Christopher Priest Interview For Capeless Crusader

Deathstroke writer Christopher Priest spoke with Jeremy Radick at the Kansas City ComicCon this past weekend. The full chat can be read here but I've copied some highlights below. I added a couple of paragraph breaks to make it a little easier to read.

JR: Would you say that writing an ongoing, you’re back on one for the first time in a while, is it like a riding a bike or are there muscles that you have to train again? 

It’s been a little easy so far because the editor, Alex Antone, and I had developed a storyline that lasted about eight or nine issues. And then we presented it to the higher-ups and they said, “Oh, no, no, no! We like the storyline, it’s a good storyline, but we don’t want to lead with that storyline. We need to lead with who Deathstroke is and re-establishing his character, and all that stuff.” So we went back, and we worked with Geoff Johns, and developed storyline number two, which is seeing print now.

So, because we had already had these other eight issues, we’re adapting that stuff into the new storyline, but as a result we ended up having ten or twelve stories that are in various stages of development. So it’s been pretty easy, me knowing what’s going on for the first dozen issues or so. And they’ve been coming out pretty regularly, in terms of my end. The art is a different story, because artists, they always use every possible day in the calendar. We have two separate art teams, and they alternate with each other. 

JR: Because the book will be a twice-monthly, right? 

CP: It’s twice-monthly, which is a real challenge to put out. But so far it’s been really easy.

Now once we move past issue 12 or so, then we’re doing a big crossover with the Titans book. And we’re doing a JJ Abrams-ing of “The Judas Contract”, the original storyline that launched Deathstroke and is like the definitive Teen Titans storyline from Marv (Wolfman) and George Perez. So, we’re kind of building a firewall around that story to say, “Yes, this absolutely happened.” We are not dismissing that or ret-conning that, but as JJ Abrams did with “Star Trek,” we are now telling our own alternate version of it because of the speed force, and was Wally there or was Wally not there, and where was Starfire, and was Terra really underage when Deathstroke slept with her? And all that other stuff.

So Alex and Dan Abnett, the writer of “Titans,” they are working out all those details. In order for the Deathstroke book to function, I need to tell the definitive, at least post-Rebirth, version of Deathstroke’s origin. Which involves the at-the-time Teen Titans, so I need to know who was in, who was out, and all that other stuff.

So that’ll be the first half of the year, we’re just rebuilding Deathstroke’s cast and establishing Deathstroke, so that’s 1-11. Issue 12 will begin the second arc where it’s retelling that classic story and basically retelling the Titans origin over in “Titans,” and retelling the Deathstroke origin over in Deathstroke. Dan and I are kind of collaborating on it. 

JR: Sounds great. Deathstroke’s family is central to his character and his origin. But that’s become pretty convoluted in terms of continuity. How do you untangle the family, but keep the power of those relationships, while introducing it all to a new reader? 

CP: We cheat. I’m a guy, you know, who knows how painful it is to have the next writer come along and say what you did never happened. I hate to do that. Luckily, because of how Geoff Johns set up the whole Rebirth thing, I don’t want to give any secrets away, but Doctor Manhattan, it’s all his fault! (laughs) We have this plot device that enables the reader to decide, maybe for the first time in history, the reader gets to decide what’s in and what’s out.

But, for our purposes, we are telling our own sort of composite history. A lot of Deathstoke’s family history was thought up over a lot of years. Like the stuff with Grant, the older son. And then they thought we’ll do this business with Jericho, then they came up with Rose and then Rose had a bunch of history on her own, and so forth and so on. 

So we are saying all that stuff exists, but what I’ve done is just compressed the timeline so some of that is happening at the same time. At the time that Joseph’s throat gets slashed, Deathstroke is out of the country rescuing Rose and her mother from Cambodia.... 

Basically we’re trying to keep all of the major highlights of the history. Some of it we’re kind of ignoring, but most of it, the key parts, not only are we saying they’re existing but we’re re-telling the story. For the first six months or a year or so, Deathstroke has a current day story and you will see these flashbacks to roughly ten years ago where we’re retelling the story with his boys and then in issue 2 he meets Rose in Cambodia and in issue 3 Rose makes her debut as a grown up in this series and so on.

...I’m trying to write Deathstroke as if there had never been a Deathstroke comic before. So if you’ve never read Deathstroke, you know nothing about Deathstroke, you don’t even like Deathstroke, sample the Rebirth, sample the #1. Because Geoff and I kind of talked about it, and we wanted to set this series up as if it were a motion picot or a television series. Rather than have Geoff and the TV people come in and adapt it to that, why don’t we just set it up as if it was a TV show in the first place and make it as translatable to the screen as possible.

Priest is a talker! But he certainly isn't shy about sharing info. We pretty much know what to expect for the first 18 issues or so of this book and that we have a Titans tie-in to look forward to. Bring it.