Tate Brombal and Werther Dell’Edera on their daring, new Green Lantern

DC Comics is set to introduce one of the most interesting Green Lanterns The upcoming Elseworlds title, Green Lantern: Dark. The last year has seen the branding return and provide many new stories in the worlds of classic stories like Gotham by Gaslight And Dark Knights of Steel.

However, later this year, DC Comics is premiering an Elseworlds original that will debut a brand new Green Lantern. Slaughterhouse Dad Brombal and Something is killing the children Werther Dell’Edera sat down with Screen Rant to discuss what fans can expect from the twisted new world they’ve crafted and from their mysterious Emerald Knight.

Screen Rant: DC has really been pushing the Elseworlds imprint over the past year. What does Elseworlds mean to you both and why specifically an alternate world for your story?

Tate Brombal: Elseworlds for me is that you can unlock all the potential of a character. You can go right down to the iconic core of who they are and put a new spin on it that can reexamine the character in a new light. For me, the seminal DC comic for me was Kingdom Come. I literally didn’t leave the couch for the whole evening and just read the whole thing number by number and I was like “This is what’s possible with the characters because I’ve never seen Superman like this.” I have never seen any of the characters portrayed like this. It stays so true to who the character is, but you put them in a new situation that unlocks new sides of them. So that’s the potential of Elseworlds for me, and also having fun with new versions of all the characters. We have fun with Grundy and some other fun characters that I don’t want to spoil. So this is great for me for Elseworlds. What was the second part of the question?

Tate Brombal: For this we wanted to take what the Green Lantern is at the heart of their power and take it back to the roots. They once had more magical abilities than Alan Scott. So we wanted to bring it back to a magical core instead of the typical sci-fi, space cap stuff we have right now.

Werther Dell’Edera: I love it. Because the idea is to take the character and do what you want with them. It’s amazing. I remember… what was the name? Speeding bullets? The story where Superman and Batman with this amazing faceless costume was beautiful. This is what intrigued me in the beginning when dad told me about the story. I was totally in because it means a lot. It means a lot of freedom. The way you can imagine characters so different. It’s really fun.

Of course, there are hundreds of Green Lanterns to choose from, but you also chose to create a new Green Lantern, Rina, as the focus of Green Lantern: Dark. What makes you the best at telling your story?

Tate Brombal: Yeah, she’s the best for this story and she’s the best Green Lantern, just to make it clear. I wanted a Green Lantern who, although her powers function on willpower, she barely has the willpower to get out of bed every morning. She’s like “I’m tired. I don’t know if I can save the world.” So this is her core struggle. And just have the weight of the world on your shoulders. And it’s not fair. All the superheroes are gone and she is the only one left and she has become a symbol of hope for everyone who is left and a symbol of light in the darkness, literally. We wanted a new character that we could really just have a clean slate and build from that. With other Green Lanterns, because they are so noble, they are like “we have to find the willpower to do this!”. And I’m like “sometimes it’s hard.” So that’s Rina’s struggle, which I think will make her seem really relatable. She is angry. But her character I will find that hope. Where does the willpower come from when you have no links? We love you so much.

Werther Dell’Edera: She’s good but she’s not a smooth character. She has many dark corners in her mind, in her soul. Because she’s like “Okay, I don’t want to do it at all.” But she will obviously make the hero’s journey. Yes. So it’s really, really fun. Sometimes, she will remind me of me.

Even though Rina is new, I feel like we’re seeing shades of Other Lanterns and her. She is big and has a bowl cut like a guy. And with her lantern, I get shades of Tangent Comics Green Lantern. Did you try to bake in some other Lanterns in Rina’s characterization?

Tate Brombal: I think it’s important because we want her to feel like a natural addition to the Green Lantern family. And even if the Lanterns don’t exist in her universe, we just wanted to pay homage to the characters and make her feel like a Green Lantern. And the tangent lantern resemblance maybe on purpose, this is the most obvious. But we will not spoil anything from the books, but there is a reason why she also has a literal lantern.

Werther Dell’Edera: When I designed the character, I went with the short haircut and when she was done, I looked at her and said “Hm. She looks a lot like Guy”. (laughs)

I appreciate you guys using Solomon Grundy, who feels like he’s been left behind as a Green Lantern villain. He has fought other heroes, but he is a Green Lantern villain. Do you want to talk a little bit about Grundy?

Tate Brombal: Yeah, that was great for me. I was thinking of what our first villain is for Rina Face and I was like “It’s got to be Grundy. It’s got to be Alan Scott’s first villain.” It is the idea of ​​Rina holding as the spark of life and Grundy as the ultimate immaculate death. And he’s terrifying and we just wanted a scary, cool zombie villain. And our Grundy here has an army of zombies. It’s just a lot of fun and it looks really cool. But words can speak about the plan.

Werther Dell’Edera: Yes, we started with the idea of ​​having a theme related to nature. But with the TV show Last of Us already out, we thought “Okay, we can’t do the same thing because it looks too much like this”. So we started thinking about something else, but still connected and we talked to each other. He said, what do you like?”. Why not use flowers as the expression of the force of nature because they are beautiful and terrible. So we put flowers instead of mushrooms on it and it was so fun because the way its power Work is really interesting.

Grundy is often depicted as being like a brute and not too much of an intelligent person. But you led him with an army. You want to talk about his character?

Tate Brombal: I always felt this deep sadness for this character. I have a lot of pathos for him, and I wanted to bring that, even though he’s the villain, and why he’s Gun for Green Lantern. But the reason behind him going after Green Lantern is sad even though the whole book you are afraid of him. He is this inconstant brute force against his will. He may not even want to be alive yet, but he’s the undead zombie stuck with being alive. He only had a few lines in our first issue. But every line I’m like “Oh, Grundy, man, this is breaking my heart.” So I’m really excited for readers to see this version of Grundy and just remind them of the heart of what the character is. And also give him that kickass design that is so cool.

Words, I know artists have talked about how fun it is to work with Green Lantern and the total creative expression that comes with them. Want to talk about what you got out of it as an artist?

Werther Dell’Edera: Well, Green Lantern is one of my favorite characters in the DC Universe. The opportunity to work on this kind of character is amazing. It is something that I discover page by page. What she can actually do, because there are a lot of things that you can think about beforehand and when you’re on the page and you’re drawing it, at some point, a line of dialogue or a description leads to a new idea, a new Point of view on this kind of power. It’s so fun because they literally have no limit. So it’s really cool.

Green Lantern: Dark #1 is available on October 23rd from DC Comics.