Unca Cheeks the Toy Wonder's Silver Age Comics Web Site!

. . . with TOM "Tennessee" PEYER

NOTE: this interview best enjoyed while listening to The Rolling Stones' immortal "Time Is On My Side."

Really, really loud.

UNCA CHEEKS: Fellow comics scribe Mark Waid handing out free copies of HOURMAN at comics conventions, lauding it as "the best comics series being published today." Fans routinely pointing towards HOURMAN whenever the topic of Genuinely Intelligent and Worthwhile Comics pops up, online. Detailed discussion of your latest limited series, DC 2000, currently dominates the Usenet message boards.

In the '70s, it was Steve Gerber, with DEFENDERS and MAN-THING and OMEGA THE UNKNOWN. In the '80s, it was Alan Moore, with WATCHMEN and "Whatever Happened To the Man of Tomorrow?" In the '90s, it was Grant Morrison, with ANIMAL MAN and JLA and DOOM PATROL. (... not to mention a couple of fellahs by the names of Busiek and Waid, now that I think of it.)

So: how's it feel, being the current "go-to" guy for smart super-hero comics...?

TOM PEYER: Kent, do you want your bribe in cash or comic books?

That's quite a list of writers. To my knowledge, you're the only one who's ever added my name to it, including me, my parents and my dog. I have to admit it's nice to see it there. Thanks. Those are the comics I've always liked best, and that's the spirit I'm trying to work in. Among other influences, HOURMAN very much inspired by Gerber, by the way he'd write his very own story, which, for better or worse, no one else could write, and which gets across some of the writer's personality.

I have to say I like these long, flattering questions. I feel like Faye Dunaway on Inside The Actors' Studio, except you're not leering at me.

UNCA: Between the intricate time travel-oriented storytelling sleight-of-hand ongoing, in HOURMAN; the lengthy '20th Century Legionnaires" story arc, during your LEGION tenure; and the current DC 2000, it's plain to see you enjoy the whole TIME ENOUGH FOR LOVE/ THE MAN WHO FOLDED HIMSELF thing, as a writer.

What is it, specifically, that draws you, repeatedly, to this particular storytelling motif, anyway...?

TOM: I like it all. Time, space, costumes, powers, characters. For some reason, jobs seem to accrete to me in thematic clumps. It's all kid gangs for a while, then it's all future-stories, or all robots. I don't know why it happens. It's just weird.

UNCA: One of the more intriguing aspects to HOURMAN is your utilization of longtime Silver Age Justice League of America mascot "Snapper" Carr as a sort of stand-in "everyman" character; an interesting choice, certainly, given everything this guy's been through, over the years.

I'm curious as to just what, specifically, drew you to tap "Snapper" for said role, as opposed to -- say -- some other pre-existing character; or else some entirely new creation, altogether. What is it that indefinable something that "Snapper" brings to the mix, that best suits your storytelling purpose(s)...?

TOM: It was Grant Morrison's idea to revive Snapper as a Jack Kerouac-type, a passionate and charismatic figure who, in Grant's words, "joined the Justice League through the sheer force of his personality." What took over when I wrote him was a nearly religious faith in personal redemption and an embrace of human imperfection. He could never match up to the JLA -- especially since the relationship ended when he sort of betrayed them -- so his only recourse was to find something to love about falling short. That struck me as a very good lesson to teach a machine.

UNCA: Moving on to THE LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES, for just a moment:

DC's Legion franchise is presently undergoing -- what? -- its third or fourth revamp/reboot/reconceptualization, within the last ten, twelve years or so. (Including the not-especially-well-thought-out, in my humble opinion, "Dark" Giffen LEGION; the more optimistic seven- or eight-year Waid/Peyer/Stern "run"; and -- most recently -- the [again, in my opinion] muddled and unpleasant "Legion Lost" approach.)

Looking back over the series' history, as one who's actually (and materially) contributed to same: do you feel there's something inherent to the LSH concept which simply is no longer working (or workable), in today's market? Is a non-dystopian future something to which todays' readership can no longer relate, by and large? Or is the series fatally hamstrung, ultimately, by all of the post-CRISIS back'n'forths to which it's been repeatedly subjected? (e.g., "Superboy? What Superboy?"; "My name is Mon-El. Unless it's Valor. Or M'On-El."; etcetera, etcetera.)

TOM: The Legion remains a very rich well from which to draw stories. So many personalities, such a vast universe; if you can't find something engaging to write about there, maybe you're not a writer.

I'm glad DC remains committed to it. I don't know what it's selling, so I can't discuss its commercial performance. I've noticed that the series attracts a number of vocal fans who like big, world-building epics with a lot of parts that snap together logically, so the post-CRISIS continuity revamps probably did harm it... but I can see the wisdom of revamping a huge property like Superman without giving a whole truckload of thought to its more obscure spin-offs.

UNCA: Not to bring back unpleasant memories, certainly <g>... but: back when AOL was sponsoring the DC ONLINE "Legion of Super- Heroes" message boards, there was an increasingly virulent and vitriolic faction which seemed to delight in tarring you and Roger Stern, specifically, as slavering, white-hood wearing "racists"; even though minority representation within the LSH, under your joint tenure (Kid Quantum's I & II; XS; supporting characters and "quasi"-LSHers such as the reintroduced Jacques Foccart, Dragonmage, etcetera), was substantially and significantly higher than under any other writer's tour of duty.

I can still clearly recall an insulted and much-put-Roger Stern finally exclaiming, exasperatedly (and essentially), "Later for this," and quitting the message board; and you, yourself, repeatedly requesting that the offending parties at least try to exercise some wee measure of decorum (or even simple perspective), afterwards.

With all of this serving as preamble, then:

A.) Do you feel that the primary reason more comics professionals don't interact with fans, online, is the latter's demonstrated (and repeated) propensity for thuggish and uncivilized behavior?

B.) Does the increasing nine-hundred-pound-gorilla prominence of the hardcore "fanboy" segment of the comics readership, post the establishment of the "direct sales" market, serve as legitimate license for said faction to bullyrag writers and/or editors in terms of plotting, or character selection and/or emphasis? Or is the most efficacious means of expressing dissatisfaction with any given series still, ultimately: "... vote with your wallet"...?

TOM: My memory of the "slavering white-hood wearing racists" incident doesn't prominently feature anyone's incivility; I remember it as a frustrating time, because they did have a point about minority representation, but there was so much else to do -- mainly, reintroducing a huge, pre-existing cast and giving them each some screen time -- it felt like it took forever to begin to address their points. I know it felt that way to the complainers, too.

I am, however, nursing a few grudges about internet incivility. I stopped posting to Usenet a few years ago; I just didn't feel like being picked on anymore. Whatever you say, someone's going to jump on it in a sneering, dismissive way. That tone gets so old and boring. It's like going to a party where you know someone's going to insult you. After a while, you just stay home. And before anyone interprets this as an unwillingness to be criticized, let me add that I recently wrote a thank-you letter to a Usenet poster who panned an issue of HOURMAN, because she calmly presented clear, defensible reasons.

As for the last part of your question, I don't think we necessarily respond to bullying. If something isn't going over, we want to hear about it. We're not doing comics with an intent to dissatisfy people. But, like most anyone else, I'm not very likely to go out of my way to please someone who's flat-out rude.

UNCA: Over the past few years, we've seen DC (seemingly) revisiting -- albeit in cautious, measured steps; to wildly varying degrees -- essential "core" aspects of the baseline pre-CRISIS concepts and conceits: Mark Waid's examination of the Hal Jordan/ Barry Allen relationship, in THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD; Grant Morrison's tilted "take" on Gardner Fox and Len Wein, re: his JLA tenure; (again) Waid's intriguing "Hypertime" concept, re-integrating (literally) thousands of previously discarded pre-CRISIS stories into the DC canon; the Silver Age-flavored JLA: YEAR ONE; Karl Kessel's unabashedly "Kirby"-centric SUPERBOY; the ages-overdue redemption (in part) of Hal Jordan; the recent SILVER AGE limited series; Geoff John's STARS AND S.T.R.I.P.E; and so on, ad infinitum.

The question (finally!): do you see any/all of the foregoing as admission on DC's part -- either tacit, or otherwise -- that the wholesale changes engineered in the wake of CRISIS went "too far," overall? Or is it (perhaps) the synchronicity of a handful of writers all attempting to "recapture" the essential feel, re: the comics of their youth? An attempt to reach out to older, disenfranchised comics readers? All of these? None of these?

TOM: I think it comes from the creators more than anyone. It's a pendulum swing. You fall in love with an approach, work it for a while, get a little tired of it, and find another one to fall in love with. We tend to do this in packs, because we inspire each other. It's like music. For five years, every musician wants to sound like the Beatles. For five years, every comics writer wants to write like John Broome.

But I don't see very strict limits right now. We've recently seen a lot of mid-Sixties wonderment mixed with late-eighties characterization, detailed 90s art and a Golden Age-ish retreat from story clutter. We have the whole history of comics to play with, and we'll keep plumbing it with varying degrees of emphasis on one approach or another, and the more talented and hardworking creators will throw in something new once in a while.I don't think the companies have any agenda but to attract and please readers. I think the creators want to please the readers just as much, but we also need to entertain ourselves, because we spend so much time on this stuff. For one reason or another, I've ended up working on a few stories I didn't like even as I was writing them, and it's an awful way to spend your days, let me tell you. So we gravitate to ideas we can find a way to love.

UNCA: There is a minor (but vociferous) segment of comics fandom which holds to the position that -- using DC Comics, Inc. as an example, here -- any given comics company's overall "continuity" should remain forevermore pristine and unsullied; and that every single story published (again, in DC's instance) over the course of six decades-plus should seamlessly "interlock" with every other story, with no contradictions or storytelling hyper-textual hemstitching allowed.

As a fan, yourself, who's graduated to the ranks of the working comics professional; and as DC's present day "Captain Chronological" <g>... do you feel that such an expectation is:

A.) ... fair (to the creators, from a storytelling standpoint)...?

B.) ... desirable (for the industry, re: building and/or maintaing a readership)...?

C.) ... even DO-able, for that matter...?

TOM: Whether it's fair or desirable, I don't think it's possible to do it to the extent that some people would like to see it.

Someone said recently that they expect no less consistency from comics than from any work of fiction... I think they mentioned Charles Dickens. But the fact is, one guy wrote all the Dickens stories. If hundreds of people wrote all the Dickens stories over a period of 60 years, you can bet that, after four decades, Ebenezier Scrooge would be wearing battle armor and working as a hit man for Canadian Intelligence. And 15 years later some angry reader would write in wanting to know why the latest issue portrays Scrooge as a bitter old skinflint instead of a sexy Canadian killing machine.

I love a lot of what's gone before, and I try to respect even the things I don't love... but I can't throw my story off by indulging points that were interesting a quarter century ago but maybe not today. I know that makes some people angry, but if they read with an open mind they might find things they actually prefer about new interpretations.

And I really, honestly, am not out to anger any readers. I was once quoted widely--and out of context--as saying that I wanted to "torture Legion readers like small animals," and some of them took it to mean that I wanted them to hate my comics... but at the moment I said it, I was resisting chat-room demands for story spoilers, and I meant that I wanted to torture them with suspense. To get them involved. I want to please as many readers as I can and still have a story.

Wow, listen to me. I sound as defensive as any three Marvel Editors- In-Chief put together.

UNCA: Okay: you are TOM PEYER, "an intelligent machine colony from the year 85,271; programmed with yadda yadda yadda."

You now posses the power to go back in time and wipe out ANY change(s) ever visited upon the DC Comics universe, to your own liking; no exception(s).

Cancel out CRISIS? Zero out ZERO HOUR? Save Barry Allen, or Hal Jordan, or Katar Hol, or Kara Zor-El? Whisper in Carmine Infantino's ear that "... no, nobody really wants to read a comic book entitled PREZ, f'chrissakes. Get a grip, awready"...?

So: what do you do, then...?

TOM: I would never have abandoned the Blackhawks' costumed super-hero identities:

The Listener!

The Golden Centurion!

Dr. Hands!

Weapons Master!

The Big Eye!

Whichever one Andre was!

Whichever other one I left out!

[UNCA'S ASIDE: Olaf, as the Leaper. And, yes, people: this really IS Tom's for-real answer, as given.]

TOM: To paraphrase President Lyndon Baines Johnson -- and he really said something like this, right in the comic book -- the NON-super Blackhawks were junk-heap heroes who could never hope to defeat the wild, go-go menaces of today, and by today I mean, of course, the 1960s.

Now, far be it from me to red-bait -- I am no McCarthyite, at least not under certain circumstances -- but whoever made the suspicious "decision" to devolve the Magnificent Seven back to their drab, powerless, out-of-it status quo was clearly flouting the express wishes of a sitting President during a time of war.

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