Alan Kistler's Interview with Matt Wagner

During my adventures at San Diego Comic-Con 2006, I came across well-known and well-loved artist/writer Matt Wagner, creator of Grendel and Mage and the man behind the recent Batman mini-series Batman and the Monster Men and Batman and the Mad Monk, stories that have modernized two of Batman’s most famous Golden Age stories. Taking place after the famous BATMAN: Year One (detailing Batman's debut as a crime-fighter), these stories feature the Dark Knight's first encounters with superhuman/supernatural menaces. Wagner also did a three-issue mini-series called Trinity which featured the new version of how Wonder Woman first met Batman and Superman.

Here's what we talked about.

ALAN KISTLER: My first question is one you're probably asked a lot.

MATT WAGNER: When's the next Mage coming out?

ALAN KISTLER: Yep.

MATT WAGNER: I've got something planned for the anniversary.

AK: Is that happening right after you're done with Batman and the Mad Monk?

MW: No, after that I'm focused on Grendel for a while. But there will be something for the anniversary of Mage.

AK: The recent Infinite Crisis and 52 series have brought the DC Universe to re-incorporate a lot of Pre-Crisis [continuity and] stories. Did you have any idea that was going to happen when you chose to do modernized versions of two famous Pre-Crisis Batman tales? Or was the timing a coincidence?

MW: Nah, it was totally coincidence. I knew nothing about the outcome of Infinite Crisis, I just did these stories closer to a Pre-Crisis feel because there's a lot about Pre-Crisis that I just preferred.

AK: I got that feeling from you when I read Trinity. You seemed more concerned with the relationships between the characters rather than if the story fit into Post-Crisis continuity or not, what with Superman having a Fortress before the Eradicator appeared [which was against canon at the time] and things like that.

MW: You know, I even tried here and there to do things that would have it make more sense for Post-Crisis. I tried. But in the end, I don't think you can worry about that too much. You can't be hampered so much.

AK: I can understand that. While I had a difficult time fitting it into continuity at first, I finally decided to say "screw it"; since I just really enjoyed the story.

MW: Thanks. Yeah, I think you can't do stories to just serve continuity. You got a good story, tell it. I count things into continuity if I like the story a lot, you know? And I tend to ignore stuff that doesn't work or just wasn't good.

AK: So if your story goes against a fact that was established in a SUPERMAN annual 10 years ago that no one really remembers, to Hell with it, right?

MW: Pretty much.

AK: Did that philosophy influence how you portrayed Batman in your stories? He seemed a lot more level-headed than the jerk that was prevalent in his titles when you began The Monster Men.

MW: Yeah, I preferred the older way. He can be determined, but he's not crazy. Because Batman thinks he can actually win. Somewhere, he thinks he can actually win his war and clean up Gotham. That's hope. A crazy person doesn't have hope, they act without choice. I'm glad more people are going with that now.

AK: He should be obsessive, but not nuts and without compassion.

MW: Exactly.

AK: After seeing your takes on classic old school villains like Ra's al Ghul, Bizarro and Hugo Strange, I couldn't help but wonder how you'd do with a guy like Brainiac, one of my favorites.

I would definitely like to do Brainiac in the future, but before that I'd like to do more with Bizarro. I think he's terrifying. A warped Superman.

AK: You didn't originally plan on doing two Batman six-issue series, right? Originally it was a Superman project?

MW: Right, DC asked me if I wanted to do SUPERMAN: Year One. And I said, "Uh, yeah!"

But Birthright was already about to come out and I talked to Mark Waid and I saw that he was doing some stuff in the same vein I'd been thinking of. And I could've Year One as a sequel or something, but really, Birthright was the new Year One, so it didn't seem right to do a project with that title when he was taking care of all of that. So I said I didn't feel right and they said "You wanna do Batman instead?" And I said "sure."

AK: Well, thanks for talking to me, man. I had a great time talking and it was great speaking with you. Just to warn you, I'll probably be writing this up on the web-site I work for.

MW: Sounds great.

Thanks very much to Matt Wagner for taking the time to speak with me. Like all great writers, it's obvious he loves the characters as much as the fans do.

This interview was originally published on MonitorDuty.com