Scott Lobdell Interview

Found here.


Brian Warshaw: You’ve been writing Jason for a long time now—why does he appeal to you?

Scott Lobdell: While I’m a sucker for a redemptive arc in movies and television, the truth is that Jason’s redemption will probably take forever. That is, he’s always going to feel the need to make up for what he’s done—he’s going to always push himself to do the right thing for all the times in his past that he’s screwed things up. (We are a lot alike in that way, Jason and I, though I don’t own a duffel bag with heads in it)



I'm also a sucker for redemption arcs and have been ever since I saw Star Wars. Before then I don't think I even knew about the concept as a kid. It was just such a powerful story concept that I loved ever since. Jason has struck me as someone that feels like he can never make up for the past. Though I don't think he'd still have the duffel bag...



I think that’s okay, though. I think that makes Jason more self-aware than a lot of other characters in comics.  He knows he has tragic flaws, and he doesn’t want to paper over them. If anything he wears them out in the open (he even wears a blood red bat symbol on his chest—sort of his own version of a scarlet “A”). Unlike Batman who is trying to save the eight year old version of himself—trying to protect his parents from a murder that happened thirty years ago—Jason is dealing with the moment.



That's something I always admired about Jason. He's aware of his flaws, he owns up to what he's done without sugar coating it. Sure he killed in the past because he believed those he killed needed to be stopped but he doesn't deny it or blame others for what he did. Interesting interpretation of the bat symbol, like it's always on his chest to remind him of his mistakes. Yeah, Jason doesn't seem to want to deal with the past until it's forced upon him. At least since he talked with Kori on her island about living in the moment.



BW: Reception to the current RHATO book has been very good on Batman News, and, as you know, I like the book a lot. But I (and a lot of folks) didn’t see it coming, because we weren’t too fond of the pre-Rebirth stuff. What’s different about your approach—or editorial approach, if you’re allowed to talk about it—now vs then?

SL: Interesting that you put the onus on me and not on you? LOL!

Is it possible that you went into the first series with expectations for what RHATO should be and became angry/frustrated because it wasn’t the series you wanted it to be?   Instead of judging it for the series it is?

Even recently you’ve been shaving points off the reviews that you start by saying “I would rather this arc be about this” or “I would rather we focus on these characters instead of this,” instead of taking the story for what is and not what is not.

Just something to think about.



I know some will see his response as just playing the blame game but his point isn't without merit. Because some were upset that Lobdell didn't go in the direction they wanted. Sometimes our perceptions are colored by expectations although I mostly don't know what to expect from Lobdell mine were the opposite with Tynion. At the beginning of his run I told myself he was going to do a great story and made myself believe it for awhile. Yeah there are other plots I'd like to see in this run but I try to judge each issue as I get them. Sometimes there are issues like the Annual that I don't understand until I reread them or misunderstand because I don't think he'd do something. But I do try to go over issues later on to get a better scope of the arc.



I will say that, traditionally, in the past, readers of RHATO and Red Hood/Arsenal can notice where stories were set-up and set-up and set-up, only to have the conclusion of the story go careening off the tracks. I can say that there have been many times where I’ve started a story and someone from upstairs decreed that a particular plot thread had to be dropped, or a whole other plot thread needed to be added, or an entire story arc had to be gutted in the middle of the story. Those times have been very frustrating for me—but as a professional writer of some thirty years, I’ve always felt that part of the profession means that I need to turn in the story the editor/publisher wants and not always the story I want to write, or begin, or end.

Similarly, when an editor says “you need more narration here to explain what is going on” or “we would prefer you write third-person omnipresent because so many of our books are written first-person” or “we want you to use thought balloons on this title, but not thought balloons on that title,” then that is what I do, because that is what I’m asked to do.



I figured this happens and it really has to be frustrating. I wish other writers were more heavily edited though since the same effort doesn't seem to go into the writing. Some great insight into the process though.



Maybe more to your point, I love both my editors on Red Hood and the Outlaws since Rebirth.  They are both great guys and great editors.

But I had a much bigger storyline to start the series with, and it was tossed, and I was asked to write Black Mask as the main villain for the first arc. I admit that I agonized over that for the first few months of the series. Unlike even a Lex Luthor or Joker (who at least have battle suits and toxic Joker gas), Black Mask has no powers at all. He’s not even someone as inherently evil as the Penguin. He is just a guy who has henchmen with Tommy guns.

I was so angry for months that I had the chance to write Red Hood, Artemis and Bizarro—Trinity level super heroes—and the big villain they were up against was the Black Mask?!

Let’s take a minute and put it in perspective: any one of the three heroes could easily defeat every henchman Black Mask could order up and kill off Black Mask if they started out at sunrise, and still be home for breakfast. The idea that he would last five minutes against the Dark Trinity would be laughable. But that’s what I was tasked with.



I wonder why they wanted him. Maybe because of UTH? This is fascinating and he's right. Roman Sionis isn't a big threat.



Since it was going to be the first arc, though—and because I didn’t have any say in it—I was forced to concentrate almost entirely on character and less on plot (when I say “forced,” it didn’t take much, because my inclination is to always focus more on character than plot). So maybe what you and Batman News and other people are responding to was more the change of pacing from the first series: instead of hitting the ground running with a preexisting relationship between Jason, Roy and Kori (which wasn’t necessarily what people were expecting), the Rebirth had a much slower pace, and the characters were introduced to each other and to the readers with more detail.



One of the reasons I enjoy a lot of his writing is the focus on the characters. I do recall another earlier interview with Lobdell when he said he wanted the first trio to form as a team at a slower pace. He said that he planned for Jason to go off in one direction while Kori and Roy went in another. Editoral wanted them to stick together which was probably why their suddenly with Jason in issue two of the first volume when he previously ditched them.



Similarly, with this series, I have editors who are supportive of taking chances.  For example, the “Smart Bizarro” story was only going to be for three issues. “Scott, everyone knows he’s not going to stay smart, so you should just wrap it up.” But when I wrote his very first sentence, I was like “whoa! There is something so cool about this—there is such a bigger story to tell about the Outlaws with a smart Bizarro! This isn’t just about Bizarro, it is about how the team changes, how the dynamic between the three of them changes as a result, about how Jason and Artemis deal with Bizarro and their own feelings about him!”

I was between editors at the time and I said to my new editor “I know this was supposed to be only three issues, but we can do this! And this! And this!” And he was like, “you are clearly very excited. Write down what you are thinking and we’ll talk about it.”

Which is a lot different than writing-by-edict.

Is that what you might be sensing?




I'm glad he's doing more with the Bizarro plot to make it less predictable even though I don't know where it's going. It does seem like it's only natural to change their dynamic if Bizarro is so drastically different.

From here they discuss the question Lobdell posed about perception and how opinions change, etc. Interesting stuff but I wanted to get back to the RHATO stuff. It's one of the longer interviews I've seen which is awesome. I just want have a lot of comments on sections.



SL: And therein lies the key to Bizarro. He isn’t the “stranger” or the “freak” or the “misfit toy”—he is the bizarre in each of us. In his own way he’s more a representation of Everyman than Superman will ever be. If Superman’s chest symbol represents “Hope,” then Bizarro’s chest symbol represents “Be.”



I REALLY like this idea for Bizarro. He's just who he is, which might weird or different to us.



BW: I like that.

For better or for worse, when you put a guy and a girl together in a book, people expect them to get together. You’ve skirted the issue with Jason and Artemis, but you haven’t (yet) tackled it directly. Is there any internal pressure (at DC or just in your own head) to aim for or avoid that sort of relationship here?

SL: Hmmm. It seems like you do much better with the ladies than I, Brian!

My own personal experience is that about 99.8% of the women I’ve met in my life have never “gotten together” with me. Not women I’ve met socially, not women I’ve met through work, not even women I’ve met through, say, a dating app where the whole point of the app was to get together.

I think the notion that Jason and Artemis would get together based mostly on their proximity to one another to be an odd one, no?

After I got out of college, in my early 20s, I worked as a nurse’s aide in a nursing home. If I recall, I was the only male nurse’s aide working at the time. I don’t recall dating or even hooking up with any of the thirty or so women I worked with at the time.  Though maybe, to your point above, that is more because I am weird.

You have to remember that both Jason and Artemis are two tragically-flawed peopled. They have both experienced a lot of trauma in their lives and I doubt either one of them are in a place (yet) where they really have the tools they need to build and maintain a healthy relationship with anyone, let alone each other.  And, spoiler alert, things are going to get even worse emotionally for all three of them in the coming months.

But yes, there have been times where it has been expressed to me by the powers at be [that I should have] have Jason and Artemis get together, but I’ve resisted the notion.  I just don’t think it serves either character.  I don’t think that, given their individual histories, they are a natural fit in a romantic way.

Can that change over time? Absolutely. People change. People grow. In real life and in comics.

But for the moment I just don’t see it happening. I think right now, they are better off being partners who razz each other, are fiercely loyal to each other, maybe even love the other—but don’t need to express that love romantically by kissing each other or sleeping together. But for the JaRtemis ‘shippers out there, hold out hope. I could be fired tomorrow and another writer might think it is a great idea!

BW: I think you might have misunderstand my relationship question a little bit (or I wrote it badly—I can take criticism, too). I’ve had one girlfriend who became my wife, and it’s not because I wasn’t interested in girls before her—it’s because none of them wanted anything to do with me! I just meant that people look at a work of fiction and instantly start pairing prominent characters—“shipping them,” as the kids say. But you answered the question anyhow.

SL: No, I understood. I was just teasing you—but also teasing readers or audiences who think that because two characters are in proximity to each other and because they are both awesome, that they should be together.



I don't think they have quite the amount of people shipping the pairing as they think. Or at least on tumblr they don't. And those that I've seen don't like them together for those reasons. Simply put? They like the dynamics of the two and honestly it does seem like it was teased in canon too. By the art Soy and Kirkham did and by Lobdell himself.

Maybe they were testing the water or teasing shippers but it all seems a little too coincidental that all three incorporated these things. Like it looking like they were going to kiss or Jason getting jealous when she was trolling him with Dick. While I agree that people don't automatically hook up nor get attracted to someone (which Marvel should realize with Peter Parker) I don't think that the case here. For most shipping it is though.

This pretty much confirms the "date" is a mission. I'm more than a little concerned about the upcoming team drama though.



BW: Okay, last question for now: I’ve seen at least one comment in the past year from a reader who wishes that Jason was more brutal—that he would go back to killing people again instead of playing by Bruce’s rules. They kind of want him to be DC’s Frank Castle, I suppose. How do you feel about that?

SL: I agree to an extent that he should be more violent—more on that in a moment.

But I don’t think he should be the Punisher, because there is already a Punisher. Just like I don’t think there should be x amount of people in the Iron Man armor, or x amount of people running around with power rings. I just think every character should be unique, and that maybe we’ve lost a lot of that over the years in the industry’s effort to “evolve.”

I always got the impression that the Punisher might track down a crime lord and make his way through three dozen bodyguards in the crime lord’s mansion—killing every one of them—and then the crime lord himself.

I think Jason should only kill when he doesn’t have other options. I think he should probably only kill when his life (or that of another person) is in imminent danger.

When the series started, I understood they wanted to instill a “No Killing In Gotham City Rule.”  But when we got to Qurac, I had him killing terrorists and soldiers who were trying to kill him.  I got a note: “he can’t kill, remember?”  I was like, “he’s in the middle of a war!” The note came back: “doesn’t matter. He promised.” Honestly, I was a little embarrassed: part of putting him in the middle of the war was so that I thought I could write a sort of Jason Unbound! So now I have him in the middle of a war and he can’t shoot any one. Sigh.

Lately I have gotten word to make the book grittier—darker—so maybe we will be seeing more of the more violent Red Hood.



I agree, Jason doesn't need to kill so many and his restraint shows his growth as well as his moral code. I did think the bit in Qurac was weird and made no sense. Naturally that was an editorial mandate. I'll have to respond to the grittier bit after I read it. Great interview.