Dark Crisis: Big Bang: Mark Waid and Dan Jurgens Talk their Love Letter to the Multiverse (Exclusive)

When it comes to the DC Universe, the Multiverse is huge and not just literally. The idea of multiple worlds has long been a driving concept, especially after the landmark comics event Crisis on Infinite Earths destroyed those multiple worlds in favor of one, condensed reality. Of course, as part of Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths, it's been revealed that Pariah has brought the Multiverse back. But before we get to what happens with the Multiverse and the Dark Crisis event — Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths #7 arrives next week and will launch the DCU into 2023 — this week's Dark Crisis: Big Bang gives DC fans a look at the many worlds of the Multiverse in a story that isn't just a journey through different worlds but is a love letter to DC.

ComicBook.com recently sat down with writer Mark Waid and artist Dan Jurgens to talk about the one-shot, which is on sale now, why the Multiverse remains such an important concept, their favorite worlds within it, and why the Flash is so important to it all.

Nicole Drum, ComicBook.com: Talk to me about this issue and kind of what it means for you guys, because I know you both have done a lot of legendary work with DC over time.

Mark Waid: For me it was just a celebration. For me it was just a way of… one of the things I like to do is take what I'm writing that I'm excited about and show you why I'm excited. I want you to have that seem feeling, that same love for any particular character or any particular approach I'm taking. I want you to be that excited and nothing excites me more than just the entire pantheon of DC across the multiverse.

Dan Jurgens: I think part of it is that I'm sort of at the stage where I get pretty picky and choosy about what I work on. I only want to do something that really interests me and what was fun about this, right from the start, as it was mentioned to me, is this idea that it was going to be Flash against the Anti Monitor. Sort of with this potential of Flash as he says on page one, "I'm looking for my murderer" and I think that is such a hook and takes us back to such a fun time in DC Comics through Crisis on Infinite Earths. That it then builds to this massive story with so many different characters and things like that, while it is a definite challenge to draw, once it's done and you're through it, it's fun to see because that's what I responded to so well as a young reader myself.

It is absolutely beautiful. Like one of the things that like crisis events in general can be very complicated in the mean, I mean as comics readers, like that's kind of what we get into. We get into those the complexities and the details, and they can also be kind of grim and difficult because a lot of things die, things come back, there's tragedy. There's this issue and from start to finish is both beautiful and really makes you feel good in a way. He's looking for his murder and all that but was important to you guys to make it kind of be light hearted … it's kind of different tone I feel like then something you would see in most crisis level events. Celebratory, maybe.

Waid: As a sidebar, if you're telling a dark gritty story about Barry Allen, you should get out of the business. And that's exactly what it was meant to be. It was meant to be just a big love letter to the DCU.

Jurgens: And this is also does not happen much during big crossover events, but it's a story, a single issue with a beginning and a middle and an end. You just have that fun sense of movement where you get a conclusion and that doesn't happen enough in comics these days. So, the fact that we actually have that here I think is tremendous. And that's what attracted me to it when I read the script.

There are a lot of different worlds at play in here. I just again, I am such a geek for the different worlds of the multiverse in any variety version of the multiverse we get give me all of the worlds but there are so many different worlds here. Did you guys get to pick and choose which Earths you got to incorporate in this?

Waid: Yeah, but I did, and it was you know, with an eye towards trying to be as different and I wanted to give that illusion of bouncing around, so you get the Jurassic League and then suddenly it's you know, it's a Batman story and then it's the vampires. So, a lot of that was just, I was also looking for the worlds that were the most visually interesting, which is why Dan had to draw dinosaurs.

Did you have a favorite that you like really enjoyed drawing it also writing as well. I mean, granted, we don't see a lot of like written parts about those worlds, but you incorporate them in the story as we get deeper into it a little bit especially the fact that there's an unexpected team up there towards the end like Was there something that you particularly enjoyed working with more than others?

Jurgens: A couple of things. One is just drawing Flash himself. That was fun for me and because I haven't done a lot of that, so it was just fun to work with Barry. The other one was, I snuck Superboy into more panels than were requested in the script. I didn't think Mark would mind. I'm just doing it. So that was fun just to get more Superboy because Superboy is a lot of fun to draw because that also takes me to a fun point my life.

Waid: I don't remember whether Krypto was in the script or not. If he wasn't, that was a great addition.

Jurgens: He was written in for like one panel and I would have added him even if he hadn't been.

In terms of like the styles like I know Dark Crisis has a lot of its, you know, tangible roots back in the original Crisis on Infinite Earths which is you know, it's such a foundational story for readers in general. This book has a very much a look and feel that feels connected to it in a way that all of the Dark Crisis stuff has had. But this feels more deliberate both in terms of the way the story flows and also the way the visuals flow. Tell me a little bit about the process you guys had in making this story. Part of what is ultimately feels like it's going to be this this huge book ended chapter that's really in a sense started with Crisis on Infinite Earths.

Waid: You know, again, tying back to the original Crisis made perfect sense because like you said, it's a bookend. It is that was the end of the parallel universes now we're back to the parallel universes. Anti-Monitor made perfect sense as a villain and it occurs to me as I'm talking that one of the reasons I pulled the Anti Monitor probably subconsciously was just because when you think Pariah, using multiple earths, and Crisis you think George Perez, so then I probably even more than I intended to sort of went spelunking through the original Crisis for source material.

Jurgens: And it came through and I tried to sort of emphasize that visually. And I really think that's a lot of what this book is both in in terms of how it relates to Crisis on Infinite Earths as a book and also how it relates to George and what we tried to capture in this project.

Waid: I think that you, without sublimating your own style, I think you did a really great job of evoking George's sensibilities.

Jurgens: Thank you. And part of it is because, and I've said this many times, George set the bar on drawing a book like this. This is like George's forte in such a way that few other artists can really touch so all we can do is try and come close.

I am looking at this thing and there's just there's so many good lines in this. Like, I'm looking at this one in particular, not today Anti Monitor not today. Yeah, put that on a mug now. So just put that out there. You got some brilliant lines in here. It just it's this feels it's gonna be a very quotable issue on a lot of levels.

Jurgens: The best line is on page one. That's how you start a story, "I'm looking for the man who murdered me."

Waid: You know Dan and I both grew up with Julie Schwartz who insisted and rightfully so that you hooked the reader.

It's a full story. It's a thought-provoking story. It is an emotion provoking story. And then there's the intellectual component when we get to From The Notes of Barry Allen. And there's this insane guide and again, not a travelogue, but I'm a multiverse nerd.

Waid: Oh, I nearly shot myself in the foot with that because I knew I wanted it to be from the desk of Barry Allen and that made sense to me. And then I wrote the whole issue and then I'm writing the back matter and I'm like, wait a minute. Barry doesn't read books. How do you describe Kingdom Come without using the words Kingdom Come so the readers will understand it and then I remembered Barry's a comics fan. And Barry's familiar with a world in which all DC characters are comic books. So of course, he would travel there, and he's probably got a better DC Comics collection than I do.

Were there any other worlds that you wanted to like sneak in there?

Waid: Yes, but there got to be a point where it anymore and the back matter would have been four-point type. And I refuse to write anything that I at my advanced age cannot read.

I have to ask, are there any panels or any pages that you guys are just so proud of?

Jurgens: I think for me, it's there's a double page spread of Flash running and punching the Anti Monitor with the different scenes and worlds behind them. And I thought to me, there's something about the symbology in that because we know what that goes back to and what that means to Barry on a personal level. And it sort of like takes it full circle and some of that is because, you know having been around when Crisis on Infinite Earths was done, I remember sitting in a meeting, even before the first issue of that came out, and people explaining how you know, the DC Universe was too complicated to understand and things like that. And I sat there and said well, I always wish I could understand it, you know? So, it kind of goes full circle to still be around to have worked during that time and now have a DC that is wide open where if you can imagine it can be.

Waid: And for me it's Earth 162. The nod to the classic Superman Red Superman Blue story where in our book, we also do Batman Blue and Batman Gray. The story I really want to tell, the World's Finest at some point, I have no story to build around it It's just a cool visual.

Dark Crisis: Big Bang is on sale now.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.