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Since moving to write for DC Comics, fan-favorite comic book creator Matthew Rosenberg has mainly crafted hard-hitting tales set within Gotham City. However, he’s recently expanded his sights to include horrific visions of the entire DC Universe with the new original titles Task Force Z and DC vs. Vampires. Co-written with James Tynion IV and illustrated by Otto Schmidt, DC vs. Vampires exists outside of DC’s main continuity and depicts vampires rising up to overwhelm DCU’s heroes. By direct contrast, Task Force Z, written by Rosenberg and with artwork by Eddy Barrows, takes place firmly within the main DCU, showcasing Jason Todd leading a team of zombified supervillains on top-secret missions for the government.
In a roundtable interview attended by CBR and other press outlets, Rosenberg shared the origins for DC vs. Vampires and Task Force Z. He also discussed how various DC heroes take center stage in each series while teasing the stories’ epic stakes. Also included with this interview is a sneak peek at DC vs. Vampires‘ blood-soaked artwork created by Schmidt and lettered by Tom Napolitano, and Task Force Z‘s pages, penciled by Barrows, Inked by Eber Ferreira, colored by Adriano Lucas, and lettered by Rob Leigh.
“Launching both was news to me, it was a week before it was announced,” Rosenberg replied to a question from CBR about the timelines of both projects. “I liked the coordination but I can’t take any credit for that being planned. The books’ origins are very different and both don’t entirely involve me.”
“DC vs. Vampires is a book I’m co-writing with James Tynion,” he continued. “It’s a book that James pitched as he was taking Batman and he thought he would have more time and it was before his Joker book was conceptualized. He wasn’t sure how long he was going to be on Batman so this is what [he] wanted to do next. He pitched it. Everyone was excited about it. It was greenlit. Batman took off. He pitched his Joker book, which took off, and then Ben Abernathy, our wonderful editor asked if he was ready to do DC vs. Vampires and he was correct in saying he didn’t have time to do that. He was overbooked and busy so [James] asked if he could bring in a co-writer and Ben was intrigued.”
Rosenberg recalled that he was immediately enthusiastic after Abernathy pitched him the story. The creative team already signed Rosenberg’s Hawkeye collaborative partner Otto Schmidt to illustrate DC vs. Vampires before Rosenberg was approached. Rosenberg became even more excited about joining the project when he learned of Schmidt’s involvement. With DC vs. Vampires taking place outside of the main DC Universe continuity, Rosenberg also appreciated that the story let the stakes and sense of loss really matter.
“You look at things like DCeased where you can really go wild and do the fate of the universe stuff and challenge audience’s expectations at every step,” Rosenberg stated. “That’s something we’re really trying to embrace. I think that was in [Tynion’s] initial conception and something that I’ve really tried to run with writing the book — keep people guessing and shocked and in awe of how crazy we can make it because it is its own separate universe. As for Task Force Z, that was an idea Paul Kaminski, our editor, had — just an inkling of an idea — for a zombie team book.”
When Kaminski first approached Rosenberg to write a zombie team book set in the DCU, the writer initially deferred. He didn’t feel particularly connected to the pitch. However, after a lengthy conversation with Kaminski spitballing what would make such a project appealing to Rosenberg, Rosenberg gradually convinced himself to take on the writing project.
“Instead of the Suicide Squad fighting for their lives, Task Force Z is fighting to get their lives back literally,” Rosenberg observed. “That was the initial pitch premise that I ran with: they’re zombies but there’s a glint of humanity in them and they are fighting to get more and more of it and it’s given out them as a sort of reward.”
There was a lot of back-and-forth between Rosenberg and the editors because Rosenberg felt the book needed big names on its undead team, rather than just random characters throughout the DCU who were conveniently deceased. For Task Force Z’s field commander, Rosenberg stressed that the leader should be a recognizable character who could carry a series, with Jason Todd being a logical choice — given his history of death and resurrection.
“The first name that I said was that I wanted Jason Todd,” he shared. “When you’re dealing with death and rebirth and who should come back, he should be the sherpa for the team. From there, everything else clicked into place pretty easily. Bane and Man-Bat were two that I really wanted and they wanted me to have. It was unclear, when Arkham Asylum blew up, who died. They kept it ambiguous on purpose.”
With the creative team on the recent Man-Bat miniseries planning to kill off their monstrous lead, Rosenberg felt it was kismet that he could get an undead version of the feral supervillain on Task Force Z. Rosenberg was especially careful to coordinate with Dan Watters to ensure neither Task Force Z nor Watters’ title, Arkham City: The Order of the World, creatively conflicted within the shared DCU. Rosenberg enjoyed putting Jason into a leadership role, feeling it was outside of widespread expectation for the character. “He’s a reluctant leader and is doing this to get something else,” Rosenberg shared.
Rosenberg emphasized that Task Force Z, unlike DCeased and DC vs. Vampires, takes place in DCU’s main continuity. Rosenberg revealed Red Hood writer Chip Zdarsky complimented him personally when Eddy Barrows signed on to illustrate Task Force Z. Rosenberg was in awe of how Barrows captured each of the individual characters in the series, feeling that each one was unique, and yet, juxtaposed seamlessly. Barrows’ engaging use of page layouts led to Rosenberg giving him more creative space to explore the visual composition of the book. “Hope for this book is it makes people realize he is one of the top people in the industry, drawing comics today,” he added.
CBR asked Rosenberg about what it was like reuniting with Schmidt on DC vs. Vampires. “It’s a dream, Otto is one of my favorite artists that I’ve ever worked with, we had such a blast,” Rosenberg stated. “His characters are so exciting and beautiful. And, the thing I didn’t know, when we did Hawkeye it was very contained, with a single character sometimes in fights. This is escalating to pure chaos and he just does it so well. I was very nervous about it because he’s good at doing individual characters and the choreography of a one-on-one fight. When we got the point of cutting loose and fighting for the fate of the planet. He’s just naturally great at it. I should’ve known.”
Rosenberg realized how perfect Schmidt was for DC vs. Vampires when he saw Schmidt’s cover for the first issue, which beautifully showcased Batman and Green Arrow battling an army of vampires. In contrast to DCeased, which saw the heroes and villains attacked by ravenous zombies, DC vs. Vampires focuses more on creeping dread and subterfuge as the heroes are unsure whom they can trust. With the rules on zombies in the DCU not as defined as the rules on vampires, Rosenberg incorporated the Lazarus resin as the means to bring zombies into the story while weaving in some commentary about substance abuse and addiction as the undead continue to rely on eating the resin to maintain their unlife.
CBR asked Rosenberg about the similarities between Red Hood and Rosenberg’s work on Grifter in Batman: Urban Legends. “On the surface, I think they’re pretty similar but I have a different read on them,” he replied. “Grifter is a character who, at the end of the day, is a character that’s fun-loving and kind of a screw-up and Jason is kind of the opposite. He’s a guy with bad judgment but he’s very good at what he does. The thing I love about them isn’t that they’re hard cases or the gun-loving characters in Gotham right now. The thing I like about them is that they are very much characters who are presenting a facade. Nightwing and Dick Grayson are the same guy… But who Cole Cash and Jason Todd really are… Pretending to be things that they aren’t. At his heart, Jason doesn’t quite know who he is and what he wants to be. He’s trying to figure it out and that, I think, is very exciting to explore as a writer.”
In DC vs. Vampires, the heroes’ trust in each other will be tested but remain resolute, with Batman and Green Arrow facing a meditation on who to trust. By contrast, John Constantine will demonstrate that he has always seen the worst in everyone around him and, thus, will have that stance reaffirmed as vampires surface with familiar faces. Rosenberg pushed for Constantine and Green Arrow to have larger roles in DC vs. Vampires‘ story.
With DC vs. Vampires in its own continuity, Rosenberg enjoyed writing Alfred Pennyworth — especially since the beloved Wayne family butler remains dead in the main DCU. “He’s such a great character to write and you just get such a feeling of warmth from writing him,” Rosenberg noted. “He really changes the tone of every scene in a great way and brings a lot of weight to the work that I think is needed.”
Rosenberg praised the culture at DC for letting good ideas flourish under a collaborative atmosphere. To ensure quality, DC vs. Vampires is giving Schmidt the time he needs to pencil, ink, and color the book, with no fill-in artists planned across its twelve-issue run to underscore its singular creative vision.
DC vs. Vampires #1 and Task Force Z #1 are both on sale now from DC Comics.
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