Comic Books

Ram V travels to the heart of ‘The Vigil’

The all-Indian super squad is a mighty chapter in the writer’s exploration of comics’ boundaries.

November 14, 2023

Warning: Spoilers ahead for The Vigil #6.

A few weeks back, I caught up with Ram V for a deep dive into Detective Comics. And if there’s one thing that’s clear from that convo, it’s that he’s taken some real time and effort to plot an intricate book that cuts to the core of Batman’s ethos and larger place in the world.

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But at the same time he’s been delivering this comics concerto, Ram V (alongside an art team comprised of Lalit Kumar Sharma, Rain Beredo, Sumit Kumar, Sid Kotian, and Dev Pramanik) has been releasing another, similarly important title, The Vigil.

That book focuses on the titular team of Indian “superheroes” — Dodge, Saya, Castle, Arclight, and Dr. Sankaran — as they unearth a global conspiracy. When the book debuted earlier this summer, Ram V likened it to Planetary, and it’s certainly scratched the same sort of itch.

“I think the book is much more straightforward in terms of its preoccupations,” said Ram V during our call, in comparison to Detective Comics. “Although even there, I did manage to deliver on my need to subvert reader expectations. I think it started off as this sort of spy-soldiers; maybe some superpowers here and there.”

And that “twist,” as it were, is how the book carved its own niche.

“Then, a little past the midpoint, you start realizing that, hold on a second, this is way weirder than I thought it was going to be,” said Ram V. “And I think that was always part of the design; that was always part of the endeavor. I think people have really enjoyed the book. I’ve not heard anything negative in terms of the response to the book. I think even people, because it’s a smaller [number of] issues, thought, ‘Maybe this grounded approach isn’t for me’ By the time issue #4 came out, I think they were like, ‘OK, let me go pick up issue three and four.’ So it’s been really heartening to see, again, all Indian characters in there, all Indian heroes, and hopefully, you know, presenting India in a less stereotypical light as well.”

Of course, a little humor never hurts, either.

“I think putting a Kite Man joke in issue #1 was a good idea,” said Ram V.

From issue #1. Courtesy of DC Comics.

And there’s an important thread to pick up on regarding that all-Indian team. Yes, it’s good to have diversity and representation, but as Ram V mentioned, it has to be done in a certain way. He’s only interested if it pushes new ideas and understandings of India, its culture, and its people.

“It’s nice if the book does that,” said Ram V. “But I also feel very conscious of the dangers of writing something with the purpose of educating people who don’t know, or showing it to them. That’s not the point of the story.”

He added, “As an Indian, there’s often that question of like, ‘Why does this character have to be Indian?’ I’ve had that plenty of times, and my response to that is, ‘Why does he have to be American? Why does he have to be anything?’ There’s no reason to justify one against the other. We all exist, and therefore everything exists.”

Because, sure, there’s other Indian heroes (if not a whole lot), but very little that Ram V thinks cut the mustard in terms of authenticity and sheer organic-ness.

“I think prior to The Vigil, the only Indian characters I could find in comics — outside of maybe Levi for Swamp Thing — were largely where most Indians would look at them and go, ‘What a joke,'” said Ram V. “Even something like a big character, Spider-Man India in the Spider-Man films, is still something that most Indians look at and go, ‘That’s not what we’re like.'”

The trick, then, is how these characters and stories are presented, and how you try and get the audience to engage and understand them accordingly.

“I think just having stories be comfortable in their own existence is something that’s important for me to be conscious of,” said Ram V. “So that’s why there is no geography. That’s why there is no map. This is what it’s like, ‘If you understand it, great. If you don’t understand it, sit on Google for two hours if you need to.’ And I’ve always been comfortable with dropping someone into the deep end in that sense. Because I think that experience changes people.”

And it’s not just in terms of comics; Ram V thinks the whole idea speaks to something larger about people and continually connecting with new cultures and experiences.

“Forgetting comics for a while, traveling to a country where you don’t know the language, don’t know the food, don’t know the people, and don’t know the culture, and just going, ‘OK, I guess I have to figure things out from here’ is a wonderfully humanizing experience,” he said. “Some people will shut themselves off and run away screaming. Others will find parts of themselves that make them feel why they’re connected to this world. And I feel like stories in general are a way of doing that, and they’re a way of reaching across cultures and geography to places where you’ve never been. It’s then that you get a sense of, ‘OK, I understand what this is. I know what this is. I can grapple with it in some way.'”

From issue #2. Courtesy of DC Comics.

It helps that in exploring these ideas, Ram V and company created some truly compelling characters. They weren’t just well-rounded, interesting heroes but representations of the core notions at the very heart of this book, including self-discovery, subverting expectations, and playing against one’s type.

“And I think the coolest character of the run is probably Saya,” said Ram V. “He’s got the mask and he’s the enigmatic guy, and I was able to subvert the expectations of that. Like, why are cool characters behind masks also extremely good looking when they take off their masks? This guy is not; he takes off his mask and you’re like, ‘Oh, maybe you should keep that on.’ He was the coolest.’

But, of course, there’s the clear standout of this book, the nefarious boy genius Castle. He may actually be the closest to Ram V, whether it likes to admit it or not.

“The most entertaining character to write was certainly Castle,” he said. “Because, in some way, the Castle character is also dangerously close to the author-ian point of view because he gets to see everything. He understands, inherently, the inner workings of everyone’s thoughts and ideas and whatnot. He’s able to recognize patterns and predict events, and in some ways that’s a part of me; I know all the events that are going to happen. I know what all the characters are going to do. And so it’s kind of interesting using that character as this kind of vehicle to challenge yourself. Like, I still have to make the plot interesting, but I’m also subverting my own ability to hide things from the reader because this character exists in the story and he’s going to be able to see everything I plot. So I think that was super interesting and super fun to write.”

Of course, if Castle is the stand-in for the author, the team’s lead, Dr. Sankaran, also represents some important concepts and the author’s singular interests.

“I also really like the character of Dr. Sankaran, who, obviously, there’s a lot taken from Niles Caulder and Doom Patrol in that regard,” said Ram V. “I just love the idea of someone who came across an intelligence that was, for all purposes, smarter and better than him. And instead of competing, his response was to go like, ‘No, I’m just going to throw a spanner in the works at every possible turn in an attempt to keep you from doing terrible things.’ And in that process, he ends up doing terrible things himself. That’s such a wonderfully tragic but also fun character to write. Like, he’s an extremely smart man who’s smart enough to know when he’s not smart enough, which is great.”

And it’s through these characters where we not only get a great story, with endless humanity and depth, but one of the best components of this book. In issue #5, it’s revealed, through some effective storytelling magic, that The Vigil are the creation of Dr. Sankaran, in a turn that is both mind-blowing and perhaps even more reminiscent of books like Planetary.

“I think that was always part of the plan,” said Ram V of the so-called “meta turn,” adding, “I think that was always the intent with it. I knew the meta turn was coming. So all I was doing was, you know, rubbing my hands as people were like, ‘Well, this is just grounded spy superhero stuff.’ The meta turn was always part of the inception of this group.’

From issue #3. Courtesy of DC Comics.

And speaking of Planetary, it’s books like that which inspired our writer to shoot for the moon in terms of exploring this self-referential territory.

“I think the reason as to why I did it is simply because I hadn’t seen books do that since Grant Morrison on Doom Patrol or Warren Ellis on Planetary and The Authority and those books,” said Ram V. “I really hadn’t seen this kind of self-aware, ‘I know I’m writing a book about superheroes, how silly is that, but also how serious is that.’ And so I felt like I wanted to tap into that vibe as something I hadn’t done before in any of my work. Maybe the closest I got to it was with Justice League Dark, and so that’s something that I wanted to go back to and certainly explore. I’m not someone who likes to stay in my genre. I don’t color within the lines. So I do need to keep doing books that are constantly challenging to myself in terms of their tone, their aesthetic, their preoccupations.”

And it’s a decision that also serves as a kind of grander certain reaction. During our chat, I asked how he felt about adding to the recent “meta renaissance” that seems to be taking place in comics (and even other forms of media).

“I think to be honest, doing meta stuff in stories is really cheesy — bad meta writing makes it all about the writer,” he said.

Luckily, he had a little more nuanced follow-up to share.

“I think the most recent example of it being done well is Fleabag, where the characters are looking at you and at the camera and they’re winking at you,” said Ram V. “But even that, because it’s so associated with the writer’s cleverness over a period of time you’re like, ‘OK, I get it; stop winking at me.’ And so you have to be very careful how you do it and how much you do it. The meta narrative must always be about the story and it must always use not the writer’s awareness of them creating the story but it must use the reader’s awareness that, hey, you’re reading a story and I know you are. I think the joy of meta narratives lies where you make the reader aware of their expectations and you make the reader aware of you subverting their expectations both at the same time.”

And while the whole book clearly subverted our expectations, that seemed doubly true for issue #6. Without spoiling too much — but certainly spoiling enough — the issue, where Castle guides us through the team’s reaction to issue #5’s big reveal, ends in a strange place: The Bleed.

If that seems like a slightly niche decision, and one where you’d have to be a proper student of DC to implement, that’s simply not the case here.

“I don’t think of myself as a chronicler of DC because every day I talk to editors and other writers, and I’m reminded of the fact that I’ve read maybe this much of what exists (puts fingers very close together but not touching),” said Ram V.

From issue #5. Courtesy of DC Comics.

He added, “I got into reading comics quite late; I was 20. I used to read them as a kid and then I stopped for a long time. I was 20 when I read Sandman volume one, and that’s really when I started looking at these things and going like, ‘Oh, wait, actually, these are really cool and I should maybe think about writing them. So when people say, ‘Well, in issue #400 so and so,’ I always say, ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.'”

Rather, the choice of “locales” had everything to do with the writer’s own history with certain stories and the larger goals for this book.

“I think the point of going to The Bleed really was me harkening back to the things that I had read and I had enjoyed,” said Ram V. “Obviously I read The Authority all the way through and thought it was cool. This idea is so cool — they jumped between worlds and universes. And so that was part of the reason why it was in the back of my mind, and part of the reason why it ends there. Because if you think about The Vigil as a six-issue miniseries, even though it has been pulling from corners of the DCU and connecting in tangential ways, it’s still mostly itself contained within its own preoccupations and boundaries. And I like it when things happen organic.”

That last part is really quite important. It’s about extending the team’s presence while doing so in a way that respects their place in the larger universe (and their specific origins).

“And so it takes a little bit of forward thinking on my part, but I didn’t want the team to suddenly be like, ‘Oh, yeah, and then we’re hanging out with Green Lantern, like we’ve always been,'” said Ram V. “I wanted it to happen in a way that made sense as to why they’re suddenly connecting to all these parts of the DCU. And I think throwing them into the cosmic cytoplasm that exists between the cell walls of the DCU, I think is a great way to do that. And I think because they’re now there and they’re able to jump between places, and it widens the scope of what they can be and where they can go.”

Courtesy of DC Comics.

Of course, where they go remains to be seen, as #6 is the last issue for this miniseries. To some extent, Ram V knows that there’s already a way forward for the team.

“In terms of now that they’re in The Bleed, how do they come back? You know, there’s hints there,” he said. “And so I think that’s a good place for me to go, ‘OK, let’s let it rest for a while.’ And yeah, those conversations will continue, obviously beyond just writing another book; they’re important to me because the characters are like me and from where I come from and I’d love to tell more stories with them.”

But does that mean there’s actually something in the works for The Vigil’s second act?

“So there’s nothing official that’s on the books or anything of that sort,” he said. “But there have been conversations about how they come back and where they come back. And so I think that’s very exciting. I put forward an idea and literally everyone in that conversation went, ‘Oooohhh,’ and so that’s always a good sign. So that’s all to say that things look good and things look positive, but there’s nothing concrete or official that I can point my finger to and say, ‘This is happening.'”

And even if Ram V isn’t the one on writing duties (if and when that happens), he hopes The Vigil does become a much more integral part of the DCU. It’s an idea that perhaps speaks to the heart of this book: it’s way more fun when everyone’s in on the gag, especially if that’s getting us to rethink how and why we tell stories like this through the magic medium of comics.

“I’m someone who is not precious about my toys at all,” said Ram V. “I’m like, ‘Here, I’m done playing with them. Go take them and put them wherever you want to.’ I’m a very ‘Yes and…’ kind of person. Not always, but certainly in comics, because I feel like the whole joy of working in comics is you never say no to even like the most absurd ideas and you’re like, ‘Cool, let’s run with it.’ Let’s do something interesting with it. So I’m all for people picking up characters that I’ve created or worked on and doing their own thing with them.”