Posted in: Comics, DC Comics, Image | Tagged: absolute, Absolute Green Arrow, Matthew Rosenberg, spawn, Word Balloon

Matthew Rosenberg Turned Down Absolute Green Arrow For Image Comics

Why Matthew Rosenberg turned down writing Absolute Green Arrow for Image Comics... and what would bring him back to DC

Matthew Rosenberg, has been talking about his decision to step away from regular work at Marvel and DC Comics in favour of greater creative freedom and a heavier focus on creator-owned projects, including turning down the Absolute Universe. In a wide-ranging Word Balloon podcast interview with John Siuntres, Rosenberg explained the shift in his career priorities. Particularly as he balances fatherhood with an increasingly busy slate that includes the new ongoing If Destruction Be Our Lot (with his brother Mark Elijah Rosenberg) and the high-profile Spawn assignment, both for Image Comics. "I needed control… I love working at Marvel and DC. I had a great time there, but at a certain point I just needed more control over my schedule and my life."

He was quick to praise the editors and experiences he had at both publishers, noting that the decision wasn't born out of frustration but out of a desire for balance.  "I'm really appreciative of Marvel and DC for letting me play with the toys and the time I had there. I still had a lot to say at DC. I still had a lot I wanted to do. I still do. I just hit a point where What's The First Place From Here, We're Taking Her Down With Us and the 4 Kids Walk Into A Bank movie were taking up a lot of time, and I couldn't give DC the time that the characters deserve, the company deserves, and the fans deserve."

"I was wrapping on DC Vs Vampires and I talked to my editors. They were asking me what I wanted to do next and what I was looking for. I pitched some ideas, and there was a lot of enthusiasm. They said get us some pitches, get us some documents. I went home and realised my heart wasn't going to be in it the right way these ideas deserved. I thought for a minute about taking the ideas, filing the serial numbers off, and making them Image books. But then I was like, no, these are born for these characters. These are born of these characters, and I want them to be these characters. I'm just going to put them in a drawer."

"So I just, kindly, said I need to step away. I want to come back. I hope you'll hold the door for me. Everyone was so kind and nice, and they said yeah. I was fully into my plan of two years of just making creator-owned stuff, making my own books, and then Todd called. When Todd calls, you answer. So yeah, I'm not done at DC certainly… I have things that I want to do that I think they want me to do. I love the line but they're not hurting for talent. They have the best bench in comics by miles."

Not writing for the Absolute Universe

And then there was Scott Snyder and the Absolute Universe. "I talked to Scott before any of it started. Scott called me and ran me through everything. Scott's always been incredibly kind and supportive to me since I started. I was in his writing class at Warner Brothers at DC when he started that. I was in the first class. Not only has Scott helped me out throughout my career, but I also learned a staggering amount about how to make good comics and good superhero comics from Scott."

"He reached out when he was starting Absolute and said how can I get you involved in this? What would you like to do? I was at the point where I was a little burnt out, and I think I had to go my own way. He walked me through all of Absolute Batman and what he thought it should be. I said to him at the time, some of this is some of the coolest stuff I've ever heard, and some of this… I don't think works."

"I've never been happier to be wrong in my life. He reached out to me, and I was like, Green Arrow is something I would think about. I started putting together an idea, but it never went any further. He was looking for other folks, and I just never really followed up on it. What's funny is that Pornsak Pichetshote is doing Absolute Green Arrow. We went to dinner in LA, he walked me through it, and I was like "oh wow." He was like "what?" I said, well, I had a Green Arrow Absolute pitch. He was like, "Well, what is it?" I went through mine, and he was like, "Wow, that's great." I said, " Yeah, it's very similar to yours, but yours is just much better. We came from the same place on it. We had the same starting point, sort of, and then he just crushes it. But yeah, no, it never went further than that…

The WildC.A.T.S exception

But he would come back to DC right away for Wildstorm. "I have mentioned from time to time to DC people that I'm going to step away, but if there's talk about WildC.A.T.S. stuff or Grifter or Zealot or any of them, I hope you'd at least shoot me a message and ask if I wanted to throw my hat in the ring. I would drop everything to come back for WildC.A.T.S. stuff. I love WildC.A.T.S. so much."

"We have a follow-up book planned called In Good Hands with Bad Company," Rosenberg said. "It's going to bring back a lot of the characters — even the dead ones. We're not done with this world yet." The original We're Taking Everyone Down with Us followed a ragtag group of misfits, criminals, and anti-heroes in a high-stakes, darkly comedic story of betrayal, violence, and questionable choices. The final issue left readers with a massive twist in the fashion of "listen lads, I've got an idea", and the clear promise of more to come…. and now it's coming.

As well as If Destruction Be Our Lot #1, launching in May, that follows an animatronic Abraham Lincoln wandering a post-human Earth where robots have inherited the planet and seem perfectly content without their former masters, Co-written with Mark Elijah Rosenberg and drawn by Andy MacDonald, "This is a story I've wanted to tell for a long time. But working on it for the last few years, it has really become something so much bigger, funnier, sadder, weirder, and more hopeful than I ever could have dreamt. It's action. It's comedy. It's heartbreak. It's a sci-fi journey unlike anything else on the shelf… about finding purpose, holding onto hope, and really lonely robots…. Even if it's only with a talking toaster." Glad to see I'm not the only one who remembers my Red Dwarf…

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