It's going to be a cold winter for DC's heroes. This December, the DC Universe plunge into a frigid, deadly blizzard as an ancient enemy resurfaces in the upcoming comic book crossover event Justice League: Endless Winter. Written by Ron Marz and Andy Lanning and illustrated by a whole host of rotating, fan-favorite artists, the storyline will unfold across the Justice League family of comic titles, with the nine-issue story bookended by two specials Justice League: Endless Winter as the complete story unfolds weekly across the entire month of December.
In an exclusive interview with CBR, Marz and Lanning teased the stakes for the upcoming crossover, the parallel storylines between the modern-day DCU and the 10th century Viking Age and which superheroes are slated to play a major role as the Earth finds itself targeted by the villainous new antagonist, the Frost King. Covers and characters designs illustrated by Mikel Janin of several key players have also been unveiled by DC below.
CBR: Justice League: Endless Winter has been teased for the past couple of weeks. How did this project all come about for you guys?
Ron Marz: I blame Andy!
Andy Lanning: [Laughs] Alex Carr, the group editor of the JLA group, reached out to me and said "How do you fancy at having a go at the winter event for the JLA family of books?" at which was very timely because I just lost my job. [Laughs] I had been working at a tech company working on some AR stuff, still writing comics, but doing it inside a company -- a quick aside, my first ever proper job, working for the man -- and, because of COVID, the company had to seriously downsize and I found myself without a job.
And quite literally within weeks, Alex called out of the blue with this, which is just fantastic how things pan out. And I asked why he reached out and he went "I'm a big fan of the Annihilation stuff, you've done these big, big event books!" which I guess is a skill in it of itself, juggling all these components and playing with a lot of toys at the same time. So I said "Yeah, I want a stab at it, but I'm terrible at doing that sort of stuff on my own. I like to work with other people." So I rang Ron to see if he knew anybody that could work with me. [Laughs]
Marz: [Laughs] See if there was anybody who would stoop low enough to work with you?
Lanning: [Laughs] It's that kind of relationship! But Ron and I had actually been working together at Magic Leap, we had been writing stuff and also did a few Guardians [of the Galaxy] things off the back of that. And I love collaborating with people and Ron, as well, is a sort of master of handling big, big tapestry-type stuff, like the Amalgam books back in the day. And so he basically answered my blow-on-the-conch cry for help, and we've cooked it up from there.
Marz: Yeah, Andy and I have known each other for 25 years, something like that, and we've co-wrote some comics. So when Magic Leap capsized and Andy reached out and said "I need to do some comics! Let's do some comics!" I said sure because we always have a ball working together. And, yeah, literally within a week or two of that conversation, Andy rang me up and said "Alex from DC is in touch, does this sound like something you'd want to do?"
So it just fell into place and the initial sort of winter aspect to this was Andy's and, as it's evolved over the months that we've been working on it, there's kind of a nod to the world that we live in now which is the pandemic world and everybody being sort of isolated. So a lot of that stuff played into the story, I feel like it gives it another layer of dimension. It's not just "Hey, there's a big winter storm!" but part of it isn't just how do the JLA deal with this thing going but how do regular people in the real-world deal with suddenly being cut off from one another, suddenly living in a very different world than they did a few months ago. We're not getting too heavy-handed with it, but there's certainly those aspects in there that I think will, unfortunately, hit home for everybody because we're going to be in this world for a while.
Ever since this thing was teased, there's been speculation about Delores Winters, an Endless Winter character that's been around for some time in the DC Universe. Can you confirm or deny if Delores will play a major role in this story?
Marz: I think we can confirm that no one named Delores plays any part of this story: Delores Winters, Dolores Claiborne, nobody. [Laughs]
Lanning: 'Dloris Leachman!' [Laughs] 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. In fact, 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: So while it appears that we're cribbing from old Justice Society issues, we're actually cribbing from Norse mythology.
While this coming from the Justice League family of titles, you really do get to play with the entire tapestry of the DCU. What elements and characters were you especially keen on working on with this story?
Marz: For me, the whole package is great; it's obviously a very Justice League-based story and a good part of our job was to figure out how do we tell this overall Justice League story, with the Justice League together, but then do separate chapters that run through the other titles and have them all build the story. That's really what the job is in these kind of things: To make each chapter satisfying in it of itself but part of a greater, whole that's part of a much bigger tapestry.
I was really looking forward to Superman, because I'm big a Superman guy, so that was thoroughly satisfying. I enjoyed it all but Superman and Aquaman, which I did not expect to be like the coolest thing ever. I always liked Aquaman but he was never, like, Top 5 for me. But as we got into that, it was just huge fun to do some stuff in Atlantis -- without giving away too many story beats, there's stuff in Atlantis, there's stuff under Atlantis -- this is a big, fun comic event despite the fact that world is at risk and everybody is going to freeze to death. So, in the context of the book, we're going to have a bunch of fun.
Lanning: It's interesting because I've written Superman, I've worked on Wonder Woman, I've written Justice League and Aquaman, I've worked on Green Lantern...so it's all familiar territory to some extent. I think I've drawn a couple of Young Justice issues and some Titans I've done inking on. So it's touching on all those old comics that you love. The one that stands out is Justice League Dark, which I'm a huge fan of, especially the new run with Ram V and James Tynion IV. I've been a huge fan of reading it and it's been fun going back and rereading and referencing it again and great fun writing that. The other surprise element was Black Adam, who is getting his own his special as part of this, because I've never been in the Shazam-Verse part of DC before which, again, very much looking forward to see how that goes as well.
This has kind of been billed as the next, big DC event. Does Endless Winter take place in a post-Death Metal world?
Lanning: The continuity police are going to come and hit us over the head. [Joking] It takes place in a parallel universe because of the scheduling of everything! [Laughs]
Marz: This might come as a shock but, sometimes, we just make up stuff and go. [Laughs] So Death Metal is going on but this story is taking place in the here and now of the DC Universe.
Lanning: I like to think of it as a Christmas special. [Laughs] This is quite literally the winter event that takes place; a little story, with a cup of eggnog and a candy cane, and enjoy this story on its own merits.
You were mentioning Annihilation where everyone had their own miniseries tying in together. Are we going to see a similar thing with Endless Winter?
Lanning: This one's a little bit more structured than that because, like you said with Annihilation, everyone had their own miniseries that then all plunged back into the main event whereas, with this one, the issues are like chapters. We structured it that way because it hearkens back to events that sort of happened centuries ago. We've got an upfront flashback sequence that opens up every issue that reads like chapters. The issues then sort of line up in an order.
Marz: The seeds of the story are really planted in the 10th century and, as you see the issues, you'll see that literally and figuratively. Every issue will have this sequence set in the 10th century which includes what we're calling, for our own purposes, the Justice League Viking which is Hippolyta, Black Adam, Viking Prince and Swamp Thing. The notion being that there's a collection of heroes in every era, and this is the heroes that come together in that era. What goes on in the past very much dictates how this comes back in the present -- and I guess we can say the threat is called the Frost King -- how the mistakes in the past dictate how things go in the present and learning the lessons in the past is what is the necessary function for the Justice League now. There are connections to the past that dictate how things go in the present, both for good and for ill.
So parallel storylines that are separated by a millennium.
Marz: Yeah! Separated by a millennium but with characters that are still around, with characters that have, again, literally and figuratively roots in the past into the present. And part of it was my cajoling Andy to put Viking Prince in there because that'd be cool. [Laughs]
Lanning: Like Ron said, this notion that every era has its own collection of heroes that would band together to form a league of champions, as it were, we get to see a compare and contrast how they react to a threat in that era, of swords and steel, and how heroes of today would react and encounter the same problem.
Marz: So the question is what have learned in the ensuing millennium or do we still just hit problems over the head?
Like you were saying, there are characters, like Hippolyta and Black Adam, that are still tied to the present-day DCU. Will it explore why this conflict from the past has not been addressed up until this point?
Marz: Yeah! What happened in the past, and obviously evolved over the chapters of the story, what happens in the past is shown as we get deeper in the story and, in the present as the crisis worsens, so they run parallel.
Lanning: And there's a real sense that the events of the past have remained buried, again, literally and figuratively! And thematically with the pandemic, there's this ongoing climate crisis that we also seem to find ourselves in that plays a part. You've got permafrost melting, glaciers retreating and uncovering things from the past that maybe you don't want uncovered.
Marz: I think first and foremost, it's a big, cool superhero adventure. All that stuff: The sense of isolation from the pandemic, the climate change aspect of the past being uncovered, all of that is sort of the underpinning of what we're doing here. Come for the big, fun superheroics, stay for the big, thematic stuff we're trying to thread through there too.
I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the artwork.
Marz: We'd be remiss if we didn't mention the artwork! These guys are making us look good!
Lanning: It'd be boring if it was just comics with nothing but our words. This all comes out in December.
Marz: Yeah, you're going to be our pals all through December. Alex asked us what's our bandwidth and if we could do this all, and we said sure and it's been great. It's just incumbent upon us to get the scripts in so everybody can draw it all and we're right at the tail end of that. One of the real, great things about all this is the artists all interpreting your work, it's an amazing array of people coming in to do this book.
Howard Porter is doing the first issue and, I believe, going to do both bookends and he's just doing amazing stuff. Howard and I have known each other for probably close to 30 years and we've never actually worked together so this is a huge treat for me to actually get to work with Howard. I loved his Justice League with Grant Morrison in the '90s, to me that's just seminal Justice League stuff. So to be able to have Howard come in and put his stamp on this right from the first issue was awesome. And the rest of the artists are a collection of the artists who are most regular on some of the titles and some guest artists, like Phil Hester coming in to draw Superman -- Phil is amazing and has also been a buddy for 2o years -- Clayton Henry on The Flash, Brandon Peterson is going to be coming in to do the Black Adam special.
For me, it's a really cool mix of people that I've known for years and have worked with, like Brandon and Phil Hester, and people whose work I know but I have never worked with before. For me, that's still the coolest part of this job is when the pages come into your inbox and -- having this many issues going at once -- that's a lot of pages that show up in your inbox.
How has it been juggling an entire month's worth of comics between you two and all of your collaborators?
Lanning: We worked it out, because it's nine issues in total, from when we started which was about seven weeks ago, that we had to do an issue a week. And, like Ron said, the idea is to do them in that time period so that everybody can be working together in that sliding publication date because several come out the same day. So it's our responsibility, for the artists, to make sure that they have something to draw which is kind of stressful. To double-down on what Ron said, it's just brilliant seeing the art beginning to come back in again. It's always inspiring and makes you want to do better with the next one that you do. It's a challenge, I liken it to juggling flaming chainsaws whilst unicycling across the Grand Canyon.
Marz: Which is just the sort of thing that we do. [Laughs] But honestly, in terms of the logistics, it's cool that we're doing this together. Andy's in London, and I'm in New York so we trade stuff back and forth. He's up working on stuff while I'm still asleep, and I get to the desk and we start to trade stuff back and forth and, later in the evening, I'm working on stuff while he's asleep.
It really turns out -- and I hesitate to say this while Andy is listening -- but besides enjoying the partnership and [him being] a fine fellow, the logistics of doing this frankly really easy. I think we have, very much, the same storytelling sensibilities and the same approach to stories so that makes it infinitely easier because there's no disagreement where stuff ends. It's just kicking things back and forth until we find one that we like enough to run with it. And that's been the process through this whole thing, getting it done hasn't been much of an issue and, also, because frankly, there's nothing else to do! [Laughs] We're not going to conventions, we're not going out anywhere, this is the world that we live in right now so it's good to have something that takes up all hours of your day.
I'm dating myself by saying this, but the first Green Lantern story I read as a kid was "Emerald Twilight." How much is fun is it to write Hal Jordan as a hero in this?
Marz: I have to admit: I wouldn't know because John Stewart is our Green Lantern in this story! I've written Hal as a hero back in my GL run when we were doing time-travel stuff -- which was great -- but John is the Green Lantern in the Justice League for this storyline. He brings some interesting stuff to the table and he's sort of the lynchpin in the Justice League issue right in the middle of this storyline, where it kind of turns. We had the luxury of telling that story through John because, of the other Justice League characters, he's the one that doesn't have a regular book so we could explore him a bit more without any continuity conflicts of where he might need to be elsewhere in the month. He ends up becoming a fulcrum character for us in the storyline.
And I know some of the stuff in his story that's going to happen afterwards in 2021 that we're going to hint at and set up. That's been one of the cool aspects of this storyline, that we're obviously getting a sense of the bits and pieces that would be cool to put in place, character-wise, to where the various characters and titles are going in 2021. This is very much a story that's self-contained, you can read the thing if you've been away from comics for 40 years. Everything you need to know will be there but there are threads that will be carried over from this into the next year which is kind of the way it should be. We're hopefully doing this story in a way that's very welcoming and, if you want to continue with it, the odds are it will lead you places beyond us.
Lanning: We're very much respecting the continuity of all the titles, which has been part of the fun with working with all of the editorial staff and artists and each other. We've also been working with the editors that have been sort of teeing us up with where we should be picking up things moving into the story that, like Ron said, tease out as to where those books will go in the following year, which is great.
Marz: Yeah, you don't do an event like this, in the context of the overall DCU continuity, without editorial really being on the ball and carrying a lot of the weight. They're the ones responsible for making sure the artists have reference and "Does this secret laboratory that appears in Superman has to be shown in the Aquaman issue next week? When does that have to be drawn?" The logistics of it and behind-the-curtain stuff that nobody ever really talks about, editorial has been really great about that and making sure everybody has what they need to pull this thing off.
What are you most excited about for readers to jump in for this storyline in December?
Lanning: It's a big, fun crossover event. I remember when we first started writing this you always come to it with this idea "What would I want to read? What would I enjoy reading myself?" and I've always liked those big crossover events, and you get to see that event through the lens of the book that you're reading at that time. You get to see what the Teen Titans are doing against the backdrop of this, you get to see what Justice League Dark are doing against the backdrop of this and we try to write this as on-point and in the voice of that book as you possibly can so you're not just writing something that's ephemeral and disposal and you can just rip it up. It actually feels like it's adding something bigger to the continuity, however big or small, that it's a thing that happens and has some sort of weight and value to it and you get to see a lot of superheroes flying around and hitting things. That's always a fun job for me.
Marz: For me, it's exactly that: It's a big, fun superhero story with big stakes. Yes, there's character stuff and, yes, there's quiet moments, but there's a lot of cool superhero action and that's kind of what everybody shows up for. Big, fun superhero action drawn by a really amazing collection of artists. And I feel like this is going to be something that you're going to read every week in December, multiple issues some weeks. Hopefully, this is our and DC's holiday gift to everybody, because I think we're pretty proud of how it's all turning out, this is going to be a good one.
Written by Ron Marz and Andy Lanning and illustrated by a host of artists, Endless Winter begins in Justice League: Endless Winter #1 on sale Dec. from DC Comics.