Posted in: Comics, san diego comic con | Tagged: avatar, Comics, entertainment, Harlem Hellfighters, max brooks, voltron

SDCC '15: Max Brooks Wants To Write Voltron

Published Fri, 10 Jul 2015 14:00:45 -0500

by Rich Johnston

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Max Brooks took to the stage at San Diego Comic Con to talk about his comics for Avatar, Extinction Agenda and Harlem Hellfighters.

It was a good opportunity to point out that one of the American black soldier troops sent to France during World War One so that the US wouldn't have to deal with them, and who got one of France's most prestigious medals within two days of arriving, was awarded a similar US honour – just two weeks ago.

Brooks talked about Harlem Hellfighters, graphic novel about black troops in World War One, as his passion project, an unmade screenplay-turned-graphic novel that Avatar Press' William Christensen supported, and Random House were bludgeoned into accepting, and that got optioned by Will Smith before publication.

He doesn't know how it will turn out, "I do know something about how a movie deviates from a book" but he hopes soon that everyone will know the name of the Harlem Hellfighters.

His other passion project however, William has been less supportive of.

Because Max Brooks would love to write Voltron.

Or not exactly Voltron, but Yurak, the robot army commander of King Zarkon. Who, despite having a thankless task fighting Voltron on a weekly basis, when King Zarkon's son Prince Lotor returned, Yurak was turned into a robot beast for his failure and Voltron cut him in half.

Brooks talked about Will Eisner's biography of Fagin and declared "I'm going to do that with Yurak", his grapple with power and rise through the army called "Who Weeps For Yurak".

And how he has been trying to get Avatar Press' publisher Willam Christensen to buy the rights who told him that was like "taking his money and setting him on fire." More recently he had a chance when he double teamed William with Avatar writer Kieron Gillen, until Garth Ennis asked what Voltron was, and when he found out said it was terrible and William shouldn't do it. So he didn't.

It will just have to wait.

But he also wouldn't mind tackling a Star Trek Klingon/Jem'Hadar story with the Klingons as Societ troops, being sent wave after wave to their deaths…

His fans, many of whom had joined him on the panel, hung on his every word.