actually leads it… I could go on.
What new characters will debut in the series?
DEMON KNIGHTS: Al Jabr, the medieval playboy inventor; Clytemnestra, mysteriously independent from her people on the Island of the Amazons, the greatest archer of her age, who makes her way through Europe, staying apart, able to ride but not to walk.
STORMWATCH: Adam One, who’s been aging backwards since the Big Bang, the master of tactics who… forgets things and isn’t that great at convincing people he knows what he’s doing; the Projectionist, the voice of and god of the internet and the Eminence of Blades, the universal master of bladed weapons, who has terrible doubts.
What’s the first line of dialogue in the first issue?
DEMON KNIGHTS: ‘The beasts have broken us! The castle has fallen! Flee, you innocents unprotected! Flee while we die!’
STORMWATCH: ‘I am not a (expletive deleted) super hero!’ (That’s how it actually reads in the issue.)
What’s the biggest surprise you’ve had working on this character/book?
STORMWATCH: How easy it was to just set it in the DC Universe. Stormwatch have always been there.
DEMON KNIGHTS: That everyone thinks it’s going to be set in Camelot. It’s not, it’s hundreds of years later.
What secret has been the hardest to keep?
The Martian Manhunter. The way Stormwatch ties in to everything that’s happening in the rest of the DCU. Vandal Savage being on the Demon Knights team.
What’s the unofficial tagline for this series, in your own words?
DEMON KNIGHTS: Swords and sorcery and super heroes. The Magnificent Seven in Dragon Age. Some previous sword and sorcery books always seemed a bit grey and brown to me. This one’s got a team of huge characters in a proper, mapped out, fantasy setting, with a certain grim Game Of Thrones edge to it.
STORMWATCH: We are not (expletive deleted) super heroes. This one’s the angry teenage sibling of the DC Universe, except in this case it does know better. Stormwatch were here first, saving the world is their job and they think super heroes are decadent gaudy amateurs. They’re the ruthless stone cold professionals. Right now it looks like they might be facing the enormous threat they were created to combat, only to find themselves having a bit of a crisis of leadership.
DC's offical tagline for STORMWATCH:
Stormwatch is a dangerous super human strike force whose existence is kept secret from the world. Jack Hawksmoor and the rest of the crew look to recruit two of the deadliest super humans on the planet: Midnighter and Apollo. And if they say no? Perhaps the Martian Manhunter can change their minds. Featuring a surprising new roster, STORMWATCH #1 will be written by the critically-acclaimed Paul Cornell (Superman: The Black Ring, “Dr. Who”) and illustrated by Miguel Sepulveda. DC's offical tagline for DEMON KNIGHTS:
Set in the Middle Ages, the Demon leads an unlikely team to defend civilization and preserve the last vestiges of Camelot against the tide of history. Critically-acclaimed writer Paul Cornell and artists Diogenes Neves and Oclair Albert combine sorcery, swords and superheroes in DEMON KNIGHTS #1. The more I read about the new 52, the more I start to like what I'm hearing. While I'm skeptical about the Wildstorm/Vertigo integration, I am liking the reboot of the titles to make it accessible to new readers. I think it's an opportunity; not to throw away years of built up continuity but to modernize the stories. As long as key nuances remain the same, like Dick Grayson operates in Bludhaven, Barbra Gordon eventually ends back in the wheelchair, Hal Jordan becomes Parallax, etc. then I think this could be a fun ride as the writers modernize the way we get to these end results. What I will say is that I'm peeved about the lack of some of the Golden Age characters and the Justice Society of America but I've already ranted about that and you can read it
here.
What do you guys think about these two very different teams? Also, as Cornell previously mentioned that Stormwatch is supposed to be the first super powered crime fighting ensemble, where does that leave Etrigan and his "Magnificnet 7" who are based in the Camelot era? My mind keeps coming back to the fact that they are touting Stormwatch as "the biggest secret" in all the DC Universe so maybe Stormwatch is in some way connected to Demon Knight, hence the same writer on both titles.
Both series debut in September as part of the New "52" [or 78 if you're accurately counting]
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