Two Teams Are Better Than One

By: Arnold T. Blumberg
Date: Wednesday, October 23, 2002

The DC Universe has seen a few cataclysmic conflagrations in its 60-plus year history, but none as devastating as the creation of a new villainous "uber-team" in JLA/JSA: VIRTUE & VICE, a 96-page hardcover written by David S. Goyer and Geoff Johns, and illustrated by Carlos Pacheco and Jesus Merino. In this volume due in November, members of each legendary super-group will find themselves turning the tables on their team-mates. How could this be happening? And how did DC convince Goyer to help shape this epic tale?

"I'd already been writing the regular JSA book with Geoff since the beginning of its launch," says Goyer. "Even though I'm quite busy with my film work, I couldn't pass up the chance to be part of such a great project - a hardback JLA/JSA book drawn by Carlos Pacheco? Somehow, I've just had to carve out the time to make it happen!"

Goyer admits that the hardest part was figuring out a way to juggle 24 superheroes in one plot.

"Honestly, that's been the hardest part of writing the crossover, trying to give each of the 24 characters their moment in the sun," says Goyer. "It was a logistics nightmare, but I think we pulled it off," says Goyer. "I wish we'd had more than 96 pages though! We easily could've expanded by another twelve pages. Pretty much everyone gets a chance to shine, though - even people like Zatanna and Firestorm."

Goyer does reveal that there won't be too many overt references to crossovers of the past.

"Not specifically," says Goyer, "though both teams do acknowledge that they have a long-standing relationship with one another. But they don't reference old cases that they worked on together."

As we noted, some of these heroes will find themselves squaring off against their friends, hence the "uber-team" concept.

"Well, it's not exactly an uber-team per se," says Goyer. "We thought it would be boring to have the JLA go up against the JSA, so we mixed things up. We've got members from both teams going bad. We thought it would be more interesting that way. Having said that, you get some nice match-ups that I think people have been waiting for - Powergirl vs. Superman, Batman vs. the new Doctor Mid-Nite."


Besides balancing heroes, Goyer also served as one half of a writing team with co-scripter Geoff Johns. For Goyer, it was business as usual.

"In comics, I haven't done much solo work," says Goyer. "Part of the reason is that because my film work is so solitary, I wanted an opportunity to partner with people in comics. More than anything, Geoff and I love to spitball with one another. That's the most fun - just riffing on ideas, trying to top one another. Over the years, we've developed a close working relationship. We plot together, very tightly, then tend to divy up scenes based on our individual strengths. You'd think things would get tense now and then, but they never really seem to. I'm always amazed at what Geoff comes back with, and vice versa. When our run on JSA is done, we'd definitely work on something together again. Actually, that's probably more likely than me writing comics solo. I just like working with Geoff."

Goyer also clearly enjoys throwing so many heroes into the mix, and he knows that readers will share the excitement.

"When I was a kid, I loved reading these big crossovers," says Goyer. "It was a chance to see characters interact that don't normally do so. Frankly, it's one of the joys of a shared universe. I think everyone will be interested in seeing how Green Arrow and Doctor Mid-Nite behave around each other, given that they were both romantically involved with Black Canary. And we give the readers little tidbits like that."

Goyer knows that some readers have experienced crossover overload, but he insists this project will not unnecessarily impact regular continuity.

"Recently, there have been too many company-wide crossover events, and things like that tend to disrupt the continuity of the individual books," says Goyer. "Frankly, they're a pain in the ass to have to write around. But when you're able to do an event like this as a stand-alone piece, I think you have a little more latitude. Our book is in continuity, but it's not invasive. In [JSA], we will refer to the events that happened in this story. If the JLA people want to, they can, but if they don't, it's been designed to be non-invasive. Does that make sense?"

"Oh yeah, one more thing - we've deliberately left some of the larger plot elements from the crossover out of any press references," says Goyer. "Meaning that there will be some characters showing up that will be a surprise, that definitely have not been talked about so far."