The DC All In publishing initiative is set to take the comic industry by storm starting in October. Based on pre-orders, fan interaction on social media and the buzz around the new Absolute Universe DC is launching, it is safe to say that the level of excitement is high regarding DC. It all kicks off October 2nd in the DC All In Special.

This flipbook relates the events that unfold 52 days after the end of the Absolute Power event. Revolving around the New God Darkseid and his role in the larger DCU, what happens in this book will have long-lasting ramifications for the entire DC multiverse going forward. For such a momentous story, DC invited several journalists to talk to co-writers, Scott Snyder and Joshua Williamson, as well as the two artists on the book, Wes Craig and Daniel Sampere. The interviews were spread over two sessions with Williamson and Sampere joing us for part two.

Check out what Josh and Danny had to say about the DC All In Special specifically and what it means for the DCU going forward.

Josh, Can you give us your thoughts in working on this story and how it helps to connect the dots between what DC will be doing in October and beyond.

Joshua Williamson – I’m just excited to get it out there to be honest with you, we spent so much time working on this and we talked about it for so long. Scott and I will be talking about this, It’s funny, [we’ll say] “Oh, we started talking about this in in 2021” and then we started doing the math and [said], “No, no, it was 2020.” Then I [said], “Nah, man, it was 2019 because we were in the middle of Death Metal when we started talking about this.” And at the time, it was, oh, when is this going to be possible? Obviously, a lot of things changed in DC over that time period. But literally the stuff that we’re doing now is stuff we started talking about. That’s why when you read the All In Special it references Death Metal because that was really something we were talking about. This exact story we want to tell and how we wanted to make it this massive story across all of the DCU and try to build something new while honoring the past. So, at this point, I’m just really pumped to actually get it out into the world.

It’s super surreal to me to look at it. Even some of the stuff, obviously the spoilers when it comes to the last pages of both stories, the first time I ever talked to DC about that particular element was back in 2016. It was during the Rebirth days. So some of these things we’ve been talking this whole time. So, I’m just really excited to finally get it out there and we got to do it with Danny and Wes and I think that’s what I’m most excited about.

Danny, you know this was being since this was being discussed so long ago, maybe you can share with the writers, you know, how you got involved in this and you know what your thoughts were.

Daniel Sampere – OK, yeah. Well, it was funny because I knew from my manager that this special issue was being cooked and prepared and I knew just a little bit about it, but it sounded super big and with everyone involved and every character at DC and I was on Wonder Woman, just chilling a little bit in my own corner and I [thought] Ohh! This is gonna be hard for whoever needs to draw this. I pity the guy. You know? I didn’t know at the time that it’s it was going to be me.

And then I received the e-mail from the boss asking if I wanted to be involved on this and I said, yeah, I want to. You already know me. I cannot say no to this kind of stuff because I love it. So learning more from it at the beginning, I didn’t understand a thing about the flip book because I never heard of something like that or how it works and everything sounds so exciting. I was so in from the beginning.

Josh Williamson – Yeah, it was funny, finding artist. This was so challenging; we spent a lot of time trying to figure out who was gonna draw this. And we knew we wanted A list talent, right? We also want people that understood the DCU and obviously I worked with Danny on Dark Crisis and Danny really knows the DCU. He really knows his characters. He knows all the events, right? Working on Dark Crisis with me, all the research that Danny was doing as we were going into Dark Crisis,  I feel like Danny’s our resident event expert for artists, because he really knows all of it because of all the research he did going in the Dark Crisis. So I remember we were going back and forth, and they started saying oh Wes is going to draw the Darkseid part, and I [thought]  Oh my God, that’s gonna be such a unique look and then I got defensive because I was like, oh, we gotta get somebody real good for the Superman side.

I remember when DC called and they [said], what do you think about Danny? And my first impulse was, well, he’s drawing Wonder Woman. And I know Danny, and I was [thinking], Danny is taking his weekends on the beach … I remember when we were doing Dark Crisis, I always tell this story, we’re doing Dark Crisis and there’s this two page spread toward the ending where it was 51 characters on one 2-page spread and I said, can we just add the atom in here somewhere and make it 52? Like put them on somebody’s shoulder. And so when Danny left our crisis I remember the first pages of Wonder Woman I saw were literally Wonder Woman by herself in the snow and I thought, this is gonna be the easiest book for Danny in comparison because I was always throwing so many characters at him, so there was a part of me that when they said Danny, I was said, yes, this is perfect. He gets it. This is going to be amazing and in the back of my head, I thought, oh, my God. Danny’s gonna be so mad at me because I’m writing it as they’re saying Danny’s going to do it and I thought, Oh man, this page, there’s so many characters.

And it was funny, I remember at one point Danny and I were talking and it was interesting once I knew it was Danny, whenever you work with an artist, you don’t really want to write the script if you don’t know who’s drawing it. So when I knew it was, Danny I had to rethink stuff to really fit with Danny, but also I know where Danny’s gonna level stuff up that we’re writing and really go for the bigger emotional. epic beats. But yeah, I’m really glad we got Danny to do it.

Josh, you’ve used Darkseid a lot in stories like Justice League Odyssey and Dark Crisis. Can you give your thoughts on him as a character overall and how you see him being elevated in this story? Also, what went into the changes for his power set, specifically his Omega Beams?

Josh Williamson – I always think Darkseid is the big bad of the DCU right? Like he is THE villain right? To me he is it. He is the pinnacle of villains for the DC, he is THE big bad for all of it. There is no one character with Superman and the Justice League and the Fourth World characters, I think the closest you could really get to the main confrontation I would always want to see would be Orion and Scott Free versus Darkseid, I think that’s the most emotional story with him to be told, but that’s it though. I think Darkseid is a very fascinating character because the more you learn about him and the more you read about him, you think of him as pure evil. He’s pure darkness. And, yes, but there is a character there. There’s so much more to that. When you really look at his history about the stuff with his wife who was murdered by his mother and the fact that Kalibak is his son and he really embraces him, which is why it was funny when Scott and I put this special together.

The way we did it was that Scott and I would talk a bunch about it. I wrote the outline for both sides of it and then Scott started on the Darkseid side. I started on the Superman side and we would just trade scripts until we were done, basically. It was handing it back and forth to each other until we were done with it. And I remember talking to Scott about Darkseid a lot in this process. And having these conversations about how people just see him as this giant force of nature. But, no, there’s so much more to him. So much more depth. And I think it’s this person whose has been searching for … it was interesting this is a person who’s obsessed with control. Because the one time he lost control, it cost him his wife. So he’s obsessed with control, right?

And then we started talking and I just feel like after everything he’s been through, everything I put him through with Justice League Incarnate and with Infinite Frontier and Dark Crisis Scott said, I think he’s a person searching for something. He is searching for something more than himself at this point, right? Like that’s really what this all about and so when we started talking about that and it was like, oh, and that’s why this stuff, you know, it was funny talking to Scott about Darkseid and the value of Kalibak [to him] and that’s why what happens with Kalibak at the beginning, cause we really wanted to show, this is his favorite son, this is the one that he really embraces. So for him to do what he does at the beginning, that has so much more meaning to it.

And then when you get to the part where Zauriel says, hey, listen, we’ll give you what you want. We’ll give you your wife back if you stop this search. And for him to reject it that, that to me, is the point of no return for Darkseid to be like. No, I’m rejecting that. I’m going to keep going for this thing and then we started talking, Scott and I like to really look at stuff. How do you amp it up? What’s the stuff that, when you see it on the page, you just go, Oh my God, that’s crazy. I never thought about that before and we started talking about the Spectre. Yeah, it was just like, oh the Spectre? What if that’s what Darkseid needs? He needs the Spectre, and he basically merges with the Spectre and you get to have him be the host of the Spectre, even just for a little bit. We were like, dude, I’ve never seen that before. Like, let’s go for that there.

And I’ve always been obsessed with Darkseid’s feuds since the 80s with Eclipso I have always wanted to see Darkseid versus Eclipso and so when we were developing that side of the story we[said] where would the Spectre hide and I said, oh dude get this, the Spectre replaced Eclipso because Eclipso was the original spirit of vengeance, so this would actually make a lot of sense for Eclipso to be holding them. So it was just it was a lot of conversations of like, what haven’t we seen before and that’s where the power stuff came in as history stuff came in. And so, you know, I find Darkseid to be such a fascinating character. And I’m glad that we’re doing so much with him right now in this story. And we’ve been building to this because, again, the seeds of this you can see as far back as Death Metal. You can see some of the stuff that was building with him to get to this moment. And then for him to be responsible for the creation of the Absolute Universe. And that’s obviously a bigger piece. And there’s a lot of interesting stuff coming with him.

Danny, how about you? Any anything to add to this?

Danny Sampere – Well, for me, Darkseid’s my favorite villain of the DC Universe too. I think every, time he shows up, it’s super hype. It’s a comic book I want to read when he’s involved. And I think it’s just super cool and everything just said, I agree. And then in a vision of art, it’s awesome to draw him too. It’s a super cool character in terms of design and presence and its super fun to draw. So, yeah, when i knww he was going to be the main villain of the of the special book I was super happy about it.

Josh, can you talk about having Booster Gold as the story’s point of view character?

Josh Williamson – You know, it’s funny, Scott and I, when we first started working on this. We were [thinking], oh, it’s going to be a Superman story and this is Darkseid’s story. And I said, oh, it’s easy cause I write Superman, we can use it to tease things that are coming in, Superman, I can establish a couple of things. We [thought], oh, it’s the reintroduction of the Justice League and Scott and I, when we talked about dividing up who was going to do what, Scott was really focused in on the Darkseid energies and the Superman energies. And I [said], I love when these events, when these types of stories also show a point of view of a DC character you wouldn’t expect, I think one of the best examples of this is Blue Beetle and Countdown to Infinite Crisis, going into that story and it was his point of view, I felt like when the conversation we were having, I was like ohh, you know, a character that would be really interesting with this, because as we start getting into the story and talking about what that world was like and talking about how the Absolute world was going to be so different from the core line DCU and literally getting into like logistics, like the cosmology of it, and being thinking, oh time there is very different because time is completed, it is completed world where you could look at it and see the beginning and the end. You can see all of it. You can see the totality of it, of that entire world’s history. If you had somebody who could go there, we were making all these rules and literally it was like, I think that scene with Superman and Terrific, where they’re talking was part of us talking and then thinking, oh, a time traveler could go there, though.

And then it was, which time traveler makes the most sense? And it was, ohh Booster. And we were actually talking about it so much when we were actually at the Superman set and we’re having breakfast. We started talking about Booster and we thought, you know, what if we use Booster for this, and I love Booster Gold, I think he’s such an interesting character, and I think also he’s a character, you know that Dan Jurgens feels the same way about this, that sometimes people write him off as if he’s a joke, and I [think] he’s not a joke though, he’s a person who generally wants to be a hero at this point. There was a version of him when he first started out that thought, oh, I’m gonna go make money, this is about money. But I think at this point, we’ve shown that he’s grown past that. He is a member of the Justice League. He is somebody who really wants to do good and he doesn’t bumble into things anymore. He is making a choice, that was something for us. It was a big thing, when they make the decision for Booster to go to that world, it wasn’t like Booster rushed in and jumped in and ignored orders. He makes the choice; he makes the sacrifice. He really says, I’m gonna be the one to do this and this is my moment. And then I started all these other conversations about Booster and having him say at the beginning, I feel lost. I don’t feel like I belong here. I feel like it’s my time to go home. It’s my responsibility to go back to the future and then to have that taken from him and then have this moment of, Ohh. No. You know what? This is it right here. This is what I’m here for. I’m here to help save the day through this. And we get to tell a little bit of that. And then Booster, this is a spoiler obviously, so he will be gone for a while because of this. And so, there’s a bigger piece to the story of Booster and I think people will really be surprised if and when booster returns.

Danny, you get to draw all of the DC universe here. What were some of the highlights for you knowing that you are a big fan of Green Lantern?

Danny Sampere – Yeah. Well, actually the highlight for me is usually drawing Superman. Green Lantern as well, but it’s a weird feeling when you draw Superman, it’s always special because he’s for me  the most iconic superhero that exists in my vision. So when you draw Superman, sometimes it’s when you realize that you are actually drawing Superman for a living, you know and it’s like, I’m doing this, it’s a special feeling for me because I dreamt about this since I was a kid. I remember talking with my grandpa about it, look at this, there’s people making a living drawing Superman and he [said], you could try too. And when I do, I feel really great. It’s a special feeling for me. And then besides Superman also drawing the Justice League, for me, it’s very special too, drawing Wonder Woman again, Batman. Green Lantern. It’s such an honor for me as because I’m a huge DC fan. And everyone knows that I think. And yeah, it was awesome. And it was Darkseid too. It was like all the main toys were here to play [with] in this special issue. So, it was awesome for me.

This book establishes the biggest Justice League ever with all of these heroes coming together. Keeping in mind that Justice League Unlimited is by Mark Wade and Dan Mora, how will that change the league going forward and why was now the right time to bring the league back in force?

Josh Williamson – We always knew that this was going to be the time. That they were going to die during Death of Justice League and we were going to do Dark Crisis and then we had this timetable of when we wanted to bring them back, we wanted to make sure we brought them back during a really big event and we started building out post Dark Crisis, we started building out the plan for the last two years. We were having these meetings and talking about where it would fall and it was like, OK, where’s Justice League gonna fall. And it was a debate. We kept going back and forth and talking with editors. And I think it was finally decided at New York Comic Con last year, it was funny because Waid wasn’t even there and we started talking about, oh yeah, this is how it’s gonna work, Absolute Power will do this and Justice League will come out of it, and then we’ll do this. It’s basically what we’re doing now. And I remember Paul Kaminski saying, I have to text Mark Waid and ask him if he wants to write. Justice League, [chuckles] because we were just talking about it.

We all love Mark and we all love what he’s been doing on World’s Finest.  And I feel if you’re gonna get somebody who really knows the DCU really well with that many characters right, and that’s the thing with this book, particularly with that many characters, you need somebody who knows those characters. And so, we started talking about Mark Waid. That was part of it, too, is that we’ve all sort of had this conversation for a long time about wanting this version of the Justice League, wanting it to be everybody. And if you go back and look at Scott’s Justice League, that came out in 2018 after Metal and after No Justice, we started having a bit of that there.

When you read that book when it was first published, you see that it was a bit of, who-do-we-need -for-this-mission sort of book, but to really embrace that and say, it’s everybody. I think that was the thing, talking about what led to them disbanding and saying, essentially, we need a break. We need to rethink this and then on the other side of this going, OK the way they do this is just involve everybody. We’ve been very separated, and that was part of what we were trying to do on a meta level, was have the characters a little separate, have Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman not around each other all the time. Have these characters a little off in their own worlds and say, well, this is why Amanda Waller was able to do what she did because you were separate.

So for them to have the conclusion be like, no, no … and that’s part of the meta story if you go and look at DC the last two years, especially the last year, these things are happening because they’re not talking to each other, they are separate. So to have the other side of that saying , well, now we’re getting everybody back together, it just made sense thematically. So then it was OK, obviously we know Dan Mora was coming on to the book. So Dan Mora will draw all these characters.

So it was just the right timing. And again we had had these conversations for so long, then it’s funny, you start establishing what you want to do, and then it really is just looking at them from a publishing perspective of, where do these things actually fall? What makes the most sense? And then it was, OK, two years ago, we started talking about the phrase All In and again, it was a meeting in New York. We started talking about the phrase All In. And so, OK, we’re doing All In and A Justice League book, that means that we’re all in, right. Everybody has to be there. It’s all the characters. So, it was just a matter of timing at that point. Just figuring out what was the best place, and this is the place to do it.

Danny. Anything that you think that you can add here?

Danny Sampere – Well, not much because I’m not being involved on Justice League Unlimited, but I can say, from a fan point of view, that I think it’s awesome what they are preparing and it looks really, really exciting for me as a fan too. And I’m looking forward to seeing what they are doing because I’m super excited and I think that bringing every hero in with this unlimited kind of Justice League, I think it opens unlimited possibilities for stories and it’s going to be really, really cool.

Danny, you’ve come back to an event book, though only for half an issue. Does your workflow and process change at all compared to something like Wonder Woman, especially as it pertains to impactful moments for a book that will have long time consequences.

Danny Sampere – Yeah, the mindset it’s really different because it’s another completely different kind of book. On Wonder Woman, my mindset is always, the story comes first, in a very heavy level. If I have no chance in a full issue of doing a spectacular drawing, I’ll be fine with it as long as I can tell the story properly. On another kind of book like this, event level books, it’s very important to make things spectacular and visually cool looking, because it is also what it’s about. So I need to find the balance between always telling the story because it’s the main thing, but trying to  find my way to make it look great, to make it look powerful and big so that the mindset when you you’re preparing the pages it’s very different. And of course you don’t have so much time for thinking and planning pages because in Wonder Woman, I just usually draw Wonder Woman and here it’s everyone, every character. It’s a lot more stressful, but it’s very fun too, because. from an artist point of view you can, for example, make these huge drawings of Superman flying and this iconic stuff. So, it’s very, very fun, but the approach is very different between the two. My mindset was more like when I worked on Dark Crisis, I had my training on this level. Huge cosmic books. So. So I get back to those days, but I’m learning a lot of storytelling and some kind of stuff on Wonder Woman. I’m developing new skills because it’s another kind of comic book. So, I try to put something of what I’ve learned on Wonder Woman in this kind of book, mixed with what I learned during Dark Crisis. So I think it’s a better version of me that when I was on Dark Crisis.

With the Justice League Unlimited bringing in the potential for a story starring any hero. Is there someone that you would love to bring back to write or draw that this initiative opens up?

Josh Williamson – I don’t know if I should answer that cause I feel like the characters that I would want to write would be too much of a spoiler for stuff that’s coming up. I mean, I’ve written almost all the characters I wanna write. There’s certain things that are coming up that are like teases. There’s things that are in the Green Arrow annual that will tease some stuff and there’s stuff that obviously is in this, there’s things that are happening in Superman. I feel like the characters that I I’m thinking about wanting to write in the future I’m already teasing. So, I don’t know if I want to completely answer that. [chuckles] And then it’s funny, there’s characters that haven’t been seen in a very, very long time, and I’m like, how am I going to find a place for them and all of this, it is always fun to find that math out. But I think with what Mark is doing in Justice League, I’m very excited. The fact that he’s just gonna be able to do all these assortments because to me, it’s not always about, and this is one of the powerful things about DC, it’s not just about wanting to write this one character, it’s wanting to write this character plus this character and how they interact with each other, right? Like even what I just did with Absolute Power. It was doing a three issue story where it’s Superman and Zatanna together, right? I think that’s some of the best parts of DC is when you get to have these characters together that you don’t normally get to see together. Team ups, I loved team ups even as a kid. It was one of my favorite kinds of comics and so I think with Mark the stuff he’s doing in Justice League, the assortments he’s doing, if you look at some of the covers you see some of these team ups he’s going to be doing that. Stuff that’s really exciting to me. I’m pumped to see some different assortments coming down the line.

Danny, how about you?

Danny Sampere – Well, I think Dan Mora should probably answer this question because he’s gonna be the artist, but from an outside perspective, I would love to see Aquaman family getting prominent roles in the new Justice League because I have good feelings for the Aquaman family since my days on Future State and I would like to see more of them.

Danny, could you talk us through the look of the new Justice League watchtower and  how it was drawing that for the special? Also, how was it bringing in all these characters together for that great spread when they’re all united?

Danny Sampere – Well, the new station for the Justice League, I just can say that it’s amazing, Dan Mora is the designer and I think it’s very cool to have such a big space with all the rooms, with every room with their own utility. I think it’s very cool concept. It was fun to draw it in the special, and then that spread, I was looking forward to that when I when I took the job, I knew that was coming at some point in the script. When I read that I thought, yeah, this is what I was waiting for. So, I was ready for it and I always have such a great moment drawing all my favorite characters together. Also I think it’s great to be part of this because it’s just pretty similar in shape and form to our first big spread in Dark Crisis in the 1st issue when they are, how do you say … mourning the Justice League with the candles. It’s very similar. It has the same layout and every hero was there too, but they were super sad because the Justice League was dead. So I had the chance to draw this other spread with the same layout format, but now everyone is together celebrating the reunion and getting altogether again, so it was, for me, like completing a thing you know. We start separating them and now we just get them back all together again. So, it was like a great feeling, like something completed.

Josh Williamson – Yeah those reasons are why I felt I had to do this issue but also I was really glad you were doing it because that’s what I saw this as. I saw it as the book end from Dark Crisis and now. I think that was really where I was going because it was, ohh the Justice League is gone. It’s this moment of darkness and then to have this special be, We’re all back together it’s a happy moment with everyone together, I just felt like that was the book ends of the story we’ve been telling for the last 3 or 4 years.

Danny Sampere – I can’t wait to post on social both spreads and say, how we started, how it’s going, you know. [laughs]

Josh, how was it creating this issue to be a jumping on point for readers who might not have necessarily read Absolute Powers, Knight Terrors, etcetera, while enriching the read for those who have been following those events?

Josh Williamson – I always try to make sure my work is accessible. I feel like clarity of story and clarity of intent, this is the story I want to tell you, because ultimately what we’re trying to do, we’re trying to tell you a story. And so I’m always sort of mindful of that. I’m not even sure if this is an old school opinion, but there’s that saying of, every comic in somebody’s first and I think back to the time where there were less jumping on points and you were picking up books and it was like issue 347 or something and you were able to dive into it and then be engaged enough to not ignore the past. You just make that pass interesting because it makes you be like, oh, I want to go back and read that whole issue with Superman, that old issue of Batman. I want to go read the old issue of these things because they say oh, remember when this happened and you’re like, oh, I wanna see that and so I’m always mindful of that, of making it as accessible as possible. So it’s not bogging you down and it is a conscious choice.

When I wrote Green Arrow number one, I understood. Green Arrow number one was gonna be a bit more for the green Arrow fan, but I still made it so it was accessible. I try to think what you do is you. You have to find a place to tell a relatable story at the end of the day, like, that’s you gotta do and you can tell all this crazy continuity, all this stuff around it. If you take a character and make them almost like the weirdest point of view and then throw that character into the mix of it, and then you’re also throwing the reader into the mix of it. So even with this special, you always gotta find some kind of point of view on these stories. And so this one, that’s why Booster was, obviously, Superman is a major part of that too, but it was Booster. having what you could feel is a relatable emotional story in this, that’s the way to go to make it accessible.

I always try to make sure that people can come in and read this if you haven’t been reading for years. I think this is one of the things that Geoff Johns did really, really well, especially on JSA, was if you were reading Geoff’s JSA 20 years ago, which is crazy, that was 20 years ago, but if you’re reading 20 years ago, it heavily was referencing stuff from the past, but still was able to move things forward. It took those things and embraced them and then moved forward with them and versus trying to shed them, I almost think, by trying to shed them you actually make it more complicated, So, just move forward and that’s what we do and I’ve done enough of these now at this point, enough of these jumping on points, enough of these events and these one shots, I feel like, OK, we know what we have to do at this point and then it’s about you as a creator saying, how do I do this differently? What do we do new with this and that is where the flip book came in. It was like, OK, let’s do something super different with this. Super unexpected. Something I haven’t seen before at this level and then play around with that format a little bit.

Could you talk through the process of putting together this flip book and how closely did you work with Scott and Wes and what unique challenges did it present for you as both writer and artist?

Josh Williamson – I mean it was a lot of conversations over the last year about it being a flip book and how to utilize it. I remember [thinking] OK, we’re doing this, that means the ending has to work on both sides, and then it was a whole conversation about how to do that, and it was a lot of whiteboards. So I took the issue, every conversation I would have with anybody. I would talk to Danny or I would talk to Wes or I would talk to Scott, I would talk to editorial, I had this whiteboard in my office, I took it down because we’re done now, but I had this whiteboard that literally was like pages one through 27. And then on both sides, I wrote what was happening on both sides to try to see where we could align things and where we could do thematically similar things. We knew this was a story about Superman at the beginning being confident and being like, cool, we’re all in this together, I know what we’re doing and having some doubt at the ending. At the beginning having Darkseid have some doubt and questioning things at the ending being confident in his decisions and getting what he wanted. So it really was just a lot of mapping things out. so every conversation, when Scott were trading scripts back and forth, which is why we’re both credited on both sides, and so when we were having those conversations, I would just get on the phone and we would talk it through and then I’d [say], OK, we’re making this change and if you’re making a change on one side that meant we had to make a change on the other side. So it really was a lot of conversations and then when Wes started drawing we started looking at what we were going to do. I started thinking more about if part of the story is about stories, it’s like Darkseid is literally breaking through the page, so starting to design that.

With the last page that Dan Moore did, the two page spread I actually did a layout of that, because the flip book thing it was funny a lot of people don’t know what a flip book is. So, it was me having to sit there and I drew a rough, a very, very stick figure rough for Danny to show this is how we do the two page right the ending. Because it had to be read upside down, right? You had to be able to read it both ways, so that was the whole puzzle. And then with Danny, I would show Danny stuff that Dan had done, Danny would ask some questions, and I would send him stuff. One time Danny, I want to Zoom together, and I basically was like, no, no, no, I have no idea how I’m going to explain this. So let me just try to like to draw it basically to show to Danny.

It was funny, Danny and I were doing an interview at San Diego Comic Con and we’re sitting next to each other. We were talking about stuff and as we were talking about it, I started realizing how much of a unique experience it was going to be to read this as a flip book and then I started realizing I gotta make some changes because Danny was talking about drawing it and stuff. I remember sitting there with Danny and looking at Danny thinking, I have to change a couple of things, good reasons, like good things. I thought, oh, we can do this part upside down.

Then when we got back, I showed some of the stuff to Danny, but it was a really interesting process working with everybody and talking to everybody and emailing with Wes and just talking to Scott on the phone and just trading scripts back and forth for months just thinking how do we make this work? And then saying, no, no, no. If this happens on this page, that means it has to happen on the other side. You’ve got to have these similar thematic things that really makes it, I think, a really unique experience to read the special as a flip book.

Danny, how about you? How did you know this particular format and process impact, how you had to work with Wes Craig on the absolute portion of the story?

Danny Sampere – Yeah, it was pretty different than usual. For example, on Wonder Woman I’m on my own. I do my stuff. I make all the decisions, but in in this case you need to adapt because everything needs to be matched. So, for example, I had to wait on some pages from Wes to wait for him to design, for example, Darkseid’s axe-hand or stuff like that, or the machine that appears. I needed his pages to see what he was doing to match it on my on my drawings, for example. So, I was receiving the pages usually to see his process. I never had to do this, but I actually, I don’t know if I can say that, but I had to use one of his drawings in one of my pages in a very original and specific way. So it was very interesting and for Josh, I just had to send him like a lot of emails with a lot of questions because the concepts are so cosmic and so strange sometimes and I really want to do the things properly, you know. For example, this character opens a portal and I need to ask, Yeah, OK, OK. But how does he do that, can you give me a little bit more info? I usually have a lot of questions on this kind of cosmic stuff because it’s super weird and I just wanna do it well. So thankfully, Josh is super collaborative and helpful with all this stuff. So, when we work together on projects like this, we’re really close. We really work close together to match everything because they’re hard concepts to draw sometimes.

Danny, at what point did you see Wes’s art for the issue and how do you think his contrasts with your half of the book.

Danny Sampere – I think, when I started, he was already pretty advanced. I saw his first pages to get an idea of his concepts about the machines that are with Darkseid and the axehand. So I [thought], oh, this is very cool and I was surprised a little bit because I know a little bit of his style and it’s so different than mine. So, I thought it was a very cool match of both art styles. Mine is super mainstream and he has a little bit more indie touch on it, it’s super cool. I thought it was a great. I think bringing Wes was a great decision and it looks really different than my art and I think this adds more interesting parts to the book, when you flip it, you really change everything. Even the art styles that are super different. I think it’s a smart decision because with another, more similar mainstream artist like me, maybe the result will not be so, so different when you flip the book. You really need a hard change of style and I think it’s a great choice.

And to draft off of that it, it seems like the way the books turned out, West’s artwork kind of underscores thematically, the chaos that will be part of the absolute universe would be fair to say that your art style kind of represents the hopefulness of the core universe.

Danny Sampere – Yeah, I think so because I think my art style fits. The decisions were made correctly because my art fits more in drawings like Superman flying, with the sun on the face. I know I I have an art style that it’s like DC school. I don’t know how to say it, but my art reflects that and I think it’s a little bit of the  main, this is cool art, a little bit, if I can say so, I think it was the right choice for me to do this part of the story with Superman and the main Justice League heroes on a more bright side and optimistic, I think it’s where I can draw my best. This kind of weird concepts of sci-fi and this stuff that was drawn on his part. I’m not good at that. So it was the best decision to bring him for that.

Josh, In the previous round table Scott talked about the creative freedom at DC that’s being engendered currently. Do you have any comment on that?

Josh Williamson – Yeah, especially with the Absolute Universe, Scott really went in there with the [idea], why don’t we look at everything, right? Let’s try to see where we can cut loose, as he always likes to say, take big swings. But it was like, what are those things? If you have an opportunity to do something nutty, what is it? And just have those conversations. A lot of us creators talking and then having a lot of conversations with editorial and just having fun with that and saying, what is something you can do that you may not normally get to do? On the Absolute side, Scott was really able to push for Kelly and Jason and the others to really go for it in those spaces because it was such raw material. On the core side because it’s such a bigger tapestry, it’s like a universe, right? It is established with all these pieces, it was a lot more conversations about how we can make that work, but it’s been really interesting. I’ve been really lucky in my time at DC, where especially the last few years, where for the most part, I wanted to do the stuff I wanted to do and have been given the freedom to do what I want to do. So, I’m glad that other creators are able to kind of dive in with that too right now.

This is one of the biggest and most ambitious initiatives for DC in years. What can you tease about the current and future state of this duo-verse for lack of a better term?

Josh Williamson – We have a big plan. that’s the most I can say. We have a really big plan. We’ve been talking about this and like I said, we, obviously, are always talking about the future and we’re always talking about OK what can we throw out on the field, what can we put on the table that’s crazy and let people pick up and run with. That’s what this does, it puts a lot of stuff and a lot of concepts on the table. Things that get picked up in Justice League, things will get picked up in Superman, things will get picked up across the line. So, without getting too much into spoilers, there’s just a really major plan, the stuff that’s going on when you read the special, the last two page spread is obviously a major tease to the Absolute versions of those characters and what that means and why Darkseid has always wanted that particular thing. That’s all stuff that we’ll explore over at least two years. We’ve really talked out like, OK, well, this leads to this, this leads to this, this leads to this, but at the same time, we don’t want to overload people with events. At this point we want to tell some really cool character driven stories. And I think you can see that with the way All In is being presented and it’s part of why this is just a one-shot.  It’s like, there’s a one shot that launches these things and then if you want to see that story, you should read the books, read the stuff that’s going on in Absolute. Read the stuff that’s happening in the core line. Pick up New Gods, pick up Justice League, pick up Superman and then there’s other stuff, without getting too much, into spoilers, you should pick up to check out and see how it all how it all builds and connects.

Josh, Darkseid has an axe hand was an amazing sentence, glossed over a few minutes ago. How did that decision come about?

Josh Williamson – That’s Scott’s idea, it was so funny because Scott’s interesting, because I can sometimes be a little bit of a DC loyalist. I can be and that’s what’s fun sometimes for me. Is to try to push past that, OK, this is what DC should be, right? Like that’s in my head. And again, how do I move it forward? Right. That’s thing I did in the Superman a lot where it’s, OK, Lois is still Lois, but now she’s Editor in Chief.  It’s always about, here’s how DC should be moving forward. Scott is fascinating, because Scott looks at everything and it’s just, what is the craziest thing that we could do right here. And it is interesting talking with him, this dynamic of the two of us working on these things, it was the same thing with James and I and Scott way back during Metal and Death Metal, we would feed off each other, oh, what if this happens? And then this happens. And it was, oh, man, what if this happens? That’s how we do it. And I remember Scott saying. I want to cut Darkseid’s hand off on the first page. [chuckles] And I was like, all right, but then is he just run around with stump the whole time? We started talking about it, well Aquaman had a harpoon hand. Wait a minute, he becomes death at some point. What if he has a scythe on his wrist. And it was just that’s part of the fun. One of the fun parts of this job is just trying to rev each other up of, well, this happens. This happens. This happens. This happens. And then being like, oh, but this happens. And so, it’s always fun to when people throw out these ideas, but yeah, Darkseid cutting his hand off was Scott’s idea.

Josh, what went into the redesign of Booster Gold and his popped collar?

Josh Williamson – That’s not a redesign. I’m not sure how much I can explain about this without getting to in the weeds with spoilers for the future. So, in the beginning he’s wearing the last costume he wore. He is the costume from Blue and Gold that Dan Jurgens design with Ryan Sook. That’s the costume he’s wearing in at the beginning, and then we originally pointed it out [in the story], but we cut the line because we thought it was a little weird for Booster in the middle of this very bad situation, to say, wait a minute, why am I back in my original costume, minus the cape? Which is funny cause Dan Jurgens and I had this whole talk about this, because it was originally because Booster really idolized Superman. So when he would show up really early on, he would sometimes wear the cape. And I was thinking about that, but Danny had already drawn that page and I was thinking, he should have a cape. And then Dan Jurgens was the one that said Booster only wears the cape during press conferences, and I said perfect, good. OK, don’t worry about it. We don’t have to worry about this, but he’s wearing his original first appearance costume in in the last scene, and there’s a reason for that. That is a spoiler for future stuff. Let’s just say something happened to Booster that made him revert back to his original stuff, so I can’t go beyond that without giving out spoilers for much further down the line.

You did the Justice League Annual during Scott’s run and that was a huge cosmic story. How much does this story for the All In special feel like it ties into that? And does it have that same cosmic feel?

Danny Sampere – Yeah, it has the same feel. Yes, at that moment, when I did that book, I was super scared because it was a big book for me with Josh, with Scott and Jorge Jimenez who was the main artist on Justice League at that time. And he was already a superstar at that time. So, I was like, What am I doing here? Because I was drawing Injustice 2 and digital comic books like 2 days ago.

And it was even more scary because I’m, as I mentioned, I’m not feeling very comfortable with the crazy sci-fi Part of the job. I think it may sound weird because I’ve done a lot of this, but I always have had a hard time designing these weird concepts and stuff. And right now, the feelings were the same but I feel more confident now. Lucky for me. So, the panic is not as much as at that time when it was my first big cosmic book. So I’m more calm right now, but it’s true that I always have a hard feeling that the things get so big and cosmic and sci-fi based. Because you can draw very good, but not being so good at designing, for example, machines or designing high tech. You can’t be good at drawing everything. So, it’s one of the parts of the jobs that is harder for me to do.

Josh Williamson – Yeah, I remember when that annual came in and that annual was going to be really important to the stuff we were doing because the Source Wall stuff that had been left over from Metal, and I remember as the pages started coming in talking to James and Scott and just saying, yo, where did this guy come from? We need to steal him. Like how do we steal this guy? Because this dude, I remember those pages coming and thinking, whoa, this guy like, where is he been all our lives, let’s we got to steal him, we gotta to steal him somehow and talking about that. And then when you did the Future State: Aquaman. That’s what everybody really like. I felt like we were saying it. We were like, dude, this guy’s got it. This is it. Like, how do we we bring him into our fold, he has to come hang out with us now. He’s gotta work with us over here now and then when the Aquaman Future State pages started coming in that was really when everyone took notice it was like, oh, wait a minute, then it became a fight. [chuckles] I want him over here. I want over here, you know. So yeah, that annual. I’m glad you brought that annual up because yeah, that annual dude that was so good. I I remember that very clearly cause James and I have a chat to this day and we would we were just, when those pages are coming in, what? who is this? where did this come from? So yeah, it was awesome.

What Josh had to say about so many more plans and characters coming soon, it is a very exciting time to be a DC fan. This type of planning, which highlights the interconnectivity of the DC Universe and the legacy feel of it’s characters, is one of DC’s greatest assets. It seems at times that they don’t know how to best showcase those character and relationships. It is clear when Joshua Willaimson was talking about the “combination” of characters that DC is on the right path currently, to take advatange of that aspect of their universe. With so much of what’s to come being teased, we will have a lot to unpack as we move into the All In era of DC Comics. So be sure you follow The Comic Source for all the continuing coverage of All In.

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