Jeremy Adams

Drew Mollo [00:00:00]: Whatever, you’re on Splash — okay, stop, Leo. Damn it, he pushed the button. He pushed the goddamn button.

Jar Jar Jeremy [00:00:08]: We’re going to ludicrous speed.

Drew Mollo [00:00:10]: Seriously, we went to plaid.

Jeremy Adams [00:00:14]: Hey, this is Jeremy Adams and you’re on Splash Pages.

[SPONSOR: Deadly Grounds Coffee — 00:00:57–00:03:43]

Leo [00:03:46]: Hey, hey, happy Tuesday everybody! You are watching Splash Pages. My name is Leo, I’m the monkey behind the keyboard here. We have an amazing show scheduled for you, a ton of people already watching, and we have an amazing guest. We have a lot of questions already, so you know what, just forget about me, we’ll go on to Kari. How’s it going, Kari?

Drew Mollo [00:04:04]: Going great, Leo. I told Ratatoskr that we were going to be talking about Aquaman tonight, and he’s insisted that because this is the color aqua, that’s what he’s going to drink. This is how particular he is about his bevs. But yeah, we have a lot of questions, guys. We have people that have already been lining up asking. Hi Dylan! And we got a bunch of questions from Reddit too, so I’m just going to kind of be sitting there being everybody else’s filter.

Jar Jar Jeremy [00:04:43]: Hey, I’m a Jeremy and we’re here to see a Jeremy, so let’s go check out Drew so we can get to Jeremy.

Drew Mollo [00:04:51]: Yes, thank you everybody for joining us in the danger zone, or as we like to call it, the Jeremy zone, because there’s two of them now. Hey everybody, thank you for joining us at Splash Pages. We have an absolutely fantastic show, one of my personal favorites, because I’ve got to interview him and it happened more than once and he still came back. So either he’s a glutton for punishment or we’re really that good. The jury’s still out. So if you’ve been reading a lot of DC, you’ve been seeing his work. He was killing it on The Flash, he’s been killing it on Green Lantern, Green Lantern Corps. He’s definitely slaying it with Aquaman. And if you’ve even seen, he even did a pretty great job with the Flash/Fantastic Four crossover. And on top of that, he’s also an accomplished screenwriter where his work has been on Supernatural, the Green Lantern animated series. I’m sure there’s some Lego movies and a lot of Scooby-Doo. He has been described as the Mikey Likes It of comics, the Larfleeze of Costco pizza, the one, the only, the absolutely hilarious Jeremy Adams.

Jeremy Adams [00:05:56]: You’re going nuts. Your opening is fantastic, number one. Number two, Jar Jar — that background — 2001: A Space Odyssey but with — thank you, it’s amazing.

Jar Jar Jeremy [00:06:17]: If I put it on blur, it looks like I’m running really fast.

Jeremy Adams [00:06:21]: That’s awesome.

Drew Mollo [00:06:26]: Jeremy, I was listening to our panel that we did at last year’s Terrificon, and it was just still absolutely makes me laugh, just the back and forth, going over everything. That was my second panel I ever did.

Jeremy Adams [00:06:53]: Oh, that’s great. Well, great job.

Drew Mollo [00:06:55]: Thank you, man. And then every time — I got to see you again at Terrificon, now at our booth. That was amazing. And then I got to see you in New York. Every time, man, it’s just always such a delight. You’re just a live wire of a human being.

Jeremy Adams [00:07:10]: Thank you. And Terrificon — that was the first time I was there, and that was pretty great. I always describe myself as Chris Farley in that SNL sketch — I’m always just walking around going, you remember that time that you did the — you know, it’s terrible. I have no shame.

Drew Mollo [00:07:34]: It’s so funny you say that because literally, when we’re doing the show, that’s how I feel. Like, at one point I was like, you’re gonna be living in a comic shop that’s gonna be adjacent to some place down by the river.

Drew Mollo [00:07:56]: So, are you coming back to Terrificon this year?

Jeremy Adams [00:08:00]: I wasn’t invited this year, and that’s fine. I’m not gonna harbor any — no, just kidding. I’m going to MegaCon next week, and then I’m going to head off to C2E2 the week after. And for sure I’ll be at the Mothership San Diego. I go there every year. And then probably New York. So those are the only 4 I have scheduled so far.

Jar Jar Jeremy [00:08:29]: Do you sleep?

Jeremy Adams [00:08:31]: I actually want them to give me more. Like in December, I think they gave me like 3 crossovers with DCKO, and it was so random. I think it was like by the end of November, they were like, hey, you want to do Boss Battle? Hey, you want to do Kids Are Fine? I’m like, yeah, I’ll do everything, just whatever, just hand it to me, you know? And then that was like — uh-oh, I gotta get it all done along with my monthlies.

Leo [00:09:01]: How many books are you juggling right now?

Jeremy Adams [00:09:03]: I’m only doing two. I’m off Flash Gordon. I have just Aquaman and Green Lantern proper. I pitched a bunch of stuff that I’m hoping will get some traction. And I think I have some one-shots I’m trying to do that will tie into some of the other books. But I’m always open to anything, honestly. I really, really am.

Drew Mollo [00:09:29]: Your first DC pitch was a Batwing book, right?

Jeremy Adams [00:09:43]: Yeah, yeah. I mean, for those that don’t know — I grew up just absolutely adoring comics forever. My dad had drawn a few comics when I was a kid, but my parents were divorced when I was around 5. So obviously, psychologically, I was just trying to get my dad’s love from afar, right? I’d always wanted to be in comics, but I went into film and television because there was more of a path. Eventually I was working at a toy company called Jack’s Pacific. I had already written Green Lantern: The Animated Series, at least 2 episodes. But when you write animation, you turn it in and then 2 years later, I hope I can see this episode. So while I was there, I was going to New York for the first time with my wife, and we had a person that said, oh, I know a guy that works at Marvel Comics, would you want a tour? I’m like, are you kidding me?

Jeremy Adams [00:10:50]: His name was Mike Martz. And they gave me an email introduction. And the plan was set that I was going to have a tour of Marvel. I got to New York and he said, sorry, it’s not going to work out. You don’t get a tour of Marvel. And I was disappointed. But also, I had his email. So that was where I was like, how’s it going? If you’re ever in town, you should meet me so you know I’m not crazy. I tried to be cool about it and just met him and developed a friendly relationship over time. I had those Green Lantern credits, so it wasn’t like I had nothing. And at one point he said, I would love for you to pitch on something. It’s Batwing.

Jeremy Adams [00:11:51]: And I pitched this whole thing about Batwing basically being framed for murder — punches Batman in the face and takes off on the run, and all of the Bat-family is trying to hunt him down. The idea was we have to separate him from being like War Machine. What makes him different and better besides the bat moniker? Each issue would be an altercation with another Bat-family member, and you would see how he would get out of it, what he would use to make him different.

Jeremy Adams [00:12:29] — on losing his first DC pitch:

> “I lost out to some guy named Warren Ellis. I don’t know. I don’t know. First time, no comic book writer.”

And yeah, but that was my first comic book pitch. And then it was another, what, like 10 years before I got my first comic, you know.

Drew Mollo [00:13:19]: You’re the Mikey Likes It of comics. So you did an issue of Batman: Brave and the Bold that had Jackson Hyde and Miss Martian, and then I think you’d mentioned The Blue and it was like, yeah, you should pitch that as an Aquaman book.

Jeremy Adams [00:13:43]: Oh yeah, yeah. They were like, hey, you have any ideas? And I pitched the idea and they were like, that’s too big. That’s too big for this. I said, oh, is it? They go, you should pitch that as an Aquaman. I’m like, I will do that right now. And I texted my editor on Green Lantern and he was like, holy crap, I was just thinking you’d be perfect for the Aquaman book. I’m like, okay.

Jeremy Adams [00:14:04]: And Aquaman has been such a unique experience. I remember at the end of Angel, when Angel aired, I was like, give me that postcard. I was so mad. So when I started Aquaman, the amount of social media abuse I got — like, you killed Mera, you should die — I’m like, just give it time. People have gravitated to it, and it’s been a fun book that I can kind of go a little bit crazy with.

Jeremy Adams [00:14:44] — on writing Aquaman:

> “He’s so overpowered now, and I keep making him more powerful, and I’m going to keep making him more powerful until the editor says you have to stop. And so far they haven’t.”

Drew Mollo

[00:15:17]: Last month we had on your collaborator John Timms, and he’s the nicest person for someone who just draws like — it was amazing the amount of things you throw at him and he’s just, oh yeah, I want to do the Nautilus.

Jeremy Adams [00:15:36]: There’s something in the water, man. They’re all nice. Dan Mora, all those guys are super nice. I work with Will Conrad, who’s in Brazil, and we’ve got John Timms who’s killing it. The guys in Spain, Xermanico, who might be the best artist right now, period. When he’d been doing Green Lantern with me, and he had done Flashpoint Beyond with us, we all looked at him and went, this guy’s unbelievable.

Jeremy Adams [00:16:08]: I knew they’re stupid if they don’t take him away from me as quick as possible. His talent is so much better than my writing. I would be like, this guy needs to be on a Batbook or Superman book, ASAP. Or Marvel would be smart, just throw money at him to be on X-Men. And he was like, yeah, they’ve been trying to get me to move off this book for a long time, but I said no.

Jeremy Adams [00:16:56] — on being told he wouldn’t last:

> “They had basically told me no one lasts on a book more than 12 issues. And I remember thinking in my head, we’ll see about that.”

And we’re on issue 37 of Green Lantern. A couple years ago when I first started, when I did the backups for Future State and they had given me Flash — Mike Cotton said, you have any ideas for a comic? I’m like, bro, I have all the ideas for all the ideas. They’re like, you can take over The Flash. And it was like, that’s it? Okay. I was already planning to get to issue 35, issue 800, you know. And they didn’t think I could get Mark Waid or Jeff Lemire to do anything. They were the easiest. They’re like, yeah, let’s do it. Oh sure.

Drew Mollo

[00:17:46]: Kari, did you have any Aqua questions?

Drew Mollo [00:17:50]: Well, there is one that came in. Spader2692 is saying, hey Jeremy, do you plan on bringing back some old Aquaman villains like the Eel?

Jeremy Adams [00:18:05]: Boy, do I plan on bringing back some old Aquaman villains. One of the crazy things as a writer when you dive into a character that’s been around for so long — no one had ever named or seen Mera’s mother, and it was just like the most ripe thing ever as a comic book writer. You’re like, wait, never? Like, never? Like, I get to actually create that and explore that. It’s super fun. All I can say is there will be some old villains and new villains.

Jar Jar Jeremy

[00:18:44]: I’m kind of impressed that nobody had ever written about Mera’s mom before.

Drew Mollo [00:18:57]: If you think about it, like Peter David, the great Geoff Johns.

Jeremy Adams [00:19:03]: Even Mera’s dad, they talked about him, but they didn’t talk about her mom. And I was just like, this is crazy. And I had all the Aqua nerds at DC Comics like, you guys got to find it for me. So yeah, but it’s been really cool.

Drew Mollo [00:19:34]: Does that mean that Mera is technically a DC Disney princess? Dad—

Jeremy Adams [00:19:34]: No, mom is gone mysteriously, so she just needs a pet crab to sing along with her.

Drew Mollo [00:19:49]: Oh, we have plenty of Aquaman questions here.

Drew Mollo [00:19:53]: Uh, The Distant Wave was curious if anyone had seen Peter David’s thoughts on Aquaman and his original plans and goals for the character? He wanted to do something similar by making Arthur a water elemental connected to The Clear.

Jeremy Adams [00:20:08]: Well, that makes me feel good because I love Peter David. Reading his Hulk — it was right when Joe Fixit turned into the Green Hulk again, and I was like, who is writing this? This is bananas. And then I had been reading all the Star Trek novels and X-Factor, which is unreal. Amazing. He ended up introducing himself to me and my buddy Jim when we had done the Supernatural thing. We’re at a Supernatural mixer and this little short guy comes up and he was like, hey, are you guys writers? We’re like, yeah. And he goes, I’m a writer too. And we’re like, sure you are. And then he’s like, I’m Peter David. And we both go, Peter David? And immediately we’re like, let’s buy him a drink.

Jeremy Adams [00:21:09]: I didn’t know about him wanting to push Aquaman into the elemental space. Which is cool, because I’d been doing some of the green stuff in Green Lantern with the Floronic Man, and then I had been doing a lot with Maxine, who is kind of the avatar of the red. And so it’s one of those things where you’re like — we’ve never done the blue? Like, that’s not a thing? We haven’t done the blue? And everybody’s like, no. I’m like, okay, well, we’re doing the blue now. Here we go.

Jeremy Adams [00:21:54]: If I’m on the same wavelength with Peter David, then I feel golden, because that guy — I don’t know if you guys ever read his X-Factor run, but it has one of the most twisted issues I’ve ever seen in comics that is so heartbreaking and messed up that they probably would never let us do today, ever.

Drew Mollo [00:22:51]: Arion and the Dark World. Will we see Arion lore played with — the Dark World, Calculha, Majistra?

Jeremy Adams [00:23:06]: So the thing about Arion is I’m keeping it purposely vague so I can catch up on him. There’s so much lore that you have to — I knew I wanted to bring him back because he’s such an integral part of the Aquaman universe. In my mind, part of this run is digging in the toy box and going, well, are you using this one? And it’s like, no. Okay, great, I’m gonna use this one. With Arion, in my mind, he is having this very almost mirror-image Justice League of his own. You have your magic user and your mechanical guy and your combat person. And with Arion, I do want to get deeper into it. I just only have so many pages, and I don’t want to depart so much from Aquaman. But I have a lot for him to do. There’s an issue I want to do with Arion, Garth, and Aquaman where it’s more a magic-centered issue. As Garth learns more and more magic, having somebody who basically created some of that mythology as a mentor type role might be really interesting.

Drew Mollo [00:24:51]: Speaking of villains — BattleLongJumping132 from Reddit would like to ask if Aquaman should have more female villains.

Jeremy Adams [00:25:05]: Well, that’s the thing — Lolana, who is Mera’s mother, is going to be the ultimate female villain right now. And it’s funny because they always say if you can have a villain with a point of view you can understand — why are the people of the bloodline the ones who get to be kings? Like, that’s weird. And so you use that as a wedge to gain power. And now she’s hell-bent on revenge. It’s very like Zod. I will kill you, Jor-El.

Drew Mollo [00:26:02]: And speaking of twisting a character that really wasn’t being used — the mermaid, right?

Jeremy Adams [00:26:11]: Yeah, Lori Lemaris. And then again, like, when was the last time you saw her? That was a legit relationship that Superman had. He was in love with the mermaid. And she was in a wheelchair with just a blanket over her flipper. But I remember my editor was like, hey, what if we use her? And then he must have gone over to Mark and said, hey, we’re using her here, so you should use her in World’s Finest.

Jeremy Adams [00:26:28]: I had a much more high-fantasy take on the Lady of the Lake, and I wanted her to be able to build a new sword for Aquaman. Because I also have this time bandit in Green Lantern who has Excalibur right now. Again, no one’s stopping me, guys. I’m like, okay, I guess I’m gonna do this.

Jar Jar Jeremy [00:29:36]: Before we jump — do all your kids enjoy comics?

Jeremy Adams [00:29:44]: No. They’ll read a lot of like the Superhero Girls. And now my oldest is going to be 13 soon, so I’m actually going to give her the Dark Phoenix Saga and be like, if you like this, you might like some of these other curated comic books. I try not to force them because I really want them to come to it on their own.

Drew Mollo [00:30:42]: That’s funny because I’ve equated that when you’re a comic fan, you’re essentially like a drug dealer. Anytime I was like, I want to get into comics — yeah, yeah, you know, you just open your trench coat, like Marvel, DC, Image, Dark Horse, IDW, Boom, you know.

Jeremy Adams [00:31:02]: And with them, I’ve kept one copy of every cover of every book I’ve ever done for them. They may never want it, you know, but hey, if they’re hard up, maybe they can get 99 cents a book.

Jeremy Adams [00:28:30] — on his daughter’s idea for the Odyssey character:

> “I find it’s kind of better just to make new characters. And so I was trying to figure it out, and my oldest daughter from the backseat was like, she should just be a time bandit, Dad, you know, stealing stuff throughout time. I’m like, yes, ma’am.”

Jar Jar Jeremy [00:29:36]: Do all your kids enjoy comics?

Jeremy Adams [00:29:44]: No. They’ll read Dogman, they’d rather read some of the other stuff. I try not to force them because I really want them to come to it on their own.

Jeremy Adams

[00:29:07] — on his daughter co-writing a Flash issue:

> “I brought out the whiteboard and I showed her how I break it. And she drew all these characters and we sent them to the artist and they drew and they did the art and I paid her.”

She was 8 or 9. It was the one where it’s a father-daughter dance. I brought out the whiteboard and I showed her how I break it. And she drew all these characters and we sent to the artist and they drew and they did the art and I paid her. And then immediately my youngest daughter comes in. She’s like, well, what about me? I’m like, well, I need a couple years. But my youngest daughter was the one who wanted me to bring an axolotl into Green Lantern. Happy the Axolotl. That was my other daughter. Well, we need an axolotl.

Drew Mollo [00:31:32]: I’m gonna combine these two because they kind of go off of each other. Star Prince 007 and Ashram both ask: what about Zan and Jayna appeals to you? Then — is the Wonder Twins setup, where Zan is with Arthur and Jayna is with Hal Jordan, hinting at an upcoming major intergalactic crossover?

Jeremy Adams [00:32:16]: I grew up with Super Friends, like a lot of people my age. And it’s one of those things where you have these characters that no one’s using. And I’m like, well, I’m going to use them. For Zan, it was just like — well, he turns to water. It seems appropriate. Obviously I was just appropriating all these water characters. So it was fun to go, well, he belongs with Aquaman now.

Jeremy Adams [00:32:44]: And then what happens with my brain is then it spins off into another story, like — well, where’s Jayna? Okay, you know, if you’ve read the last issue of Green Lantern, it’s like Hal shows up in this other place and Jayna’s there, and it’s like, wait, what? So there’s kind of a bigger story there. It all comes out of that Absolute Power thing where people’s powers got mixed up. And it gave me a chance to be like, okay, they don’t have to Wonder Twins activate right now. I think in my head there’s a bigger story there, but right now it’s just fun to have a comedic sidekick. In the case of Hal, it’s more like he’s the comedic sidekick to Jayna. Like, she’s more of the straight woman.

Leo [00:33:36]: All right, I zoomed in really quick because I just love that Hall of Justice behind you.

Jeremy Adams [00:33:41]: Oh yeah, that was my favorite Christmas present as a kid. And I let my kids — they’re like, these are awesome. Like, you squeeze their arms and their legs move. Yeah, they don’t make toys like this. This is awesome.

Drew Mollo [00:34:10]: Blitzy says: a huge part of Aquaman’s reputation revolves around his telepathy. At the start of All-In, it seemed he and Mera may have swapped abilities. Does Adams have any plans on using Arthur’s telepathy?

Jeremy Adams [00:34:37]: Yes. And it depends on which version of telepathy you’re talking about, because there are multiple versions — is it actually telepathy, or is it almost like Force-pushing animals into something? He’s so overpowered now with his ability to control water that the other stuff is almost dwarfed. But we haven’t seen the last of it.

Drew Mollo [00:35:59]: Infinite DD Kind Cuts asks: what goes into deciding which previous Aquaman arcs to reference? How much autonomy do you have? For example, the existence of Aquaman’s daughter from the DeConnick run is a pretty important plot point. How much of that is you and how much is editorial mandate?

Jeremy Adams [00:36:26]: So editorial mandates will be like, I’ll say, can I do this? And they’ll say no. When I started writing The Flash with Wally, the mandate at the time was everything that happened kind of happened, and you can kind of pick and choose what’s the real continuity. It’s the same thing when you read Peter David’s Aquaman run — it’s so far removed from lighthouse Aquaman. You’re like, what is happening? A lot of times I try to pull this trick where I bring back someone, and I either get away with it and then get yelled at, or I get stopped at the gate. Like, in Green Lantern, bring back Dan Garrett. I was told yes, and then I was told no, but that was already too late.

Jeremy Adams [00:37:52]: I oftentimes try to build other stories. I have this ongoing subplot with Hawkman and Hawkgirl and Thanagar and Horus. But there’s no Hawk book. I’m just trying to lay tracks so somebody can do one. If you read all my books, you’ll start to gather some of that. Gold Beetle was the perfect example — that was my River Song, and I was telling that story out of order with Jay and her and Flash and Wally.

Jar Jar Jeremy [00:58:52]: Are you like a Drew where all this stuff actually just stays in your head, or do you have a room where there’s lines going from this to this to that?

Jeremy Adams [00:59:12]: Oh no. Most of it’s in my head. There are blind spots I have, obviously. I’ve been reading comics continuously until around when was the big Marvel bankruptcy — ’96, ’98? And then I didn’t have any money. And then around Identity Crisis, right before Countdown and stuff like that, I dived back in pretty hard. So I have this little gap, but it’s very small in the 40-plus years of comic reading. So I do have a good base knowledge.

Jeremy Adams [01:00:14]: Like when we were doing Green Lantern: The Animated Series, Jim Krieg, who was the showrunner, was like, what do you know about Green Lantern? I’m like, bro. I was reading all of Geoff’s and Pete Tomasi’s stuff. Here’s a long box, blam. And I didn’t know I was going to be able to write on it, which was great. One of my first jobs, my literal title on my card said Marvel Specialist, and I would get paid to just get on calls with studio people asking questions. Like, well, you know, Venom’s not like that in the comic. Trying to talk them off the ledge of things sometimes. And they would go, here’s a check. I’m like, this is amazing.

Drew Mollo [01:01:45]: Leo, I’d like if we could talk a little bit to Jeremy. Um, reading Flashpoint Beyond — what you guys did with that, just expanding the story, I was just blown away.

Drew Mollo [01:02:41]: I feel like when Flashpoint happened, people were like, oh, and then it happened, and then it became like — it’s a fixed point but it was kind of there. People were like, oh, that happened, moving on. Right? But then you guys came back to it. And small point, the fact that you guys kept referencing Starman — I’m a huge Starman fan — I don’t know if that was Jeff or you or Tim, but kudos.

Jeremy Adams [01:03:02]: 100% it was probably Jeff. Jeff had a bigger plan. The way it all came about — Tim and I had a kind of a sequel Flashpoint idea, and we went to our editor and our editor said, what if we got Jeff involved? And we’re like, Jeff who? And they were like, Geoff Johns. Are you kidding me? And they’re like, would you? Yeah, we’ll go meet him for dinner. We were both like, what are you talking about?

Jeremy Adams [01:03:40] — on Geoff Johns as an unexpected mentor:

> “He’s been unbelievably the nicest human being ever. Incredibly kind, incredibly generous — just mentory without me saying, could you be my mentor?”

We would go to his office and we’d break on his whiteboard where they did Stargirl and stuff, and we would just — oh my God, stuff. And it was interesting. We had come up with what we were going to do for the first and second issue, and then he came in one day like, we got to stop, we gotta change this. And by the way, when we pitched him what we wanted to do, he’s like, no, we’re gonna do it this way. And he got really excited, and we’re all like, oh, okay, yeah, whatever you want. And so we started a really nice friendship.

Jeremy Adams [01:04:37]: I think that writers generally have to get to the same place. It’s the difference between somebody saying I want to write a movie about divorce and it becomes Die Hard — or me, who starts out going like, I want to write a movie about international terrorists that take over this tower and one guy has to take it away. They both have to have an emotional angle, but they also have to have a plot-driven angle. And I think my brain always thinks plot-driven first, and then I have to work toward, well, what does that emotionally mean? And they’re much more — what does this emotionally mean? And then what’s the plot that can drive it? So it was just a really interesting time of collaboration.

Jar Jar Jeremy [01:05:24]: Do you ever wonder what younger you is thinking of you?

Jeremy Adams [01:05:27] — on 8-year-old Jeremy:

> “8-year-old me is just like ecstatic. Like, he’s like, are you kidding me?”

I have a picture up there of me from 1989 with a stand-up of Michael Keaton Batman. And I always think 8-year-old me is just like ecstatic. Like, he’s like, are you kidding me?

Drew Mollo

[01:06:02]: I mean, that’s the same way I feel, Jeremy. I was like 10 years ago just going to cons, meeting creators like yourself, getting books signed. Now I’m here interviewing, you actually recognize us, and it’s like a good thing.

Jeremy Adams [01:06:26]: We realize you guys are just like us. You curse. You love the same movies. You too need to occasionally go to the bathroom and hydrate.

Leo [01:10:49]: Speaking of animation — I know you can’t say too much, but it’s been announced: Nightfall.

Jeremy Adams [01:10:57]: Yeah, I’ve seen the first one. I wrote the first one. I wrote the outline for the second one, but then it got shut down because we didn’t know what was happening when James Gunn was coming in or whatever. And then they picked it up years later, and my mentor friend wrote the second one and the third one. But the first one is completely done. I’ve watched it. It’s unbelievable. It’s very dark and gritty, and it looks like Batman in Knightfall. Azrael looks like Azrael. Tim Drake has the Tim Drake cool costume. Trying to condense like 85 issues of comics into an 85-minute movie was a task. I’m sure I’ll get raked over the coals for what I missed, but I thought we did a pretty bang-up job.

Drew Mollo [01:14:38]: If we can kind of segue in animation to something I want to touch on as a big fan — your work on Scooby-Doo. Because when we were at our panel last year, we touched on Scooby-Natural, so you gave us the whole story. That was awesome. But doing a little bit more research, I didn’t realize you had done the sequel.

Jeremy Adams [01:15:07]: You want to get me killed again? Okay, great. Yeah, this is the one that everybody gets mad at me for, and I’m like, I’m just a freelance writer.

Drew Mollo [01:15:17]: Listen, I didn’t even realize this was a thing. I remember watching that as a kid — it was the scariest thing.

Jeremy Adams [01:15:37]: The producer, my friend Jim Krieg, he’s like diehard old school. He’s like, the whole point of Scooby-Doo is to show kids that monsters are just people in masks and that they can overcome it. That’s the whole point. So when they asked us to do a sequel — if you watch it, I don’t think it’s bad. I just think it’s not Zombie Island. It was one of the hardest projects I’ve ever done. I had to rewrite the outline like 3 times based on 3 different people we thought we were going to get. And then it was like, somebody wasn’t happy with it, so they were going to fire me. And I was like, oh my gosh, I’ve never been fired of anything. And then Rick came in, and then we turned it into this kind of fun meta take on Zombie Island.

Jeremy Adams [01:17:02]: I had Velma in the original draft burning all the ships leaving the island because she needed to figure out who committed the murder. She’d be damned if anybody left before they did. And they made us change that. Sometimes the notes are good, sometimes they’re hard, you know.

Leo [01:19:16]: I think Kari had two more questions and then we should do the lightning round.

Jeremy Adams [01:19:26]: We can do lightning round. Let’s go, let’s do this!

Drew Mollo [01:19:32]: I’m going to combine these because it’s basically the same question. Five Font on 22 and Witch Presentation 6 are both curious to know if you’ll be getting a Hawkman title to explore the Horus storyline, and whether they can expect it developed if there is no book.

Jeremy Adams [01:19:53]: Not from me, but I keep pushing that story forward anyway. I don’t know if anybody’s doing a Hawkman book, so in the meantime between me and what Morgan’s doing in Green Lantern Corps, I think we’re just kind of pushing that story. We had Mogo take out Thanagar again, and the dream of these Thanagarians as refugees on Rann — would have been really interesting because they’ve been hated enemies at least in tension. Maybe I’ll just have to end up weaving that into Aquaman and tell that story. Just be like, okay, I’m telling it.

Leo [01:21:01]: uh, hello, what were your influences while writing LEGO Monkey Kid? Were there any ideas you wanted to include but couldn’t?

Jeremy Adams [01:21:13]: Tons. LEGO approached me with these kind of characters — they’re gonna do a toy line that was organic for China, and I was like, 100%. And I wrote this pitch and these characters, and I read Journey to the West, and then they sent me to China. There’s a documentary about it on Amazon, which is really funny. But in the documentary it kind of skews like I did something wrong at a certain point. I’m like, no, this was not me. There was the animation team completely bafoued my script. But it was weird, because you’re like, hey, this is what the Journey to the West stories are about. And I pitched it in front of a lot of Chinese businessmen and they’re like, yeah, we don’t want that. We want it to be a more fun-loving thing. I did 3 seasons before they moved on and let the animation group take over.

Leo [01:22:44]: Are you a gamer?

Jeremy Adams [01:22:49]: Oh dude — if we talk about gamer, we’re gonna be a long time. I was playing Fortnite for a long time and now I’m playing Arc Raiders. That is sucking my life away. My brother and I are just screaming and watching burnt peanut clips. It’s bad. It’s terrible.

Leo [01:23:11]: The reason why I brought it up — you mentioned Journey to the West. Black Myth: Wukong. Have you played that?

Jeremy Adams [01:23:18]: No, no. Really? Yeah, it is one of the most beautiful and amazing games. It’s a Souls-like game. But it’s better than the Souls because you can level up your character. It’s amazing. Definitely check it out.

Drew Mollo [01:23:47]: Actually, Leo, I want to piggyback on something we exclusively did that I know made our guest’s day. How’s that copy of Nick Fury?

Jeremy Adams [01:23:57]: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, thank you for that. I’m recapturing my youth of TV movies I wasn’t allowed to watch as a young person. But thank you, thank you.

Drew Mollo [01:24:07]: That was 100% a group thing because Kari watches Word Balloon, and she referenced it, and I was like, oh guys, if we could find this — and Leo is like an internet bloodhound. Thank you guys.

Jeremy Adams [01:24:27]: Well, this is great because I also asked for the theatrical cut of Highlander and I got that too. So I’m just going to keep talking about things I want to see.

Drew Mollo [01:25:11]: All right man, well, thank you so much for the time. So as you get to go — what are some of the cons you’re going to, and what’s the best way people can follow you?

Jeremy Adams [01:25:24]: I’m going to MegaCon in a week. I’m going to C2E2 a week after that. I’ll be at San Diego. I’ll probably be at New York. You can follow me on Instagram under SpaceKicker, but you can also go to my Substack and follow that. If you have questions, please let me know. I need something to write about.

Drew Mollo [01:25:48]: Thank you again, seriously, buddy. Really appreciate it. Keep up the good work.

Jeremy Adams [01:25:54]: I’ll try, I’ll try. I appreciate it.

Leo [01:25:58]: Yeah, thank you so much for joining us. We’re gonna wrap things up, so definitely check the show notes up above or down below depending on where you’re watching or listening. Check out our website, we got a whole page on Jeremy with a bunch of information on him. And yeah, we’ll close it on out.

Jeremy Adams [01:26:12]: Thank you, thank you. Bye, bye, Jeremy.

[END OF TRANSCRIPT]

Note: Episode ends with Jeremy’s kids coming to the door asking to be fed — he references this at ~01:25:02 when he says “if my kids come to my door and say, feed me, Father, I’ll be like, I gotta go.” The episode’s informal ending was a natural fit for the show’s energy throughout.