Mark Waid is a very prolific writer. Whether he’s heading up high profile superhero books like Indestructible Hulk, winning Eisner awards with Daredevil, or pioneering the art of digital comics with Thrillbent.com, he’s a man who knows and loves this medium like no other. His latest stand-alone graphic novel is called Shadow Walk, and it’s a collaboration with Legendary’s Thomas Tull, Max Brooks (World War Z) and artist Shane Davis. The hook basically boils down to one question “what if the Biblical Valley of the Shadow of Death was actually a real place?” The story follows a team of scientists, soldiers and a holy man sent to explore this strange region in the early days of the second Iraq war – a region of nasty creatures, twisted landscapes, and true evil that seems to feed on human conflict.
Recently, Waid spoke with Crave Online about the project, so read on and find out more – and please take heed of the spoiler alert if such things trouble you.
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CRAVE ONLINE: Shadow Walk feels very cinematic. Since you’re working with Legendary on this, are there plans to try and make it into a movie already?
MARK WAID: I think that’s something where we’ll see how it reads when it’s all said and done, and how it’s received. I wouldn’t be averse to it, but what I liked about working with Legendary – what I REALLY liked about working with Legendary and Thomas Tull – is that at no time was there any push or steering towards telling it as a movie. The idea was ‘here’s a story, tell it as a graphic novel and do the best graphic novel you know how to do and use the tools of comics and don’t feel like you’re trying to disguise a movie treatment as a comic book. Instead, just let the story take the form it needs to take, which I really loved.
CRAVE ONLINE: How did this all start? Did Max Brooks come to you, or were you looking for a project together? Did he have this fabled ‘story bible’ of his just laying around?
WAID: Actually, in between was Thomas Tull. He had the basic concept – the elevator pitch, if you will – for the thing. He pitched it out to me in a room where we first met. I had my shields up, and I was perfectly ready for it to be ‘oh yeah, another movie executive going to tell me how much he loves comics but really all he wants is a movie.’ Instead, it was the opposite. Instead, it was a very humble, very collaborative meeting where it was like ‘okay, you do what you do really well, I do what I do pretty well, and let’s make a good comic out of it.’ From there, he’d been talking to Max about the idea off and on, so we brought Max in the room, and that sent it into high gear. Not only did Max have a bunch of his own ideas, and not only is Max an accomplished comic book and graphic novelist on his own, but he is also incredibly smart and incredibly well-read, so he went off and dug through all the pre-history and history he could find, all the mythology and the folklore, and built for us a vast, incredible backstory on the valley itself and the kind of place it would be, the historical antecedents, the mythological antecedents, and that gave us just a huge wellspring of material to draw from.
CRAVE ONLINE: And this netherworld that feeds on human conflict is a compelling idea, as is the scientist Martin Briggs falling apart in the face of the absurdity of it all. Speaking of – was there any concern about creating a character that claimed to have invented Google Earth?
WAID: (Laughs) No, I don’t think so. It’s fiction. If the lawyers haven’t jumped on it by now, I think it’s probably okay. I look forward to your emails. Please send them to Mark Waid c/o Hate Mail.
SPOILER ALERT
CRAVE ONLINE: The characters are pretty engaging here, but what I think might be a masterstroke is that you spend so much time building up this intense crisis of faith, and that’s combined with having a guy kill Satan with a shovel. How did you decide that THAT was the way that conflict was going to be resolved?
WAID: (Laughs) I know! That was in Thomas’ very first pitch. It’s so funny – that’s the one scene that Thomas had frozen in amber in his own head when he came to the table. Everything else about that story was flexible and open for debate and question, and we could do whatever we want, but it became clear that every time he talked about the story, he kept hitting that one note over and over again, and it’s a great beat. It’s a terrific beat. I’m not stupid. I will take somebody else’s idea if it’s really good. It’s Thomas’ idea, so I’ll run with it. If you want to give me credit, feel free, I’ll take it, but the truth is that’s all Thomas.
END SPOILER ALERT
CRAVE ONLINE: Shane Davis did some really freaky work on some of the creatures in the valley – that death-worm thing with two sets of human teeth really struck me. Was that all him or was it part of Max’s bible?
WAID: No, that’s all him. A lot of times, as we were building the story, I would say to him ‘here’s what these creatures origins might be, so come up with some visuals around then,’ but other times, it was just a matter of Shane drawing weird, screwed-up stuff and sending me these horrific jpegs that would make my screen melt, and I would go ‘whoa, I gotta use that. Let’s build that into the story.’ But that’s the nature of the collaborative medium that is comics, going back and forth like that and drawing from each other’s strengths.
CRAVE ONLINE: Did you both have to do a lot of research to lend credence to Bella’s scientific analysis of these creatures?
WAID: Yeah, and that was part of the fun of it. Honestly, Max had done some of it, but it also helped that my girlfriend is getting her doctorate in anthropology, so she was a great resource on that as well. I just love rolling up my sleeves and doing research, and I especially love doing research on the origins of folklore and the origins of mythology. Taking things back to where vampires came from the legend of zombies, where did the legend of zombies come from? Digging back into pre-history, that’s part of the fun of it.
CRAVE ONLINE: Here’s something I like to ask a lot of veteran creators – is there anything in your body of work that you really wish more people would read? Something you’re particularly proud of that you think maybe didn’t get enough attention at the time?
WAID: That’s a really good question. I’m kind of sputtering because I’m not sure what the answer would be. A couple of years ago, the answer would have been Superman: Birthright, but thanks to Man of Steel and how much of Birthright it used, that thing’s gotten a brand new life and a whole lot of new sets of eyes on it.
CRAVE ONLINE: Does that make up for your well-publicized reaction to Man of Steel’s death-heavy climax?
WAID: Yeah, how ironic… (laughs) It gave it a whole new depth of impact. But that said, you know, dude, I wish I had a better answer for you, but I’ve been very, very, very lucky in the last couple of years, I guess, where most of the stuff I feel proud of is still in print. Most of the stuff that I think stands the test of time really seems to have stood the test of time. I’m very lucky out there. I don’t think there’s many comic guys out there with as many graphic novels still in print as myself, and I’m very grateful for that.
CRAVE ONLINE: Well, you’ve also earned it by creating some very good stuff – like Daredevil. Your run on that book is ending, so how do you feel about walking away from the Eisner-award winning sensation that it is?
WAID: I have interesting feelings about it, but I cant… you know, ask me again in a couple of weeks, because my answer might be different.
CRAVE ONLINE: Oh, really? So there’s an announcement coming soon?
WAID: No one will be disappointed with the way things are going, let’s leave it at that.
[EDITOR’S NOTE: Since this interview was held, that announcement is a new Daredevil #1, with Waid and Samnee staying aboard and moving Matt Murdock & Co. to San Francisco, California]
CRAVE ONLINE: And Indestructible Hulk, I have to thank you for the cool new take on one of my favorite characters.
WAID: Well, I appreciate it. That’s a blast.
CRAVE ONLINE: Are you sticking with that for a while?
WAID: I’ve got that mapped out for the next year or so, and then beyond some of the stuff we’re doing to tie-in to Marvel’s Inhumanity and Infinity series that are going on now, the tone of the book and the status quo of the book stays pretty much the same, but I get to spend a lot more time with Banner. I’ve come to realize that Bruce Banner’s motivation for wanting to do good in the world may not be as pure as I thought it was. When you figure so much of it is based on jealousy of Tony Stark, that is not necessarily the best and most noble place to start from, and that’s something we get to deal with.
CRAVE ONLINE: Is there any chance that Betty Ross, the Red She-Hulk, will get into the mix?
WAID: Not any time real soon, but that’s just because I know there’s other stuff brewing with that character in other places. Still, at some point, I would love to have the Hulk family all together in one adventure, but it’s just a matter of coordinating it.
CRAVE ONLINE: As a personal plug, might I recommend working the Bi-Beast in at some point? He’s my favorite weirdo character.
WAID: I love the Bi-Beast! I know! One had on top of the other! That’s a villain for you.
CRAVE ONLINE: And they call each other Skull-Brother!
WAID: Who were we talking about the other day…? I think we were talking about how Boomerang had to have been the worst Hulk villain ever, because that’s what you want to throw at Hulk – the guy who throws curved sticks.
CRAVE ONLINE: And somehow he’s heading his own book right now with Superior Foes of Spider-Man.
WAID: Yeah, and it’s great! It’s a great book! But the idea of once you do Boomerang, where do you go from there? That’s pretty funny. So Bi-Beast. He’s on my list now. Thanks!
CRAVE ONLINE: Fantastic, thank you! And back to Shadow Walk – faith is such a major theme of the story, so I’m curious how much of it comes from your own views and your personal experience with faith.
WAID: If it weren’t personal on some level, it would kind of suck, because it would be somebody typing a plot rather than actually telling a story. There’s no one character in the book that perfectly exemplifies my own concept of faith and the things I believe in, but it’s spread out pretty evenly between two or three different characters in the book. I’m personally not a religious or spiritual man, but I’m fascinated by the concept of faith in general, and in recent studies, it seems to be the common thread that holds together survivors. Study after study show that people who survive cancer, survive natural disasters, survive horrific personal disasters – the common thread that ties them together is they all have some sort of faith in something outside of themselves. I find that really interesting, and that’s something we wanted to bring into the book.
CRAVE ONLINE: That’s sort of depressing for non-believers, I guess…
WAID: Yeah, exactly, but again, not necessarily even faith in a higher power or a biblical, Judeo-Christian God – just a faith in something that means that your life is not just a cynical black hole.
CRAVE ONLINE: Then in that case, could ‘faith’ in this study also just mean having a reason to live?
WAID: Not so much that, but faith that even if you don’t believe in a higher power, but there’s a sense that you are not alone in the world, that you’re part of some bigger picture, whether you believe in God or in higher forces. Just the idea that you’re connected in some way to other organisms, to other life, to other parts of the world. To me, that doesn’t seem to necessarily be in conflict with atheism. Does that make any sense?
CRAVE ONLINE: Yeah, just having some kind of sense beyond yourself, which is not mutually exclusive to atheism or even agnosticism.
WAID: Yes, exactly.
CRAVE ONLINE: And to wrap up, what do you have coming up in the future that we should look out for?
WAID: The big thing, beyond this, is continuing to work on my stuff at Thrillbent.com, my digital comics site. It’s doing well, but we could always use the exposure. I don’t know if you’ve personally had a chance to check it out, but I’d encourage you to, if you’ve not.
CRAVE ONLINE: I’ve meant to, but I’m easily distracted like every jerk on the internet.
WAID: That’s okay, there’s no judgment here. I’m just saying that Thrillbent.com is free comics, every day there’s something brand new up there. Stuff from me, stuff from other amazing writers, amazing artists, some of it’s one-shots, some of it is ongoing serials, but it’s all different genres and it’s all free to read. So I’d encourage everybody to go there.
