[SPEAKER_01]: Once up, everybody, welcome to Comic Book Club.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm Alex, and we've got another bonus episode for you all with a great guest.
[SPEAKER_01]: He is the writer of Behind D.C. X, Sonic the Hedgehog Metal Legion number one that is coming out on May 6th from D.C. Comics, Legion of an Ian Flynn Ian, welcome back to the podcast.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much for having me back.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have a big question for you right off because I got nervous when I was doing that intro.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've heard a lot of opposing thoughts on this.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you pronounce the X?
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you say the X out loud?
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, an age-old question.
[SPEAKER_00]: I prefer cross.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: When doing those kinds of titles, but that's not necessarily, that's not necessarily the
[SPEAKER_01]: All right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I'm going to stick with X for the moment because that I would read.
[SPEAKER_01]: But a lot of people, not with this, but what I said spy X family, people like excuse me, it's spy family and I was like, what's the other letter in there?
[SPEAKER_01]: What are we doing here?
[SPEAKER_01]: What's going on?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, in that case, yeah, it is spy family.
[SPEAKER_00]: But you know, I said spy cross family until I was corrected and here we are.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, we are talking about this title, as I said, it's coming out in May 6th.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is a sequel to DC Cross Sonic, the headshot, which is a huge hit once getting you of Adam Bryce Thomas on art.
[SPEAKER_01]: Before we get into the specifics of this book, though, I think you put up a post.
[SPEAKER_01]: You've been doing Sonic in varying capacities for 20 years at this point.
[SPEAKER_00]: 20 years.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's crazy.
[SPEAKER_00]: My entire adult career, it started with Sonic and it has not stopped.
[SPEAKER_01]: What is, I mean, I imagine you were doing at least a little bit of a reflecting audit given this adversary, but like, you don't see that legivity in the comic book industry.
[SPEAKER_01]: Really ever, at this point, you may have back at the 80s or something like that, but most folks are not working on the same character for that long.
[SPEAKER_01]: What has the experience been like for you and how have you kept at it for so long?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's surreal, you know, I'll meet other professionals it shows and we'll be talking about, you know, our license is experience and I go, yeah, I've been working with Sonic for this long and they kind of stop ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: I beg your pardon.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's not exclusively comics, yeah, it's been animation, it's been video games and other stuff, but it's been predominantly comics starting with the old Archie comics line back in 2000.
[SPEAKER_00]: I, 2006, because it was 20 years and it's 20, 26.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can do simple math.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is a math book, love it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then the IDW series and the comics that were on Sega's official social media stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so,
[SPEAKER_00]: It's been, it's honestly has been a privilege because I grew up on Sonic.
[SPEAKER_00]: I grew up on the old cartoons, you know, adventures of, and what the fans call sat a M, short for Saturday morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: The one Virgile White was voicing Sonic.
[SPEAKER_00]: I grew up on the comics, grew up on the games we were at Genesis household.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you very much.
[SPEAKER_00]: and it's always been part of my childhood so to be able to have worked with it for so long and in such an official capacity has been, it's indescribable really.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because what do you even draw a comparison to, you know, it'd be
[SPEAKER_00]: like you grew up reading the works of Tolkien and that you get to take over the estate and decide where it goes from there.
[SPEAKER_00]: You take over the Star Wars line for Lucas.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's whatever it's, I get to play with my favorite toys almost every day and that's fantastic.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it opens up opportunities like DC Cross Sonic where I get to have Sonic and the DC heroes.
[SPEAKER_00]: interact, which is just so much fun, it's delightful.
[SPEAKER_01]: Clearly, you have passion for these characters, but I'm curious if you feel ownership over them at all, obviously other people, other companies actually own the thing, but was there a point where you're like, okay, now I kind of feel like I'm the guy versus I'm the work for hire?
[SPEAKER_00]: No, maybe there was like a brief period here or there where I got to my head, but it's not something that lasts.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the nature of freelance work is, sure, I'm writing hi now, but I am replaceable.
[SPEAKER_00]: Someone else will come along, Evan Stanley, for instance, she followed a similar trajectory to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was a fan who became professional and is now lead writer on IDW and has been for quite a while now.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can safely say that I am a major footnote in the history of the franchise, but it's not mine.
[SPEAKER_00]: It never will be mine with the recent radio drama that Sega put out.
[SPEAKER_00]: A couple of characters I helped create that were exclusive to the comics and have graduated into the greater franchise, they got voices for the first time.
[SPEAKER_00]: and I was able to put my two cents in, but I didn't have the final say in that regard because they're not mine.
[SPEAKER_00]: They belong to the greater sonic world now.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I try to keep that
[SPEAKER_00]: in mind, you know, I have contributed a lot, I enjoy a continued relationship with the franchise and all the folks involved, but it will never be my thing, and that is kind of what spurs me to create my own stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: You mentioned Adam earlier, we met through sonic projects, he's an absolutely fantastic artist, absolute dynamo.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when I was launching my original series, Dr. Goon, he's the first person I've tapped on my Adam.
[SPEAKER_00]: You want to do a book together because you're amazing and I can drop up on you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I greatly respect your talent.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we've been, I've just loved what he's done with that book.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I, on top of that, I had requested him specifically for DC Cross Sonic, and thankfully they picked him up and they asked him who do you want on board for colors and he said Matt Herm's, and I've known Matt for years.
[SPEAKER_00]: We were hanging out back in the fan comic days when dreams of being professional were on the distant horizon.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he too has gone professionally.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's done tons of work for D.C. And he's just, oh my god, his colors are fantastic.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's like, yes, Adam, excellent choice, correct choice.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the book is all the better for it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, let's talk about D.C. Cross Sonic specifically, really enjoy the first series.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thought it was a lot of fun, really hit all the notes that you want to to hit in a series like that, seeing the D.C. characters, the Sonic characters, literally cross over to each other's worlds.
[SPEAKER_01]: at times become each other in very fun ways.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now you're doing it again, and you don't necessarily need to get into spoilers or anything, but I feel like when you, correct me wrong, but I feel like when you're doing a crossover like that, without making it sound too methodical, there's certain boxes you need to check.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like you want to see Sonic race against the flash.
[SPEAKER_01]: You want to see what Batman and Shadow are going to be like interacting against each other.
[SPEAKER_01]: And obviously there's a lot of nuance there and there's a lot of other things you can do, but you really put it all out on the table in those couple of issues in the first series.
[SPEAKER_01]: So when you're coming back, what's left?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like how do you make sure that you're not just being like, oh yeah, I forgot about these guys in the corridor and let's bring them in.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, it's what do you do for an encore?
[SPEAKER_00]: With this in particular, there are a lot of moving parts.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, so let me, let me back up and re and contextualize this a little bit.
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, back in the day, we did a crossover with the Sonic and Mega Man and great success.
[SPEAKER_00]: One of my most proudest achievements.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that crossover came together very, very well.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was tight.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was focused.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you're Sonic characters.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're Mega Man characters.
[SPEAKER_00]: People universally seem to love it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then we got the sequel crossover.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we got Sonic characters and Mega Man characters and Mega Man X characters and Sonic Boom characters and then by the end of this series we had 16 franchisees represented across Sega and Capcom and there's a lot of fun moments in there.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I will be the first to admit, it is not as good as the first one.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's too much.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are too many toys.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're trying to, you cannot focus on one particular thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: With the first crossover, it's like, okay, we're gonna have a lot of folks from outside the comics coming in just by pure curiosity.
[SPEAKER_00]: We need to make sure that it's accessible to the most people possible.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we focused only on the game characters, because that's where most people will be coming from.
[SPEAKER_00]: with the sequel series.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, okay, I want to give the little love to the comic exclusive then.
[SPEAKER_00]: So here's all these comic characters in addition to all the other stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was too big.
[SPEAKER_00]: You had 50 something characters run around all at once and you cannot focus.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can't tell a solid enough story.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can't highlight individual moments.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the temptation was there again with DC cross sonic metal region because the DC universe alone is so vast and fun to play in.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the sonic universe has limitless potential in it.
[SPEAKER_00]: You combine the two and you're spoiled for choice.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so with metal region, I really wanted to make sure that we didn't repeat the same mistakes as last time and have a focused narrative.
[SPEAKER_00]: The challenge with that was we had the returning Justice League.
[SPEAKER_00]: We had the returning Sonic and friends.
[SPEAKER_00]: We had new Justice League and Sonic friend crossovers that were kind of baked in due to the larger marketing scheme.
[SPEAKER_00]: We had the teaser from the last arc where Eggman and Lex Luther are teamed up so we
[SPEAKER_00]: and Legion of Doom was requested.
[SPEAKER_00]: So right there, that's a big party to attend.
[SPEAKER_00]: So what I'm hoping we achieve with Legion is something that is kind of dialed in on a core story that's still fun, that still plays with, as many of the aspects as we can, but not getting lost in the weeds.
[SPEAKER_00]: That being said,
[SPEAKER_00]: I, I couldn't give up entirely playing around the boats, so there's little nods here and there of just indulgence, saying, how cool would it be if we could just do this forever?
[SPEAKER_00]: because you could do this.
[SPEAKER_00]: You could do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: These characters could interact and it's just the tip of the iceberg.
[SPEAKER_00]: Any one of the combos, you know, Sonic and Flash, Batman and Shadow, Amy, Wonder One, any of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: You could do a whole many series by itself.
[SPEAKER_00]: This could be an odd and going.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is no, no end to the potential stories here.
[SPEAKER_00]: So.
[SPEAKER_00]: I try to have my cake in need to do with this, you know, tell us solid enough cross to every story that's fun and accessible to most folks with a live-of-fanservicey moments throughout, but not get undercut by the sheer volume of material.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's really interesting to hear you talk about that, and I think this is true about a lot of stuff, particularly from D.C. or Marvel, where you're dealing with licensed properties, or I imagine with Sonic as well, where at least a large part of this is like it's an equation.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's kind of a math problem, a way of, okay, I have these pieces.
[SPEAKER_01]: or maybe a geometry problem, how do they actually fit together?
[SPEAKER_01]: But as a writer, I imagine you want to put a motion in there as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: You want to have that as part of it, not just be like, great, how does this toy fit into this toy and how do we write them around the board?
[SPEAKER_01]: So how do you approach that as a writer?
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you look at the pieces first and then look how potentially thematically emotionally they can fit together?
[SPEAKER_01]: Or
[SPEAKER_01]: do you start first with the emotional thread or that arc of the story and then fill in the other things around it?
[SPEAKER_00]: With a project like this, I feel like you have to approach an mechanically first because there are those boxes you have to take.
[SPEAKER_00]: These characters have been requested by both licensors to show up.
[SPEAKER_00]: and it needs to be within this audience range.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the tone and the language has to fit a certain degree.
[SPEAKER_00]: It has to be this number of issues.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you know you have that much of an arc to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: and once those parameters are set, then I can start coloring in within the lines.
[SPEAKER_00]: But people are coming to this and, you know, first for the novelty, but there's a reason why these characters have endured for so long.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a reason why there was so much hype before this crossover.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's where, as you said, you look at the personalities and the themes and see what measures, see what intermingles.
[SPEAKER_00]: When the project was first,
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, offered to me, and this is a shadow of Batman, it's like, oh, I know exactly where to go with this, because of their shared past trauma and the way that they push others away and the way that they interact or not interact with others.
[SPEAKER_00]: there's a number of parallels and how do they approach it differently?
[SPEAKER_00]: Go.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then from each individual care and how do each one of these characters sink up and where are they different?
[SPEAKER_00]: I wish we could spend more time with knuckles and Superman, you know, both the last people of the last survivors of their people.
[SPEAKER_00]: and we're Superman embraces the world and is open and hopeful.
[SPEAKER_00]: Knuckles is a little more reserved and distrustful, but still kind of naive from that lack of experience.
[SPEAKER_00]: And just so much with all these guys, I could go on forever.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was going to call out the shadow and Batman scene for the first series in particular because I think that absolutely nails which are talking about because you take the time to delve into the psychology of these two very different but actually very similar characters.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's the sort of thing that makes this kind of thing work when it works is we care about these characters.
[SPEAKER_01]: We love these characters.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sure, do we want to see them punch their opposite bad guys for their opposite world?
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you don't have those moments, this stuff falls completely flat.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it could work as like your turn off your brain, popcorn fodder, but I think folks want a little more than that.
[SPEAKER_00]: They respond to it better.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think one of the tricks to it is to keep in mind that as far as these characters are concerned in their own minds, this is all happening.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you step back and say, there's a billionaire dressed as a bat talking to a free-foot tall talking bio-engineered hedgehog man.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's ridiculous.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that's our point of view.
[SPEAKER_00]: From their point of view, Bruce has his history.
[SPEAKER_00]: Shadow has his and they're now in this crisis situation.
[SPEAKER_00]: How would they legitimately within their own minds and their own worlds interact?
[SPEAKER_00]: And if the characters treat each other with legitimacy, if you treat them with respect within the confines of their own world, I think that resonates with the reader.
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't have to desaterally take it seriously yourself.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a silly premise.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's be honest.
[SPEAKER_00]: But when you treat it with respect, it comes through with how the writing
[SPEAKER_00]: coalesces how the characters are represented and then again resonates with readers who are going okay there is something more to this than just the sinliness of it all.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, let's, uh, that's a great transition to talk about metal legion then and what the there there is, what the thing is you're hooking into there.
[SPEAKER_01]: We know, and I'll say, I've read the issue, thought it was fun.
[SPEAKER_01]: I, I had a blast reading it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I won't spoil any of the specifics, but we do know based on where we left off that we're going to have the Eggman and Luther teaming up in some capacity, something is going to bring these two worlds together.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, what do you feel comfortable saying about this new crossover?
[SPEAKER_00]: not a lot because there's I get there's a lot of new stuff coming in there's a lot of old stuff
[SPEAKER_00]: There was a sequence that I couldn't do in the first crossover that I got to kind of remix for the second.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I believe that's in the first issue, so hot negativity for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And again, it's returning to this world and having fun with it and trying to
[SPEAKER_00]: A tell a new story that is just as much fun as the last one, but doesn't necessarily need you to read the first one in case you missed out, in which case why go by the trade right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not too late.
[SPEAKER_00]: Read up.
[SPEAKER_00]: Be ready for the next one.
[SPEAKER_01]: Was there, and again, I don't know if this is a good necessarily spoiled anything, but like you said you dealt with all the big Justice League characters in a couple of hangar ons there in the first series I imagine some of that is a thrill, but is there any as the sonic writer who's coming into the DC world?
[SPEAKER_01]: Is there any character that you like?
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, man, I got to get them in there.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is my favorite I do regret that I couldn't get to Martian man hunter, okay
[SPEAKER_00]: he fascinates me as a character and there just wasn't anywhere where he would fit.
[SPEAKER_00]: There wasn't, there was no excuse to put him in there and if there's no excuse then don't diminish the character by just having him peered and a token thing, you know.
[SPEAKER_00]: And because the crossover is so much DC by Sonic, the goal for me initially was to find the parallels.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, if this is a very, there's so many great DC characters, there's so many great sonic characters.
[SPEAKER_00]: which ones are fan favorites and which ones would sync up.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a very particular pairing that gets a bit of a cameo part way through.
[SPEAKER_00]: That again, you could do a whole many series with just the two of the, any one of these.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is what's driving me crazy, man.
[SPEAKER_00]: We get two nice crossovers, it's great.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love the opportunity we could do this forever.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's so much fun, there's so much potential there.
[SPEAKER_01]: The, uh, I'll stop saying I don't know about you can say about it because you can say whatever you can say.
[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, the title is Better Legion which certainly suggests a couple of things that have not necessarily as far as I've seen been revealed by solicits.
[SPEAKER_01]: What could you say about that?
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, there is one variant cover out there that kind of spills the beans, but I'm not going to point it out specifically.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want folks to be looking at it going way.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'll just kind of smile and nod and go, uh, you'll see.
[SPEAKER_00]: You'll see.
[SPEAKER_01]: The first series also, as you've intimated, had a licensing tie-in.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think if I remember correctly, there were shoes that were put out, tying into the series, and a couple of other things that seems to be a surprise to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I knew it was gonna be big.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't know the full scope of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'd hurt like posters and school supplies and action figures, and it's like, this is gonna be big.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, I'm just gonna sit back and let you folks handle that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll write the comic because I know when I'm out of my depths, it's much, much bigger deal than I can even weigh in on.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you see it coming out?
[SPEAKER_00]: I've gone into the local game store and I'll see the crossover figures on the wall and it's like, I don't have the shelf space or the money for that right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is neat seeing that in the wild way.
[SPEAKER_01]: They should send it to you.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's my position as a podcaster.
[SPEAKER_01]: You will help create the stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: Get it over to your house, send it to you.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a little bit of a swear, but I'm sure you get this a lot, but the movie versions of the characters are a little different than the stuff you're dealing with.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you have any itch to write those versions as well?
[SPEAKER_00]: Not in the context of this crossover.
[SPEAKER_00]: That was one of the things, when we first started off, I asked what versions of the DC universe are reusing because there's so many different iterations and I said, there's these kind of evergreen universal interpretations used for this kind of scenario, go with that.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's fine.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's cool.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm kind of familiar with those.
[SPEAKER_00]: But in terms of interacting with any incarnation of the DC universe, sure, it's what I do.
[SPEAKER_00]: I write.
[SPEAKER_00]: I take fancival things and I do fancival stuff with it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So interpreting the movie versions or the new James Gun Direction was stuff, or should go back to the old Paul Dini animated universe, it's DC, you know, you can pretty much tap from any well and you're going to get
[SPEAKER_00]: Good stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: I actually bet the movie versions of the Sonic characters, but I like the answer there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just to repeat that question, would you ever want to buy it right the comic book version of the movie versions of the Sonic characters?
[SPEAKER_00]: Here is the thing with the movie version.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've been a fan for so long, and I've been so deep in the gears of doing what is standard mainline Sonic.
[SPEAKER_00]: that movie Sonic is new and fresh to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can enjoy it as a fan and not fan turned pro been doing this for 20 years.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, well, sure, I would love to be involved with the movie universe in some capacity.
[SPEAKER_00]: whatever they have on game, it's also a lot of fun to just enjoy it as a Sonic fan to see where they take things to see how they reinterpret old concepts and new ways and the new stuff that they introduce and it's fascinating from my very unique perspective to see how they do things.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you think if you were to head towards some sort of DC cross sonic crisis on infinite earth type situation maybe we could see the movie versions of them and the sea characters jam it all together throw out arms that would be fantastic I would imagine that would be some kind of rights nightmare once you get the studios involved but if somebody wants to navigate all that legal paperwork for me yes I would love to play with all the toy boxes
[SPEAKER_01]: I also feel like I'm summoning you, I'm trying to take you down a very dangerous room based on what you said earlier, I don't want to do too many things and I'm like, what about too many things?
[SPEAKER_01]: What do you think?
[SPEAKER_00]: I say that, but I don't do as I say nor I do as I do, so.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, like I said, I know we're being very cagey about what actually happens to the book, but I thought the first issue was an absolute blast or really great sequel, at least thus far to the first series.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is there, again, I'll just imagine for people who's coming out May 6th from DC Comics, is there anything else you want to tease or feel comfortable teasing for anybody?
[SPEAKER_01]: If they're looking to pick up the first issue of DC, cross side of the hedgehog metal
[SPEAKER_00]: If you went into the first one going, this was fun, but I really wish we at least got a cameo of somebody.
[SPEAKER_00]: From either franchise, give this a look.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a chance you'd just might catch somebody.
[SPEAKER_00]: Awesome.
[SPEAKER_01]: Can't wait Ian, thank you so much for coming back.
[SPEAKER_01]: Love the book, looking forward to what happens next.
[SPEAKER_01]: And thanks for everything.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, Brad.
[SPEAKER_01]: They sit on traffic, catches and they let us see the moon And he's a monkey, they're like fast, they're short, they're sleeping So grab your ring, hammer, don't be late for it, don't be late for it, don't be late for it