Today DC begins a brand new odyssey with the release of The New Gods #1 from writer Ram V and artist Evan Cagle. In celebration of the series debut, Neil sits down with both writer and artist to discuss opening up the Fourth World to a brand new audience and how the series ties in to DC’s wider Absolute and All In storytelling.
An old god has died, and the reverberations of his passing are felt across the universe, setting forth the soldiers of an intergalactic army and awakening the latent powers of a mysterious child on Earth.But this has all been foreseen—prophesized by the Source and fed as enigmatic images to its agent, Metron. Now, as Metron brings word of this cosmos-shattering prediction to the residents of New Genesis and Apokolips, both worlds are thrown into chaos and conflict. On Earth, Scott Free and Barda find themselves unaware of this incoming chaos while consumed with their most daunting task yet: parenthood.
You can listen to the interview in full in the player below or read on for a full transcript. Beware, there are minor spoilers ahead for The New Gods #1.
GYCO: Ram, you’re coming off the back of an incredible run on Detective Comics. But what made what made New Gods the right kind of next challenge for you at DC?
Ram V: Yeah, it was really funny. At the end of Detective, my understanding was when you finish your run, you go on to do other things of a similar stature or better or higher, you know, whatever that means. Possibly another Batman thing or a Superman thing or a Green Lantern thing. In my brain, I kind of wanted to go the other way where I was like, look, I’ve done this thing on this super popular. Everyone’s looking at him. He has to be picture perfect and in every issue kind of character. And yet, you know, I had subverted those expectations in detective in a, in some ways.
I want to then take on, characters that no one’s seen in a while. And, you know, I wanted to take on, for me as a personal, personal thing to, to latch on to. I wanted to take on a book with a relatively big cast that I could sort of change, reinvent, reinvigorate, as as the story needed. It felt like the New Gods had been around forever in terms of, little appearances from Orion or Darkseid or Mister Miracle here and there. And yet, it felt to me like these characters were just kind of sitting on the shelf waiting, waiting to be, reinvigorated in some way. And, it felt like it felt like a good project to take on for that reason.
Am I right in thinking that The New Gods was in development for a little while before we knew that this was happening?
RV: I mean, quite literally had the same question posed to me by the then editor in chief, Ben Abernathy, at San Diego when we had breakfast almost four years ago. At this point he said, you know, what do you want to do after Detective? I said, yeah, let me take on more well-known, celebrated, amazing characters that know. I said, yeah, let me do The New Gods. And he was like, really? And yeah, I kind of like that reaction I want to do, you know, I always want to do unexpected things and interesting things more than the sort of, of course, you know, this is the next project after Detective.
Was The Fourth World an area of DC that you were particularly familiar with before taking on the book?
RV: I had I had a basic understanding of what these things were, but nothing quite as in-depth. And I think, honestly, that’s a little bit important if you’re going to go in and, and, have a real strong point of view and an idea of what you want to do, because the more I feel, the more you’re kind of aware of the structures that exist, the less likely you are to go barreling through a wall. But sometimes, you know, the story needs barreling through a wall.
Evan coming over to you, when did The New Gods first enter your radar?
Evan Cagle: It had to have been when we were wrapping up Dawnrunner. It went from I have this I have this funny idea to do The New Gods to we’re doing The New Gods. I’ve joked before that he’s sort of dragged me into it, but I had much the same, much the same reaction you had to this interview, which was like, I don’t know, New Gods. Like, why am I like, am I really the person to do this? But but I, I know that Ram is right in this that that there’s, there is a little bit of magic when, it’s not your, your beloved property that you know everything about you. You can make weird choices that that make sense to you that, that maybe don’t make sense.
The New Gods are such larger than life characters, quite literally in some cases. When you’re starting a new book like this, with a fresh #1, how do you, as an artist, put your stamp on it and establish the visual style of the book?
EC: I just try to find the, the, the thing that interests me and then turn that up to 11, you know, and I think even though Jack Kirby isn’t, isn’t somebody that I number among my, my, visual art influences, I think he’s so wildly creative and so unhinged in his visual ideas that there’s always something there’s really always something that I can look at on the page and, and think how would I do that?
How did the events of the DC All In Special inform how you developed this first arc for The New Gods?
RV: If I’ve done my job, it all seems linear and logical, but the idea for The New Gods story actually existed long before the idea for the All In and Absolute stuff. But I think this is the beauty of working in comics and working at a place like DC. You’ve got all these characters and ten different teams doing 15 different books. I think anywhere you have this much creativity, if you can just step back and look at the bigger picture, you can find patterns, you can find narratives and stories, and, you know, not to take credit for it, but that one of the meetings actually, where we had this writer’s retreat, we were all discussing about the way New Gods could be part of this event.
It was the editorial team and, and Jim Lee, who suggested this one pivotal tweak to the narrative and all of a sudden The New Gods went from being one of the books to it sitting at this kind of pivotal point for what’s happening. Not to not to spoil anything, but I think we’ll see that as the story progresses. I had always planned for the story to exist independent of Darkseid for practical reasons. But also Darksied is such a sort of powerful presence that he sucks up all the all the oxygen in the room.
How do you how do you balance bringing in that scale of a godlike character, but still connecting to the humanity and the emotion within that?
RV: The godlike scale and the sort of mythological epic storytelling only matters if you actually really care about the characters. You only care about the characters because of how they’re like you and not because they’re huge or cool or heroic, if you will. Sometimes it’s useful to strip away, like, okay, you’re doing a big sci fi space opera strip away the spaceships, the lasers, the costumes and the aliens and all of that. Are you fundamentally still telling a resonating human story at the heart of it? And if you are, then then you’re on the right track.
What are you most excited for, for readers to kind of dig into and pick up when when it’s finally out there in comic bookstores?
RV: I think from a personal standpoint, I only think about what excites me. I know that sounds very selfish. I think writing is an exercise in human empathy. It really excites me. I hope it excites other people. It’s a story about two brothers and then beyond tha, I’m excited for them to see a book that really takes on the idea of DC cosmic and DC scale and puts that on the page. I mean, I take very little credit for that. I think that is certainly of Evan’s making. This sense of opening up a double page spread or a splash page and just going, like just being awestruck by it. I think that’s very important for a story like this, that your heart breaks when you see the two brothers on a park bench, and then your heart soars when you see New Genesis for the first time.
EC: I want people to have an emotional reaction to it. I want them to not just feel, but also to feel something stirrings inside the feels a bit human that feels, you know, there’s there’s something here that I can really dig my, my teeth into
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
The New Gods #1 is available in comic book stores and on digital platforms now. You can also listen to our full interview with Tate on all major podcast platforms including Spotify and Apple.
