Electric Warriors Sets Up an Entirely New DC Era

Steve Orlando is looking to fashion something brand new out of the raw ore that is the DC Universe. And this week's Electric Warriors #1 with artist Travel Foreman is where the writer hopes to unite two eras of DC history while standing on its own creatively.

"Electric Warriors is the kind of project that Dan and Jim know they could slide across the table to me and it'll just be the most exciting thing for me. The push was 'What could have happened in the DC Universe between the Great Disaster from Kamandi – one of the darkest times for earth – and the utopian society of the Legion of Super-Heroes?'" Orlando told CBR.

At the heart of this largely unexplored part of the DCU is piece of superhero tech that has united the galaxy, but may leave Earth behind. "You'll see concepts that you've never seen in the way you see [here], because everything has been changed by the Great Disaster. The world of Electric Warriors is based on the Electric Seed...this is about a technological nugget that enters into your body, interacts with your DNA and give you unique superpowers," said Orlando. "No Electric Warrior is the same, because none of us are the same. Each Electric Warrior represents their world in trial by combat. So instead of Earth and Mars going to war and billions dying, their Electric Warriors will fight so these worlds in the galaxy can live in relative peace."

But in the wake of the sentient being civil war that was Jack Kirby's classic Kamandi series, our planet still holds deep divides that complicate the concept. As the writer explained, humans freed after the Great Disaster can't agree with the talking animals tribes over who would represent our homeworld as Electric Warriors to the United Planets – an organization that will someday be the heart of the Legion.

"It's the first world in history where we've split the Electric Seed, and there are two Electric Warriors," Orlando said. "There's Warcry whose parents grew up in the wild human preserve. And then there's Deep Dweller who is the humanoid octopus. And they have to get along. They're bonded through their Electric Seed. They both have different, incredible powers. But in fact, as always happens in these stories, earth is the starting point to change. What does it really mean when one earth has two representatives? What happens when one loses and the other wins? What happens when one side of earth challenges the other? It's all going to be solved in the arena of planet Covenant. But that's the kind of stories that come with Electric Warriors – high action and high creativity."

NEXT PAGE: How Electric Warriors Combines Blackest Night, Kirby's Great Disaster, the Legion of Super-Heroes and More

But while these characters and concepts are all brand-new, there's plenty of DC history to factor into the book as well. That the apocalyptic-to-utopian time period which hasn't been fully shaded in before now represents thousands of years of DC's potential future, and Orlando plans on pulling from a lot of lesser known alternate futures to flesh out the details. "We've jumped in on it in different alternate futures. Professor Zoom, for example, comes from the time we're talking about here," he said, noting that he'd also be drawing minor influences from books like the '80s weird Western Hex, for example. "We're pulling not just from Kirby, but we're pulling from Blackest Night and from what Geoff [Johns] and Alan Moore built with Sector 666, a completely dead sector...This is the book if you're someone who loves the lore of DC to respect all of the things you've read over the past five, ten, 30 or 40 years and just build something new and exciting about it.

"The idea was to do something really creative and additive to the DC Universe. We thought this was the best way to honor King Kirby. There's this apprehension to feel that we can't build from any of these things because they're so incredible. So let's use this as a building block for new stories," Orlando said.

The book also promises to get the ball rolling again on some long-ignored aspects of the DC publishing line – chief amongst them the Legion, which is a concept that certain corners of fans have been clamoring for since the New 52 era. However, Orlando is less interested in relaunching the Legion proper than he is in creating a space for its history. "This is all new characters. It's all new settings. It's all new imagination. And it's set in the DC Universe but in a time you've never seen – or rarely seen – and in a way you haven't seen it before. So there will be things that mirror what you're expecting like the Legion of Super-Heroes...but how did they get there?" he said.

The path for Electric Warriors follows in some ways the work the writer has been doing since he started in the DCU – reviving classic ideas with new faces to match the modern era. Orlando's Justice League run has brimmed with rediscovered and reinvented characters, many of them from the 1990s.

"I think it's a tradition we have at DC. I believe that all these characters have potential. But how do we reposition them?" he explained. "How do we refresh them and show people why you love them? I'm doing the same thing that Geoff did with Flash Rebirth and Green Lantern Rebirth – except my characters, as Tom King frequently says, all come from 1997.

"Taking the core concept and this idea of legacy and tradition and pushing it forward to the next generation. That's always been DC Comics to me," Orlando concluded, and he promised the Electric Warriors #1 will be a launching pad for new ideas about some of the most obscure alien races from across DC history like the Khunds and the lost Kryptonian counterpoint the Vrangs.

Electric Warriors #1 ships today from DC Comics.