THE POLITICS OF BLOOD SQUAD SEVEN

Beyond what's next...

Okay, I’m warning you right off the top: there’s a lot of backstory to cover here. I’ll try to get through it as succinctly as I can…

Sometimes I just do things. When I’m writing, I’ll look around at anything and everything that might inform the story I happen to be telling at that moment. I’m happy to pull in elements and find inspiration from all over. For as long as I can remember, it’s always been that way. As weird as it may sound, it’s what makes the work I’m doing -- even a corporate WFH gig -- that much more personal to me.

One thing I’ve drawn my fair share of inspiration from over the years is the now-classic TV series, The West Wing. I imagine that a lot of writers of my generation would claim the same thing. Aaron Sorkin’s creation -- and his style of writing -- casts a long shadow over just about everything that came after it, especially anything that deals with government and politics in some fashion. To this day, the show is completely rewatchable (even though the “Sorkin-isms” are, by now, well worn territory).

It ran for seven seasons, although Aaron Sorkin infamously bailed after the end of Season Four. At that point, executive producer John Wells took over to steer the ship. And while some folks might consider this next statement to be complete blasphemy, I’m actually a big fan of John Wells’ years running The West Wing. It took about a season and a half to find its legs, but once it did, it became just as riveting a show as the Sorkin years. As Wells himself has stated in the past, it became a somewhat different show than what Sorkin’s specific voice brought to the table, but it was no less entertaining as far as I was concerned. Your mileage may vary, but I still stand by my opinion.

In those final seasons, Josiah Bartlet (brought to life by legendary actor, Martin Sheen) was still the fictional, Clinton-esque Democrat at the center of the show. He ended up serving as President for the entirety of its run. Save for the series finale, where the torch was passed to incoming President Matthew Santos (played with humanistic gravitas by Jimmy Smits). The show ended up being extremely prescient in its choice to introduce a barrier-breaking -- albeit fictional -- Presidential candidate like Santos (a Hispanic) and eventually have him win. It was only two years later that, in real life, Barack Obama was duly elected to the highest office in the land. It’s like The West Wing was, in its own way, preparing us for what was soon to come.

In the show’s seventh and final season, the main plotline involved the national political campaign to elect Bartlet’s successor. Santos’ VP running mate happened to be former White House Chief of Staff, Leo McGarry. But the sudden death of actor John Spencer (who portrayed Leo) while still filming the show’s final episodes ended up complicating the ongoing storyline in a personally tragic but narratively interesting way. Santos had to pick a new Vice-President. He eventually chose Governor Eric Baker, played with quiet dignity by the brilliant Ed O’Neill, and who The West Wing viewers had already been introduced to as a candidate in the Democratic primary race at the end of the show’s sixth season.

So for whatever reason, from the moment the show ended, I got a creative bug up my ass that, to this day, I haven’t let go of. I endeavored to continue the West Wing continuity whenever any story or series I was writing had to deal with the U.S. President as part of the plot in any way.

The first example of this potentially actionable plan occurred in my relaunch of Rob Liefeld’s YOUNGBLOOD from Image Comics in 2008.

The series was drawn by Derec Donovan, and we didn’t waste any time introducing a new character, Douglas McGarry, who worked for the National Security Council and was instrumental in reviving the Youngblood project in our series. Fairly soon in the first issue, he identifies himself as Leo McGarry’s nephew and even goes into some of Leo’s actual backstory from The West Wing itself.

Next up was Dark Horse’s CATALYST COMIX series, published in 2013. Along with my future KNEEL BEFORE ZOD collaborator, Dan McDaid, we flat-out inserted Santos as the President in our serial, “The Ballad of Frank Wells”.

It was a pretty bizarre tale all around, with our “President Santos” dealing with the potential end of the world in issue #1 (and eventually being haunted by the ghost of Abraham Lincoln in subsequent chapters). And as you can see, McDaid pulled off a decent likeness of Jimmy Smits…

Finally, I’ve been using Ed O’Neill’s character, Eric Baker, as the President in the BLOOD SQUAD SEVEN series published by Image Comics over the past year and a half. That idea came naturally, considering I’d started out referencing the show back in the YOUNGBLOOD relaunch. So it was double-callback.

For those West Wing fans who are really well-versed in the show and who might be wondering, the timeline works out like this: Bartlet served two terms, followed by two terms of Matthew Santos starting in 2007. An unnamed Republican served a single term before Eric Baker returns (in a very Biden-esque manner), winning twice to serve two terms himself (two consecutive terms, I might add).

Since the show seemed to run a good two or three years off from our real Presidential elections, it all seemed to make some measure of sense to me. And, as a writer, it gave the entire narrative another dimension that made it interesting for me. Comicbook continuity -- as a concept -- has always been both interesting and important to me. But, as the so-called “Golden Age of Television” that we’ve all experienced over the last thirty plus years has proven, the notion of a tight continuity certainly isn’t limited to comicbooks.

Speaking of which…

To the best of my knowledge, I believe BLOOD SQUAD SEVEN YEARBOOK #1 hits comicbook stores this week, on April 22 (if not this week, then I have to assume it’ll be out next week). It’s the culmination of several narrative threads from the entirety of the series so far. A climax, if you will. It’s a whopping thirty pages of story brought to you with great satisfaction by artist Paul Fry and yours truly. If you love superheroes as much as I do, you’ll probably dig this comicbook.

Finally, in BEN 10 news, there’s the little matter of this. Just something to keep in mind as we get closer to the May 6 release of issue #1.

Until next time…

Joe Casey

USA