Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths (USA) di Williamson & Sampere

[Azrael]

Che io sia a bordo mi pare inutile dirlo, no? 

[Bruce Wayne]

This is the first page of DARK CRISIS #1. We open the issue here because I wanted to show from the start what this story was about. That out of darkness came a light that gave birth to one of the greatest legacies in comics.

Più guardo questa prima pagina e più sono contento.
È un Manifesto.
Racchiude una miriade di significati che mi già mi fanno sentire appagato. 

[katzenberg]

Davvero bella e suggestiva!

[Man of Steel]

This is the first page of DARK CRISIS #1. We open the issue here because I wanted to show from the start what this story was about. That out of darkness came a light that gave birth to one of the greatest legacies in comics.

Più guardo questa prima pagina e più sono contento.
È un Manifesto.
Racchiude una miriade di significati che mi già mi fanno sentire appagato. 

MIRIADE, veramente!

Spiacente, ma non sei autorizzato a visualizzare il contenuto degli spoiler.

Spiacente, ma non sei autorizzato a visualizzare il contenuto degli spoiler.

Spiacente, ma non sei autorizzato a visualizzare il contenuto degli spoiler.

Il Male dell'Oscurità infetta.
Il Bene della Luce si divampa.

Entrambe hanno i loro Avatars, Darkseid sarà immortale, così come Empty Hand o Nekron, ma anche gli eroi DC lo sono, specialmente attraverso la Legacy.

E quando rispondi a *quel* CALLING....QUEL giuramento....è fatta, there's no going back.

È un po' buffo, ma è anche bellissima 'sta cosa, perchè...TU fai una scelta, nessuno te la impone, ma arrivati ad un certo punto...lol, è come se non avessi più scelta.
Questo è il War on Crime di gente come Bats e Robin, non è più una questione di "voler fare una differenza nel mondo" ma proprio di "DOVER fare una differenza nel mondo", assolutamente stupendo.
Sono sicuro che così come io in quella splash page vedo tante cose "mie", allo stesso modo anche tu Bruce vedi tante cose "tue" and this is the absolute power of comics.

[Man of Steel]

Joshua Williamson, Daniel Sampere hint at the forthcoming 'Dark Crisis'

The writer and artist talk about influences, objectives, and the power of legacy.

AIPT: What's the condensed elevator pitch for how long this story's been building? It goes back to Death Metal, right?

Joshua Williamson: We're definitely saying there are pieces of Death Metal that push some of this forward. But really, the point to start looking is Infinite Frontier #0, which we released a year ago. That's really where we started the real groundwork for it.

There's obviously some stuff from Death Metal; there had been a cost to the universe being rebuilt, and that Wonder Woman was aware of what that cost was going to be — or, maybe not aware of it, but she went looking for it. And now you're starting to really see what that cost was with the stuff with The Great Darkness.

AIPT: Josh, you've talked about some of the more "celebratory" aspects of this event, and how it's a kind of "love letter" to the DCU. Why is that so important?

JW: When I first started reading comic books, when I first started really getting like hardcore at DC, it was a t time where DC was introducing a lot of elements. Like, you had Tim Drake, Cassie [Sandsmark], Kyle [Rayner], and Connor Hawke — all of these pieces are being introduced around that time period.

What those things did was it highlighted these how much this stuff is generational, right? Like, how much of a big piece of DC is the generational legacy. At the same time this was happening, you also had Wally West, who at that point had been the Flash for a few years. But the entire time period, so much of it was about him living in the shadow of Barry [Allen]. And then you get to the return of Barry Allen, and it's about him stepping out of that shadow while also embracing what had come before.

All this stuff — the idea of the generational history and the legacy characters and new characters, the sidekicks, particularly with Nightwing, becoming one of the most respected parts of the DCU — all those things are really important to me. When look at like the aftermath of New 52, the aftermath of Flashpoint, a lot of that stuff got kind of pushed to the side a little bit. When we got to Rebirth, we were able to reestablish the core of the DCU.

To me, this is also taking all those other parts and really elevating [it] again. And that's why this stuff was really important to me — to show that all the new stuff and all of the classic stuff can all live together, and it can actually give you an entry point into this gigantic DC world has been built over the last 85 years.

All that being said, I've seen some of these big events through the points of view of Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman. If you go back and look at the original Crisis on Infinite Earths, those characters don't really appear the first few issues. It's mostly about Pariah, and the other worlds and the people that he's saving. You start to see those characters, but the cast of the original Crisis is massive. And I wanted to look back at that and say, 'OK, how do I tell a story in the DC right now? One about legacy and about the new while also honoring everything that came before? So all of that stuff is really what came into the evolution of Dark Crisis.

AIPT: Daniel, from a visual or artistic standpoint, how do you balance all of that?

Daniel Sampere: I'm trying to honor what it's already been done while trying to mix it with my own vision. So I'm trying to create a balance about using the all visuals, what's already been established in the previous [Crisis events] by George Perez and Phil Jimenez and all these amazing artists. I'm taking a lot of the stuff that they created and they build for these iconic DC visuals, all the multiple layers of this stuff. And I'm trying to pay tribute to those comic books and those visuals, but at the same time, I'm trying something new, to mix it with a more modern comic book look. But it's not just about these characters, and DC also has a visual legacy. So I'm trying to take care of it and trying to expand it while always looking and using the previous art.

AIPT: DC obviously has a rich history of events, but some of them tend to be done for the sake of retconning. So if this event is different, and we're not rewriting the universe, what are the big stakes?

JW: Without getting too much into spoilers, there's a lot more like emotional stakes then everything blowing up all the time. It's definitely more about the characters.

It's not about reboots or retcons, but there are going to be some really big things that happen in the story that will carry forward. There'll be some changes with some characters and some evolutions and some leveling up of some characters. There will be some things in the DCU that are different afterward. But there are a lot of what is going to be these kinds of emotional character growth for those characters. There will be some pieces moving around by the end — but it's way too early to talk about.

It's not about replacing, like taking the new and replacing the classic, it's not about that at all. It's really about showing why all of these characters are important, and honoring all of them and showing why they're all crucial. The idea of honoring what came before but also introducing the new is so crucial to the DCU.

We were talking about the beginning how, when I first started becoming a DC Comics addict and all this new stuff was being introduced around them, I really wanted to come back to that and show why that was so so cool. We already saw the universe destroyed, even in Death Metal, and I didn't want to repeat that. I wanted to find ways to make it less of 'Oh, this is the end of the world' and make it more about the characters. That being said, a lot of these characters have different reactions because they've also lived through those big Crisis events.

Like, imagine what living through all of these gigantic end-of-the world events would consistently do to a person. That's a big part of what our motivation is: when you go back and look at Crisis on Infinite Earths, Pariah is responsible for his own world being destroyed. It was the first world that was destroyed, and he's responsible for it. And then he was forced to watch an infinite number of worlds destroyed, and go into those realms. So he's actually lived through a lot of them and it did something to him. It has definitely done something to him to motivate him to essentially be the villain of this story. And I want to show that with the other characters — having the Justice League die again, how does that impact some of the characters. It's much more about these kinds of characteristics and not just, like, the world's going to blow up again, because you've seen it.
It's been interesting to write those scenes and characters. There's one scene, in one of the special issues, where Dick [Grayson] and Jon [Kent] are talking about this, and Jon is panicking. So Dick says, 'You know your dad died, right?' So there are scenes about that sort of impact it, but none of it undercuts what's coming. There's still a massive danger that is coming, and it will impact the DC going forward.

AIPT: It kind of sounds like one of my favorite events, Blackest Night. Lots of things happened there, but it was very much testing people to their mental and emotional extremes.

JW: We definitely looked at Blackest Night. Daniel and I are both fans of that story. Daniel's a huge Green Lantern fan, and tell me if I'm wrong, also a huge Ivan Reis fan.

DS: Yeah yeah.

JW: So we looked at that event for sure. I would say the four events we looked at the most were probably Crisis on Infinite Earths, Infinite Crisis, Final Crisis, and Blackest Night. I had those behind me for the last two years, and I'd look at them constantly to figure out certain pieces and how do I build off those events.

AIPT: This event comes right after Justice League #75, the "Death of The Justice League." How do these two things work together, and does one expand the other?

JW: We didn't say it at the time, but I think we'll probably start saying it now. It's a prelude issue — issue #75 leads directly into the event. We built issue one of Dark Crisis so that you could read it by yourself. We have scenes in there that essentially tell you what is up and what is going on. But if you want the big picture, you would need to read issue #75. The "Death of The Justice League" only takes place in #75, and then we immediately go into the zero issue and then...issue one — they're very much connected. It's the aftermath of what the world is like when those characters are gone, and how people on earth react to the news essentially. That, and some heroes react one way and some villains react to one way and you'll see how that all kind of comes to a head in issue #1.

AIPT: There's also going to be some prologue issues. What can you tell us about those and how do they feed into or enhance the larger story?

JW:  It's all connected. If this our giant omnibus, you would you would go from #75 to the zero issue. But, again, you can read if you want by itself. So issue one is the beginning of the event. All that stuff just preludes to it, and the zero issue is showing how people, and one in particular without spoiling it, is how they're reacting to the Justice League being gone.
DC Comics launching 'Dark Crisis' summer event about legacy

Then the Road To... special is five short stories involving two heroes, mostly two heroes, meeting and then dealing with what this world is like. One of the stories is written by Jeremy Adams, who writes a Flash book, and it's a story about Wallace and Wally [West] realizing that Barry's gone and has been missing for a while and also Avery's been missing. But they're also realizing, 'Oh there's a bunch of villains that are just acting nuts because the League's gone, and they're running around.' But that [the Wally story] is picked up again in Dark Crisis #1.

So it's really this big tapestry that we're building, and we've spent the last year putting all of these pieces on the table and constantly adding more pieces and more pieces and more pieces. And all of those pieces suddenly collide with our crisis.

AIPT: Obviously without any spoilers, are there any big moments to look out for? Or anything that you think will blow the tops of people's heads off?

JW: The art we've shown [already] kind of gives a glimpse of it. The stuff that Daniel and Alejandro are doing is so amazing. Like, every page comes in, and you're just like, 'Oh, crap.' I think we opened in such a different way. Like, most crisis events open with some big disaster. So we said, 'No, let's start someplace else, and we started with that first page showing Batman with Dick, taking the oath to become Robin and the beginning of legacy and the DCU.

I think a lot of stuff will really surprise people, but there are other moments, I mean, where it's going to get nuts. And Daniel has done amazing work drawing it. I mean, the sheer scope of it, like the event goes back and forth between these like small intimate moments between the characters, and then there are things that happen that are just like 'Holy crap.'

But it's called Dark Crisis, and so there are some dark moments. It's not an easy time for these heroes, and they go through the wringer a bit. There are moments that I think will be very fan pleasing and very exciting for people who are DC fans and have been reading these characters and loving these characters. Daniel has some moments that are really big and really cool that he's done. There'll also be moments of, 'Oh, my God, our heroes are screwed.' But then you balance it out with just [moments of] 'Hell yeah.'

So that's really our goal...whenever we talk about these events. I always think about roller coasters, right? Like, you get on a roller coaster. You're going to get off at the end and you're going to be OK. But it's still kind of nervous, and you're still kind of scared. Then that roller coaster takes off, and there's these moments where you're going up and you're going out for a moment and things are really calm — you get to look at the beautiful view. Then it just drops and you're screaming going through twists and the ups and downs. That is how I feel about our crisis.

AIPT: Daniel, anything for you?

DS: I'm a huge, crazy DC fan. I feel like I'm constantly working and drawing things that as a fan I would say, 'Oh, wow!' Every piece that comes in for a new cover... I need to start thinking how to grow. I'm having so much fun, because I'm a fan that has the chance to grow what will happen [in] the story. It's just full of moments that I think that that readers are going to flip out and enjoy a lot.

https://aiptcomics.com/2022/02/15/dark-crisis-qa/

Intervista molto interessante, ora so più o meno cosa aspettarmi.

[Cosmonauta]

Riassuntino rapido sulle cose essenziali?

[Man of Steel]

Vuole essere una lettera d'amore al DCU, non solo quella del presente, ma i suoi 85 anni, l'intera Legacy e per farti contento, Williamson dice chiaramente che non è una storia che cerca di rimpiazzare i vecchi pg con quelli nuovi, ma vuole celebrare TUTTI!
Ha "Dark" nel nome, parla del Great Darkness, ma sarà anche molto solare, a differenza delle vecchie Crisis non vuole essere super esplosiva, ma abbastanza grounded, il focus è sui pg e le loro relazioni, la loro essenza, non si parla solo del "la fine del mondo" ecc...

Cmq è sbucata fuori un'altra intervista:

Dark Crisis: Joshua Williamson & Daniel Sampere Tease DC's Next Major Crossover Event

CBR: Way back during Future State, Jesse Chambers hinted at a cataclysmic incident that brought them to Earth-11 before deciding to stay in the DCU. Is Dark Crisis a version of that reality-sundering event?

Joshua Williamson:  We'll see. [laughs] Sam, you know me. You know that I'm obsessed with continuity and making sure that everything connects. I think people will be surprised by how much we dig into some of that stuff. Future State, at this point, has kind of become its own thing, but I would say that everything I write at DC is connected -- so that's my answer to that question. [laughs]

Is this the first time you two have worked together?

Williamson: I think so, but I've been following Daniel's work for a long time. I remember he did an annual that I worked on with Scott Snyder and James Tynion IV but I didn't actually write it. Daniel did this annual where it had the Justice League go to the Source Wall. I remember looking at it, thinking it was dope and this guy was nailing it. I looked at every page of that annual being jealous, thinking this guy should be doing books and he was so good. When it got brought up that Daniel was somebody to work with on this event, I was like, "Hell yeah!" I was looking at some of his other work in Future State and Action Comics and I knew this was the guy.

Daniel, after putting Superman to hell and back in the pages of Action Comics, how is tackling the entire DC Universe?

Daniel Sampere: First of all, it's scary. It feels like a challenge. Thankfully my career has allowed me to learn in a lot of different situations. In Injustice 2, I did that for two years and had the opportunity to work with a lot of characters. It was not on such a big scale [as Dark Crisis] but a lot of people were appearing constantly and I got used to all types of characters and studied them. During that time, I also worked very closely with Bruno Redondo and Tom Taylor, who paid special attention to the characters and story. It was like a dream. I've been doing fill-ins on many different books, like Justice League, Suicide Squad, or Wonder Woman, and I really like working on different things that make me feel comfortable in any situation I have to draw. It's a lot of work, but I feel like I can do it.

One of the loose ends coming out of Infinite Frontier was Darkseid and the Great Darkness, with the Great Darkness resurfacing in Justice League vs. Legion of Super-Heroes. How does the Great Darkness inform what happens in Justice League #75 and moving forward?

Williamson: I was talking to Brian Michael Bendis last August and, from the beginning, when we were talking about what Infinite Frontier would be as a whole, I was reading Crisis on Infinite Earths again. I had read it many, many times over the last five or six years but I went back and read page one. On page one, it said there was a Great Darkness and the Darkness screamed when the multiverse was created. Even just rereading that, it made me think of the Darkness again. I went back and read the Alan Moore issues of Swamp Thing that crossed over with it. It was four issues of what was happening to magic and Constantine while Crisis on Infinite Earths was happening because a cult was trying to take advantage of that situation to resurrect the Great Darkness.

I went and talked with James Tynion, Ram V, and Dan Watters, writers who were operating in spaces like that, and we started talking about the Great Darkness. Nobody had really used this and then I found out Bendis was using it in Legion to build to something so we gamed out a plan. What happens here takes place after Justice League vs. Legion of Super-Heroes, we build off some of the pieces he put down and we were able to take it in a whole new direction. Looking at the stuff with Pariah, the Great Darkness plays a major role but Pariah plays a larger role once we really start moving these pieces along.

By the time we get to Justice League #75 and Dark Crisis #1, it's really about Pariah manipulating the Great Darkness. It's such an interesting piece of DC mythology that people have kind of bounced around but haven't necessarily done anything with. We started having these conversations, wondering if it was time to do something with it but do something unexpected. That's why we ended up picking it.

The previews have revealed that Dark Crisis starts on a somber note, with all the surviving heroes mourning the Justice League. How is it balancing those raw emotions with the big scale?

Sampere: This is actually my favorite part of what we're doing with Dark Crisis because it feels very intimate but on a huge scale at the same time. Just finding the balance between both, I think, is the key to making the story awesome. Even if the action is crazy big or the scale of the moment is huge, I always try to add some touches to the characters that are the right emotions for them. I pay a lot of attention to the actions and emotions characters are feeling in a moment. In one of the pieces from the preview with all the heroes sad over the Justice League, I made them all crying and hugging each other, but I also reflect the emotions in the biggest moments. This is what connects readers with the story -- feelings, even in the biggest, crazy moments.

Williamson: That was one of the fun parts about this. I've seen a Crisis through Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman's eyes. We've seen events like this. I wanted to show it from a different point of view. We were able to make it a bit more grounded, emotional and about the characters. Yeah, there's all these huge things happening all the time, but it's about those characters. That's why we're trying to show you a more intimate opening and show that this story is a bit more emotional. It's more about the characters than it is about a explosions.

You mentioned Pariah, the other major loose end coming off Infinite Frontier along with Barry Allen. A Crisis never has the best connotation if you're a Flash.

Williamson: The Flash Family plays a very important part in Dark Crisis. I think we're maybe two months too early to talk about that part, but once people see what's coming out in July, people will start to realize how some of these pieces connect. You'll notice the team that goes to confront the Dark Army doesn't actually have a Flash on it. Barry and Wally are not there. If you read Infinite Frontier, you know where Barry's at and that those parts are important. Barry plays a very important role once we get into the second half of the event -- you'll start to see how these pieces come together. Don't worry, the Flashes will be fine. [laughs] I'm not killing my boys, don't worry!

One shadowy figure we see at the vigil mourning the Justice League is Deathstroke. How does "Shadow War" set him up for Dark Crisis?

Williamson: The first page has Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson doing the vow and oath in front of the candle and it cuts to the vigil and everyone's holding candles. Deathstroke is holding a candle, but he blows his candle out in that panel. You literally see him blow the candle out, and those candles represent legacy in the DCU. The moment we see the candle on page one, that's what this story is about -- it's about how legacy will endure through the darkness. The light of this candle represents the beginning of this legacy and the beginning of sidekicks and all these legacy pieces with that candle. When we see that shot of everyone holding the candles, we see Deathstroke blowing the candle out and then we go to black. That's me telling you a bit of what this story's about, what Deathstroke's doing, and what his motivations are right there visually in those two pages.

Infinite Frontier and Justice League Incarnate are taking care of the big, multiversal pieces of this conflict. They're the attack from above. The attack from the ground is coming from Deathstroke -- that's what "Shadow War" sets up. The heroes are going to handle that the Justice League has gone one way and the villains are going to handle it another. Some villains are going to take advantage of it. Deathstroke is one of those villains, but he has a very particular mission in mind with what he wants to do. I don't want to spoil what Deathstroke's mission is, what he sees as his moment, but the pieces where Deathstroke gets to that place, that's all set up in "Shadow War."

Daniel, as someone who's had the opportunity to draw much of the DCU before, what makes Dark Crisis so exciting for you?

Sampere: What excited me the most is the big scale and visual legacy DC has with Crises. I'm an especially huge fan of the first two Crises, and having a chance to use those images for my own art, like the multiple Earths -- it's so recognizable and iconic that it feels like a new level for the art I can do. It's like a dream I had when I was a teenager, to be a comic book artist. I read all those books. Now, I'm drawing one of them and it feels much bigger than anything I've been done before. Sometimes when I'm working on it, it feels unreal.

Williamson: Daniel and I talk very frequently, I'd say at least twice a week. Without getting into spoilers, Issue #2 is really one long fight scene --there's a lot of things that happen, but it's a big battle. I told Daniel what was coming ahead of time. We talk up the story and he knows what we're pitching, all the big beats, so when he gets the script, it's not a surprise. We're able to go back-and-forth but the scripts are still fairly detailed and, because there are so many characters, we have to keep lists and reference folders. Trying to keep everything straight is its own challenge, but Daniel and I work really closely. I've probably never worked with someone as closely as I have with Daniel, outside of my creator-owned stuff.

Sampere: Me either! I had a very close relationship with Phillip Kennedy Johnson on Action Comics, but this time I'm working with a writer on so much content because the story we're working on needs it. There's so much to take care of and talk about that we need to chat often, with all the characters and details that we're doing.

Tonally, it reminds me of Superman: Panic in the Sky!, with Batman leading the fight on the ground while Superman leads the heroes against Warworld -- though this feels much bigger.

Williamson: This is much bigger, but I do love Panic in the Sky! and I really looked at past events like Crisis on Infinite Earths, Infinite Crisis, Panic in the Sky!, Zero Hour, and Blackest Night. We went and looked at all these big events, and the key was how do we do it differently? That's what we've been working on, how to show it from a different point of view. That was a really big piece in doing a Crisis like we've never seen before. This is a much more emotional and intimate peek at a Crisis event, but it's still going to get bigger and bigger. It starts to escalate more and more. I'm eventually going to drive Daniel crazy with the amount of characters I fit on every page, that's my goal. [laughs]

https://www.cbr.com/dc-dark-crisis-joshua-williamson-daniel-sampere-interview/

[Cosmonauta]

In quest'altra intervista che dice?
Tanto io alla serie ci arrivo chissà quanto. Infinite Frontier e JL: Incarnate le leggerò quando arrivaranno in volume e di conseguenza anche Dark Crisis, nel caso facesse cose poco di mio gradimento sarei in tempo per risparmire

[Hugostrange70]

Cosmo io credo che a questo punto a Williamson si può dare fiducia, sicuramente non è Death metal 

[Cosmonauta]

Cosmo io credo che a questo punto a Williamson si può dare fiducia, sicuramente non è Death metal 

Io non mi fido di niente e nessuno. Fidarsi è bene, ma non fidarsi è meglio. Vedere cammello, dare moneta.
Non darei fiducia a prescindere nemmeno a Morrison   prima vedo di che si tratta e poi decido se spendere 35-45€ di volume.

[Hugostrange70]

Io non mi fido di niente e nessuno. Fidarsi è bene, ma non fidarsi è meglio. Vedere cammello, dare moneta.
Non darei fiducia a prescindere nemmeno a Morrison   prima vedo di che si tratta e poi decido se spendere 35-45€ di volume.

  ma credo che per quando uscirà il volume in Italia un idea dovresti essertela fatta no? 

[Cosmonauta]

  ma credo che per quando uscirà il volume in Italia un idea dovresti essertela fatta no? 

È quello che ho scritto due commenti sopra infatti

Tanto io alla serie ci arrivo chissà quanto. Infinite Frontier e JL: Incarnate le leggerò quando arrivaranno in volume e di conseguenza anche Dark Crisis, nel caso facesse cose poco di mio gradimento sarei in tempo per risparmire [/quote

[Cosmonauta]

È quello che ho scritto due commenti sopra infatti

Tanto io alla serie ci arrivo chissà quanto. Infinite Frontier e JL: Incarnate le leggerò quando arrivaranno in volume e di conseguenza anche Dark Crisis, nel caso facesse cose poco di mio gradimento sarei in tempo per risparmiare

[Man of Steel]

Non si sbottona più di tanto e parla di alcune cose che non hai ancora letto.

Mo ALTRA intervista:

Dark Crisis: Joshua Williamson and Daniel Sampere Talk DC's Next Big Event

Spiacente, ma non sei autorizzato a visualizzare il contenuto degli spoiler.

[Bruce Wayne]

Interviste che mi danno assolutamente good vibes.
Che bel momento per Dick Grayson.