“This is where I was meant to be.”

That’s how Mark Waid describes his experience returning to DC after more than a decade away from the company. With one ongoing series underway – World’s Finest, which launched in March – and the five-issue Batman vs. Robin on deck for September, he’s back in a big way at the company where his writing career began with the shortlived The Comet and Legends of The Shield books, followed (more successfully) by The Flash back in the early '90s.

Beyond a career-defining run on The Flash, books like Kingdom Come, Superman: Birthright, and stints on JLA, The Brave and the Bold and Legion of Super-Heroes (twice!), meant that Waid would forever be associated with DC, even as he moved on to become a mainstay at Marvel – writing Fantastic Four, multiple Avengers titles, The Indestructible Hulk, and the award-winning Daredevil with Chris Samnee – as well as independent work like Irredeemable, The Unknown, and Strange Fruit, and executive roles at Boom! Studios, Archie Comics, and currently Humanoids.

The new World’s Finest series with artist Dan Mora is a homecoming for the creator, then, and one that he’s determined to make the most of, as he shared during a Zoom call earlier this month that also saw him addressing concerns about seeming too retro, talk about his longevity in the industry, and explain just what Dick Grayson can do better than Bruce Wayne.

Popverse: So what's it like being back at DC? You'd been at Marvel for a while, before this.

Mark Waid: It's the best. The phone calls started coming in some time back on a Friday afternoon, just, "please come home," which was so nice and so flattering. [I’m working on] World's Finest, Batman Versus Robin, [and] a couple of other tricks we've got up our sleeve that are waiting to be announced. I feel like the whole DC Universe is lined up to play with, if I want to, with respect to what everybody else is doing, obviously. It really just feels like, alright, this is where I was meant to be.

What can you tell us about Batman Versus Robin at this point? What can you actually get away with saying publicly?

What I can say is that the first arc of World's Finest is, was, and always has been, designed deliberately to lead into what is going to be Batman Versus Robin. It's five oversized issues. What I was trying to do with Batman versus Robin was try to take them into a realm that I'm not used to seeing them in, which is dark magic sorcery, rather than science, rather than logic and detective stuff. We've seen Batman and sort of peripheral magic, but I want to get into the down and dirty of it.

The second arc of World's Finest and Batman Versus Robin, I know they’re being published at the same time, but they’re not a crossover, right?

Yeah, right. They're two separate things. What the second arc is leading into is not on the radar yet.

That sounds interesting! Is World's Finest intended to continually spin off new projects?

Well, not purposefully, and not necessarily new projects. I can't hardly say anything, but there's something in that second arc that the payoff is, “Oh! I didn’t realize that the payoff is part of something that I’ve known for a long time.”

What you’re saying suggests that everything about World’s Finest is intended to be very additive to the DC universe, if that makes sense.

There's no point being subtractive to a superhero universe. Every time we limit someone's powers or put on some new limitation to what they can do and how they can do it, That's just counter to the whole spirit of comics and superhero comics. Comics are not about rules. Comics are about flying, right?

The trick of doing World's Finest as a book that is set in, sort of, "earlier times," is that I'm going to try to make an effort with every arc to have a reason for it to link up to something in current DC continuity, so that it "counts," if you will. Because you know, readers, and fans, when the budgets are tight, tend to look for the book that counts. So the trick is to make World's Finest count, and I think we've done that.

I love that you said "trick," because I’d already been thinking of World's Finest as a trick, in a sense – it's so much bigger than it first seemed, as is obvious even by the end of the second issue: It's not just Superman and Batman, you have Doom Patrol in there, you have Robin and Supergirl… who have great interplay, which I did not see coming.

Well, nobody did because, here's the thing: unless I miss something – which is unlikely – in 80 years of DC history, I have never seen Robin and Supergirl have a conversation.

Really? That feels almost impossible, especially because you gave them this really dynamic energy that I want to know the backstory of, and also kind of never want you to tell me.

Exactly, and that's what you'll get. [Laughs] I may not ever tell that story, but I’ve got something in mind.

I think my strength lies in not necessarily individual characters as such, although I hope I do that as well, but I think my real strength is taking two characters, especially ones you've not seen before, together. What is that conversation? What are they like? How do they react to each other? How are they the same? How are they different? I've said this about writing like JLA – when you're writing JLA for instance, you don't own Wonder Woman you don't own Aquaman, right? But if you're writing JLA, you do own the relationship between the two of them. That is the place where you can be really creative and bring your own voice to it. It's the same with World's Finest.

The thing about World's Finest is that, one of my goals, one of the things that I'm doing with Dan [Mora, series artist] is, I want to show you stuff you've never seen before. Robin and Supergirl together is a good example, but also, Batman and the Doom Patrol have never met, unless it's been like one panel here and there or whatever. They've certainly never had any sort of adventure together. Even Superman has never met the original Doom Patrol, except at, like, Rita Farr's wedding or something. So, what else can we see?

I have two criteria for World's Finest, basically, past "Let's do great Superman, Batman and Robin stories”: What can I show you that you've never seen before, and who can I bring in that I feel I have something unique to say about them, or can give you some angle on them that maybe you haven't considered before?

Was that the mission statement of the series? Even to the point of calling it "World's Finest," as opposed to "Batman/Superman," because that feels even more inclusive of the DCU as a whole...?

Yeah, it really is. I mean, it's still always going to be centered around Batman and Superman, and Robin, I might add again. He's a big part of the book because, you know, he's the guy who can make wisecracks. He's the one who can be funny.

Dick is, I think everyone agrees now, arguably the most-liked hero in the DC Universe from the point of view of the other characters. It’s not just that he’s funny or that he humanizes Batman, he’s become this character that is just… liked by everyone.

My take on Dick is that he's the one character in the DC Universe that every other hero likes, and would lay down their life for. I mean, beyond the regular superhero sacrifice. He's the one. The other thing I like about Dick Grayson is, and maybe I can find a way to play with this, is that he's a much better leader than Batman ever was. That's the one thing he can do better than Batman.

I feel like you're telling me who you're favoring in Batman versus Robin. [Laughs]

But that’s Batman vs Damian!

You mentioned Batman Versus Robin being a story centering around magic more than logic, and World's Finest is also a supernatural story right now with the Devil Nezha as the central threat. Why supernatural? It is as simple as being something that Batman isn't used to and something that Superman has trouble with?

The hard part of writing a Superman and Batman book is always trying to find something that both of them can have a hard time with, so supernatural was just seemingly the way to go right off the bat. Next arc after that, not so much, but it's a card I'm not hesitant to play.

World’s Finest is such a fun book. It feels very... classical for want of a better way of putting it. I was trying to think of a way to describe how you approach the Superman/Batman relationship.

Well, yeah, I mean, the remit was not "do retro stories" per se, but the request from DC was sort of, "give us the classic version of these characters, so that you're not wrapped up in the moment-to-moment continuity". You know, Superman's off-planet and Batman is doing this, and then Batman's back and Superman is here but having to tie all that in with normal continuity can be rough. Taking it and deliberately saying that we are placing it someplace in the past, but with connections to the present day? That makes it fun.

I was going to ask, is the series set in the past because it's something that you personally have more affinity for, or is it just easier to say, you don't have to worry about Superman being on Warworld or whatever? I mean, both Batman and Superman are technically dead right now after Justice League #75, so I guess that's something you don't have to worry about.

It's that last part exactly. I mean, I clearly have a great passion for DC comics of all eras, especially stuff I read growing up, but the trick is not to be a nostalgia act, right? This is not, "hey, look, I'm trying to make the Silver Age all over again," because those stories have been told; they don't need to be reprieved. Every time I bring something in that is sort of reminiscent of that, Dan and I have a conversation which is, "don't feel like you have to make it look like Curt Swan drew it, bring your own spin to it, bring a brand new look to it."

He's such a great artist, because again, it feels classical, and it feels like he can draw anything.

He can! I mean, I've yet to stump the band here. Depending upon the artists I'm working with, especially if it's somebody I've not worked with before, you know, my scripts are a little more dense, my scripts are a little more, not dictatorial, because it's always a collaborative medium, but I feel like I have to explain more where I'm coming from. But with Dan, I was like, "no, this guy gets it."

Will World's Finest permanently stay in the past? We know the future of the DCU, to a degree. I mean, the Legion of Super-Heroes exists, and we've seen multiple stops between here and there already. You say that you have the entire DCU in my back pocket -- is the idea of, "if I want to go to the 31st century, I can go there," something that you're conscious of when writing the book?

I would love to. That's part of the second year plan if we can get there. There's no reason we can't do a story about the descendants of Superman or Batman. There's no reason we can't do a story where the characters go to the future or whatever. The only place I don't want to be is in the here and now.

What's been your response to the fan response to World's Finest?

My response was a giant sigh of relief.

Really? Were you nervous? Because again, you're very familiar with these characters, and I think a lot of people have been waiting a long time to see you write these characters.

That's very kind. Thank you. And I've been waiting to write them, but here's the thing. The reason it was a sigh of relief is because as I said earlier, on the face of it, although you will find out differently later, on the face of it, [World’s Finest] doesn't "count." It's set in the past – that is always a risk. It was such a relief, and the way people embraced it just bowled me over. And I'm just so happy that I'm able to say, "look, I still have it, I can still do this."

I feel like you're really conscious of people dismissing the book because it doesn't count, or being dismissed as Silver Age nostalgia.

Like, yeah! Yes. For whatever reason, it has been my rap since 1989.

Still? Even after something like Daredevil? Even something like your Flash run wasn't purely Silver Age nostalgia, when it comes down to it.

When people talk about the Silver Age, it's people who have actually never read Silver Age comics, and so to them, fun is synonymous with older comics, and it's just baffling. I mean, Daredevil was very modern, but because of the style that Chris Samnee has, because of the style that Mike Wieringo had on Flash and on Fantastic Four – it didn't look like Jim Lee. Jim is awesome, but not all comics have to look like Jim Lee to be taken seriously, you know? So the further it gets away from Jim, there's a section of fandom that looks at and goes, "oh, geez, it's fun. This is not my DC Comics," and, look, I embrace them too. But it is something I worry about, sure.

That’s just surprising, because, again, you've done this long enough, and you've had enough success doing what you do that you'd think people would be able to see past that.

I hope! I mean, thank you. The other thing too, in terms of a sigh of relief, is I can never take it for granted. There's a level of craft beneath which I know I won't sink, so that's my safety net on a day-to-day basis, but I can never assume that the next story I tell is going to be as good as anything I've done just because it's me.

You're not very into the hubris of the whole thing of just, "I'm great, therefore, it'll be great." [Laughs]

In all seriousness, the dead bodies that litter the side of the road in terms of freelancers tend to be the ones who get up and go, "well, I'm who I am, and so I can do no wrong. I'm not interested in learning." I don't know how you get to do this for 40 years. I really don't, that's not disingenuous modesty -- I don't know how you get to do a career like this. I have no idea other than to think that perhaps the fact that I'm always reading new stuff, paying attention to what younger creators are doing, absorbing what kind of storytelling tools are they using. What sort of ways are they using the form of comics in a different and new exciting way? That's what I am a giant student of, and it's important, you know.

Well, now I want to ask, what are you reading these days? If that’s not going to take us too off topic.

The things that I'm really reading that I really like are Jeremy Adams’ Flash and Tom Taylor's Nightwing, among other things. The Tom Taylor issue with Bruno Redondo, the one with the 20 page, horizontal panel they did, that was great. That is a perfect way to use the medium in a way that nobody else can use any other storytelling medium. You'd have to do that in comics. There's a whole slate of younger writers, particularly at DC, that are coming in that have new voices and new things to say. You pay attention to that. I'm enjoying that work. I mean, there's only so many Batman vs Killer Croc stories I can read, unless you bring something to the table that I've not seen before.

You seem excited about all of this, which is almost surprising. I don't mean to say, "you've been doing this long enough that why would you be excited?" but there is some level of people who have been doing it for as long as you have where they get jaded. You seem genuinely excited not only about World's Finest and Batman Versus Robin, but also what you're reading.

I love comics!

You're right, it is easy to get jaded. It is easy, after any length of time to sort of get jaded by your job or whatever or jaded by the milieu you live in, or the fact that you've turned your hobby into your career, which is a double edged sword. Yes. But the freedom that DC has given me is one of the reasons I'm so excited. You asked earlier about whether or not there are stories I've had built up in my back pocket for you. It's not like I have a vault of untold stories, but there is a vault of bits. There's a vault of character observations. There's a vault of exchanges. That's the fun part to draw from.

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Love reading about long-time comics creators? Check out Popverse's interview with Stan Sakai on Usagi Yojimbo and his new Netflix series.