Teased by Geoff Johns when he was discussing his own expanded role at DC Comics in the build up to fall’s Infinite Crisis, Newsarama has gotten the lowdown on just what Grant Morrison will be doing in the DC Universe as the dust from the crossover settles.

Dan DiDio, Executive Editor of the DCU explained: “Grant was working on Seven Soldiers, and once he got started, the ideas were just overflowing – not just ideas about characters for that project, but revived characters, concepts, and takes on how they could fit into the DC Universe. He was throwing them at me a mile a minute. He got Seven Soldiers on paper, but he had so many other ideas, and every one was better than the one before it.”

As DiDio went on to recount, the ideas were just too good to waste, and he figured that he should just put Morrison to work in the DCU in a consulting/development relationship, similar in a way to what Geoff Johns has with the publisher. Rather than working to shepherd characters and situations into and out of Infinite Crisis more smoothly however, Morrison is looking at the post-Crisis DCU, helping to populate it, or, more accurately re-populate it with some revitalized characters and concepts. Some will be written by Morrison, while others will be moved to other creators for execution.

“It was a fairly organic process,” Morrison told Newsarama. “When I was first pitching Seven Soldiers to Dan in 2003, I brought along several of my infamous black notebooks to help illustrate the 70 page proposal – I have about twelve of these books, filled with character redesigns and series ideas for everyone from the Atom to Zatanna, by way of the Marvel Universe, Wildstorm and everyone else. I even have new takes on franchises like Predator (from when I was writing the Predator: Concrete Jungle X-Box game), Doctor Who and James Bond, God help me.

“Testing me at random, Dan asked me if I had anything on the Quality comics characters now known as the Freedom Fighters, only to find I had a lengthy series proposal with sketches. At that point, I think he decided I was too good a resource to waste.

“Recreating properties is something I do between jobs for my own amusement and to exercise my head but Dan was clearly intrigued by the wealth of material and asked me if I’d like to accept a job as DC’s official ‘revamp’ guy.”

Both DiDio and Morrison stressed that the writer isn’t pulling books or concepts out from under creators and handing them back a radically altered concept that they have to shoehorn into their existing plans, rather, Morrison is looking through DC’s catalog of characters and concepts that haven’t seen the light of day for a while, and “re-imagining” them for a modern audience. Rather than working with the "known" of the DCU, Morrison is looking to bring back the unknown to today's fans, or at the very least, the largely forgotten and lost to time.

“It’s fresh takes on old characters and concepts that we’re trying to dust off and bring new life to,” DiDio said. “For the life of me, if someone would have said they were going to do a miniseries on Klarion the Witch Boy five years ago, I think you would have been laughed out of the room. However, the fact that Grant came up with Klarion, made it part of a great larger story, and found a way to make it successful is a testament to his strengths and ideas as a writer. It’s as I’ve always said, Grant could write a series about a glass of water, and it would be interesting.”

As for a comprehensive list of who, well…obviously neither DiDio nor Morrison was going to spill on titles and characters that won’t be appearing until early 2006, but the writer did open the door to his thought processes a little.

“There are two groups of DC characters that I’m working with really – the ones Dan brings to me and favorites of my own that I’d like to see returned to prominence – like the Knight and Squire, for instance - who appeared in JLA: Classified and will turn up again shortly, Super-Chief, Marvel Maid or Doll Man etc..

“On the other side of things, Dan tends to come up with stuff I’d never have thought of doing, which is always fun and a challenge. Between us, we’ve come up with quite an extensive list of half-forgotten DC characters who deserve a new lease of life.

“My job is to take gawky, ugly ducklings or faded blooms and turn them into superstars basically. In a way, I’m doing what Julie Schwartz did back in the mid-50s, when he and his writers took a bunch of old names from the files and created fresh new heroes for a new audience.

"I take a character, read up on him/her and then try to figure out how to make the character work in today’s market, while still retaining all the special qualities that make the property distinctive and unique. I try to figure out what the original creator was trying to say and then I find a more contemporary way to convey the same themes. Areas that are conceptually weak, I strengthen, things that don’t work, I cut out, things that do, I emphasize.

"Some of the overhauls are nip/tuck jobs; some are radical makeovers involving intensive but sensitive plastic surgery, starting from scratch with very different origin stories, secret identities or set-ups. I’ll be working with Geoff Johns, however, to ensure that all of the new books are tied neatly into DC continuity, particularly since most of these characters will play pivotal roles in the wild, rich and scary post-Crisis universe we’re all building towards at the moment.”

As for the "how" aspect of it all, Morrison said that he writes a series bible for each character that is roughly 10 pages in length – longer if it’s a team book. “The bible outlines in detail my new take on the concept, provides origin details and character studies for the hero, his villains and his supporting cast and also has full plot and story synopses for about six issues worth of material as well as suggestions for future development of the property,” Morrison said. “I also provide full color sketches and design material to go with each character. The documents are pretty thorough and are intended to provide strong springboards for new launches.”

According to DiDio, a couple of Morrison’s revitalized concepts are currently in full development phase, prepping for an early 2006 rollout, i.e., joining the “One Year Later…” timing of the rest of the DCU after Crisis.

And again, to be clear, Morrison’s upcoming projects will be clearly set in the DCU, rather than the universe in which his ongoing Seven Soldiers miniseries are set...although Morrison himself took the opportunity to tease about just where 7S is occurring…

“All the stuff I’m doing is set in the DCU and is partly intended to open up and develop some new or neglected corners of that fictional playground,” Morrison said. “The new revamps are intended to link up even more closely with the onrushing juggernaut that is Infinite Crisis and beyond but Seven Soldiers is already tied into events from Crisis and the Superhuman Advanced Defense Executive – an organization which plays a major role post-Crisis will be introduced in Frankenstein #3, for instance.”

Speaking of Seven Soldiers, and not as enigmatically this time, Morrison said that the characters he’ll be reintroducing to the DCU will follow a similar pattern of those he brought to his currently unfolding story, that is, there is no pattern.

“The characters I’ve done so far are all very different and come from different areas of the DCU so I’ve been moving from shiny sci-fi, to bloody crime, and from generational soap opera to robot action with little heed to commonality of theme or purpose,” Morrison said. “I don’t like to stick to one genre and this gives me a chance to mix it up a little. The only thing I’m consciously trying to do with all of these recreations is to widen the ethnic spread of DC’s characters.”

And as for any more teases?

“Many of them tie directly into the events of the Crisis but they don’t grow directly out of it in the way that, say, Hitman grew out of the New Blood crossover or whatever it was called. As I say, early hints of the post-Crisis world will turn up in Bulleteer #2 and Frankenstein #3, upcoming in Seven Soldiers. Beyond that, my lips are sealed, except to say that the newly-sentient DC Universe looks mighty unstoppable for the next couple of years!”