Dwayne McDuffie is a prolific comics and television writer. He is best known as the co-founder of Milestone Media, the company which created STATIC SHOCK, ICON, HARDWARE, AND XOMBI. He was the co-creator of the Emmy Award-winning animated series “Static Shock,” which ran for four seasons on Kids!WB. More recently, he was a producer on “Justice League” and “Justice League Unlimited,” which just finished up its run on Cartoon Network and may now be seen on Boomerang. He has written stories for SPIDERMAN, BATMAN, AVENGERS SPOTLIGHT, CAPTAIN MARVEL, and THE TICK. His current project is a miniseries from Marvel called BEYOND! (first issue now available in your local comic book store). Mr. McDuffie has graciously agreed to sit down with Firefox News for a chat.

Melissa Wilson

What are you working on right now?

Dwayne McDuffie

I’m finishing up a Marvel miniseries, and I am working on a new show for Nickelodeon.

Melissa

Anything you can talk about?

McDuffie

Not yet.

Melissa

Why don’t you tell us a little about yourself? Where are you from? What did you study in college?

McDuffie

I’m from Detroit, Michigan, I went to the University of Michigan and NYU. I studied physics. I decided at a certain point that I didn’t want to continue in grad school for physics, and went to NYU Film School. Then I ran out of money.

Melissa

That happens.

McDuffie

(laughs) New York’s expensive. Who knew? I took a job at a financial magazine called “Investment Dealer’s Digest” as a copy editor, hated the job. I complained to a friend of mine who was an editor at Marvel, and he said, “Hey, they’re looking for an assistant editor. If you call right away, you can probably get an interview.” I got an interview, took something like an eighty percent pay cut, *laugh* and started writing comics.

Melissa

Did you start writing off the bat, or were you doing more editing work? How long did they give you to get your feet wet?

McDuffie

I had made a couple of little short story sales, but just for fun. It never occurred to me as a job. I’d sold a few short pieces before I started editing. But once I got there, I needed the money, so I wrote a lot more.

Melissa

What were they for? What books were the stories for?

McDuffie

My first stuff for AVENGERS SPOTLIGHT, they might have changed the title of it in the middle. I think it was AVENGERS SPOTLIGHT, which was eleven-page solo stories of members of the Avengers, the Marvel super-team.

Melissa

What year was this?

McDuffie

Eighty-seven.

Melissa

What was the first comic you worked on as a head writer? Was that DAMAGE CONTROL?

McDuffie

Yeah, that was DAMAGE CONTROL, which I created and did along with Ernie Colon. We did three miniseries and a few little one-off stories.

Melissa

How long did it run?

McDuffie

Probably two, three years. But again, it was a series of miniseries, it wasn’t an on-going comic.

Melissa

Which comics did you read when you were younger? Who were the big influences on you?

McDuffie

Let’s see. I always talk about, I used to follow Steve Gerber around. Anything he wrote I bought. I was a big fan of the Black Panther when Don MacGregor was doing it. I liked Steve Englehart. I’m going to forget really important people. You know, I was a really big Spiderman fan, and that was probably Gerry Conway back then. I was a Marvel guy.

Melissa

Fair enough. I was a big DC Silver Age fan, and then got out of it.

McDuffie

I never read that stuff until I was an adult and I was working in the business.

Melissa

So you’ve caught up since, is what you’re saying?

McDuffie

(laughs) I definitely got caught up. Five years on “Justice League” and being down the hall from James Tucker, who has every DC Comic ever printed.

Melissa

You’re the co-owner of Milestone Media, the “most successful black-owned comic book company in history.” What would you say your biggest achievement was during Milestone’s heyday?

McDuffie

I think it was giving a lot of people a voice who didn’t have a voice. There were a lot of creative people who never had the opportunity to tell the stories they wanted to tell, and we gave them a chance, and they came through wonderfully. We just had any number of wonderful writers and artists, and editorial and business side. I can’t say we taught them, but we all learned together how to do this stuff.

Melissa

Did a lot of people come over from other companies, or were these more first-time opportunities for people?

McDuffie

We had a mix of older creators who had good reputations, like Mark Bright or Denys Cowan. A mix of people like that and brand new people like J.H. Williams, and John Paul Leon and Chrisscross and guys who hadn’t done mainstream comic work. Some of them hadn’t been published yet. Humberto Ramos. I’m trying to think. I’m forgetting guys. Jimmy Palmiotti, who was working for me at Marvel.

Melissa

So it was a kind of springboard.

McDuffie

There was work around and an opportunity to do good work.

Melissa

If you don’t mind sharing, which was your favorite book to work on while you were publishing?

McDuffie

ICON was my favorite book to work on, XOMBI was my favorite book to read.

Melissa

Which were your favorite characters to write, when you were doing the writing?

McDuffie

Rocket, in ICON, was my favorite character to write completely, probably in my career.

Melissa

What did you like about her?

McDuffie

It’s one of those kind of rare things. There are characters who are a writer’s friend. There are characters that, scenes don’t stall when they’re in them. There are characters that, when you put them in a scene, the scene opens up and new and interesting things happen. When you put them next to other characters, they reveal facets of those characters that you don’t normally get to see, and it’s a very fortunate thing when that happens. Rocket’s the best example of that I’ve ever worked on. Hawkgirl on “Justice League” is another really good example of that, which is why I like writing her so much because you put her in a scene, the scene’s gonna go.

Melissa

(laughs) Yes, that does explain why you like her. What other books did you enjoy working on that weren’t Milestone books?

McDuffie

I enjoyed writing DEATHLOK for Marvel, which is about a pacifist who wakes up in control of a cyborg war machine. As a matter of fact, I snuck him back in BEYOND!

Melissa

Sneak preview! Can we tell our readers that?

McDuffie

Oh sure. They’ve already shown him on the cover. You know, I have all these cliffhangers, and I didn’t realize that they tell you everything in solicitations now. (laughs) The cover’s been out for easily a month. I very much enjoyed writing DEATHLOK. What else did I do? A lot later, I did a couple LEGENDS OF THE DARK KNIGHT runs with Batman. I had a great time writing him, which just never occurred to me. I’d never written Batman solo before, and he’s a lot of fun.

Melissa

You were the co-creator of the popular “Static Shock” animated series. Which episodes were your favorites?

McDuffie

Let’s see. “Static in Africa” was my favorite probably of the entire series, because this would have encapsulated what Milestone was about to me, and what the achievement of getting “Static Shock” on the air was about. There’s a really good episode where he goes back in time and meets his dead mother.

Melissa

“Flashback.”

McDuffie

I’m very fond of that one. I like “Jimmy” a whole lot.

Melissa

That’s the one that won the Humanitas Prize.

McDuffie

Yep. That came out really well, and was very difficult to do.

Melissa

How so?

McDuffie

Just the constraints of Saturday morning television, and it was about gun violence, and a kid got shot. Alan Burnett and I really had to walk a tightrope, but I didn’t want it to come out soft on the issue one way or the other, and we managed to pull it off nicely.

Melissa

Other than “Hoop Squad,” is there any other episode you wished had never happened?

McDuffie

The last episode. I think it was really stupid to get rid of the premise of the show.

Melissa

Had it been renewed for a fifth season, would you have attempted to retcon it out?

McDuffie

I wouldn’t have retconned it, but I would have undone it immediately. It’s kind of like doing a last episode of “X-Men” where you cure all the mutants. Or like the last Batman where he ends all crime.

Melissa

That was prompted by the network?

McDuffie

It was actually a compromise. The network wanted Static to lose his powers, and I was just … I’ve never been so angry in my life. The idea of doing a power fantasy for kids, and at the end of it saying that you don’t really get to have this, to be empowered.

Melissa

They made you do a lot of things in the last season.

McDuffie

The last season, I wasn’t happy with at all. I thought the third season was terrific. I was really looking forward to the fourth season, because we had figured out how to do the show, and the network just saw it very differently. But they’re paying the bills, so what do you do? *laugh*

Melissa

Are there any particular storylines you had in mind for fifth season?

McDuffie

There’s a lot of stuff. I don’t know if I want to say them, because it’s not impossible we’ll get an opportunity to do that, either in comics or convince somebody to pony up for another show sometime. So I’ll keep them in my pocket.

Melissa

Fair enough, and good luck. You were a producer on the recently-concluded series “Justice League Unlimited,” and you wrote some of the most critically-acclaimed episodes of the show. Which were your personal favorites to work on?

McDuffie

I loved all the shows with the Question. He’s a ball to write. (laughs) I don’t know if you want him out front in the show, because he’ll drive you crazy. (laughs) Most of the shows with the Question were just great fun to work on. You know I’m partial to Hawkgirl, so I really liked the Hawkgirl stories. I think I got a good handle on Superman the last couple of years. Superman’s real tough. When I started doing this, I used to say Wonder Woman was the toughest character to write, mainly because if you give her a personality, half her audience gets mad. Whatever personality you give her, half her audiences hates it. Superman is actually worse. We do an episode where he gets angry, and his fans are like, “Superman never gets angry!”

Melissa

(laughs) You can’t please everyone.

McDuffie

Not even please everyone. You can’t flesh him out. He’s so much a symbol that people project their stuff on, that anything you do that screws up anybody’s projection really upsets them, whereas if you do an episode where Batman’s kind of happy, which is unusual, you do an episode where Batman is giddy and having a good day, people will say, “Okay, Batman’s having a good day.” But if you do an episode where Superman’s having a bad day, people are like, “Superman would NEVER have a bad day.” That’s my very long and indirect answer to that question.

Melissa

Are there any particular episodes that, looking back, you wish had been tackled differently?

McDuffie

Every one of them. When I look at episodes, I can always see something. It’s like, “Aw, man. I could’ve done that better, or I could’ve got there quicker.” Probably globally? In terms of the whole series, the thing that didn’t come across to a lot of fans that I wish I’ve had done a better job of getting across is the idea that they don’t live on that space station.

Melissa

Do any of them?

McDuffie

J’onn lives up there. I used to always try to drop lines in to give that impression. People were like, “Batman abandoned Gotham City!” Batman’s in Gotham City all the time. We’ve seen twenty days of his year on “Justice League” in a season, you know? He’s always in Gotham doing his job all the time. Everybody else has lives outside of the place. I don’t think I did a very good job of getting that across, because people really seemed to think they all live up there all the time.

Melissa

You expressed in some episodes. In “Maid of Honor” we got to see some kind of apartment Diana was staying in, maybe it was a hotel.

McDuffie

That was a hotel, which I assume is what she lives in when she was traveling around being a princess, a rich person’s daughter, enjoying the world.

Melissa

We got to see a little bit of the personal lives of the heroes.

McDuffie

I think that was a conscious decision in the early seasons. That was before I was there. We’re showing them when they’re being superheroes with the Justice League. We’re not going to show Bruce arguing with Alfred. We know about that, and we’re not going to show what Flash does in his spare time, because we don’t have time. By the time we got to “Justice League Unlimited,” there were so many characters that there really wasn’t room for a lot of it. Although, we did some of it. We said what Flash did for a living, which we knew all along, by the way. We saw the Question’s apartment. We saw people’s homelives. I think we’ve seen John Stewart’s apartment a couple of times even before “Justice League Unlimited.”

Melissa

Your current project is Marvel’s BEYOND! You’ve already shared that Deathlok is going to make an appearance. Is there anything else you’d like to share? Are there other things long-time Marvel fans should be on the lookout for?

McDuffie

Oh, there’s plenty. Almost every page. The major thing that I guess I have to get across, because I’ve been reading a lot of the reviews, is that it’s in continuity. Not only is it in continuity, but there is no reset. At the end of the story, what happens in this story happens and goes forward in the Marvel universe. Everything we see, happens.

Melissa

So where is it in relation to “Civil War”? Is it just off to the side? Before, after, during? Or will that be established later?

McDuffie

It’ll be clear. I can’t say because I don’t want to screw up Civil War stuff.

Melissa

Is there anything that those of us who are Marvel-impaired should check out to enjoy the book more?

McDuffie

I hope everything you need to read the book is in the book, because in many ways, I camt to this like a lot of people are coming to BEYOND! Half the characters in here, I had never read before. I started doing research for the comic, and I discovered a lot of really good comics doing it. The Hood was terrific. I wish they had done some more of those, for instance. I try and set everybody up. I’m not going to do an infodump and just stop a scene and have everybody explain who they are, but as the book develops, you’ll figure out who they are, at least in this context. We introduced everybody, we sort of set up everybody’s powers pretty quickly. That’s always kind of tricky, especially with a group that size. But I think I pulled it off. “Justice League” training, you know?

Melissa

You said you didn’t know who a lot of these characters were. How did this book come about?

McDuffie

Tom Brevoort who’s a kind of muckity-muck editor at Marvel. I had been complaining for years that nobody lets me write comics anymore and he offered me a comic, so I couldn’t say no. (laughs) He told me the idea, and it’s a really cool idea. Clearly it’s another take on “Secret Wars,” but “Secret Wars” was about getting all the big characters together to fight. That was really the premise of “Secret War.” We’re going to get all the superheroes, get all your action figures, put them on the bed and have a big fight, and that’s very very cool. I know comic book fans like to pretend it’s for adults but, you know what? It’s for kids and kids like to put all their toys on the bed and have them fight.

Melissa

So do the grownups.

McDuffie

(laughs) Another “Justice League” question, sort of. I always get frustrated when people say there’s too much fighting. They’re superheroes, they don’t stand around having tea. There’s no show without that. It’s kinda like saying there’s too many murders on “Law and Order.” (laughs) “Every week there’s a murder!” BEYOND! is a different take on the “Secret Wars” idea. It’s not about the biggest heroes in the world, obviously. These are all guys that most people haven’t heard of, or if they have, they just dimly remember being in a book sometime. It’s about finding out who the characters are by taking them out of their normal context and throwing them into a situation that they’ve never been in before.

Melissa

It’s “characters in a box.”

McDuffie

It’s “characters in a box,” but it’s not about the fighting. It’s about “what are they going to do in this box?” For instance, Venom will stab you with his tail. That’s something we learned about Venom. (laughs)

Melissa

(laughs) It’s those little character bits that move it along.

McDuffie

It’s got little tiny character moments, I think. (laughs) But it really is about who these characters are without structure. It’s like, they’re not in their society, they can’t do things the way they would have done them at home. We ask some really really hard moral questions, and they’re going to have to come up with answers.

Melissa

Do you get to choose who shows up other than the main cast?

McDuffie

The main cast really came from all of us. Tom had some ideas. I don’t actually think I came in with Deathlok. I think Tom suggested Deathlok, which was really cool for me, because I enjoy writing him and hadn’t written him seriously in fifteen years. Scott was really concerned that the initial lineup of BEYOND! was all a bunch of white guys, and he wanted more women and he wanted more minorities. He made a bunch of suggestions that we took. I know a couple of these guys, I wanted. I can’t remember now because now they’re all mine. I’ve been living with them for a while. (laughs) We all sort of kicked ideas around until we came up with a lineup we liked, and then we had to see who was free in terms of Marvel. With all the crossovers going on, it was really tough to see which characters weren’t doing something really important in one of the other crossovers.

Melissa

Do you think the recent “Avengers” animated movie will help in terms of making at least Pym and the Wasp more accessible to new readers, or do you think it’ll be unrelated?

McDuffie

I think that doesn’t hurt. From what I hear, that movie did really well, so a lot of people saw him and saw her, and have more of an idea of who he is. Although, a lot of this series is going to be about clarifying who he really is, both to himself and to the Wasp, who for me is sort of representing the audience. She has an idea of who he is based on who he was years ago, and she’s going to have to learn that he’s sort of a different guy now. He’s got to learn that himself, actually.

Melissa

Wrapping up, is there any advice that you would have liked to have given yourself twenty years ago?

McDuffie

You mean other than, like, stock tips? I don’t know, because I think part of the fun of it is just sort of getting dumped into a situation. Everything sort of becomes an ad for BEYOND! (laugh) The fun is getting dumped into a situation and working it out for yourself. I had a fifth grade teacher. I used to be very frustrated with my classmates who weren’t as good at doing math as I was, and I would just shout the answer out disgusted, because I couldn’t stand waiting on them anymore. And she used to tell me all the time, “Dwayne, you have to let them do the work. They won’t understand it if they don’t go through it.” I think that’s pretty good advice in general, so I would just let young Dwayne stumble into all of his stupid, stupid mistakes just like I continue to stumble into them now. Working the answer out for yourself is part of the fun.

We’d like to thank Mr. McDuffie for talking with us. BEYOND! #1 is on sale now at your local comic shop. Be sure to check it out!