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John Rozum Speaks Out Over Creative And Editorial Differences On Static Shock

Published Fri, 20 Jan 2012 15:38:51 -0600

Last updated Sun, 22 Jan 2012 03:05:01 -0600

John Rozum wrote the first four issues of Static Stock in the DC New 52 relaunch, a replacement for the previously announced Felicia Henderson, before walking off the book after four issues. At the time he wrote "I've been very happy overall with my time at DC over the roughly 15 years that I've worked for them, and I plan to continue working with them into the future. The feeling is mutual."

The "overall" seemed rather prominent. The book's artist Scott McDaniel is credited for writing the subsequent two issues before Marc Bernadin was lined up for the final two comics in the series.

Today, in the comments on a piece by Danny Donovan lamenting the cancellation of Static Shock, John Rozum wrote;

Static definitely had the best potential of all DC Superheroes of Color… and should have treated like an A-list character, with a huge push.

But, of course, I'm not in the least bit surprised that this is how it turned out.

xxxx

I went into Static Shock with a lot of high hopes. Among them was showing that Static wasn't simply an A-list character, but one of the most powerful in the DCnU. I really wanted this series to be fun and exciting and to bring the same degree of creativity to it that I put into Xombi balanced with making Virgil's personal life at least as engaging as his superhero life. I also saw Static Shock as an excellent gateway through which to pull the rest of the Milestone characters into the DCnU.

I quickly learned that none of these plans were going to see fruition. I wound up being shunted to the sidelines as the writer while Scott McDaniel's "high concept" criminal syndicate made up of Power Rangers and a big monosyllabic thug took center stage and Harvey [Richards, editor]'s ideas of the 2 Sharon's and slicing off Static's arm were implemented as desperate means of trying to draw attention to the book.

I tried my best to keep it from being a total turd, but as I said, I was completely sidelined. My main contributions were the Pale Man character, Guillotina, naming the school after Dwayne McDuffie, and including Hardware, along with random lines of dialogue. I decided it was unethical to stick with a title that a) I thought was garbage b) that people were buying because of my involvement, due to Xombi, when really I had nothing to do with it c) because I wasn't being utilized on the title.

Frankly, Static deserved a lot better.

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