The Wonder Woman Rebirth Roundtable With Greg Rucka, Nicola Scott, And Liam Sharp

06/08/2016 08:26 pm EDT

Today's Wonder Woman: Rebirth kickstarts one of DC's most interesting experiments in the post-Rebirth world: while many of the publisher's titles are going twice-monthly, which involves bringing in two creative teams who will platoon to do essentially monthly books, Wonder Woman will split the title up into two disparate stories, with Nicola Scott taking on a portion of Greg Rucka's scripts set in the past and Liam Sharp taking on the elements set in the present day of the DC Universe.

The result is that Wonder Woman will almost be two different monthly titles, with Rucka writing both and all-star art teams bolstering his scripts. Of course, it's not quite that simple, as the two are exploring the same story from different points of view, interconnecting if you know where to look.

Rucka, Scott, and Sharp joined ComicBook.com to talk about today's release, and what's next.

Wonder Woman: Rebirth #1 is available at your local comic shop today, or you can order it on ComiXology.

Whose idea was it to split the, just split the twice monthly schedule and essentially do, you know, what amounts to two monthly books in a lot of ways?

Greg Rucka: That was me. That was, yeah, that was my cunning plan. I'd been talking to some of the colleagues actually about the bi-monthly thing and wrestling with the problem.

One of the things it creates, and you see it throughout the industry, you know, it's not endemic to any one house, is that when you have to move up the schedule like that you put the artists on such a treadmill that there's no way that they can get as far enough in advance to have a full sense of ownership, and so you end up with rotating teams. There's a time and a place for that, but I really, one of my concerns coming in was I really wanted everybody to have full buy-in, for lack of a better phrase.

It seemed to me that certainly at the start the best way to do that would be to tell sort of these two stories that are in fact very related to one another, but the way they relate doesn't become necessarily evident until you're further into it.

That way, Liam had a narrative that was going to be his, all his, and that Nic would have a narrative that would be all hers, and that the two of them then could have sort of a free communication between the two and feed each other. I like that idea, I like the idea sort of bringing everybody together as one entity instead of, you know, instead of making anybody feel like they were working in their own corner.

Now, did you guys talk about who wanted to take which project or is it one of those things where you developed each half of the book to speak somebody's skillset, and so it was pretty much determined when it started.

Liam Sharp: I think it's partly to do, and I'd sort of been around assigned to it probably before the other guys, so picking a team took a bit of time because it had to be right obviously. By dint of just being the first person associated I got to make that call, and I was really keen after so long to do it, I mean probably selfishly, sorry, Nic, to do it, you know, an issue one.

In a way this worked out beautifully because it does, it sort of really becomes a book end for the narrative. You get a flashback as a whole issue two, and Nic gets to do a Year One which is, you know, she can talk to that, but that's obviously a dream project. It just worked out really beautifully like that. Yeah, that was probably me just going, "I want to have that please."

Nicola Scott: Yeah, I agree. I think it sort of it happened reasonably organically, but it worked out exactly like it needed to. You know, being able to do a Wonder Woman origin story with Greg has kind of been my dream project for a long time. You know, anytime I've been asked out loud, you know, "What's your dream project?" That's kind of it, so to sort of have it be a possibility has been incredibly exciting.

It's also because it's a Year One story it's limited to so many issues, and because we're in the middle of our own project it meant that it was a definitive beginning and end, and then we could get back to, or create our own series.

Now two of you touched on it actually, is I think for a lot of people if it wasn't Greg Rucka and Nicola Scott then there would be a lot more reluctance to accept another reinvention of the Wonder Woman origin. Because we just got Brian's version and obviously...

Rucka: Yeah, I was going to interrupt, it's not, and I hasten to do this, it's not a reinvention, it's a retelling; we're focusing on certain things. It's important I think to understand there's a reason that the two initial arcs have the titles they have. You know, Liam's story is "The Lies," and that is Diana current DCU.

You know, Rebirth isn't a reboot, Rebirth is it's basically the start of a grand story, all right. It's an attempt to sort of reconcile without taking out a giant eraser, all right, it attempts to reconcile all of the variations that we've had in the origin over the years. Because Brian's retelling of the origin is as legit as now the Pérez one, you know, thirty-odd years ago. How do we make them sing together? That brings us very logically to a Year One story that, you know, Nic an I had been really talking about for over a decade.

This is not the giant eraser, it is an attempt to reconcile certain things, and it will. There are changes, there are obviously going to be changes, but part of what Liam's story is about is attempting to explain sort of how it veered and why it changed, where these differences arises, and how trying to be subjective that kind of continuity can be, if we're talking about it in a grand sense.

I get nervous when I say that because that implies there's no punching, there's a lot of mulling, there's plenty of punching. You know, there's punching and kicking and fighting and monsters and so on.

Liam Sharp: There certainly is.

Now with Rebirth obviously you've got a lot of talk about kind of embracing all of the history of these characters. With Donna Troy just finally having kind of found her footing in the post Flashpoint universe, is that a character we can expect to see explored a little bit as well?

Rucka: Nope. There you go. [Laughs] That's simple! Our first twelve, thirteen issues are dedicated to these two stories. The people who are coming in and sort of the interaction with the broader DC is fairly limited.

That's not to say that other people aren't using Diana, I talked to [Action Comics writer] Dan Jurgens for instance, and he and I have discussed, you know, what he's doing and, you know, I've totally been like, "Yes. Fantastic, go." I'll get to Donna later. You know, I have been given a specific set of marching orders, I'm trying to fulfill those first.

Now because of the fact that everything kind of came out in one big block of solicitation, we know kind of a little bit about the first couple of issues. What can you tell me specifically about the actual Rebirth one shot?

Rucka: I feel bad because now I'm like giving all the answers, except like Nicola cannot possibly answer that question.

Scott: That's all right. Talk away, Gregory.

Rucka: The Rebirth issue sets the stage for both issue one and issue two, that's what it is. All right. It is Diana asking questions and discovering that she does not have adequate answers to them, and it begins sort of the unraveling of this narrative that she's trying to piece together. That's pretty much it, it sort of the starter gun.

We've seen that the looks of these stories are kind of different but complimentary, which obviously is necessary Year One is not going to be the same time or place as the standard DC Universe. Did you guys talk about what are kind of the key like defining features of this take on Diana? Like do you guys have a commonality where you're like, "Well we want to make sure we get this, this and this," to make sure that the look is consistent even though she's in a different time and a different place?

Sharp: Yeah, absolutely. No, we're sending each other character sketches and when a new one appears we're making sure that, you know, obviously there's a ten year age gap. If Nicola's doing a design, then I get to age that character ten years, if I do a design, Nicola get to make it much younger, you know.

We're all working very sort of handing glove on this, so we're sharing, Greg's very graciously sharing all of his scripts to both of us so we get to know what each other is doing. There's even little moments where like in issue one there's a moment where just one panel we get a bit of Nic's art in my art which ties the two books together, and that'll probably happen very sparingly but it will happen between the books as we move forward.

We're trying to be very tight on that kind of stuff, which makes it a lot of fun actually, it makes it feel like we're collaboration as a team.

Scott: Yeah, it does. Yes, we're sort of getting a real sense of the time that's passed between the two stories, you know, what might have happened to create the differences and clearly the similarities as well.

And for you, you worked a lot on Earth-2, so you've kind of had this opportunity to put a very different spin on a lot of stuff so far since the Flashpoint reboot. Is that freeing artistically, do you get to kind of stretch out in ways that you probably can't if you have to answer the other thirteen books who all want to use this character?

Scott: Was that at me?

Yeah, yeah, sorry.

Rucka: Unless Liam was working on Earth 2 and didn't tell anybody, yes.

Scott: Yeah, look Earth 2 was incredibly liberating because we were in our own bubble where pretty much everyone that appeared in our book was only in our book. Where obviously with Wonder Woman the Year One story there's actually still quite a lot of freedom because certainly from what we've talked about there are things that are appearing in my book that are only in my book. We're dealing with, oh, how to say things.

That's the tricky part of these conversations.

Scott: Yeah, we're dealing with the truth of Diana's memories of places, as well as the reality of both places, because we're dealing with two different timelines.

Greg, you mentioned Dan and this kind of reminded me of something I wanted to ask which is, when you're dealing with a Diana who is struggling with these issues of, you know, essentially the world around her not being what she perceived it as, does it put her in a more vulnerable place or in a more frustrated place that she's doing so without Clark after the way their relationship's been developing for the last few years?

Rucka: You know, yeah, no, she's...look, she's dealing with stuff. There is stuff she is dealing with.

One of the things that marks Diana for all of us, you know, and I think I'm free to speak for both Nic and Liam on this, is that Diana's incredibly strong and that is not simply a descriptor of her physical strength, she is a very strong person.

Her internal conflicts for the most part remain internal. One of the gifts of Wonder Woman is the ability to see in everyone the best of them and the best they want to be, so that she sees you as you are and as your potential. I think when you begin to question some truths about yourself that that makes that more difficult, but she wouldn't be a hero if she couldn't still do it.

Greg, in the early going you said something along the lines of like, "Oh, and look she's smiling because she does that."

Rucka: Yes. I was being snarky.

Well, yeah, but I mean there's an element of truth to the fact that she's been treated very much like a gladiator movie in the New 52. Is that one of those things, for the art team I guess, is that one of those things where just that minor change in terms of the body language and like not being so intense all the time, kind of changes the way that you draw a character like this?

Sharp: It made me chuckle because when I initially came on the first few sketches they were like, "Yeah, make her sort of gritted teeth and sort of like ferocious." Because I'd done her looking quite serene initially on the first few sketches, so I then made her look like the gladiator, and then Greg came on and said, "No, no, we want her smiling."

I've sort of been through the whole gamut of what she might have been like. I really like where she's ended up because it gives us much more range. If you start with a snarl ...

Scott: ...There's nowhere to go.

Rucka: Liam did a brilliant sketch. Real quick, just Liam did this brilliant sketch, and I don't know if we'll ever get to use it for a possible cover, but it was just, it was perfect. He gave her just the most perfect Diana grin while she's holding up a band brace, and I loved it. I mean that was the moment, and, you know, every other conversation he and I had had and I saw that, I was like, "Oh, this is going to be great."

Scott: Yeah, battling for Diana is sport. You know, she's been gifted with plenty of skills and powers, but, you know, she's spent a good few thousand years not really in the theater of war at all. It's still sort of quite the novelty.

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