In the world of comic book crossovers, few events have left a chill across your spine like DC vs. Vampires. A year and a half after the dust settled — or rather, after the blood had dried — a new sequel, DC vs. Vampires: World War V, storms into comic shops on August 14.
In a new interview with AIPT, writer Matthew Rosenberg reveals the behind-the-scenes process of bringing this dark and thrilling follow-up to life. The sequel, born out of the runaway success of its predecessor, has been in the works for longer than fans might expect, and there are plenty of new elements that Rosenberg teases across its run.
As Rosenberg reflects on the creative process, the evolving power dynamics in the vampire world, and the new challenges that our heroes will face, it’s clear that this saga is far from over. Whether you’re a die-hard vampire aficionado or a comic book enthusiast, this is a sequel that promises to up the ante in ways you never saw coming.
Once more, DC vs. Vampires: World War V #1 drops August 14.
Courtesy of DC Comics.
AIPT: It’s been over a year and a half since DC vs Vampires wrapped up. How long has this sequel been in the works?
Matthew Rosenberg: Longer than that? <laugh>. We hit a point in the middle of the last book where my editor at the time, who was the person who really built the book in a lot of ways, Ben Abernathy, said to me, “This is going really well for us, everyone seems to really like it. Um, would you be into doing more?” And I was like, ‘Sure.’ And he said, ‘When we get towards the end, let’s make sure that there’s room to do more.’ Which was a funny thing because I’d already killed a lot of the big characters. He said, ‘No, just leave an ending where the audience still has questions.’ And so that is what we did.
AIPT: I know James Tynion IV was part of the last one. Was he part of the thinking process on the sequel?
MR: James came up with the original idea and brought it to Ben. He had a one-page document stating, “I want to do this.” That was for the thing he was going to do when he left Batman. And then his Batman did really well. And then immediately they were like, you need to start vampires. And he was like, “I’m doing Batman. I don’t have the time.” And so James suggested me [for the job]. We’re very close. We’ve been friends since before either of us was writing comics. I didn’t want to do the sequel since this is partially his baby without his blessing and thoughts.
When I had an outline, I was like, ‘This is what I want to do. Do you think this is cool?’ He was like, ‘You don’t need to ask me this.’ And I was like, ‘But I feel like I owe it to you.’ And he was very gracious with his time, as he always is and very supportive, and it sounds awesome.
Courtesy of DC Comics.
AIPT: Not to give anything away, but the first issue cover has Barbara, Green Arrow, and Damian. Would you say these are the three main players, or is there more of an ensemble going on here?
MR: There’s more of an ensemble. Those three characters represent the sort of power dynamics. Barbara Gordon is the head of the vampires. She’s the queen of the vampires. Green Arrow is on the Human Council, which is no longer the resistance movement because they’ve reached a sort of Cold War. But the Human Council represents the human interest. Damian is a vampire revolutionary who is not a human but is not loyal to the queen. And so he is sort of dragging both parties of the Cold War into a hotter war.
AIPT: How much time has taken place between the end of the last series and the start of this one?
MR: It’s been between six and nine months. The vampires had a plan to block out the sun. Supergirl managed to stop that. So there was a time when there was no daylight, and there was daylight again, but the freezing of the planet was set in motion. So, we are entering an ice age. The war ruined the planet, and nobody got what they wanted.
Courtesy of DC Comics.
AIPT: I have to ask, when you saw Blood Hunt solicited from Marvel, did you think, ‘Oh, that’s interesting? I kind of did the same thing where I blocked out the Sun’ <laugh>.
MR: Jed McKay is a good buddy. I’m a huge fan, so I was very excited for it. I like to razz him about it and be like, “How did you come up with this.” <Laugh>
The fact of the matter is, as Jed is quick to point out, it’s an idea that predates both of us, not only in making comics, but being alive. I love Blood Hunt. I thought it was great, and I love, you know, the Marvel and DC interplay. I think it keeps both of us, like on our toes doing our best work.
Courtesy of DC Comics.
AIPT: When a character is vampirized, do you tend to write them any differently, or is there a motivation change when writing them?
MR: Yeah. When they’re vampirozed, they are sort of automatically on a genetic level, or maybe not quite genetic, but on a level similar to a genetic level. They are part of a hierarchy and a power structure that they automatically sort of defer to.
People have asked me like, well, ‘Wonder Woman’s probably the most powerful vampire, why isn’t she the queen?’ They’re just sort of genetically prone to this structure that Barbara is the queen because she killed the king and took his powers and he sired her.
They have a sort of feudal system that is mostly ingrained, but there characters like Damian who it doesn’t work on. That’s part of the story, why is Damian such an outlier and why is he different?
But in that system of them becoming vampires and becoming part of the system, they become, for lack of a better description, like part of a royal court, they sort of take on a sort of majesty that I think people associate with vampires. So like, even the creepiest lowlife Gotham dirt bag villain considers himself sort of a member of a higher order.
Courtesy of DC Comics.
AIPT: Speaking of vampires, for the fan out there who sees this book and loves vampires, what kind of vampires are these? How can they be killed?
MR: A lot of them are superpowered vampires, <laugh>, because they are superpowered people who got vampired. They’re pretty classic vampires with some rule changes. The best ways to kill them are stake through the heart. There are certain poisons, if there’s a poison in the blood that that will kill them. The normal vampire Dracula, for example, never had to deal with, you know, Superman completely atomizing him. So there are certain forces that are dismantled and destroyed in ways that other vampires haven’t had to, and that does seem to kill them. However, some of these characters also have natural resistance to what we’d consider normal destruction. So, mostly, the most assured way is a stake through the heart. But, you know, there’s a lot of decapitation and a lot of incineration and things like that do the job in a pinch if needed on a lot of them. But not all of them.
Courtesy of DC Comics.
AIPT: Crosses, garlic, or holy water work as well?
MR: Crosses and holy water work. Garlic does not. There are certain things that are myths that were sort of propagated by vampires in the DC universe.
AIPT: This is what you discovered when you did your own research about real vampires.
MR: I spent a year living among them, and I learned a lot.<laughs>
Courtesy of DC Comics.
AIPT: Is there any desire to be like, ‘OK, we’ve got vampires? What if zombies showed up?’ Or would that be too complicated?
MR: We had talks about like, sort of as a joke, what if we beat the vampires and then there’s just one werewolf <laugh>. There is a desire to always constantly be sort of escalating and finding out what the next thing is. And so we haven’t done zombies we haven’t crossed over with the deceased world, but we are always looking to add new threats. And I think we do.
I think people, when they get into the book, you will find that there are some new threats that they were not expecting to show up. That is going to change everything.
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