Midnighter is back and this time he’s solo. If you ask writer Steve Orlando, Midnighter is loving his new life, doling out punishment and making “violent citizen’s arrests”. No longer with Stormwatch or even Apollo, Midnighter is on his own, loving life, and living it up. Formerly spotted in the pages of “Grayson”, Midnighter will now be helming his own title, aptly titled “Midnighter”.
Read on as we chat with writer Steve Orlando about his excitement for the series, how comparing Midnighter to Batman is just wrong, diversity in comics, and a whole lot more. Issue #1 is out tomorrow, so be sure to check it out!
I think anyone who follows you on Twitter can see that you’re super excited to be involved with this “Midnighter” book. What is it about the character that has you so excited to work on this book?
Steve Orlando: Excited is an understatement! Midnighter was, and is, a hugely influential character to me. Besides the chance to create amazing, mind expanding action scenes that melt your eyes, “Midnighter” offers me a chance to add to the legacy of a character that broke contemporary expectations of what a queer male character looked and acted like. And so for me, I’m not just working with ACO to craft one of the most explosive, manic action books on the market, but we’re adding to a legacy nearly 20 years long. It’s like finally playing for the Yankees! Here is a character that changed me, and to be in the driver’s seat, charting his trajectory for a new generation of readers is an honor.
And at the same time, the challenge of Midnighter is equally exciting. This is “the Shadow by John Woo!” If there was every a mission statement to create the most insane, unrepentant action movie moments in each issue, that is it! It’s community justice, its razor sharp sarcasm, and its inventive violence. It’s like my life, if my life was interesting and not centered around free refills at Denny’s.
I know people tend to compare Midnighter to Batman, but they differ in very real ways. Key among them is that that Midnighter doesn’t brood or agonize over his work, but seems to enjoy it in a way and doesn’t have anything against killing. In a world where the heroes generally don’t kill, where does Midnighter fit in?
SO: You’re absolutely right! Midnighter doesn’t brood. Midnighter LOVES his job. It’s just that his job is horrifying if you’re on the receiving end of it. He’s a man who was victimized with mad science, who lost his childhood and was engineered to be the perfect fighter. He doesn’t have a coming of age story, no bat crashing through the window. He didn’t train, he was made. But he has found a way to make the bad things that happened to him into a positive – to put the itch for violence he has to work against the right people, and to ensure no one ever has to go through what he did.
And I think the fact that heroes don’t often kill in the DCU makes Midnighter all the more significant. And certainly some heroes do, and while others may call Midnighter that, he sees himself as a fighter. He was a tool for the God Garden for a long time, and now he’s going to be a tool for normal people, to be put to use standing up for their rights. To remind the victimizers that there’s always someone bigger, there’s always someone that could come for them, and make them feel the way they make others feel: afraid.
Midnighter’s willingness to kill allows him to be the gatekeeper to a dark world in the DCU. When abusers see the coat and the cowl, when they see his form in the doorway, they know they’ve fallen into the underworld. This is a place they can’t come back from, it’s a line they can never step back over. Originally, Midnighter said he was what children think of what they first imagine death looks like – and that is his primal power. When your evil makes you no longer fit for the normal world, for everyday people, he removes you from it.
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While relatively young by most comic character standards, Midnighter still has two decades of story to him. For someone like me who hasn’t read all of that and doesn’t know everything about the character, how easy will this new series be to pick up and just start reading?
SO: Very easy! Everything you need to know about Midnighter you’ll get in ISSUE 1 – and in fact, almost everything you need to know about Midnighter you get in PERDITION PISTOL, the DC SNEAK PEEK that they’ve offered for free.
In essence, the core of Midnighter, what you have to know, is he’s a fighter for the people. Yes, he has exciting powers, a jet black cynical wit and a love of violent citizens arrests, but that’s all gravy. He’s a man who only wants to perpetrate physics-defying punishment on people who hurt other people.
Midnighter was created in the late 90s and definitely a product of 90s perceptions of gay people. How do you feel that Midnighter has evolved for the time or how do you want to evolve Midnighter for modern times?
SO: I would argue an unashamed, tough as nails take on a gay male lead stood in contrast to many mainstream depictions of gay people in the 90s. This was after Philadelphia and before Brokeback Mountain, it was mid Will & Grace, and Midnighter didn’t look like what had came before, what existed, and even what was coming. And yes, of course there were layered, diverse depictions of gay people and gay themes during this time, but as mainstream comics go, we were closer to Chapel being given HIV by the government to spread amongst people, or a supporting character in the Pantheon coming out, and further from “Fun Home”.
Even then Midnighter was breaking the mold, showing gay people could stand as respected, equal participants in society (or a superhero team). Having said that, I think the approach to Midnighter’s life can evolve as we bring our POV closer to his own. When he debuted, he was a mystery, removed. But now that he’s leading his own book, we are just as confident in his life as a gay man as he is. We’re owning it completely, and tackling it with the same bombast as he tackles all things in his life. And that’s an evolution, it’s something we couldn’t do in the 90s. But now we can step deeper into his world, and make it a richer step as we do. We can present his social life without being shy, and with the same normalcy as we’d see Oliver Queen’s or Bruce Waynes. And that, in of itself, a refusal to fetishize Midnigther’s sexuality, is bold.
Midnighter has often been part of a team, with Stormwatch, or as part of a duo with Apollo. How does this now solo Midnighter differ on approach from when he was enacting change as part of a team?
SO: Exploring his life as he goes solo IS the differing approach! Midnighter’s time in Stormwatch definitely happened, as did his time with Apollo. But for the moment, we’re taking his character and returning to him at his most pure – the man that fights for the little guy. Our approach will be focused squarely on Midnighter, who he is, and what he means. We’re about defining that as an entity independent of a team or a relationship. Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman, they’re all wonderful in the Justice League,but they’re ALSO just as wonderful on their own. And that’s the goal, that’s the work, to show Midnighter’s inherent potential and unique character, not just as an ensemble player, but as his own man. Different types of stories, same type of brutal justice.
Part of Midnighter’s reintroduction into the DCU came in the pages of Grayson, and he interacted with Dick Grayson there. Can we expect the Midnighter series to stay pretty much a solo series or can we expect other residents of the DCU to regularly pop up?
SO: “Midnighter” will definitely focus at first on establishing Midnighter’s world as an independent hero. But the world of the God Garden is connected to the world of Dick Grayson and Spyral, and so we may see these guys connect again. It’s too much fun not to think about – they’re the ultimate frenemies, and Midnighter finds Grayson infinitely entertaining. He’s a guy that likes to push buttons, and Grayson has a lot of buttons to push. And besides, when it comes to these two, fighting IS flirting, so it would be fun for them to check back in on each other when the time is right.
Continued below“Midnighter” won’t be the first title anchored by a gay lead, but I feel like it’s a part of a good direction in comics where there are a lot more characters and books out there for everyone. There are so many more books for the groups that got left out of comics for a long time, and that’s only a good thing. What sort of message do you think it sends to have all these characters that resonate with such a diverse audience?
SO: The message, I hope, is similar to what I mention above. The best moment in fiction and comics will be when we don’t have “gay books, african-american books, romani books, trans books, etc.” We’ll just have comics. And these things themes will be no more unusual than a straight, white, cisgender storyline. The endgame, in my mind, is acceptance not just by the readership but by the stories themselves, which don’t focus solely on minority aspects of characters, fetishizing them, but instead integrate these aspects into a great holistic take on the character.
And we’re getting there. My friends have children not giving a second thought to Barry Allen’s Captain being gay on The Flash. And certainly your mileage, and opinions, may vary depending on your location.
But these characters resonating with readers is a huge step. It’s showing that comics are doing more of what comics should do, what pop fiction should do, and that’s show people they’re not alone. It’s show people someone understands them, that they have a myth of their own, they have a hero of their own.
It’s all good motion, it’s all very good motion, and all towards the goal we want for ourselves – equal treatment, so that someday there won’t be “these” characters, there will just be characters.
And until then, Midnighter will keep punching people that stand in the way.
