Naomi has become one of the brightest stars and most powerful heroes in DC’s world since her original series debut in Naomi Season One. Now the long-awaited Naomi Season Two is finally here, and during the time away Naomi has gone toe to toe with some of DC’s biggest villains and fought alongside some of its most iconic heroes thanks to joining the Justice League. With some experience under her belt and a growing understanding of just how powerful she is, creators David F. Walker, Brian Michael Bendis, and Jamal Campbell are ready to showcase the next chapter of Naomi’s story, and ComicBook.com had the chance to talk to all three creators all about the anticipated return.
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Since Naomi: Season One Naomi has been a part of both Young Justice and the Justice League, expanding her roster of villains and her friends in the superhero community all at once. While that’s proven to be a huge benefit to the character and her story, moving into those other books wasn’t in the original plans.
“No original plan was Season One, hope people like it, and then people did. What I like about the moving parts of a shared universe is that it does kind of feel like a weird creative sims of real life. Like s*** happens, plans change and you look at every one of them as an opportunity to do something, all right, what can I do with that?,” Bendis said.
Far Sector ended up becoming another fan-favorite series, but they both ended up happening around the same time. “On my end, it was weird because I had both Far Sector and Naomi were brought to me pretty much the same time,” Campbell said. “I wasn’t sure which would go first and then DC just told me, hey, you’re are going to be on Naomi first. We’ll do the first six issues and then we’re going to put you on Far Sector, so it was kind of like at the same time.”
“We knew it was going to be, we’re doing Naomi and he’s off the Far Sector, so even when Naomi hit, it’s still, obligations were made, and that book is beautiful and obviously needed to happen,” Bendis said. “So we knew we had this window between Naomi seasons so David and I were working on Young Justice, and it offered us not just the whimsy of we can play with our toys, but like, what do we got here? We’re on a hero’s journey, and one of the reasons we did Naomi in the first place was to explore a modern sensibility for a hero’s journey.”
That break in between ended up being a blessing in disguise, as Naomi was able to jump right into the midst of the greater DC Universe, and Season Two has benefited from the character’s growth and evolution as well.
“And then this allowed us to break that form even more and throw her into places that we normally wouldn’t if we were doing miniseries to miniseries,” Bendis said. “So throw her into the deep end of the pool, and then I got really into that, like Naomi’s a mega powerhouse. The DC universe is in constant crisis. All of a sudden, like a young actor will find themselves on that biggest movie set of all time, and they’re like, okay, now I’m supposed to act like I know what I’m doing. And so we thought there was precedent in the world of people finding themselves all of a sudden way beyond their station. Like I do not belong here, and yet here I am.”
“And then when we were back together, we’re able to bring a Naomi who’s had some experience, just enough that a young person would say to themselves, I think I’m on the Justice League,” Bendis said. “Then we realized that really all The Justice League was for her is training wheels. Maybe even a crutch. It’s really super easy when you’re standing next to Superman and Wonder Woman. Like even the most dangerous thing in the world, it’s not so bad. So in our series, they do not show up and something enormous is sent her away. The challenge in front of her is an enormous challenge that she has not faced before on her own. And then she’ll realize, oh yeah, Batman ain’t showing up here.”
“And it’s interesting too, because when Brian and I were working on Young Justice together and he let me know that he wanted to bring Naomi in, I was like, great, that’ll be wonderful. Then when he brought her over to Justice League, there was some stuff that we were talking about doing and what was going to be Naomi: Season Two, that fit into Justice League,” Walker said. “I remember he called me and he was like, do you mind if I do this? And I said do whatever you’ve got to do to tell the story, and so for all the reasons he’s just described, I was really excited for her to get these experiences in Justice League, because that meant we could start Season Two in a different place for her emotionally, for her whole family, and for everybody around her.”
The detour between Season One and Season Two seems to have given Naomi a stellar launching pad into the next phase of her superhero career, but it also provided a new launch point for the creative team, and that will only make future stories better.
“We’re doing our best to make it easy for people to get into Season Two and really feel like they haven’t missed a beat. That was the thing that we wanted, and in terms of us as a team, just like Brian, I’m looking at Far Sector to come out and I’m thinking to myself I hope Jamal’s not getting burned out. I hope he’s like, I don’t need these guys anymore,” Walker joked.
“And then he wrote his first short story for DC and it was like, yo, my man’s writing now too! And it’s funny because when I looked at his art when he was working on Naomi and even Far Sector, I saw something that I couldn’t recognize,” Walker said. “And then when I saw the short story that he wrote, I was like, he writes too? This was that little thing that wasn’t quite clicking. I could see he brings a storytelling sensibility that a lot of artists don’t quite have, right? Because they’re thinking more about just how pretty they can make the art versus how well they can tell the story. And so I think that not only was Far Sector, that gap of time with Far Sector, a blessing, it also gave Jamal this opportunity to develop in a way that was like, if we were playing catch up with him before it’s even more so now.”
“No, absolutely. Having both Naomi and Far Sector back to back definitely helped me as a storyteller because for the first season of Naomi, that was my first big-name comic. Like this is my comic as well, and so to have it be such a story-driven, emotional-driven story, I knew I had to bring that out in the art and then move on to Far Sector where Nora is this amazing writer. So like anything she writes, the story’s going to be great, and I have to bring that out also in the art,” Campbell said. “So it was kind of just, I need to level up here. I’m focusing on the story, I’m focusing on the emotions, I’m focusing on the characters. So now that we’ve gone to Naomi: Season Two and all of that is bearing fruit and paying off. So it’s just this one continuous cycle of, this is my singular goal in terms of how I’m developing as an artist and a storyteller, and it’s just sort of worked out perfectly.”
“And also just I don’t want to skip over the fact that we’ve called on Jamal to be much bigger part of the development process behind the scenes,” Bendis said. “So there are some big story beat choices, both in the beginning and at the end that are fully Jamal’s contribution. So like David and I were looking at the choices being made in Naomi and Far Sector, and yeah, let’s put this all together in a proper way. So I think the Naomi you just saw with the first issue is you’re seeing that reflected.”
While the Justice League will be letting Naomi ride solo here, that doesn’t mean Season Two won’t contain some famous guest stars, and if you’re a Hawkgirl fan (like me), you will be over the moon with who shows up.
“Hawkgirl and I also know there’s a lot of Hawk people fans out there looking for any Hawk content. For people who have been following, Naomi’s made some pretty good friendships. I know a Thanagarian and off she goes and what Hawkgirl reveals to her is the surprise. It is not the answer she thought she was going to get. So that starts a whole new level of relationship between the two of them,” Bendis said.
“One of the big themes of this mini-series is when she’s told all your relationships have changed. You don’t know it yet. You might not want it to be that way, but for better, for worse, they’re all different. And that’s the world she’s entering,” Bendis said.
Campbell is thrilled to get to play with some of these other characters in Naomi’s world, and Bendis is a major fan of how Campbell brings these appearances to life.
“Jamal does what Frank Miller used to do when there’s a guest star. The guest star shows up and it’s from the point of view of our star. Like it’s how they perceive the character,” Bendis said. “Like you remember in Daredevil, Born Again, when the Avengers show up, that was the most unique version of the Avengers I’d ever seen because that’s how Daredevil perceived them. So when Hawkgirl shows up, this is absolutely Naomi’s perception of her, and that’s very cool.”
Season Two will dive into Naomi’s past and will build her for the future, and that includes unraveling more of the mysteries of her homeworld.
“Season one we introduced Naomi as she’s trying to figure out who she is. And now that she’s figured out who she is, Season Two is about what are you going to do about it, right? You’re a superhero and you come from this other world and there are people who want you dead,” Walker said.
“My goal is I want every reader of Naomi, every fan of DC to know that Naomi comes from the worst planet in the DC universe and that the threats there are worse than anything we could possibly imagine,” Walker said. And because that makes her as she faces these things for the first time, it’s you’re facing your… Is this your destiny? This is where I’m really from, and that’s where I want to see her go. I mean, I just hope more than anything that even if I’m not working on it and not working with Brian or Jamal, that Naomi has a long life in the history with the DC universe. I’d like to, you know, 20 years from now still be seeing her adventures.”
“Well, I’m laying all kinds of tracks like that in the Justice League Legion of superhero stuff,” Bendis said. “The Legion superhero knows all kinds of stuff about Naomi making it all like, I’m just like…They can’t (ignore her), it’s locked in. But I will say Matthew you said something earlier that wraps us up well. And that’s that with Naomi going on her little tour of the DC universe and Justice in League and Young Justice, we kind of got like… if this is the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, we kind of got the Two Towers out of the way and we can get right to the good stuff. So that’s what this mini-series is. It’s right to the good stuff. Like we got all that stuff out of the way so we can really get to it, and I think people are going to be surprised how quick and big the threat from her homeworld becomes. That’s the thing I think people would be most surprised by.”
Naomi: Season Two is in comic stores and on digital platforms now.
What did you think of Naomi: Season Two? Let us know in the comments or as always you can talk all things comics with me on Twitter @MattAguilarCB!
