DC's The New Gods will crossover Jack Kirby's iconic creations with Superman, Wonder Woman, and the Green Lantern Corps

2024-11-19

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(Image credit: DC)

The New Gods assemble on Carmine Di Giandomenico's variant cover for New Gods #1.

That changes this December with the launch ofThe New Gods, from writer Ram V – hot off a terrific and widely-acclaimed run onDetective Comics– and artist Evan Cagle. The new New Gods is set to be a pivotal title in DC’s recent relaunch, acting as the lynchpin between both the core DC titles and the newAbsolute Universe. Newsarama sat down with Ram V to find out more about the comic, how Darkseid’s death changes everything, and the challenges facing Mister Miracle…

Image1of4Nimit Malavia’s main cover for The New Gods #1.(Image credit: DC)Pete Woods' variant cover for The New Gods #1.(Image credit: DC)Evan Cagle’s variant cover for The New Gods #1.(Image credit: DC)Carmine Di Giandomenico’s variant cover for The New Gods #1.(Image credit: DC)

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Nimit Malavia’s main cover for The New Gods #1.(Image credit: DC)Pete Woods' variant cover for The New Gods #1.(Image credit: DC)Evan Cagle’s variant cover for The New Gods #1.(Image credit: DC)Carmine Di Giandomenico’s variant cover for The New Gods #1.(Image credit: DC)

Nimit Malavia’s main cover for The New Gods #1.(Image credit: DC)

Nimit Malavia’s cover for The New Gods #1.

Pete Woods' variant cover for The New Gods #1.(Image credit: DC)

Covers for New Gods #1.

Evan Cagle’s variant cover for The New Gods #1.(Image credit: DC)

Covers for New Gods #1.

Carmine Di Giandomenico’s variant cover for The New Gods #1.(Image credit: DC)

Covers for New Gods #1.

Newsarama: This is a big, expansive, really cosmic comic book that also has a very human heart. How would you tease the arc for the first few issues?

Ram V:Darkseid is gone and the entire cosmos is thrown into chaos because of it. The Source makes a prophecy that tells of the coming of a new New God, a child who shall awaken on Earth. New Genesis, believes this child is going to upset the status quo, and Apokolips thinks this child is going to be the second coming of Darkseid. This sets back into motion the conflict of New Genesis versus Apokolips, although this time, that conflict is kind of turned on its head. It’s also seen in a microcosm between Orion and Mister Miracle when Orion is tasked with finding and neutralizing this new threat. Orion really doesn’t want to kill a child, so he goes to Mister Miracle and says, “I’ve never disobeyed Highfather’s orders, and if I find this child, I am going to have to neutralize him, so I ask you to find this child and run.” And that sort of sets in motion the character drama underneath it all.

Some of Evan Cagle’s interior art from New Gods #1.(Image credit: DC)

Evan Cagle’s interior art from New Gods #1.

How does that impact Mister Miracle, Big Barda and their young family?

This [Mister Miracle] is a person whose experiences in life have taught him that whenever things get tough, you have to escape. He’s been trained to do this ever since he was young, but now he’s at a point in his life where the challenge for him is that he and Big Barda have a child. He has to be a father and it’s something he knows nothing about. And then along comes Orion, who says, “Actually, I need you to leave all of this behind and go on an adventure to save this kid.” We’ll see that play out in interesting ways, whether he chooses to leave his family behind, and whether his family chooses to let him leave them behind.

(Image credit: DC)

Interior art from New Gods #1.

How did your first get involved with this project? What made you want to take on The New Gods?

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I think the first conversation was at a San Diego Comic Con where I was talking to Ben Abernathy, who was DC’s editor-in-chief at the time. He had asked me what my plans were following Detective Comics, and I said that having worked on Batman the next thing I wanted to do was go the complete other way and work on characters that hadn’t been seen in a very long time. I wouldn’t say the New Gods are obscure, as such, but they haven’t had an ongoing book since the ’90s. And so I said, “Give me the toys nobody else wants to play with, I want to tell a story in that corner!”

I also felt like it was time to do something big and expansive. We had the entire Fourth World just sitting there, and no one had done anything with it for a while. So I said this was an opportunity for me to come in and potentially reinvent, potentially revitalize it.

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(Image credit: DC)

Interior art from New Gods #1.

How do you go about reintroducing readers to characters like this who aren’t as well known as, say, Batman? Was that a different challenge for you as a writer coming off the back of Detective Comics?

In terms of people who haven’t seen these characters before… Well, it’s like any other story. It doesn’t matter if you already know the characters. What matters is whether they are engaging, whether you invest in their struggles, whether you care about the things that they care about.

(Image credit: DC)

Interior art from New Gods #1.

What made Evan Cagle the right artist for The New Gods?

You’re also working with Jorge Fornés on the first issue, and you’re going to have other guest artists in this first 12-issue run. Can you say who those are yet?

(Image credit: DC)

Interior art from New Gods #1.

This is a really exciting time to be readingDC comicswith the recently launched Absolute Universe and the main range becoming DC All In. How does New Gods fit into this new DC ecosystem?

Very centrally. Part of The New Gods pitch was that Darkseid’s absence is going to create the Absolute Universe. The New Gods have always been in a position where they were outside of the multiversal drama of DC, they sort of sat at the conflux of all of these multiverses. Even though the multiverse is kind of closed off, the New Gods have access to both the All In universe and the Absolute Universe, though they may not know it yet. And so they actually connect the two universes in interesting ways. Darkseid, also being a New God, his eventual fate is very much tied to what will happen in this book also.

And then, not only that, but this was pitched as a story that finally unifies the Fourth World and the mainstream DCU. So about halfway through this run, we’re going to see New Gods on Earth: Green Lanterns getting involved, Superman getting involved, and Wonder Woman getting involved. So all of that is to come.

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