In a world where representation matters now more than ever, Nicole Maines stands tall as a beacon of hope and inspiration. With her latest venture into the world of comics (Suicide Squad: Dream Team #1 out March 12 and Bad Dream: A Dreamer Story out April 2), Maines is not just telling stories; she’s rewriting narratives, uplifting marginalized voices, and reshaping perceptions. At its center is Dreamer, a superhero relatively new to DC Comics but not to pop culture at-large.
These comics are more than just ink on paper; they’re a testament to resilience, courage, and the power of storytelling. Through vibrant characters and compelling narratives, Maines and her collaborators invite readers into a world where difference is not only accepted but embraced. And that’s just the start, as Eddy Barrows renders Suicide Squad: Dream Team perfectly, while Rye Hickman brings next-level visual ideas and an endearing quality to Bad Dream: A Dreamer Story.
To get an inside look at Maines’ upcoming work, AIPT sat down recently with Maines to unpack her new Suicide Squad team, the work going into developing Dreamer’s origin story, and so much more!
(This is just an abbreviated version of our chat; for the entire interview, listen to the uncut interview via the AIPT Comics podcast.)
AIPT: Suicide Squad Dream Team is out March 12. Can you talk a little bit about putting together this unique lineup for the team?
Nicole Maines: Yeah. So I think the first question that we asked ourselves was who would have good personality, motivation, whatever, but also good powers to offset against the Dreamer. We tried to come up with people who could serve as foils to her power set.
So Harley, with her sort of unpredictable nature, we thought it would be kind of interesting to see how Dreamer deals with that.
Clock King, I was really interested in sort of the difference between his take on time and, not precognition, but anticipation versus her anticipatory powers, I thought would kind of be a good mashup.
Bizarro was something that they pitched to me, and immediately, I was like, perfect. Love it. Yes. Love that. I was like, we need a himbo, we need that energy. And Bizarro is so perfect.
Dead Eye was, was great. You know, sort of now we get that kind of Amanda Waller family relations as well, so we get to look at that.
And then Black Alice, I was really excited about because we saw her in Lazarus Planet where she had this arc of overcoming everybody is telling her what to do, who she has to be, and, and she’s like, no one’s ever gonna control me ever again. And she ends on this really great, and off I go into the sunset. And immediately gets scooped up by Amanda Waller. That’s a character that I’ve been very excited about.
Dreamer is sort of coming at this with this heroic, you know, hope, rage against the machine. We gotta do what’s right. Black Alice is, well saved everybody, and now I’m here with a bomb in my neck. So it begs the question, what’s the point? <laugh>.
Courtesy of DC Comics.
AIPT: One of the fun things, but also one of the tricks of the Suicide Squad story is you have to balance all of these big personalities. How do you approach finding all of these very different characters’ unique voices?
NM: So, I spend a lot of time on the DC Wiki page. Lots of, lots of, lots of tabs open all the time. For Clock King I read Batman: Killing Time, which was very, very helpful. I watched a couple of YouTube videos that did a deep dive into their character. I did the same thing with Bizzaro and Black Alice. Dead Eye is harder ’cause he is such a new character. For him, it was more like really making sure I just understood where this kid came from. He grew up in this environment with Amanda Waller. She’s been kind of grooming him to be this like metahuman bloodhound his entire life. So he’s someone who gets down to business and gets the job done.
AIPT: Do you do anything to get into the voice of these characters too? ‘Cause the dialogue is so good.
NM: Thank you. Amanda, specifically. The woman who voices her in all of the Suicide Squad animated features.
AIPT: CCH Pounder!
NM: Yes. So iconic. Every time I write a line of Amanda’s dialogue, I kind of play it in my head with her voice. And if it sounds right, then it stays <laugh>.
AIPT: And then with, with Dreamer, you are Dreamer, so it’s easy.
NM: It is hard with Dreamer too, ’cause on the show we’re used to her like cracking jokes and kind of being very light. I’m trying to find places to sort of bring that, like, Yeah. It’s Dreamer, she does puns and you know, she’s super excited about being a superhero, but there’s not a lot of room for that in Suicide Squad.
AIPT: She’s in a bad place, too. Right?
NM: Exactly. So it’s hard to kind of have that quintessential Dreamer vibe that we all know and love from the Supergirl series just because she is so neck deep in trouble that there’s kind of no time for her to undercut things with that sort of lighthearted energy that we’re used to from her. So this is a Dreamer that’s much more akin to, the note that Paul kept giving me. He was, “I wanna see Dreamers like the Sarah Connor character.”
AIPT: She’s also still getting acquainted with her powers. Eddy Barrows shows her using them in new ways in this first issue. Would you say that the acclimation of her powers is a central part of her growth as a character?
NM: Absolutely. Especially with Bad Dream too, it shows exactly how unprepared she is to be a hero. And it wasn’t even something that she wanted for herself. It was something that she was positive was not going to be her life. She was kind of only ever gonna be the guy in the chair. And then, one kickball to the nose later, she was thrust into this world that was never even supposed to be possible for her. She wasn’t trained for these powers. She wasn’t trained to see the future. She definitely wasn’t trained to shoot energy blasts out of her hand.
She never had the opportunity to be like the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. You know what I mean? She never had an opportunity to save cats from trees or help old ladies cross the street.
Courtesy of DC Comics.
AIPT: Shifting gears to Bad Dream. This is a true origin story for our hero. Was there a guiding light as far as the focus and tone when you were approaching this very important project?
NM: I kind of struggled with trying to make it something for everybody. And I think the success came when I was like, you know what? I’m just gonna write the story that I like. I’m just going to write the story that I would’ve liked to see as a young kid. The way I always say it, there’s representation for straight people, and there’s representation for queer people. I really wanted this to be like, something for folks to look at, see our experience. And also romanticized a little bit, especially for homeless youth. If only there was a place like the Bottom Dollar Inn where you could go, and it was a party every day, and it was like no questions asked, and just every facet of your identity was accepted there. Like, if only there was something that cool.
I really wanted this to be a space to show things that haven’t gotten to exist in comic books before, like Ballroom.
Courtesy of DC Comics.
AIPT: Did you draw on any of your own experiences growing up, be it with building a found family or friend group when putting this story together?
NM: Yeah. I remember being a young kid and not knowing any other queer people, especially not my own age. Getting to form those relationships for the first time, I really, really identified with Nia, sort of being the kid who knew nothing about anything coming into this space, fumbling a couple of times and putting her foot in her mouth a couple of times. Because why would she know? She’s from a small town. She grew up in an environment where she was the only person, and they did not like her that much. Her relationship with Yvette, actually the entire panic attack sequence, is one of the things I’m most proud of in this.
That was pretty much word for word a conversation that happened with me. I remember being like three years old, and she was a couple of years older than me. It was this girl who I just like idolized and still friends. And I was in New York. I was staying with her brother. It was like a dark period of my of my life. And I was having these panic attacks that were coming on, and I didn’t understand what they were. I thought something was really wrong with me. And I remember him asking me, “Are you okay?” And I was like, “I think I’m dying.”
I went through this exact same thing. It was that exact scene on the fire escape where she was like, “Okay, this is what you’re gonna do. You’re gonna breathe in for four, you’re gonna hold it, you’re gonna let it out for four. That whole scene was basically just a shot-for-shot remake of what happened to me.
AIPT: We’re big Galaxy stands here at AIPT, and I just wanna know, when it came to your conversations with Jadzia Axelrod when you were putting Taylor in the book, how did that go? How were those talks?
NM: So much fun. The conversations that her and I have are so much fun. And I don’t know if people are truly ready for the way that we are going to just push these two girls. I’m so excited to get these two as adults. As superheroes working together, knowing that they have this history of being friends since they were teenagers, and then growing into being the trans alien superhero girls. One of the most fun parts is getting to decide what the history between Cyandii and Naltor is. Getting to establish that connection. Naltor, in general, was so underdeveloped. And so, I am getting to sort of flesh that out as just a planet, as a people, as a culture. One of my favorite things was Rye drew up the entire Naltor alphabet. So now that exists.
AIPT: Talk us through your collaboration with Rye Hickman because there are some unbelievable outfits in the ball. There are some great crowd scenes. The dream sequences are gorgeous. What were those conversations like?
NM: These dream sequences are so insane. I don’t quite know how Rye did it. On my desk here, I have all my little dream dictionary books and stuff. Finding like symbolisms for things and “h, this represents this, and this represents this. And there’s the fence, and it’s rotting because it represents our fancy structure.” And Rye took them all and made them into these beautiful, beautiful tapestry-like things. It was just so perfect. And I think it so demonstrates the surreal feeling, first of all, of dreams anyway. But for Nia, I really hope that the reader reading it opens ’em and they’re like, what the?
AIPT: If Bad Dream was a song, what would it be and why?
NM: I am so glad that you asked this question because let me tell you about my playlist. So it’s not just one song. I think the three that jump out would be to start with “I’m Still Here,” which is the Jim Hawkins theme from Disney’s Treasure Planet.
AIPT: Hell, yes. By Johnny Rzeznik. <laugh>.
NM: So that song is like Nia’s theme song throughout this book.
I remember as I was first writing the Metropolis scenes, Taylor Swift’s “Welcome to New York” as well. And then, [Phil Collins’] “Strangers Like Me” when she meets the girls.
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