Aquaman has the ability to be a huge character, and I think we really brought him to a new level in comic books, and I'm hoping that new level continues to everything that is DC Entertainment. Certainly, that's the goal. He's one of our most recognizable and most important characters, and it's going to continue to stay that way.
'Forever Evil' is, ultimately, a Lex Luthor story. And everything in there is reflecting who Lex is and what he's going through. And we continue to learn more and more things about him that we might not know, and he's going to continue to experience things and do things that are surprising, I think, to even him - especially us.
I put my comics that are really valuable into regular mylar because I like to look at them. Once they're in those clam shell boxes, they're impossible to open up.
'Justice League' takes place in the past, and Aquaman has a lot more to prove. He's just starting out. The perception is already beginning, and all these super humans are just showing up, and here's Aquaman. The perception is, 'What's next? Now we've got a guy talking to fish. What can be next?'
One of the things that I thought really worked was that you have 'Smallville' on television and 'Superman Returns' come out in the theater, and it was fine. Nobody freaked out; nobody thought they were competing.
The characters that have greys are the more interesting characters. The hero who sometimes crosses the line and the villain who sometimes doesn't are just much more interesting.
The problem is there are so many stories out there where I can pull that superhero out, put any other superhero in, and the story works the same. For me, that's broken. I have to write a story that no one else but Aquaman or Shazam can be in, and as soon as you pull that character out and out someone else in, it doesn't work.
I like collecting comics, I like buying comics, I like looking at comics, but I also read comics on digital readers, so any way people read comics is fine with me. Digital is just helping people who might not necessarily have access to comics help them; that's great.
The ocean is 90% unexplored. It's a great canvas to paint Aquaman stories across, just like Green Lantern has space. It's more organic, which makes it different and interesting. It's alien, but it's terrestrial.
The idea of introducing the Seven Seas is absolutely to challenge Aquaman on an emotional and personal level. His responsibility is unification of the world, and that just became a lot more complex when he learns about the fall of Atlantis and the splintering of the kingdoms.
I've been writing 'Green Lantern' for a long time, and one of the reasons I've enjoyed it is because the depth of stories you can tell is pretty endless with space and everything.
I don't know who made the first Aquaman joke. I'm sure it was comics readers; maybe we all did. But it's the idea that the perpetuated story of Aquaman is that he only has powers in water, and he talks to fish. I think it's the idea of him in the middle of a city just doesn't make a lot of sense to people. It's just the character itself.
