Interview: Stan Lee’s Flash Returns With Becky Cloonan & Michael W. Conrad

© Provided by ScreenRant

In 2000, Stan Lee created a number of interesting variants on classic DC heroes, such as the Flash, and now the publisher is returning to these characters in a special one-shot celebrating Stan’s 100th birthday. The book, titled Tales from Earth-6: A Celebration of Stan Lee, brings together some of the industry’s top talent to tell new stories of the denizens of Earth-6.

Just Imagine…Stan Lee Creating the DC Universe, first published in 2000, was the project many comic fans never dreamt they would see: Stan Lee working on some of DC’s biggest icons. Stan approached the project as if he was creating the characters from the ground up, resulting in some interesting takes on DC’s venerable line-up. The line was a success, but hasn’t been revisited since. Now, on the occasion of Stan Lee’s 100th birthday, DC is returning to this unique world, dubbed Earth-6 in their multiverse. Screen Rant sat down with writers Becky Cloonan and Michael W. Conrad to discuss the project and their contribution: a new story featuring Stan Lee’s version of the Flash!

Related: Stan Lee’s Version of Flash Finally Returns In Jaw-Dropping DC Art

Screen Rant: How did you come to work on the Tales from Earth-6: A Tribute to Stan Lee? And how did you arrive at writing the Earth-6 incarnation of the Flash?

Michael W. Conrad: It’s kind of thanks to Batgirls. When we first started on that book, we worked with Assistant Editor Ben Meers, who ended up moving to another department. However, we developed a really good relationship with him. He is on the editorial team behind the Stan Lee celebration, so he reached out to us and said: “hey, you know, we had a good relationship working on Batgirls. Would you like to be part of this Stan Lee celebration?” And Becky and I saw this as an opportunity to do something very odd but also something consistent with the vibe and voice we had on Batgirls–but the way that Stan Lee’s the Flash operates is so much more different than the Batgirls.

They’re very based in reality, and this version of the Flash, like so many of Stan Lee’s creations, has this bonkers pseudoscience stuff, so it was a real opportunity to play with that.

SR: Beyond the obvious differences, such as this Flash’s origin, how would you describe the difference between the Earth-6 Flash and their Earth-0 counterparts such as Barry Allen or Wally West?

MWC: I think it’s because Mary (the Earth-6 Flash) engages with the world the same way I do. She’s a comic book fan and desperately wanted to be a hero and to experience what it would be like with superpowers. It was her dream and through a twisted set of circumstances, she got her wish. But it’s a real Monkey’s Paw kind of moment. Be careful what you wish for.

Becky Cloonan: She was given these powers, but it was outside of her control. She has hummingbird DNA spliced into her genes, and that’s what makes her fast.

MWC: No matter what iteration of the Flash you get, there is one thing at their core: they move superfast. Mary uses her powers uniquely, thanks to her origin. We wanted to explore what she has been doing with these powers this whole time: to cope with tragedy and trauma. Every version of the Flash deals with that, they all have something they’re trying to reckon with–but Mary is particularly struggling with this.

We’re doing a retelling of her origin, and adding a significant amount of spice to it, hopefully. I hope readers who aren’t familiar with this version of the Flash will be able to pick the book up and jump right in. Frankly, I wasn’t familiar with this character until I took this job. I did a big re-read of all this material, and I was like: “this Flash story is so bonkers. It’s everything I love about classic Stan Lee stuff.” It’s kind of goofy, but there’s also a lot of pathos in there, and we tried to ground these elements to the story.

SR: You mentioned the pseudo-scientific aspects of Stan Lee’s work, as well as the pathos that runs through it. These are hallmarks of Stan’s approach to creating characters, and he brought it to DC with him. That’s two different approaches to creating characters. What would say are some of the overarching similarities the Earth-6 heroes share with their Earth-0 counterparts?

MWC: There’s a real lightness to Stan Lee’s stuff. I also think that with some of the Earth-6 heroes, Stan was trying to be edgy, or appeal to the kids or whatever. I don’t think that’s the case with the Flash and that’s one of the things that attracted us to her–we didn’t want to do something super-edgy. We were like: “if we’re going to do a Stan Lee tribute, let’s go goofy.” That’s what I associate with Stan Lee.

And that’s not to be disrespectful to Stan or anything. I think there’s room in comics for everything, from a serious conversation to raw escapism.

BC: And Stan was so good at threading that needle.

MWC: In terms of the creative process, we were asked to submit a Marvel-style script. For those that don’t know, the Marvel style is when you write a loose idea for how the comic is going to look, and later you go in and do the heavy lifting of figuring out panel copy, and what people are saying to each other.

We don’t write comics that way, so we kind of forgot about that when we first submitted our first draft, which was a regular comic book script. Ben, the editor, got in touch with me and asked if we could resubmit it in the Marvel format. And I was like “let me get back to you in a moment.”

BC: We basically reverse engineered a Marvel method script.

MWC: Yeah, the spirit was there, but we just don’t write that way. But it was fun, and it was neat to see the pages come in and see that we were able to convey what we wanted.

BC: We didn’t have to mess around too much with the dialogue we wrote.

SR: We’ve already touched on this a little bit, but what do you like most about writing the Earth-6 Flash? Anything else you’d like to add about her?

BC: I really liked her costume. I think as an artist, I would have found her costume difficult, but Pablo, the artist, did such a great job translating that look into something dynamic. She has this all-white costume with rainbow streamers on her head and it looked so dynamic and cool on the page.

MWC: My favorite thing about the story is writing about someone who’s dealing with an almost unbearable amount of sadness and having them engage with that sadness in a way that’s healthy. I think the subtext of this story is how this Flash deals with hardship.

It’s less about her being able to run super fast and bend time and more about how we interact with our pain–we can do better, and we discover stuff like that through prayer, meditation or whatever. It’s like having somebody to aspire to be more like.

SR: You mentioned that to research this project, you did a big reread of the Just Imagine material. Were there any other characters who stood out to you? Maybe ones that you would like to take a crack at one day?

MWC: There’s this edgy version of Aquaman, where he looks like an evil fish. Becky and I both love Aquaman so much–weirdo fish boy Aquaman, we’re here for it.

I think we could do a great job on Wonder Woman too.

BC: This came up when we were working on the Trials of the Amazons. We ended up talking about the Earth-6 Wonder Woman.

MWC: I remember talking about how goofy it was. I hadn’t heard of these characters and when I tracked this material down, how good some of this stuff was and how much fun it could be.

In reality, I’d love to do all these characters. It’s an opportunity to play outside the regular DC continuity and that’s something I always welcome.

BC: We finished the Flash story and were like: “ok, when’s the limited series?” There’s so much to this character, and you get these little great ideas in a short format, but there’s so much stuff to dig into.

MWC: I would like to spend more time with the Flash, and to build on some of the things we were teeing up for. It really did feel like there was more to do.

SR: So we’ve already talked about some of the challenges you faced working on this project, such as the Marvel scripting method. Are there any other challenges you faced while writing this story?

BC: The big challenge was to shed old preconceived notions of the Flash and dig into this Stan Lee version. You have to disconnect everything you know. I don’t know if that was necessarily a challenge, but it was an interesting way to think about it.

MWC: We had little things we wanted to do. We wanted to alter her costume a little bit. So much of her character is jubilant and fun, and we wanted to be able to show that in her face a little more, but the initial design had most of it obscured.

BC: And she’s in her costume for almost the entire story, so it was difficult. We wanted to show she was smiling, but were unable to.

MWC: So we did find a way to do it, but the main thing is we didn’t want to get away from Stan Lee’s original vision, because that’s what brought us to the dance.

SR: What about the artist for this project, Pablo Collar. How did he come on board?

MWC: Pablo was somebody that Ben brought to us and said: “hey, I got this guy in mind.” And he showed me some of Pablo’s work, and I was like “oh hell yeah. This is outstanding.”

BC: He was able to capture so much. The Flash is such a kinetic character and I think he captures that visually. He handles it in such a way where you can feel the movements, and the way he handled the design, there was almost an animated quality to it, which I love.

MWC: There was no better person to do this Marvel method script experiment with, because he brought a lot of his personality to each page. I think if we had been a little more dogmatic in our requests, using a page by page script method, we might have lost some of that magic. With Pablo, it was a success. Yet there are talented artists who still need a lot of direction, but that was not the case here. I feel blessed to work with somebody who was able to make a lot out of our story, and still leave room for us–we are wordy writers.

There was a scene where the Flash is jumping through the windshield of a moving car in an alley, kicking a guy in the face, and I’m like: “I don’t want to cover that with my words.”

SR: Any final thoughts you’d like to share about this project?

MWC: I just hope people pick it up and check it out, whether they’re familiar with the old stuff or not. I think the other creative teams are taking a similar approach: that not a lot of people are familiar with this project. This is going to be something new for most people picking it up, so we want to get them on board with these characters.

I feel like some of the best stories in comics are shorts. It requires the creative team to show up and do something impactful in a really compressed kind of way. I’m super proud of the shorts I’ve written for that reason: all the fluff and trappings of storytelling come off, and you get this really refined thing. And I’m hoping we managed to do that with this Flash story.

And I think the other creative teams are hitting that and showing up in a way that will really surprise readers.

BC: And it’s just really cool to be part of a Stan Lee tribute, especially one at DC. Stan really touched every corner of this industry.

MWC: We’ll be ready for any other tribute that people want–we’re such comic geeks. Give me another reason to read something I normally wouldn’t engage with.

Screen Rant would like to thank Becky and Michael for talking with us about their Flash story, appearing in Tales from Earth-6: A Celebration of Stan Lee, which goes on sale in print and digital December 27th, 2022.

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