When DC Comics began teasing its upcoming crossover event Justice League: Endless Winter this past summer, there was speculation that the storyline would involve Delores Winters, a Golden Age villain who menaced the Justice Society of America under her supervillain persona Endless Winter. However, as DC has officially announced the December crossover event, writers Andy Lanning and Ron Marz have confirmed this is not the case.
When asked about the speculative villain's rumored involvement in the story, both writers definitively debunked the fan theory that Winters would play a role, with a completely original supervillain being introduced in the story instead. "I think we can confirm that no one named Delores plays any part of this story: Delores Winters, Dolores Claiborne, nobody," Marz quipped during an exclusive interview with CBR.
"That was just one of those happenstances, in fact, the Endless Winter is a reference to the 'Fimbulwinter' which is the Norse legend of the endless winter. And in Norse mythology is two years of constant winter before Ragnarok so we were drawing upon different mythology and continuity, which is brilliant, though, that you get little things popping up like that," Lanning elaborated. "One of the cool things about this is that we got to create a new villain for the DCU, as such, a new threat which has nothing to do with the past continuity whatsoever." Marz Observed, "While it appears that we're cribbing from old Justice Society issues, we're actually cribbing from Norse mythology."
The nine-part crossover event will unfold across DC's Justice League family of comic book titles, with each issue featuring flashbacks to the tenth century as the superheroes of the Viking Age confront the Frost King, informing the villain's resurgence in the DCU's present. For this, the writers drew from literary inspirations far older than the Golden Age of Comics Books.
Written by Andy Lanning and Ron Marz and illustrated by Howard Porter, Justice League: Endless Winter #1 goes on sale Dec. 1 from DC Comics.