Today, BOOM! Studios finally released an omnibus collection of Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis’s Hero Squared, a superhero comedy that debuted in 2006 and ended in 2009 — and DeMatteis couldn’t be happier.
In his introduction for the omnibus, DeMatteis reveals that it is likely his favorite collaboration with Giffen…which is saying something when you consider that the pair have worked together on fan-favorite projects from Justice League International to Booster Gold to Scooby Apocalypse. Soon, the pair will bring Secret Squirrel to the world, alongside Howard Porter, their Scooby Apocalypse and Justice League 3000 artist.
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Today, DeMatteis spoke with ComicBook.com about the feature-rich Hero Squared omnibus, which is available in comic shops today and bookstores next week.
Along the way, he revealed his favorite-ever Giffen-DeMatteis issue…one that you can get in the collected Hero Squared.
It has been a while since we talked about Milo, Eustace, Stephie and Sloat.
What brought BOOM! around to the idea of creating a Hero Squared omnibus after all this time?
It’s something we’ve wanted to do for a while now and all the elements finally came together. Hero Squared is my absolute favorite project out of all the many things Keith and I have done together and I’m so happy this new omnibus is out in the world. We’ve included every H2 story and every Planetary Brigade story. I got my copies the other day and the book is huge!
Could we get more Hero Squared/Planetary Brigade at some point?
Never say never, right? Planetary Brigade alone could fuel its own comic book universe of solo and team titles.
I know there was a time where rumor had it you guys were developing a TV series or something. Could that be in the cards now that BOOM! is so much more active in that arena?
A few years back we had a live-action movie in development with Cartoon Network (a contradiction in terms, I know), and Keith and I did several drafts of a script, but, Hollywood being Hollywood, it never came together.
Now? I’d love to see a movie or TV series. I think H2 is perfect for either the big or small screen.
Part of this book feels like a very demented love letter to Captain Marvel, although obviously the role Valor plays in the Planetary Brigade is very much the Superman role. What was it that made you go for the Captain Marvel origin?
You ask for reason and motivations when it comes to a Giffen/DeMatteis story? You fool!
But, seriously, I don’t really remember—beyond the fact that we saw Valor as the amalgamation of many different iconic superheroes. But, in the end, he was very much his own character, not a spoof or tribute. Milo and Eustace were, and are, real to us.
They are, perhaps, the ultimate Giffen-DeMatteis characters. Our collective aspirations and neuroses projected onto those two goofy guys.
Looking at this title, did you ever imagine that the thing that would age out of relevance the fastest wasn’t the Bush Administration jokes but the fact that Blaine works at a video store?
I think we saw it coming even then. That was part of the joke. He was working in a dying business.
What did you include along with the original comics to make the upcoming collection special?
We’ve got development art. Keith’s plots. My scripts. A new intro by yours truly. A totally bogus history of my collaborations with Keith (which I think is the funniest thing I’ve ever written; but I may be the only one!). And other special features. It’s a great package.
Whatever happened to that grim and gritty SLOAT: ORIGINS original graphic novel?
It’s coming out next year from Vertigo. (And just to be clear: that’s a joke.)
You had Hero Squared — which ended Valor’s story, and his world, then started a new and different one — right around the time you were working on The Life and Times of Savior 28. What do you think appealed to you at the time about the notion of starting a story at the “end?”
It’s fun to play with structure, to start at a surprising point and then move around in time. Life doesn’t always feel linear, time often feels more fragmented as memory collides with so-called reality. Savior 28, especially, played with time in that way. I’d had that story in my head for decades but didn’t know till I sat down to write that I was going to begin with Savior 28’s assassination.
H2 of course begins with the destruction of Valor’s universe, which, looking back, may have been our way of announcing that we were free from the constraints of pre-existing superhero universes. We were building our own universe and doing it our own way.
Where did the character of Dr. Tolstoy come from? I feel like having so much of the story center on the relationship these two guys have with their therapist was a kind of inspired choice.
I had a dear friend who was a therapist, and turned me on to the great value of therapy, and she was the indirect inspiration for all the therapist characters that have cropped up in my stories.
That said, Keith and I talked from the beginning about wanting to get Milo and Eustace together for a therapy session and it turned into perhaps my single favorite Giffen-DeMatteis story ever. Then, in the Love and Death mini-series, we got Milo, Valor, Stephie and Caliginous all in group therapy together. I love that one, too.
I have to hand it to both Joe Abraham (who did the first therapy issue) and Nate Watson (who did the second one) for managing to make page after page of talking work visually. They hit all the right emotional notes and did it beautifully.
What’s next for you? I feel like you always have four creator-owned projects going on at any given time.
Been busy with animation, with one (top-secret) project that may be the single best animated project I’ve ever worked on — should be able to talk about it in a couple of months—as well as a couple of episodes of Marvel’s extremely fun new Spider-Man series.
In comics, Keith and I are still having a blast with Scooby Apocalypse and I’ve got two creator-owned projects in the works: Impossible, Inc. for IDW (with my Savior 28 collaborator Mike Cavallaro on art) and… Well, I can’t talk about the other one yet, but it reunites me with… No, I can’t talk about that, either. Both projects will be out in the latter half of 2018.
