Brad Meltzer interview by Ernie Estrella

In 2002, Brad Meltzer shot arrows through our hearts with a five-issue debut in Green Arrow following Kevin Smith’s acclaimed run. That brief but impressive run earned him the golden key, the chance to do the entry story for modern day DC Universe books, Identity Crisis, which would impact the growth of every DC character. And for a year, Meltzer returns to comics re-launching the Justice League of America in grand fashion. It’s one year later after this past summer’s epic, Infinite Crisis, armed with a new team; JLA readers expect nothing but the best.

But comics are just the tip of the iceberg in Meltzer’s career. He has simultaneously released his sixth novel, Book of Fate in early September, a tale of suspense and adventure dipped in 200-year old history and intrigue. His novels blur the lines of fact and fiction and take you everywhere but where you expect to go. His New York Times best-selling power allowed him to cross promote Book of Fate and Justice League in each others’ pages – a move unprecedented and long overdue. Meltzer is in the thick of a promotional tour for Book of Fate, and PopCultureShock was lucky enough to catch up with him to discuss his new book, comics, and even television.

Ernie Estrella: This is your first monthly on-going project for an extended period of time. Is this as close to a novel that you’ve come in writing comics?

Brad Meltzer: To me, Identity Crisis was a novel. And the first seven issues of Justice League is a novel. It’s a long, intense character study of superhero affairs.

EE: You’re playing with the DC big guns once again. Because they’re so well-established does it help or hurt you as a writer?

BM: Well it’s just so opposite from a novel, and I think that’s why I like it. It makes you stretch other creative muscles. When I want to write a novel, I can make my characters nice, mean, wicked, terrific, kind, and ruthless and no one can really argue with me except when they get completely out of character. In comics I can’t make Clark Kent a jerk. You’re stepping out of character so far that everyone would scream bloody murder. What it does is force you to define a character in a more complex way. The difference with the big guns, Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, is that they’ve been around for nearly 60 years and they don’t need me to redefine them. They’re archetypes already. Unlike a novel, I try to find things with those characters that were always there but you, the reader, just didn’t realize that they were there so that when I pull them out you go, “Of course that’s how it would be.” And that’s different because you know these characters so well already, I have to show you something new but I just can’t make it out of whole cloth, I have to find something already on them and that’s the best kind of magic trick. It’s not like when you see a giant present on stage and you see a giant elephant come out of it. You don’t even see it. It’s all on the magician and the magician just makes it happen. I feel like that’s what’s better.

EE: Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman: Who is the most challenging to write?

BM: I think that Superman and Wonder Woman are the toughest. Wonder Woman still doesn’t have a voice, even after all of these years. If you look at the Wonder Woman stories she’s either this Amazon princess who speaks like some bad version of the Clash of the Titans with that holier-than-thou “I thusly challenge you to something Amazonian…” and I just have no interest in that. It just sounds silly. Or she’s this peacekeeper with this flowing poetry and you think she’s going to be on Oprah’s book club. The hardest part with Wonder Woman is finding that voice, establishing that voice. Nearly 60 years and it’s still not there. Even at DC it’s still debated as to who she is. I’ve talked to (Wonder Woman monthly writer) Allan Heinberg about this and we decided that we’re going to make her a person again. She’s not a god. Let’s have her talk like a normal person, which is at least going to be an entry point for everyone else to relate to.

Superman is just hard because he’s the ultimate straight man. That’s the easiest way to write him. The hard part is to write him as a leader because you know he can do everything. I really wanted to do that because I felt like he should be the leader.

EE: Even after almost a year, Wonder Woman killing Max Lord is still fresh in people’s minds. Where do you plan on taking Diana based on that recent event?

BM: This is where it’s interesting. What I’ve been tasked to do is start from One Year Later where there’s this missing year where the world has been able to react. So I feel that’s not my story, nor do I want it to be. I much rather let someone else handle the idea of the reaction. That’s a better Wonder Woman story than a Justice League story. I want to show her as an equal, which is what I tried to do in issue #0. She’s always talked about as an equal, and that she’s part of the big three, but no one really treats her like that. They always make her so stand-off-ish and you hate her or… [Pauses] She’s so much unlike anyone else that I just can’t put my finger on her.

EE: You’ve said in other interviews that Batman is your favorite.

BM: Sure, and one of the hardest to write.

EE: Is he your favorite because he doesn’t have any extraordinary powers?

BM: That’s absolutely the reason I love him. When I was 7 years old, you either wanted to be Batman or Superman. And I knew I could never be Superman, could never lift a car over my head or leap over buildings in one bound. I’d never be flying to other planets. But Batman, if I just trained hard enough, worked hard enough, put sheer will behind it, as silly as it sounds, I could be Batman. And that’s what makes it far more approachable to me. He’s possible.

EE: Based on your Identity Crisis and the way the DC Universe has since played out, is the DCU less friendly to new readers due to the multiple universe and resurgence of the B and C characters?

BM: Everyone says that we’ve brought back the B and C characters to the forefront but I think that Identity Crisis is the most accessible books DC has put out in a long time. It’s self-contained; you don’t need to know who Elongated Man is, who Bolt is, or Merlin. It’s just a regular story. The number one email I get is, “I used to read just Marvel then I picked up Identity Crisis.” or, “I never knew anything DC, didn’t like DC, hated DC, but I read Identity Crisis.” So I think continuity is a tricky mistress. For me, there’s certainly winks, and nods, and jokes that if you had been reading for however many years you get rewarded. But I also know my wife who doesn’t like comics can read Identity Crisis and say, “I like this.” She doesn’t like comics, or any superhero universe but she says, “I get this. I feel bad for Ralph and Sue Dibny.” And I think on some level the goal of Justice League is the same. Is issue #0 easy for a new reader to read? No, it’s not. Issue #0 is designed for those who stuck around as long as the rest of us did. My wife read issue #0 and said, “I don’t really get this.” But she read issue #1 and said, “This I get. It’s a complete story. I care.” Issue zero is that weird bridge between Infinite Crisis and JLA #1. That’s the most continuity-inside-baseball story I’ve ever written. I think my goal with the rest of them is to make them accessible. Even though you don’t know who X character is you understand that you’re there for the ride.

EE: We continue to see the aftermath of Identity Crisis and Batman weighing his mistrust. Will we continue to see that in the new league?

BM: You’ll see a hint of it, but again the beauty of One Year Later is that on some level I think people are done with that. You’ll see some hints of it and nods because I think it would be silly to say that OYL buys me out of everything. But I really do believe the year off heals all of those things. Issue zero sets up the tone, the true friendship and that trinity coming together.

EE: Was the mistrust of Batman in your Identity Crisis stem from our own mistrust of the government and authoritative figures?

BM: The world will always affect the popular culture. I don’t think you can write “Hard Traveling Heroes” in Green Lantern and Green Arrow stories without the Nixon administration, that mistrust of government and power and the greatness of the 60′s. But I also feel like for me what happened to Batman in Identity Crisis was far more about trying to humanize Batman from the god he’d become. To me people took Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns and trying to embrace it and pay homage to it, just screwed it up and they were ripping it off in the wrong places and said, “Okay, I get it, just write Batman like a dick.” I was really was trying to examine that. That being said, 9-11 was a huge part of Identity Crisis did come from. I wanted us to worry about our heroes, our policeman, our firemen and people who we thought were just terrific and dandy in a Norman Rockwell painting and suddenly we realize, “Oh my gosh, these people can die everyday when they put on their uniform.” And that’s where Identity Crisis came from. Let us feel again when you put on this uniform even though it has a cape and a utility belt, that you can die everyday.

EE: What current events that happen in real life will work into your JLA?

BM: I really do believe things happen for a reason. Superman’s birth in 1938 has everything to do with World War II and America feeling the need to be saved by somebody. I believe superheroes have become popular and the free masons in the Book of Fate have become so important again because the world has become a terrifying scary place. And I make my living trying to scare people, which is a lot easier than it was nine years ago when I was starting out. So you will see in Justice League is people looking for answers, people searching for reasons much like how America is searching for answers that aren’t there. We used to be a country of Superman in World War II and I think that we are still a country trying to do good and wanting to do the best and help people but deep down inside we’re really Spider-Men, scared teenagers inside but won’t admit to it on the outside.

EE: Give me three runs in Justice League prior to your run that got it right.

BM: Good question. I think the Secret Society of Super-Villains George Perez story, the three-issue storyline with the Ultra-Humanites. I’d say the original JLA/JSA crossover. I think Grant Morrison’s Rock of Ages also did it. It was so big so right. It was about teamwork and coming together that to me is what the League is about. But I could pick anything from the Satellite Era and any old Gardner Fox story and say the same thing.

EE: In an unprecedented cross promotion the first chapter of Book of Fate was printed in the back of Meltzer’s superhero comic, Justice League of America #1 while the comic will be printed in his six back-listed novels.

BM: DC Comics and the people at Warner Books believe that a reader is a reader. They wouldn’t let me pull this off or spend this money if they didn’t have that belief; especially on the DC Comics side. They’re sick and tired of being looked down on. And I’m sick and tired of comic being looked down upon when it’s just as great a story and it’ doesn’t make it any lesser of a story because it has pictures. Does Watchmen become a lesser story because someone’s drawing art page by page, panel by panel? That’s absurd!

The other thing that people say to me the most about the comics is, “Wow I read your novels, and I read your comics, I’m surprised by how similar they are and vice versa. It’s the same thing I try to accomplish which is write a compelling mystery that pulls apart the character I’m working with rather than scaring you by putting a knife in someone’s head. The idea that you like Identity Crisis, but hate prose is absurd to me. There’s definitely people who like the visual side to comics, and I’m one of those but if you don’t like the first issue Justice League and I can’t hook you by the first chapter of Book of Fate, then I shouldn’t have you for issue two. So here’s parts one of everything let’s see if we can get you for part two.

EE: Was your time as a student on University of Michigan the birth of your fascination for politics given Ann Arbor’s consciousness for politics and social issues?

BM: My first internship during my freshman year at Michigan was one at the United States Senate Judiciary Committee in Washington D.C. and it was like crack for me. I never felt like I was a part of politics or was important. I felt more like the ugly kid in the corner watching all of the cool kids have their lunch at the cafeteria table. My novels came from me sitting in that corner popping all of the balloons of the big-headed assholes. The books and comics I write never try to show how great everything is at top. They start at the bottom, then pull everything up top towards you, humanize it and show you that it’s all flawed and broken like the rest of us—there are no gods in politics.

EE: Was this about the time you were a presidential aid?

BM: That came later in my first year in law school. I worked in Bill Clinton’s National Service Program and got to co-write the AmeriCorps oath, which was my high point. I quickly learned when you write a president’s speech… I was asked to write a speech that Clinton’s going to deliver to AmeriCorps and my boss told me I was going to have the first draft then it was going to The White House and thought it was just fantastic. I wrote this draft and sounded presidential and tried to sound like I was moving the mountains and the sun was going to come down right out of his mouth. And my boss read it and passed it to his boss. He read it, liked it and passed it to the White House and was told after the president speaks I would get a transcript of everything he said. The following day I raced in to see every word he uttered expecting to see a few things changed and sure enough I check and there wasn’t a single verb, noun or adverb or anything that was the same thing that I wrote and quickly learned that everyone wants to write a president’s speech not just some 21-year old shmuck.

The Book of Fate came out of the same presidential connection. Once in a while I’ll get a book in my p.o. box to sign. So one day my wife is lining them up and opens one and says that the former President Bush’s secretary is using his official stationary to try and get a free book. I laughed at that because in the senate judiciary we used to use the stationary to write letters to friends in Michigan in spring term to tell them that they’re going to get kicked out of the country. So I thought it was hysterical. I’m reading the letter saying “I liked your book, Millionaires, could you sign this bookplate for me. Barbara and I have this great collection.” Barbara and I? And in the bottom it’s signed George Bush. Now I’m like, no way was this real. So I call office because I thought it was a buddy of mine playing a joke on me and he said, “No it’s real. He likes your book.” So I don’t care what your politics are, when you’re the former president, you get a free book. I sent him a book and asked him if I could see what his life was like. Can I see what it was like to be the most powerful man in the world and then suddenly become a guy who stops at red lights again? That’s where the Book of Fate really came from along with Free Mason history and this great old Thomas Jefferson way of writing that he use to use but no one uses any more. All of that experience was used and then I went up to Clinton’s office in Harlem and began digging into that world.

EE: So did the research you did for Book of Fate come more out of that experience or the lessons learned in your history classes at Michigan?

BM: Both. My history classes at UM were absolutely responsible for every book I’ve written. My work has been labeled as political or legal thrillers, which they’re not, they’re historical thrillers. I took every class I could get my hands on at Michigan. Book of Fate is pulling on 200-year old Free Mason history, 200-year old Thomas Jefferson history, and the last 40 years of presidential history on how former presidents live their lives and all the details. For example, upon leaving the White House, the first thing you are required to do by the Pentagon is you have to plan your own funeral. You lose the White House, they kick you out on your ass and say, “Plan your own death, thank you very much, welcome home.” I love those details. The Book of Fate is littered with things like that.

EE: Is blending fact and fiction the draw to basing a story off of historical facts?

BM: Every novel is a giant lie trying to masquerade as the truth. The only way you can convince people of the truth is arm yourself with the facts. So I can make up anything I want. I can say there are secret underground tunnels from the White House that lead all the way to Disneyworld and Florida and we have the best bullshit meters in history of mankind. We access to more information than any other society ever whether it’s computers, Internet, films, magazines, newspapers and television. So we know we’re being lied to and those bullshit meters are really honed. So when I tell you that, you’re like, “Eehhh. Could be, but that kind of sounds like crap.” But if I say, go down to the ground floor port of the White House, you’ll see the FDR statue. Make a left there and go through a door where you’ll see stacks of chairs for all of the State dinners. Go through that door back there and you’ll see the ceiling start to lower and you’ll see pipes coming out and air conditioning vents above you. Go straight down and you’ll smell flowers in the air. The White House flower shop is to your left. Go to a dead end and make a right you’ll see a metal door that’s the secret tunnel below the White House. That’s the Marilyn entrance. Suddenly, you go, “Crap that’s real, plus he’s got it right.” And that’s what the book is filled with. Do I have to do that? No. but as a reader that’s what I want to know. I want to learn something every time I read something.

EE: Are there people who are going to reconsider ever giving you those jobs with all of those tidbits you’re sharing?

BM: The one thing I definitely base my career on is trust. The secret service has helped me out with four books because the things they tell me I can say, I say and when they say “I can tell you this, but don’t print it.” Those are the things I don’t print. There are things I’ve learned things about former president’s lives, the security of the White House, the secret tunnels to Disneyworld and all of the things I’ve written about that they shared with me but are still in my head but I can’t tell anybody and I don’t tell anybody. If I do then I won’t get them for the 6th book or any other book. I do take that trust very seriously and if you don’t you’re either a jerk or a fool.

EE: You’ve also described the book as a story about reaching your potential. What is more stifling, reaching your physical limitations or your mental potential?

BM: It’s funny, when you said physical, my immediate reaction was, “Who cares about physical?” That means to me, am I good at sports? I think it’s always about mental. The greatest battle in your life is not going to be a fistfight. It’s going to be something far more emotional. And that to me is where great drama comes from and is everything I put into my novels. Not through the giant chase that becomes the stupid summer movie, it’s far more of the things we all do, the mistakes we all make.

EE: And you do this how exactly in Book of Fate?

BM: The first thing I do is take the main character who can take on the world, with great looks and everything going for him and destroy him in chapter one. I wreck him, so that by chapter two he is a shattered, hollowed version of himself. He’s physically scarred, and emotionally scarred in the same way. He can barely put it all together to get up every morning like and that is a far more interesting character to me. Then I put him in a thriller and see if he can do everything any other thriller character can do with all of those limitations, that’s what I want to find out. Can he pull that magic trick off?

EE: With many of your novels, including Book of Fate you claim that you are actually writing about your father and anytime you’ve written about brothers those experiences are actually from your relationship with your sister. As a writer, how far do you explore your own personal life?

BM: I think writers say that, they channel them and that they just come to them or “I just can’t explain it.” That’s all bullshit. You can only know yourself, truly. You can have insight and opinions about other people, but you are truly going to know the dark, dingy horrible parts of one’s brain are when it’s your own. So every character is a figment of my imagination but I’d be a liar if I didn’t say that some part of them is a part of me. Part of me is the ruthless, the jerk, the competitive one, etc. That’s the lens through which I focus all of my views is that it has to go through my own eyes.

EE: What bits of pop culture shaped you into who you are?

BM: My fondest television memories were Happy Days and Battle of the Network Stars. That to me was like watching the Olympics. I watched everything from Brady Bunch to Different Strokes like anyone my age got sucked into but I just loved television. I used to come home from school and just hug it and call it mommy.

EE: Were you happy with the way Jack & Bobby produced on TV?

BM: Jack & Bobby was one of the most rewarding and humbling experiences of my whole life. What I learned is how spoiled I am as a novelist. I loved working on Jack & Bobby. I think we had some good episodes, some okay. And that’s the way it goes, but when I write a novel, I’m in complete control of everything. When I was doing that television show it was like trying to push water. And it was a great learning experience but it made me realize when I write those novels, I get to do what I want. I have an editor who can rein me in if I go too far but they let me do what I want for the most part.

EE: Is that something you never want to try again?

BM: Oh, no-no-no. I definitely want to do it again, it was a great experience but my goal has never been to go to Hollywood and make cash. If I did, I would have pitched another storyline or another television show after the “critically acclaimed season of Jack & Bobby.” Instead I said I wanted to take a year off television to do Justice League, why? Because that’s what I wanted to do. Everything I do besides the novels is purely for the enjoyment of it; not the money, the rewards or anything else it’s just what I love. So perhaps some greedy bastard version of me would want to do something after Jack & Bobby. Me? I decided to play with superheroes.

EE: Name three comics that are not mainstream but you’d like to see mainstream.

BM: Scott Pilgrim, Barry Ween, Miracle Man.

EE: Pick one of two:

Who wears fishnets better? Zatanna or Black Canary?

BM: Black Canary. Although Ed Benes draws Zatanna’s fishnets with the garters and that’s pretty insane and will make a little 13-year old boy masturbate.

EE: Who wears green better, Hal or Ollie?

BM: Hal.

EE: Better Marv Wolfman project, Teen Titans or Justice League?

BM: Marv Wolfman Teen Titans.

EE: Rag Morales or Ed Benes?

BM: Now you’re just asking, “Which of my kids do I love best?” If I answer that question I fuck myself either way. I never get a project with Ed or Rags either way.

EE: Do you have any plans for anything creator-owned in comics?

BM: In comics? No. If I wanted to do something creator-owned, I’d just do a novel. Comics for me are like playing with your old toys.

EE. Leave us with something in the form of a Zatanna spell.

BM: First of all let me just say, that writing in the form of a Zatanna spell, is fucking hard! In terms of writing you have to stop and think, “NAMTAB POTS”

M’i os citehtap taht lla I nac kniht fo si yub eht skoob, (Koob fo Etaf dna Ecitsuj Eugael fo Acirema)

Because let’s be honest, that’s what all writers are thinking.

Whether it’s pulling from this nation’s rich history or the yellowed pages of comic’s pulped mythology, one chapter is all you need to get baited and hooked into Meltzer’s thrillers. For more information of Brad visit: www.bradmeltzer.com and to see him on his Book of Fate tour, visit:
http://www.bradmeltzer.com/appearances.php where he’ll be signing copies of his novels and comics.