Jackson Lanzing talks Green Arrow, Nightwing and the art of one-shot stories

Jackson Lanzing and Collin Kelly are taking two DC heroes out of their most comfortable surroundings and putting them through two very different tests in the same week.

Almost every comic book creator is excited to talk about work that is just coming out, but spending some time talking to Jackson Lanzing and you’re immediately taken by his infectious energy. A 30-minute interview? Turns out you only need about half that time to get the whole scoop on Green Arrow #39 and Nightwing #42, both of which hit stores this week.

Together with writing partner Collin Kelly, Lanzing has piled up experience writing for TV, film and comics, and he’s both a student of and entertaining guide to the process. He and Kelly are also adept at telling stories that don’t need long arcs to complete, something you can see in their creator-owned work and DC Comics titles like Gotham City Garage.

That craft is on prominent display in Green Arrow #39, the first half of a two-parter called “The Children of Vahkar.” Playing off events set up in a Deathstroke annual, Oliver Queen decides to head to the country of Raphastan to see if his vast resources can do some good for the people there. What he quickly — and by that, meaning within a matter of a few pages — discovers is a situation much more complex than he ever could have imagined, one that introduces a new threat known simply as Nothing.

It’s a setup inspired by real world situations when countries lose their leaders, one that Lanzing says was created by the “classic Yojimbo story” that saw Deathstroke waltz in, turn warring clans against each other and leave.

“What struck Collin and I as we sat down to talk about the kind of places we could take Green Arrow, to look at the kinds of injustice that we think really trigger the most interesting stories for Oliver Queen, Raphastan really stood out,” Lanzing said. “Because it was this sort of hole left behind by Deathstroke that didn’t have any obvious way of being filled. Much like in the real world, when you take the leadership, however brutal, out of these nations that don’t have a lot of history of democracy, you sort of end up with these very strange power voids. And we thought, alright, that’s a really great opportunity to take Oliver Queen somewhere he thinks he can do a lot of good but ultimately can be confronted with the fact that things are rarely as simple as a superhero might want them to be — especially in a place as scarred as Raphastan.”

Without giving away the meat of the story’s first chapter, Queen’s efforts to solve things in his civilian identity don’t last long. The problem is that Nothing is a foe he can’t fight head-on either, leaving him in quite the predicament — and with a cliffhanger that should ensure readers come back for Green Arrow #40.

That’s because Nothing was inspired by the practice of warlords using child soldiers and the self-perpetuating cycles of violence that come along with them. It’s heady stuff, especially since Oliver “can’t hurt a kid, it goes completely against his base level instincts and his goals as Green Arrow.” But the issue also has its undeniable comic book moments as well, spilling over even into the design of Nothing’s costume and weapons.

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“If Deathstroke comes in and wrecks your country, you might decide you’re going to make some armor and a sword that looks like Deathstroke’s, take on that iconography and operate that way,” Lanzing said. “That’s really where that comes from. And then there’s stuff that’s coming up in issue 40, because obviously this is part one of a two-part story, that is going to show the inverse of that, that there may be people on the ground who are inspired by these superheroic tropes but maybe not as villainous as Nothing is.”

Nightwing #42 also sends Dick Grayson to another country, but the high concept for that issue couldn’t be more different.

“Oh that one’s easy,” Lanzing said. “It is a kabuki play starring Nightwing, inspired by the Bruce Lee film, Game of Death. It’s like as straightforward as you can get. It’s a fight issue.”

Nightwing #42 cover — Image courtesy of DC Comics

When Damian Wayne is taken captive by a yakuza operation inspired by the Red Hood gang and calling itself the Crimson Kabuki, Grayson is sent in to take care of the situation. Originally written as an inventory issue back when Tim Seeley was on Nightwing, Lanzing notes that it was one of several stories he and Kelly pitched that were completely divorced from the plot threads at the time.

Comparing the tale to the movie The Raid, Lanzing says that it features Nightwing needing to literally fight his way up through the Crimson Kabuki’s tower in order to reach a final confrontation at the top. However, the writers — who originally bonded in part due to their shared love of classic samurai films — wanted to do more than just play with Japanese tropes while putting the issue together with artist Jorge Corona.

“We wanted to really pay tribute to our source material and to the culture that birthed it,” Lanzing said. “Even if we were making it very pulpy, to make it feel authentic. The way that we did that was to write the entire issue in the style of a kabuki play. The whole issue is structured like a kabuki play. There’s a very specific three-act structure, a very specific three-act pacing. It’s actually different from western structure.”

The result is a prime example of what fans sometimes refer to in derogatory fashion as fill-in stories can be when they’re done right. It’s not only fun from an all-action standpoint, but it serves to reinforce things about the character of Dick Grayson you might not otherwise see in the midst of a longer arc.

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In the case of Nightwing #42, sending Dick to Japan creates almost the complete opposite reaction in its hero when compared to Green Arrow.

“Going to Japan reveals something very different about Dick, which is that this is a culture and a form that he is really built to thrive within,” Lanzing said. “This is a man who thinks very deeply about codes of honor. This is a man who thinks very deeply about the way he was raised and not letting that down. He’s also a man with incredible grace and skill, he is a fighter of many disciplines.

“That’s sort of the opposite of Ollie, where Ollie shows up in Raphastan, it immediately right hooks him and says, ‘you don’t know how to work here.’ But Dick drops into Tokyo and walks into the Crimson Yakuza’s facility and immediately has the power in this situation, He knows how to handle this, and in fact, gets to do so with grace and aplomb.”

They’re two very different issues written by Lanzing and Kelly at two different times, but they’re both fascinating looks into their stars without the need for a long-term commitment, and knowing some of the thought process behind them makes them that much more compelling. Green Arrow #39 and Nightwing #42 are on sale now at your local LCS, through DC’s online portal or wherever new comics are sold.