Hey! It’s been a while. Nice to see you here. I’m Lucien, the writer for this comic, and I’m glad to be back with Jean and Osiris, diving into a world that means so much to me. Our first comic was Heroes without Borders, and while there was a ton we didn’t get a chance to do (yet), we learned quite a bit from that first venture.
Why Didn’t You Continue With Your Original Storyline?
Honestly, it was hyper-ambitious, especially for a comic that came out once a week, and in addition to what Jean mentioned about the financing and out-of-pocket costs of this, I wanted the opportunity to create a more personal story and I didn’t want to rush the original mystery.
Does that mean that the original plotline for Heroes without Borders is dead? No… far from it. Echoes of those events will play out here and perhaps in another form. But we are leaping forward in time by about five years.
So Where is Chain-Spider?
Around, as are other personalities from the original comic. Those who survived.
I know… ominous, but I have no plans to shelve those characters or kill those storylines. They’ll just happen at a certain point but they are in the background as part of the continuity. And this new series will very much be about a community of heroes.
Why Umber? Who is He?
So, Umber’s a hero in his fifties who finds himself lost in the rapidly changing realities of the modern superhuman society where heroes do tours of crime-fighting for a few years in order to brand themselves. Book tours, talk shows, product lines, endorsements, opening businesses, fame… that is the new dream for many heroes who want to join the ranks of their powered celebrity peers.
Umber’s on the verge of retiring from a community he no longer feels connected to, a forgotten relic until one last opportunity to do right changes his trajectory.
In a lot of ways, his fight is a parralel of my own depression and mental health struggles in regards to my age and my future, and how I was made to feel and allowed myself to feel inferior in previous working environments.
What makes you a hero in a world that caters to image over substance, where the new growing line is no longer between heroes and villains, but politics and opinions, science and belief? It’s about a hero who rediscovers his reason to fight, his core convictions.
No, this won’t be a comic only about politics or an extended OpEd. I still love superheroes, and there will be plenty of that. I remain a fan of Captain America’s speech, however, about the conviction to stand strong and say “no, you move.”
It’s about second acts and second origin stories.