After a lengthy departure from DC, superstar comic book creator Mark Waid returned to the publisher in a big way in March 2022, launching the monthly ongoing series Batman/Superman: World’s Finest with Dan Mora. Since then, Waid’s profile among DC’s line has increased considerably, with World’s Finest joined by other prominent titles including Shazam!, World’s Finest: Teen Titans, Superman: The Last Days of Lex Luthor, and a number of contributions in anthologies and special one-shots, including masterminding the recent crossover event Lazarus Planet. All that is to say, Waid isn’t slowing down any time soon, taking full advantage of his time back at DC, as he continues swinging for the fences creatively.

Popverse’s Graeme McMillan sat down with Waid last year for an exclusive interview welcoming Waid back at DC and, one year later, Popverse’s Sam Stone spoke with Waid at Baltimore Comic Con for a follow-up about his current place at the publisher. This comes as Batman/Superman: World’s Finest returns to the world of Kingdom Come, the celebrated Elseworlds story created by Waid and Ross, with Superman and Batman following Superman’s estranged sidekick Boy Thunder, the once and future Magog, to his home dimension. This adventure follows Waid reimagining the very first meeting between the Man of Steel and Dark Knight as Waid draws from a lifelong love of DC Comics to help chart its new future.

In an exclusive interview, Mark Waid speaks about his expanding slate of titles at DC since his return, reveals the current culture at DC’s offices and explains why it makes no sense to him why Batman and Superman would ever be enemies.

Popverse: Mark, you’re the most prolific I’ve seen you at DC Comics in years. How is it balancing the four different titles currently being published right now?

Mark Waid: [It’s four] that you know of! There are more in the pipeline. It has been a while since I’ve taken on more than a book a week. It’s exhausting, but I love the work. Frankly, I don’t want to die at the keyboard. I would like to, at one point, semi-retire, so I’m just picking my shots.

With that in mind, as someone who loves the DC Universe so much, what makes a title special enough for you to carve out the time to write for it?

It’s just that I love the DC Universe and I’ve been thinking about these characters since I was six. I still have things to say about them and there are combinations of characters that I want to show you.

The Brave and the Bold was a template for what you’re doing now with Batman/Superman: World’s Finest as this rotating team-up book. What was it about taking the time to retell the first meeting between Superman and Batman in the series?

We needed something because we had a couple fill-in issues by Travis Moore, who is great, but he’s not Dan Mora. We needed something for Dan Mora fans, so they wouldn’t leave us for two months. [The first meeting] seemed like something with some juice to it. I love preserving the old continuity and stories as much as I can, but there was no saving that one.

The original Superman/Batman team-up was them fighting jewel smugglers on a cruise ship and I don’t know how you make that a Superman story in today’s day and age. [laughs]

The primary antagonist for this story is Jax-Ur, who is always overshadowed by General Zod as the villainous Kryptonian. Why place him as the big bad here?

Jax-Ur was the first Phantom Zone criminal and, because of what he did, the Kryptonian Science Council said “No more space travel.” Superman looks at that as “You helped contribute to the mass murder of millions of people, including my parents.”

He doesn’t blame Zod for that specifically, but that’s an angle to the Superman/Jax-Ur relationship that I had never seen before. That goes back to what I can show you that you’ve never seen.

In stories like Batman v. Superman, John Byrne’s Man of Steel, and Frank Miller’s Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, there is a sense of antagonism between Superman and Batman. While you have nods to those stories, you really re-establish them being friends here right from their first meeting.

I hate them being enemies, and not because I’m a preservationist of the past, that has nothing to do with it. It’s that Batman is an amazing strategist, he’s an incredible strategist. There is no strategy in pissing off and not having as an ally some of the people he does have as friends and allies. On a character level, it just makes no sense.

He sees Superman as somebody as a help to him and a help in eliminating crime. Why would you be that guy’s enemy?

Batman/Superman: World’s Finest is going back to the Kingdom Come world after showing Magog’s origin as Boy Thunder earlier in the series. Was there ever a thought to keep Kingdom Come on a shelf? What made you want to go back?

To my mind, it’s still going to be on a shelf because – and I even told Alex Ross about this at great length, just to loop him in – it’s a prequel, as opposed to a sequel. If it was a sequel, it would be a different story, that was the idea. With a prequel, I felt like we had a little more leeway and we already set up, with the Magog as Boy Thunder story.

There’s also this focus with your recent work on young heroes, especially launching World’s Finest: Teen Titans, with the Bob Haney era iteration of the team starring in it.

I love that era and those versions of the Titans. It was that Dan Mora did such amazing character redesigns on those versions of the characters that editorial said “Please do a Teen Titans book!” and I said “I can absolutely do that.”

You’ve gone bright and hopeful with Teen Titans, while going dark, but not unsavory, over on DC Black Label with Superman: The Last Days of Lex Luthor. Was that a matter of DC approaching you and asking if you had any ideas for a Black Label story?

It was that, that was the approach. I was approached that way six years ago, I had an idea, they didn’t want to do it, and then there was a management change, and then they wanted to do this. Back then, Black Label was envisioned as a place to do more “adult” stories and there’s nothing really different about this Superman story except that it’s the Black Label format that actually makes this work.

Bryan Hitch gets the chance to break out from a smaller page and do his stuff and that’s more why it’s a Black Label book.

I know that you’ve done original graphic novels before, but how is it having that increased page count and additional creative real estate that comes with the Black Label format?

It’s interesting! My rhythms are set to 20 or 22 pages, so it’s different. It’s difficult for me to do that, and if you ask me to do a 100-page graphic novel (which I’ve done), I always get lost. Those make me nuts because I don’t know how to think in those terms. With Bryan, I know a lot of times I can give him a little less to work with on a script and he will just fill out and blow it up, so it’s not so hard.

In talking about the management changes, as someone who’s worked extensively at DC as a writer and editor, what’s the culture like at DC now?

It’s super positive! You can see it in the books, with the Dawn of DC thing they’re doing, reintroducing the characters in their classic form, but with a modern spin to them. Everybody up there is energized. For the first time I’ve seen there, probably in 10 years, everybody wants to work there, everybody goes to work really looking forward to what they can do that day.

Are any of the ideas you’re working on now plans you had idly thought of during your time at Marvel or Boom! Studios?

None because I honestly never thought that I’d be back. I never thought that they would ever let me back in the door. But, again, there was a management change and, as things happened, I got three calls that day. The Boy Thunder thing is one that I’ve had in my hip pocket for 25 years because that was originally the idea for The Kingdom, which was the follow-up to Kingdom Come. I don’t know why I didn’t do that idea back then, but I’m glad I didn’t because I was able to keep that bullet in the chamber.

Other than that, it’s not like I’ve had a lot of stuff in my back pocket. It’s more like I get to play again.

I always cross my fingers that your unused Aquaman pitch moves forward.

Some day! That would be nice!

You created the Speed Force, which has become a hallmark for the character and since appeared prominently in The Flash and the Arrowverse. What was the idea behind creating this for Wally West?

Brian Augustyn was my editor at the time and also my best friend. We would talk about what we wanted to do every issue back and forth. Wally West and Barry Allen had that connection with the same origin, but Jay Garrick is sitting in the corner and he’s also the Flash, but with a couple different origin and backstory and, with Johnny Quick, it was the same thing.

The way I think about these things is that I think about the powers, how these characters perceive the world and, if you had these abilities, what would your everyday life be like. Somehow, I got the question in my head “What do you see when you get to the other side of the speed of light? Once you break the speed of light, what does that look like to you?”

That opened up the floodgates of if there is something beyond the speed of light that only the Flashes can obtain. That’s what led to the idea of the Speed Force.

Is there one thing you want people to keep in mind about the Speed Force in other stories and depictions?

To stop using it so much. [laughs] It doesn’t need a bunch of embellishment, it doesn’t need to be its own mythos.

What else else can you tease about with your upcoming work at DC?

I’m having a blast with Shazam!, and I asked Dan Mora what he wanted to draw and he said “I want to draw Bat-Mite” and I said “What if he has a cousin named “Shazamite who is a big fan of the Captain? Let’s do him!” That’s coming up and there’s some Black Adam stuff coming up because that’s a natural fit.

Beyond that, there are a couple things I’m doing at DC that I can’t talk about yet, but that we’ll soon be revealing. It’s more stuff in the characters that I love.

We’ve recently seen a reappraisal of Black Adam as an antihero , which reminds me of your work on Fantastic Four addressing whether Doctor Doom was actually noble or just another supervillain.

Doom tells you he’s a noble guy, but if you go back and look at Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s stuff, [it’s] bullshit. He will be as honorable as he wants to be, if it serves his purposes. He’s a bad guy.

Do you see Black Adam in that same light?

A little bit. I think he’s a little more honorable but, at the end of the day, I think his Achilles’ heel is his temper.

Mark Waid returns to the world of Kingdom Come in Batman/Superman: World’s Finest #20, on sale October 17. The adventures of the young Titans continue in World’s Finest: Teen Titans #4, on sale October 10. Billy Batson faces changes to his power source in Shazam! #4, on sale October 3.