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The John Ostrander Mini-Interview
UNCA CHEEKS: SUICIDE SQUAD. DEADSHOT. GRIMJACK. THE SPECTRE. BLAZE OF GLORY. THE KENTS.
A great many of your longest-lasting (and best known)
series' have had a good deal to say on the subjects of death; despair;
loss; and personal ruination; which -- if you'll kindly
pardon the effrontery inherent in the suggestion -- seems a rather odd
brace of subjects and/or themes, really, for an ex-Jesuit.
Do you believe there might be something, re: that particular aspect of your background, which informs your work in any way (or ways) neither present or pronounced in the mind-sets of your contemporaries within the field...?
JOHN OSTRANDER: I was raised with the concepts both of sin and redemption; that you might do wrong, but you could do something to absolve yourself of at least part of the sin. Theologically, I don't know if I believe that quite as much any more, but it was very much a part of my operating system of belief as I grew up and when I started writing. We all make mistakes. We do wrong. Yes, we are guilty to some respect. We are capable of doing evil. We are also capable of doing great good, of great love.
I don't think sacrifice is a dirty word. To get a little more Eastern in my thinking, I think we can pass through hard times and reach
enlightenment. Are hard times necessary for enlightenment? Some would say no, but I don't know myself; I think we get comfortable and then we need to blast ourselves out. When things fall apart, we look for new way of putting them together again, or new things to come out of the situation altogether.
In my work, I like a complex character -- someone who has faults as well as virtues. They're more interesting to write.
I can't speak to my contemporaries; different things drive each of us as writers, as artists. My first concern is to write a good story, but then I also try to use it to explore questions and feelings that I may have. Not to come up with answers, but just to explore the questions. When I work well, the readers make their own answers or opinions, or see the questions they themselves have framed.
UNCA: Speaking of Big-Time Loss and Despair: the issue of GRIMJACK in which you actually went so far as to kill off said title's protagonist [GRIMJACK #36] -- hard on the heels of the story in which a desperate John Gaunt was forced to destroy the woman he loved [#34] -- was a completely unexpected "twist" on the standard conventions of adventure hero formula.
Was this something you'd already had planned, right from the very git-go; or an example of the well-known writer's trope that: "... sometimes, the characters just end up writing themselves out of the story"...?
JOHN: I don't know if I had it planned from the start, but it was on the plate pretty early. Tim [Truman] and I had talked about doing it, and there are things that play into it as early as "All My Sins Remembered". We had intended from the first that our character would show the results of violence not only on those that GrimJack practiced it on, but on GrimJack himself. The WAY it happened just became a part of the story. We also thought it would be pretty stunning to the readers; the lead character NEVER gets killed. Well, we did it and the question then became "NOW what are they going to do?!"
UNCA: One of my all-time favorite GRIMJACK stories
-- issue #76's "Battle" -- included any number of gut-bustingly
hysterical (and dead-on) "takes" on various well-known
rock'n'roll artists, including "The Big Man" (Clarence Clemmons);
"Lady Soul" (Aretha Franklin); "Charlie Wha' " (Charlie Watts);
"Johnny Melnibone" (Johnny Winter) and "Excitable Boy"
(Warren Zevon). (All you really needed, at that point, were
a couple of John Fogerty and Nick Lowe dopplegangers.
And maybe an Ian Hunter or a Joey Ramone, now that I think
about it.)
This is my sneaky way of leading into the following question: how much of an influence (if any) does music play in your writing, overall? Do you ever turn towards any particular artist(s) or genre(s) for thematic inspiration; or "hear" any particular soundtrack or theme song playing in your head, while fleshing out a given character...?
JOHN: Ah, you're a clever boy, aren't you? Music has often played a big part in what I do, everything from classical (such as Copland's "Apalachian Spring") to rock to blues to soundtracks for movies and TV (I use those a lot). Sometimes I get an idea for a character or a scene from a particular piece of music, and I've been known to play it over and over again until everything is clear in my head. Makes it real annoying to be LIVING with me (Unless I've got the headphones on)<g>.
UNCA: Turning our attention towards the late, lamented SUICIDE SQUAD: one of the most impressive feats during your lengthy tenure on same was the wholly admirable way in which you managed to breathe a semblance of life into villains who either started out with very little established characterization to speak of [Captain Boomerang; Deadshot] or none whatsoever [The Enchantress; Count Vertigo].
Were these villains ones you particularly wanted to use, right from the very beginning, because they were so tabula rasa, characterization- wise? Or did editorial fiat at DC mandate that you only use villains no one really cared much about in the first place; thereby forcing you to "fill the void," as it were...?
JOHN: We got the original team because no one cared what we did with them at the time -- like kill them. The FLASH writers of the time weren't much interested in the Rogues Gallery. I liked Deadshot's costume. The others were picked from those that were available. . . and that we were free to kill, if we wished. If we (my wife and writing partner, the late Kim Yale) added characterization, it's because that's how we operate. We wanted interesting people to play with.
UNCA: This segues nicely (I think) into the
following question, given the above-average super-villain
mortality rate in SUICIDE SQUAD: were there ever any villains you
really wanted to croak, along the way, whose respective
tickets the various editorial Powers That Be forbade you to punch; or
characters you wanted to use, only to be told "no way, Jose!"
out of fear (rightly or wrongly) of what you might end up doing
to them...?
JOHN: I think we were pretty much allowed to use who we wanted, with the understanding that if we used the Penguin he was going to survive, and go back mostly as we found him. That was a given with the big ticket guys but, mostly, we played Grim Reaper with a host of villains. Cleaned out the deadwood. Had fun doing it.
UNCA: Were there ever any instances you can remember of specifically being asked to bump a character off (SUICIDE SQUAD being the perfect place to arrange for that sort of "accident," after all), for whatever reason...? (i.e., two characters with too-similar names, powers or motifs; editorial decree; etcetera) Or else any particular instance in which you personally lobbied for the opportunity to excise a given character from the time-space continuum...?
JOHN: You might think so, but NO to both questions. Usually we were allowed to use villains that no-one cared about and then we did interesting things to them and blowed them up real good.
UNCA: One of the things which I always appreciated and enjoyed most, re: your SUICIDE SQUAD run, was your especial emphasis on minority characters, throughout. (Amanda Waller; Bronze Tiger; Vixen; the Jihad; etcetera, etcetera)
Was this a conscious and intentional "focus" on your part, or merely
happy auctorial accident? And -- if it was the former, in fact -- was it a
sort of subtextual commentary on present-day American society, and/or the judicial process of same?
JOHN: Purely intentional and done for a variety of reasons.
First of all, we wanted international settings to give the book a different feel than the other team books. Villains and heroes from around the world were welcome.
Second, within a different ethnic grouping I liked to show more than ONE type of character. Bronze Tiger is different from AmandaWaller is different from Vixen. I wanted to show not only racial diversity but divrsity within the race.
UNCA: In SUICIDE SQUAD #10, you gave us the following exchange between SQUAD ramrod Amanda Waller and a morally outraged Batman; the latter whom had attempted (and failed) to "shut down" the SS from within:
BATMAN: "What you're doing is a travesty of justice. Do you really think I'll let it continue?"
WALLER: "We do work that's necessary, even if our methods do fall outside the established system. Just like you do."
BATMAN: "People don't pay their taxes to support me... as they do you. Maybe we ask them."
Both of these ideological stances, it seems to me, are wholly in keeping with the personalities and world views established for each character...
... but: now that said issue is thirteen years behind
us -- and just between you; me; and everyone who's ever
going to read these words, online -- on which side of the situational
fence does John Ostrander reside, re: "Moral Obligation
Vs. Moral Expediency"...?
JOHN: Did and does fall between the two. It's how I was able to write that sequence; I agreed with both. I could see both sides and I still do.
That said -- I think there is a point where you haave to accept that, when the Joker escapes again (and he will), more people will die. Innocent people. If you can't keep him locked up, then you do what you have to in order to protect society; and if that means putting a bullet in the Joker's brain -- do it.
Of course, you can't, given the franchise. But at some point your character has to address the morality of it.
UNCA: In the DEADSHOT four-issue limited series -- which this site's host counts as (just maybe) the absolute storytellingne plus ultra of the extended SUICIDE SQUAD saga, overall -- there's yet another fascinaating bit of dialogue (courtesy of the title character), in the fourth and final issue:
DEADSHOT (to his psychiatrist): "That's yer problem, lady. You believe people can be cured, be made healthy, be made normal... that they can be saved. That they should be saved.
"But maybe the only way to cure some people is with a bullet between the eyes."
Even allowing for the fact that this chilling pronouncement is being spoken by a character with a very real and pronounced death wish: it's a line which -- when penned by the same gentleman who gave us both the aforementioned GRIMJACK and (just possibly) the definitive "take" on THE SPECTRE -- resonates powerfully, thematically...
... which leads (in turn) to the following hypothetical question:
Say the DEADSHOT limited series had sold in such great, gargantuan job lots as to all but mandate that DC Comics give it the editorial "go-ahead" as an ongoing title; and (furthermore) that John Ostrander is tapped to write said series.
How would you (given such a scenario) have dealt with the concept of a character who -- way deep down; really and truly -- wanted to die, as an ongoing protagonist? Would some sort of psychological "epiphany" have had to take place (ultimately) on Floyd Lawton's part, somewhere along the way, in order to make such a series a viable one, story-wise? Or would the spiritually disenfranchised Deadshot have ended turning down some other, darker emotional corridor altogether, a la John Guant...?
JOHN: It's hard to say what you would have done. In almost all my books, a character starts at one point and evolves, over a period of time, into another person. There is change. How would Lawton have changed? I'd have to write the series to find out.
UNCA: Final Query, on behalf of all the other anxious
GRIMJACK and SUICIDE SQUAD diehards, out there: any possibility of our seeing John Ostrander-penned issues of either
of these titles, anytime in the forseeable future...?
JOHN: I'd have to say NOT AT THIS TIME, although I'm ALWAYS hopeful of getting GrimJack out of the legal morass its in, and up and going. I'd relaunch SQUAD tomorrow if DC let me. Maybe if all the dedicated fans were to tell DC that they want that, it could happen. Heaven knows I'VE told them!
UNCA: All right, then: without meaning to step on any particular "toes," whatsoever -- because, quite frankly, the words "legal" and "morass," used in conjunction, plain ol' give Unca the willies -- could you briefly illuminate on said matter, re: GRIMJACK? A great many of
our readers may know nothing whatsoever concerning this, after all. (Heck: I'm as big a GRIMJACK booster as anyone, and this is the absolute first
I've ever heard of it -- !)
JOHN: It comes down to this. When I created GRIMJACK I signed a contract with First Comics. It gave them control over the character but I could reclaim the rights under certain circumstances. I believe I did; they don't. So we're at a standoff. First Comics no longer exists, except as a legal shell (if that), and others have bought up the rights. They want to exercise them; I'm somewhat in the way. And that is where it stands.
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