…when the stars come into alignment or something, and even though your car is falling apart and your body is falling apart and some of your best friends’ lives are falling apart…everything comes together on a project *exactly* the way you always knew it should.

In the end, human calamity is a small price to pay for Art.

I’ll explain all this in the next couple of days, when I can finally surface for more than a few seconds.

My idea of an appropriate sentiment for Super Bowl Sunday.

I’m inundated, but I’ll have a lot to discuss when I’m uninundated.

I can’t see straight. I need to sleep.

Let me know if the game goes into extra innings.

I’ve let almost a week slip by with only a couple of comment replies posted.

Sorry.

I’ve been immersed in Doctor Fate.

I’ll post some thoughts on the series when I finish this script.

I’m experimenting a bit (always dangerous) and learning a few things (always interesting — to me, anyway).

I suppose the title says it all, doesn’t it?

Bitch, bitch, moan, moan…

Oh, sure you are.

Well, from a link on Steve’s web site, anyway.

In an interview for Wizard.com, Marvel editor Tom Brevoort relates the story of the worst mistake he ever made.

Basically, I’m it.

About 98% of what Tom says in this interview is accurate. The other two percent look different from his point of view than from mine, but I fully understand why he interprets my actions the way he does.

I hope he won’t consider the following a “nonapology apology”:

Tom, I am genuinely sorry for having put a very talented editor and a very nice guy — i.e., you — in a very difficult position.

If you haven’t already, go read Part 1, then come back and join us for the next paragraph.

As I may have mentioned in an earlier post, I always find it intriguing to write a sympathetic character whose view of the world is completely different from, even diametrically opposed to, my own. Zauriel certainly qualified as that, but he posed another, more peculiar challenge.

In order to write a character as more than a construct, I need to believe, at least during the act of writing, that the character is *absolutely real*. Talking duck, fifteen-year-old prison inmate, angel of the Lord — doesn’t matter. I have no idea how to render a character credible to readers if it feels “made up” to me.

See where this is going?

Accepting Zauriel as real also required that I accept his creator — in this context, God, not Grant Morrison — as real. I would have to shelve my agnosticism for a while and, somehow, allow myself to think like a person of faith. (One heck of a leap for an inveterate wag who considers nothing sacred.) Then, I had to figure out at least the broad strokes of *what* I would believe, *if* I believed.

And *then*, I had to find a way into the character himself. How does an angel think? What motivates him? Now that he’s been flesh and blood for a while, how does he feel about living in the material world, and what does he make of the human condition?

Editor Joey Cavalieri provided me copious research material, including photocopies of Zauriel’s *JLA* appearances and the Mark Millar-written miniseries, all of which certainly helped. And I poked around online, also, for whatever I could find about the character.

In the course of said poking, I came across an interview with Zauriel’s creator — in this context, Grant Morrison, not God — in which he explained what he had in mind when he conceived the character. According to Grant, Zauriel was an attempt to use Judeo-Christian lore as the basis for a superhero in the same way that Stan Lee and Jack Kirby drew upon Norse mythology in the creation of Thor.

For me, that was the key. Now I understood how I could get to know this character.

There was a very famous early-1960s issue of *Thor* that opened with the god of thunder sitting in a Manhattan malt shop, sipping a milkshake and conversing congenially with the other, mostly teenage, patrons.

Zauriel’s mission on Earth is to proclaim God’s existence and demonstrate His love for humankind in a more tangible, more visible way. If Zauriel took that mission seriously, it would bring him into constant contact with ordinary human beings — indeed, he would actively seek out opportunities for such contact.

What I needed for the opening of this story was Zauriel’s equivalent of Thor in the malt shop.

In that ’60s scene, Thor is idolized like a celebrity. The other patrons crowd around him, angling for a better view, wanting to touch him, asking for his autograph. He leaves the malt shop flattered and feeling good about his big, blond, Asgardian self.

I won’t reveal what the equivalent Zauriel scene turned out to be, but I will tell you that he doesn’t get quite the degree of adulation that Thor did, and he’s more than happy to depart when matters call him away.

Writing that scene, I discovered as well that Zauriel works best for me as a vehicle for raising questions, not for handing down answers. He’s unique in that he can simultaneously discomfit non-believers and the devout, while still somehow remaining lovable to both. His very existence is a mild affront to non-believers. His commentary on humans and their beliefs can convey supreme reverence, sublime innocence, and playful heresy (from the narrow human, not the broader angelic, perspective), all in the same sentence, confounding the faithful.

In the end, I had a lot of fun writing the *Zauriel* one-shot. My only frustration was the limited number of pages. The story I wanted to tell really should have spanned two or three issues. Still, I’m very pleased with the end product, including Mike Kaluta’s magnificent cover and Peter Snejbjerg’s wonderful interior art.

I’ll be interested to see what you folks think of it. If nothing else, I have a feeling it’s going to be the subject of fan debate for quite some time.

I didn’t get a chance to finish the long second post about Zauriel tonight. Give me another day or so, okay?

So, where was I?

Oh, right — I was saying that the first time someone told me about Zauriel, back when he debuted in *JLA*, I thought it was just about the *worst* idea for a character I’d ever heard.

One of my reasons would probably have occurred to you immediately. I’m an agnostic. The introduction of a *real angel* from the *real Heaven* into the DC Universe could only be interpreted, I thought, as an endorsement of the Big Three brands of middle eastern monotheism. The political, social, and cultural repercussions of such an endorsement were troublesome enough, but they were the *least* of my concerns about Zauriel.

For any writer (okay, *this* writer) whose inclination might be to *expand* the scope of the DCU’s mystical and spiritual possibilities, Zauriel might easily have represented the ultimate dead end. How could any realm grander than Zauriel’s Heaven or a being more powerful than Zauriel’s God be portrayed in a DC comic without insulting every believer of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam? And if an all-powerful, all-knowing, omnipresent God is a character in a superhero book, why doesn’t He show up every time a supervillain robs a bank? Oh, and if there are guardian angels like Zauriel, why doesn’t every superhero *have* one?

Even *those* issues, however, weren’t what disturbed me most about the character.

Everyone reading this blog, much like the schmuck writing it, lives in a real-world universe full of mysteries. Little mysteries, like, “Why is all dryer lint purple?” and “Why can’t we all just get along?” Bigger mysteries, like, “Why is gravity so weak compared to the other forces of nature?” And humongous mysteries, like:

– Is humankind alone in the universe, or are there other allegedly-intelligent life forms?

– Does God exist?

– What happens after we die?

In terms of the DCU, the first question was answered in 1938, on the very first page of *Action Comics* #1. Superman was born on the planet Krypton. Thus, ipso facto, there was — at least until Krypton exploded — other intelligent life in the universe. In the almost 70 years since, hundreds if not thousands of extraterrestrial heroes and villains have appeared in the DCU, operating in public as often as not, and making no effort to disguise their origins.

Think about that for a moment. In the DC Universe, unlike ours, *every single person* on Earth *knows* beyond all doubt that life exists on other worlds. The DCU’s Joe Shmoes live in a universe where stories like, oh, “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” or “Star Wars” or “Battlestar Galactica” or “Star Trek” would hold no special fascination, even for children.

(I’m not singling out DC, by the way. It’s equally true of the Marvel Universe. We got Skrulls in the second issue of *Fantastic Four*. So Reed, Sue, Johnny, and Ben haven’t had to ask the “alone?” question since 1961. Nor, today, does anyone else among the MU populace.)

In the DCU, the second question was answered unambiguously with the introduction of Zauriel.

Now think about *that* for a moment. Ever since Zauriel appeared on the scene, *every single person* in the DCU has *known* beyond all doubt that the God of Abraham exists and that His angels are watching over us. And, while the intricacies of the system have been left a bit fuzzy, *every single person* in the DCU *knows* that there’s a Heaven and a Hell. Not “believes” — *knows*!

In other words, with the advent of Zauriel, the DCU was, effectively, sucked dry of whatever mystery remained. With all the big questions answered, doubt vanishes; both spiritual and scientific inquiry are rendered obsolete; the exploration of outer — and inner — space becomes pointless. What’s left to search for? The meaning of life? Maybe we don’t know, but *we know God knows*, and, at least in a rudimentary sense, we know where God can be found — physically. We’ve got His home address.

So, naturally, when editor Joey Cavalieri suggested I write the *Zauriel* one-shot as one of the lead-ins to *Doctor Fate*, I hesitated — for a second, maybe two. Then I said “yes”.

What can say? I guess I like a challenge.

Tomorrow, I’ll discuss what changed my mind about the character and how that affected the upcoming one-shot. I think you’ll find it interesting.

…I’m exhausted, but tomorrow I’ll finally post a few thoughts on writing Zauriel.

I’d stop there, but I promised you and myself at least three lines a day, so I’ll toss out this fragment of a thought:

The first time someone told me about Zauriel — years ago, when he made his debut in *JLA* — I thought it was just about the *worst* idea for a character I’d ever heard.

More to follow.

The color version this time…

IMAGE DELETED

Zauriel is ™ and Copyright © 2007 DC Comics.