On HARLEY QUINN...
My take on Harley is that she fell in love with the Joker, and it changed her life. And even though she's gotten over him, she never got over the world her association with him gave her.The color, the danger, the lack of rules, the madness of it all helps drown out the psychiatrist side of her that keeps saying, "You're crazy. You need help." She doesn't want to face what she did in the name of love.
On DEADSHOT...
Floyd, to me, is a criminal who is way too smart to still be a criminal. Sure, he was young and dumb once, and he got himself in deep, but he could have gotten out. Got a real job. Made more money than he ever could as a merc. But going straight would have meant a slow death by cheeseburgers and nagging in-laws. The thrill of crime is that Floyd will probably die badly. Legendarily. Impressively. Maybe even tragically. He loves that.
On BOOMERANG...
I think Digger is sort of an Elmore Leonard character, you know what I mean? He's a petty, cruel, horrible little man, but he's hard not to root for. I'm going to be playing up his grudge with Deadshot a lot in my run, because I think it's pretty obvious that what they hate about themselves they see in each other.
On PARASITE...
The new Parasite is just a cool design. He's basically a 1950s' movie monster. I love the way Aaron Kuder drew him in his "Forever Evil" one-shot. I don't have a ton of ideas for him, character-wise, but I always have room in my stories for a pink leech monster.
On BLACK MANTA...
Manta had some pretty great moments in Sean Ryan's run, so in an effort not to immediately compete, he takes a backseat, at least at first, in my issues. I do think he's one of the purest "old school" supervillains on the team, though, with the classic "the hero ruined my life so now I hate him" motivations that were so prevalent in Silver Age DC Comics. If readers dig on my first arc enough, I'll make sure to bring him more into focus later.
On AMANDA WALLER...
When I first approach a project, I immediately do that pretentious writer things where I look for a nugget in each character that I can grab onto and build from there. In the case of Waller, I was immediately attracted to the fact that she's from Chicago. I've lived in Chicago for the past 14 years, and the idea that Waller escaped one of the rough neighborhoods and went onto become a hard ass makes a lot of sense to me. Plus, I can fill her dialogue with references to Lake Shore Drive and sausage, so everyone knows how legit Chi-town I am. [Laughs]
"New Suicide Squad" #17,by Tim Seeley and artist Juan Ferreyra, arrives February 10.