Newsarama.com was able to land a few minutes with the writer to talk about the series, the characters, and the scope of this new B&B.

“Dan DiDio had it in his back pocket for a while,” Waid said in regards to how the project came to be. “He always knew that was one of the most attractive jewels at DC that you could dangle in front of me that would make me jump on board. It’s the opportunity to be able to mix and match in the DC Universe – to wake up one morning and say, ‘You know, I feel like doing a Green Lantern story this morning,’ and then to wake up the next day and say, ‘You know what? Today – Wonder Woman.’ That’s the real appeal of it all.”

As Waid sees it, the new Brave and the Bold will be the classic format of B&B from years past. But – before you begin thinking that means every issue will feature Batman, think about what Waid would mean with “classic format.”

“Classic Brave and Bold was not ‘Batman and…’ it became that once the television show picked up,” Waid said. “In the earliest days of the Brave and the Bold it was Metal Men and the Atom, Flash and Martian Manhunter. Basically, what we’re doing is that we’re going to do it along the model of the very successful Superman/Batman book, in the sense that we’ll do story arcs generally spelled by one or two shorter stories in between if the need suits. As complete stories, the ideas is to build in as many characters as possible, so it’s not six issues of Batman and Green Arrow, for example – that would be a little predictable. The fun of it, of course, is finding the plot devices that would allow you to have, say, Batman and Green Lantern in issue #1, and then Green Lantern and, hypothetically speaking, Supergirl in issue #2, and Supergirl and Hawkman in issue #3, or whatever – and find the plot batons, if you will, that you can hand off to keep the story going while moving the characters in and out as needed.”

Or, to think of it in an animated way…Brave and the Bold is going to be a little along the lines of Justice League Unlimited, in that this is a world with a large number of heroes, and occasionally, the heroes join forces to combat a mutual threat, and in doing so, showcase a portion of the universe they all inhabit.

“That’s actually not a bad way of putting it,” Waid agreed. “It is something where there’s a vast pool of characters to draw upon – who do we want to focus on with this issue?”

That said, who does Waid want to focus upon when thing get rolling early next year?

“I’d be foolish to at least not lead with Batman, because he is the first guy you think of when you think about Brave and Bold. But that said, it can’t be just another Batman book, and that’s part of the joy of it – to move around. It’s always going to be a tightrope walk between characters that we know will absolutely, positively goose the sales, and characters that may not be as hot, sales-wise at that moment, but regardless, are pretty interesting. We can’t do Adam Strange and Metamorpho, for example. No one’s going to buy that. But at the same time, I don’t want to do Batman and Batman every month, either. So, there will probably be at least one strong anchor in every issue, somebody who has some marquee value, be it Batman or Superman, or whoever, and then we’ll try to balance that with whoever is interesting. For example, if there’s some reason Catman from Villains United is interesting this month, well, maybe he can join with Superman for a story.”

So what kind of stories will the heroes move into? Will readers see, for example, an even exchange of antagonists for the exchange of protagonists in the title? “That’s a good question,” Waid said. “We’re still hammering that out. It’s funny – I never come at my stories initially with the idea of who the villain should be. To me, it has always been about, ‘I like Batman and I like Green Lantern. What is it about them that’s the same? What is it about them that’s different? How do they compare? How do they contrast? How do they interact with each other as characters, and how can you build that into a story?’ From there, you go shopping in the pool of villains and see who fits the theme that you set up, and who might reflect the needs of the story. That’s where we start every time.

“I guess what I’m saying is that while there will certainly be cool villains showing up, and part of the appeal of the series will be watching villains who don’t normally face off against the heroes as well. For instance, Scarecrow versus Green Lantern. Also – part of the fun will be watching the worlds of the characters fold together. For me, it’s not enough to see Batman and Captain Marvel together – I also want to see Alfred and Billy Batson – I want to see the whole mythologies merge together in their supporting casts.

“Clearly, the post-Infinite Crisis DCU is designed to be a much different landscape than what we’ve got now, and Brave and Bold is designed specifically to be the place where we can explore that world to its fullest, more so than in Justice League, more so than in Superman or other DC Universe books – we can go anywhere and see everybody, and check in on the status quo of every character. This is your travelogue of the new DC Universe.”

So – in the end, who’s Waid itching to get his hands on?

“It’s like throwing me into the candy store with a full wallet. It’s hard to say – some of the fallout from Infinite Crisis will preclude certain characters, but it will also make available characters who nobody has thought about for a while. The only thing I can say with any certainty is that, pursuant to a conversation Geoff Johns and I had last week, we suddenly realized who the perfect character would be to tie all these other characters together – the one anchor character who’s not Superman or Batman who ties together many of the various aspects of the DC Universe. I know – it sounds ultra mysterious, but I think if you put two seconds to it as a fan…you’ll stumble across the answer.”

And if you’re thinking that writing this new series would mean that the bulk of Waid’s writing is at DC, and writers who end up with the bulk of their work at DC sometimes sign exclusive contracts with the publisher…well, you’d be right.

[Check out Newsarama’s continually updated 2005 SDCC News Index for all the con coverage from Newsarama and CBR].

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