John Ostrander: Firestorm, Suicide Squad, the Spectre, and writing from the conscience

A conversation with writer John Ostrander and your host, C Lue Lyron!


We chat about breaking in at DC during the Legends crossover; the influence of socially conscious writing by --and vegetarian dinner with-- Denny O'Neil. We discuss how John's always been inspired to mix real life, philosophy and imagination.


Here's the episode link, too:
https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-wmdxb-98ab40 Feel free to copy and share!

Our talk began like so:
C Lue:
What did Mike Gold ask you to accomplish when you came aboard to do Legends?

John:
He sort of laid it out for me. Now, Legends was the first mini-series after Crisis On Infinite Earths,
which was a twelve issue run. He said he wanted to do this one in six. Crisis sort of blew up the DC Universe, took things apart. Our goal was to bring it back more together, and to launch some new books, as well. So Legends would show how the new, single DC Universe worked together.

C Lue:
What were you thinking as Legends opened up the opportunity for you to do Firestorm?

John:
I was surprised! Basically, I was asked to do the fill-ins, because Gerry Conway really didn’t want to get involved with it. Since I had plotted the Legends stories, it was presumed I’d know how to tie into it. I knew it was two issues; that’s what I was promised at the time- but I was glad to do it.

At that point in my writing career, I’d been doing stuff over at First Comics. So this was my first venture into the Big Two, at the time. Of course I wanted to make a good impression- I always want to do good work, whatever I’m working on. I was hoping it would lead to other projects. All I was guaranteed was Legends- and at that point, we knew were doing a Suicide Squad book. Mike suggested we use Legends as a launch platform, so the first time the Suicide Squad appeared was in Legends.

We dig into some of the themes that inspired John on Firestorm; his teamwork with Tom Mandrake; and as a bonus, talk a little about staying true to the nature of The Spectre, a Golden Age hero with a very specific tone.

This is part one- enjoy this hour, and I'll post more soon! This is my uncut interview, much of which will be re-ka-jiggered into the body of the feature story of next year's BAck Issue Magazine #112, with much more things Firestorm, including creator Gerry Conway.

The opening theme music is by Walter Murphy, Emmy-award winning composer for TV's FAmily Guy, with his 70's instrumental, Hocus Pocus.
The closing theme is non-copyrighted "Highway Wildflowers."