The following contains spoilers for The Jurassic League #1, on sale now from DC Comics.
One of the wackiest, most brutal visions of the DC Universe is here with the new comic book series The Jurassic League, taking the familiar faces and dynamics of the DCU and moving them to the prehistoric era. The titular team takes the iconic setup of the Justice League and reimagines the mighty heroes as different types of dinosaurs in a land where cretaceous creatures and early humans live together, menaced by similarly primal villains. The series is written by Juan Gedeon and Daniel Warren Johnson and illustrated by Gedeon, bringing this bold, new vision of the DCU to life.
In an exclusive interview with CBR, Johnson and Gedeon shared the inspirations behind such a wild reimagining of the DCU. The pair hinted at dino redesigns to popular DC heroes and villains in the story and revealed the surprising challenges behind crafting a dino-fueled adventure. Also included from DC is a look at the standard cover for The Jurassic League #1, illustrated by Johnson and colored by Mike Spicer, and preview pages from the first issue, colored by Spicer and lettered by Ferran Delgado.
CBR: What was the inspiration behind blending together dinosaurs and the Justice League for this prehistoric vision of the DC Universe?
Daniel Warren Johnson: I've got to be honest, the main brainchild of this concept and even the whole tone of the series is Juan's. Juan approached me about me helping him out with his first tackling of writing and drawing something. I love dinosaurs, but I was also sheltered and never played Primal Rage as a kid. The visual flair is real, and I appreciate it now, but one of the first questions from Juan when we were talking on the phone was, did I ever play Primal Rage? [laughs] That's where the creative conversation began, and, from there, he just asked for someone to co-write the story with him and help him through it. I said, "Yes, it sounds like a really great time!"
Juan Gedeon: I grew up watching Ninja Turtles, playing with those toys, and Primal Rage was a huge inspiration. I became a little tired of drawing superheroes and regular people, and I like drawing monsters and '90s stuff like Ninja Turtles, Primal Rage, and Street Sharks. I started thinking of DC's alternate universes, and what if there was a universe where they're all dinosaurs, where the Justice League are all dinosaurs?
What is your personal favorite dinosaur?
Johnson: Probably the velociraptor, but I also like allosauruses. Everybody is assuming that Batsaur is a T. rex in this story, but he's totally an allosaurus. [laughs]
Gedeon: For the League, my favorite is Batsaur, but he's hard to draw sometimes. Supersaur is pretty fun to draw for me. In terms of real-life dinosaurs, it's the Mosasaurus, the underwater monster. For fictional dinosaurs, it's Gon, the manga by Masashi Tanaka that I highly recommend. There's also the dinosaur Heart in the movie You Are Umasou, which is a beautiful and amazing movie.
In addition to her work as an editor, Katie Kubert comes from a dinosaur educational background. How is it working with a bona fide dinosaur expert?
Johnson: She's a super-nerd, so we come up with cool names for the dino heroes, and she's like, "Is that the correct name for that?" [laughs] The Wonder Woman dinosaur is a triceratops, and we call her Wonderdon, but -don dinosaurs aren't actually associated with triceratops. Katie emailed us, saying "Technically, this isn't correct, but I'll let it slide." [laughs]
How was it matching dinosaurs to specific DC heroes and villains?
Johnson: For the main trinity, I'm pretty sure Juan had been sketching these in his sketchbooks for five years. He had pretty solidly wrapped his head around designing Batman, Wonder Woman, and Superman. As we got further and further out, Juan was still doing most of the designs, but we were still going back and forth on them. One of the things we did go back and forth on was the dilophosaurus as the Joker. We [brainstormed] together, and it was just really fun. One of the most fun parts of the process was figuring out who should be what, and I have to give credit to Juan for coming up with the main designs, all on his own, for the main three that you see on the cover.
As someone that's written and drawn plenty of comic book action sequences, like in Murder Falcon, what's the secret sauce in crafting a solid comic book action set piece?
Johnson: It's definitely a dynamic sense of movement and trying to do something that is outside the norm for punching and kicking. I don't mean to not draw punching and kicking, but we've all seen it a million times in movies, TV shows, and comics. It's about finding new ways to show the same action, which can be really challenging. Sometimes you've got to just default to doing what you know. One thing I really like about Juan's artwork is he does approach it in new and different ways, ways that I would never do.
We have a lot of the same influences, with speed lines and energetic, scratchy movement and presentation of our characters. He approaches his fight scenes way differently than I do, and I trust that he can take it and roll with it when I say something like, "Supersaur punches somebody," and he totally does.
To expand on that, how is it working together as co-writers, Juan also as the artist?
Johnson: It's been an interesting process. Juan had a good idea of what he wanted to do going in, so I really tried to be a support, lift him up and get into his head and help him tell the story he wanted to tell. A lot of that is honestly just getting out of his way with the script and art, especially. When it comes to the art, I'm completely hands-off, and a lot of my page descriptions are about a sentence long. Because Juan is co-writing it, he has such a good idea of how the page is going to be laid out, even as we're writing right.
It's funny how sparse our scripts are because he has so much of it in his head already. Juan is going for the absolutely bombastic, action movie element, and I'm pushing that back with hopefully a little more feeling as well until we're meeting in the middle. We're figuring out how to tell the story using both of our voices and styles.
Gedeon: I think it's really fun and, for me, been a huge learning experience. I feel like Pacific Rim when you're both piloting a giant robot. You have to agree to make it work. Sometimes you don't agree, take a hit and fall, but then you have to get back up. When you're in sync, the reward is awesome. That's the best analogy that I can give you. [laughs]
How is it writing to your main cast being dinosaurs, transposing this world to a prehistoric era?
Johnson: That is actually one of the biggest challenges of writing this book because I was handling the dialogue and how the characters talk. Juan and I were beating out each page, and when it came to brass tacks to figure out what the characters are actually saying, I'm coming in. When it came to writing, I was writing them like the Justice League, that's just my knee-jerk thing, and Juan and Katie's notes weren't like this [verbatim], but they were saying, "We've got to dumb this down." [laughs] I have no idea how to do it. I'm still figuring it out. [laughs] That's been a real challenge and something that I'm trying to figure out.
We're working on issues three and four right now, and I'm helping script after the art has come in. I'm trying to find it, and I will. It's a work in progress, but it's a challenge. With comics, since you have a relatively crazy presentation with The Jurassic League and look of the characters, you're trying to find a balance with the dialogue, intent of the story, presentation, and tone. It's really hard to get it all down to one cohesive, sizable whole that you can wrap your hands around. It is super-fun to work on, but there are some challenges, too, like how am I going to get these characters to talk like dinosaurs? [laughs]
Gedeon: When you're drawing a regular Batman or Superman title, you have a ton of books you can read and use as research, but this is completely new. Although it's the Justice League and there are some similarities, without sounding too arrogant, this hasn't been done before. I have nothing to draw information from. I'm trying to create a Frankenstein. Sometimes I succeed, and sometimes I don't, but we're doing our best.
What was it about making the Robin of this world a human character partnered with Batsaur?
Johnson: When Juan and I were getting into each other's heads, and I was trying to help him tell his story, I asked him to break down the story of Jurassic League in one sentence, putting him on the spot. [laughs] He liked the idea of the heroes, whether they be the Justice League or Jurassic League, they should be a shining example for humanity.
I translated that to kind of mean these dinosaurs are the Jurassic League, and they're kind of figuring things out as they move through this adventure tale. I wanted there to be some sort of personal connection with the creatures "below them" so we could tell a story through the eyes of Batsaur and Robin. They're a human character and dinosaur character who don't quite work so well together at first, but maybe they'll figure things out as the story progresses.
The promotional material for the series has hinted that the heroes may just go up against the prehistoric version of Darkseid. What was it about having him as the Jurassic League's ultimate antagonist?
Gedeon: I'm not an expert in comic history, but what I feel from Darkseid is that he is the ultimate. I don't want these guys to go against someone low level as a final boss, but for them to go all-out. I would love to draw many issues of this and do lots of series with the dino squad, but I don't know if that's going to happen. We might as well go all-out and use the biggest villain that we can think of, and it was Darkseid.
How is drawing fights between the dinosaurs?
Gedeon: It's really fun and kind of frustrating because I'm very self-conscious about my own limitations, and I set a high standard for myself. If you're playing basketball, and you compare yourself to Michael Jordan, you're going to fall short. You just have to be the best you, if that makes sense. I compare myself to artists that I admire and think that this is lacking, and I'm very hard on myself, but it's fun, and, as the story progresses, I think I'm getting more loose and comfortable in this new skin. This is new to me, drawing these beasts all the time.
What other surprises can you tease as The Jurassic League continues?
Gedeon: One of my biggest discoveries is that the Reverse-Flash is really fun. He's not just the Flash but yellow, but a completely different kind of dino. That one was really one... He just kind of came up as an afterthought, and I wanted to keep it. I'm looking forward to drawing Green Lantern. I'm very pumped about drawing him, his design is really fun. When I was designing it, I was kind of goofing around and was inspired by Ultraman and James Harren's Ultramega.
For some reason, I thought of Daffy Duck and the type of dinosaur he is, with a beak, makes it look really fun and silly, but it works. I'm not going for scientifically accurate or a paleontological version of the dinos. For anyone saying these dinosaurs don't belong in the Jurassic period, they just don't get it at all. [laughs]
Johnson: I'm sure our editor Katie warned us about that, too! [laughs] The Green Lantern design is my personal favorite for the entire Jurassic League. My Issue #4 variant is Green Lantern doing a straight-up German suplex on Atrocitaurus.
Gedeon: Atrocitaurus is also one of my favorite designs. He's such a beast, but Darkseid is even worse. The stakes are even higher.
Johnson: Juan has most of these designs in his head, but we've gone back and forth a little bit, and it's kind of nice to completely release all expectations when it comes to visual energy and flair. We talked a little bit, as we were developing it, about the simple logistics of what our bad guys' abilities would be or won't be as the story progresses. As a general whole, it's been not to do any work and watch the designs come in my inbox. [laughs]
Written by Juan Gedeon and Daniel Warren Johnson and illustrated by Gedeon, The Jurassic League #1 is on sale now from DC Comics.