#kupperberg

“Green Lantern: Emerald Interlude-Part 1″ Page 1....a new page every day!

“Green Lantern: Emerald Interlude-Part 1″ Pages 2-3….a new page every day!

Five Questions with Steve Erwin (co-creator and penciller of 1988's Checkmate! ongoing series)

Q: Who came up with the design for the suits? Was it you and Paul or John Byrne?

A: John Byrne designed the Knight uniforms. As the story was related to me, Paul (Kupperberg) was telling Byrne about the Checkmate concept over lunch and as they were talking, John was scribbling out visuals for the Knights. Paul left with a nice pencil sketch which I was given a photocopy of to work with later on after the title was approved.

Q: My very first issue was #12 where Stein went to Bongo world. I read that issue a hundred times back in ‘89 I think. I just fell in love with the story and especially your art! There where a couple of guest pencillers and till the series ended. Was it because of other commitments that you didn’t pencil the other issues?

A: Checkmate #12: I just took a look at my stack of pages from that. Really fun to do, with all the space shuttle stuff to draw. The editor let me do a bunch of double-page spreads. FYI: I was in the middle of the issue when word came that it was going to be our “Invasion” crossover issue. I had to re-draw a few pages, rework some stuff here and there so we could make our plot elements fit. As I remember, the guest artists were brought in so that I could move ahead a few issues. I’d probably have to look at that part of the run for a refresher. It was a long time ago.

Q: Have you ever read the new series?

A: I read the first issue of the new series. It looked really nice but I didn’t have a clue what was going on, so I didn’t go past that. It’s like it was continued from a story that started someplace else.

Q: Did you have any input in the stories for volume 1?

A: Did I have input in the first series? LOADS!! I worked with Paul and the editor in the development stage to design most of the costumes and support characters that weren’t pre-existing. Paul wrote the series plot-style not in a script form, so when an action sequence came up he gave me the basics of what was to happen and what needed to be included, and otherwise I “choreographed” it all myself. He often asked where in the world (literally) the story should go next.

Q: Favorite issue?

A: Favorite issue? That’s hard. #11 is one of them 'cause I played with adding characters resembling characters from TV shows. Other numbers I don’t recall offhand, but the issue set in Israel was fun to do, lots of double-page sequences. Thanks for the trip back in time!

Iceman by Alan Kupperberg

Power Girl mini-series

Power Girl was originally created by Gerry Conway, Ric Estrada and Wally Wood to help introduce a new generation of readers to the Justice Society of America in the late 70s. In 1976 All Star Comics #58 hit the shelves and it picked up where All Star Comics #57 left off in 1951. It was quickly decided that younger characters would need to be injected into this series since the JSA consisted of older World War II era characters who may not be familiar to new (young) readers. Hence, the creation of Power Girl. The conception of Power Girl was as simple as "Earth One Superman has a female counterpart called Supergirl, so let's give Earth Two Superman a female counterpart as well"- so she was basically introduced with the same back-story as Supergirl (Superman's cousin, fled a dying Krypton in an escape rocket, has same powers as Superman, vulnerable to magic). The main difference between Power Girl and Supergirl, however, is that Power Girl projected the personality of a 1970s liberated woman (ex: she had a tougher demeanor and would not be dominated by male-imposed gender stereotypes). Also, since the beginning, Power Girl has always been portrayed as having a curvier figure than Supergirl. Power Girl was a big hit with the readers. All Star Comics was cancelled in 1978 due to the DC implosion, but Power Girl still appeared occasionally in several books throughout the early 80s and eventually became a supporting member in 1984's Earth Two team: Infinity Inc. With Power Girl appearing in the first 12 issues of Infinity Inc., it appeared that she had a pretty promising future in the DC universe... and then the Crisis on Infinite Earths happened. Two distinct goals that Crisis on Infinite Earths set out to achieve were a) solidify Superman’s role as the last survivor of Krypton and b) eliminate all aspects of the multiverse so that only one reality remained (aka: Earth One) – both of these goals directly conflicted with the continued existence of Power Girl in the DC universe. Power Girl narrowly escaped being confined to comic book limbo with the rest of the Justice Society of America* thanks to Gerry Ordway’s insistence that he could find a way to explain her post-Crisis existence (Earth Two having never existed). Before Ordway could come up with this reason, he was assigned to a new project and it was up to Paul Kupperberg to pick up the baton. Kupperberg was a great choice as the writer to redefine Power Girl’s origin, mainly because he had experience writing female characters (Kupperberg wrote all 23 issues of the Daring New Adventures of Supergirl in 1982) and had a history of writing strong female characters (ex: Supergirl, Celsius, Lady Chian). This mini-series is preceded by Secret Origins v2 #11 (written by Kupperberg) which explains that Power Girl was never a Kryptonian but in fact the last descendant of an Atlantean sorcerer named Arion (Kupperberg created and wrote Arion, Lord of Atlantis for DC from 1982 to 1985). Notable changes as a result of this retcon involved a new belt buckle for her outfit with an Atlantean crest embossed on it (as seen in ad). This four issue mini-series goes on to establish Power Girl’s newly discovered role as an Atlantean magic-based character. The Phantom Stranger (another character Kupperberg was writing at the time) makes an appearance to reveal that Power Girl is an agent of Order who is destined to battle agents of Chaos.