For the past year, comic book creator Phillip Kennedy Johnson has been an incredibly busy man. Johnson has been balancing his responsibilities as an active duty member of the U.S. Army with being a writer for some of DC and Marvel's biggest comic book titles. From taking the helm on Action Comics at the start of the year to launching Marvel's first Alien comic book series, the Eisner Award-nominated writer has delivered consistently solid tales ranging from dark fantasy to science fiction horror and he shows no sign of stopping anytime soon.
In an exclusive interview with CBR at Washington D.C.'s Awesome Con, Johnson teased what Superman fans can expect in Action Comics' upcoming issues, reflected on co-creating The Last God for DC Black Label, and discussed subverting fan expectations in Extreme Carnage.
Since you brought Superman back to Earth, there's been mounting tension between the surface world and Atlantis and Aquaman. What made you want to change up that dynamic within the Justice League and superhero community?
Phillip Kennedy Johnson: One of the coolest aspects of getting to work in the DC/Marvel ecosystems is the huge wealth of lore there is to pull from, and Atlantis is never far from my mind in the DCU especially. It's this whole other world on Earth that I can never get enough of. I always want to see more of their culture, what the people would be like, what relations between them and the rest of the world would be like. My mind always goes down this rabbit hole of questions.
The setup in "Warworld Rising" gave us the perfect opportunity to explore some of that. The story is focused on the Superman Family, Warworld, and the Phaelosian refugees, but it also gave us a chance to explore the Justice League, to show Arthur and where his loyalties really lie between the surface world and Atlantis. You don't often get to see the Justice League argue that much, at least not in meaningful ways that threaten to actually splinter the group. I feel like something like the Genesis Fragment could potentially do that. The Justice League has to consider the welfare of the entire world, but if that comes at the expense of Atlantis, I think Arthur might get very defensive about that. I love seeing Arthur interact with Superman, who is physically and even morally the pinnacle of what a superhero is supposed to be, but Arthur is a sovereign leader and commands respect.
While you're writing the most hopeful extraterrestrial in Superman at DC, you're writing the most horror-driven at Marvel with Alien. What did you want to do when you got the reins on Marvel's first Alien comic, what does the franchise mean to you?
I wanted to bring the Alien comic franchise back into the Alien film franchise if that makes sense. When it was at Dark Horse, there were a lot of really awesome swings and creative decisions. but as the lore grew and grew, to me it felt like it stepped further and further away from the films. Over time, the comics didn't quite line up with the films anymore and started to feel like more of a parallel universe to me. I want to give readers stories that feel just like the films, that allow readers to go from the first movie to the second movie and straight to the comics and have it all feel like it's happening in the same universe. That's what I want to bring to the franchise more than anything.
I have to ask the immortal question: Alien or Aliens?
They're both 10/10 from me, but if I had to pick one, I've got to go with Alien. Objectively, the second one might be the stronger movie regarding character and emotional arcs, but the first one is probably my favorite anyway. It's this amazing sequence of mind-blowing moments, just visually blows you away over and over and over again.
Your title has a sense of mystique about it like we don't know as much about the xenomorphs as we thought. Was that, along with a return to horror, something you had planned for the title?
Yeah, I hope so! I wanted it to feel like you're in a work by H.R. Giger. I also wanted to make the world bigger, but not in a big jump-the-shark way, right out of the gate. Even as a kid, I was fascinated by xenomorphs coming from different kinds of animals, and the knowledge that that's why it's so versatile, it takes the qualities of the host species so it's well-suited to the environment. We do explore that a little bit in the first arc with the Alpha, but my first instinct was to go wild with all these different host species. But it's too soon. [laughs] I don't ever want to do something that doesn't feel like Alien. I'm trying to make the world bigger and flex my world-building muscles, but I'm doing it in half-steps instead of big, crazy moves all at once. I want it to always feel familiar to fans of the original films.
This year began with the end of The Last God, your love letter to the dark fantasy genre. What did you want to say within such an established genre when you launched that DC Black Label book?
The Last God is one of the works I'm most proud of as a writer, if not the most. At its core, it's a story about the lies that we tell our kids about the nature of heroism, the illusion of heroism, and how they intersect. I wanted to give readers a world like the ones we've seen from Tolkien, Robert E. Howard, or C.S. Lewis, but introduce elements that make it feel like we're seeing the truth behind the stories. We're seeing a world like Tolkien's, except with racism, clashing religions, what the cost of actual violence is, etc.
We're seeing elves not as a shiny, immortal, perfect race, but as a subjugated race that has been downtrodden, a race that feels real, earned animosity towards humans. They are better than us in some ways, but they're also more complicated. Basically, I wanted to express a more complicated version of the stories that we love, with more than just characters of virtue fighting characters of evil. Everyone is a little more gray, and that's the story I wanted to tell.
With this story not only inspired by works like Tolkien but also tabletop gaming, how was it to do a sourcebook for The Last God?
That was such a huge opportunity, but it was also really intimidating. The sourcebook idea was pitched to me by my editor Amedeo Turturro, who had pitched me the idea of doing the book in the first place. The idea of a D&D-style sourcebook was so crazy and ambitious, knowing how much work it would take and with no idea how the fans would react, but in spite of all that, I was all-in for the idea. Now, I've got readers and fans coming up to me at conventions and signings and online telling me about their campaigns that they've put together themselves and lore they've added to the world. It's a huge thrill and an honor to create this thing that people are adding to with their own stories.
What did you want to do with Carnage?
Readers think they know what to expect from a Carnage book, and it's not always complicated. [laughs] Carnage is just this super-psycho symbiote, and readers think they know what to expect from him. With Extreme Carnage: Alpha, I wanted to tell a story that stood apart from others we had seen. The pitch was, "Carnage meets The Manchurian Candidate," and they went for it. They let me tell a story that deals with the political divisions happening in our country right now.
When we last saw Carnage in the comics, he was this vague creature in the ocean, and we had a notion that he was alive somewhere but we didn't know in what capacity. In Extreme Carnage, we see him climbing the global food chain until he ends up in American politics. It gives a whole different take on Carnage, and one that I felt like was a welcome refresh. We're introducing some new characters I'm really excited about. My co-writers for this event are crushing it, and they're adding their own really interesting things to the canon. Without spoiling where Carnage is going to be a year from now, it's a really exciting event. I'm very proud to be a part of it.