DC vs. Vampires: World War V - Matthew Rosenberg talks Damian Wayne, gruesome deaths, and growing a universe

DC vs. Vampires: World War V is coming soon to the page of DC Comics as the DC vs. Vampires universe started by Matthew Rosenberg, James Tynion IV, and Otto Schmidt gets a bloody new chapter. The new series, from Rosenberg, Schmidt, Pierluigi Casolino, and Tom Napolitano, sees the rise of the Vampire Queen, Barbara Gordon, as heroes and villains fight to survive in a world gone cold.

We spoke with Rosenberg about the upcoming series and what readers can expect! Check out our full conversation below.

When you first jumped into this world with James Tynion IV and Otto Schmidt, did you ever think it would become as expansive as it currently is? 

No, not at all, which is maybe bad foresight on my part. Our idea was sort of, let's end the world in 12 issues… let's really bring it down. And that was maybe the poor planning on our part. People got really excited about it and now we have to keep the world alive. But we knew that for a long time — so it's been a fun challenge to take the story we wanted to do originally and do it the way we wanted to, and now to see what comes after is always a fun sort of thrill. 

What has the continued collaboration with Otto been like? His style really fits this world

Otto and I actually had worked together across the aisle. We did a Hawkeye series at Marvel together. And I was a big fan of his work and working with him was great. And when I came over to DC, James called me and was like, I have this project, and I sort of want you to run it. And James is a very good friend of mine, and I trust him. And I was like, cool. Yeah, I'm in. And he's like, well, let me give you the pitch. And he walked me through the story, and I was like, yeah, that sounds awesome. I'm in. And he's like, you're supposed to be more resistant. And I was like, why? And he's like, because we have an ace up our sleeve to get you. And I was like, what's that? And he's like, Otto Schmidt's going to draw it. And so I was like, oh. Again, I'm in.

Otto is just one of my favorite artists in comics and one of my favorite people to work with. I think the thing that is really great about Otto is he's very stylish, he's very stylized. If you see an Otto Schmidt page, you know it’s him. But he just is so good. Like he has a few tools that he's just better at than almost anyone in the business.

And like he can make things sexy and cool. And we needed all of that. We need the vampires to be this alluring, scary kind of villain. But we also need our heroes to feel gritty and feel like they're going through it. And he can do that. I can't imagine doing the book with anyone else. He's the dream collaborator for it. 

How fun is it to be able to build a DC Universe from the ground up and operate with a sort of free reign outside the constructs of continuity? Are there any characters you’ve enjoyed writing that you didn’t expect?

It wasn't daunting at first because I didn't get it. There were just a lot of times when I would call our editor on the previous book, Ben Abernathy, and I would just be like, can I do this? And he'd kind of be like you can do whatever you want, man. It took like 10 of those calls for him to be like, hey, this is our world, like this is, there aren't rules. Can Batman die? And he'd be like, Batman can die. I'd be like, oh wow, okay, that's crazy. I’d be like, can Nightwing kill him? And he'd be like, Nightwing can kill him. And I'd be like, wow, that's crazy. And he finally just set me straight. And once you get it, that, if it works for the story and it's good, anything goes, it's really amazing. And I think it's part of what when we hear from fans, it's a lot of what they love about it is that they just don't know. Nothing is sacred. No one is safe. There are no rules. We treat it like it's the last DC comic story ever made and hang on. That's it. That's the only rule. And it's really fun to do it that way. 

What makes Damian Wayne such a compelling character in this book and how does his unique personality kind of fit with his role? 

I mean, Damian is a compelling character in any book. Damian is one of the best characters at DC. Damian is always fascinating to me because he's this character who walks in two worlds. He's constantly in the push and pull between hero and villain and between his mother and father. I realized charting a new path in the comic for Damian, unlike some other characters, wasn't necessary. He's still going to be the kid who walks in two worlds. But now he's a vampire. The difference is that the vampires in our world tend to fall into order. They fall into a sort of social hierarchy structure based on the vampire kingdom, and they follow the Vampire King and Queen. But Damian is the vampire who doesn't.

He's trying to overthrow Barbara Gordon, the Vampire Queen, which would make him an ally to the humans. But in doing so, he's upsetting the peace that the vampires and humans have found, which makes him not really a friend to anyone. And I think that's where he operates best. He's got his own vision. He knows what he thinks is right and wrong, and he's gonna do it, and nothing's gonna stand in his way. And it makes him very fun and very relatable and very dangerous. 

What can you say about Barbara Gordon? As you mentioned, she’s now the Vampire Queen. What’s in store for Barbara in this story? 

So, obviously, Barbara is going to be a different ruler than Dick Grayson was as the Vampire King. She is more practical and more thought out. She's inherited where they tried to black out the sun, to make the permanent darkness, and that failed. Supergirl managed to undo that. But in doing that, they've shifted the planet into an ice age. Everything is starting to cool at a rapid pace. They're in a sort of global collapse. And she's inherited this. And also, the power balance is not what the vampires thought it was. The humans are more powerful and more dangerous. And so she is making deals and being more diplomatic than other vampires have been… than Nightwing has been. But she also has her lieutenants and stuff pulling at the seams of that. 

So it's a real heavy is the head that wears the crown kind of thing for her. She's inherited this power, which she maybe didn't want. Part of the end of the last book is that she made the sacrifice partially because she was seduced to it but partially because it's the only way she could see to stop it. And now it's a constant struggle for her to be like, is the vampirism more powerful than her own personality? And she is, you're seeing her kind of get pulled apart as, as she tries to find order, but also be the Vampire Queen. 

She's such a great character. And obviously when we turn someone into a vampire, they're, they're a little different than they were before. But I think there's a lot of Barbara that, that seeps into the character and and makes her a very sort of tragic ruler, which makes sense to me. I think she's a character full of tragedy and rises from that.

Do the heroes stand a chance here? 

Do they stand a chance for a little bit? Yeah. At the start of the book, they're in a cold war, and there's some peace, and they're surviving. And that's as good as they can hope for. As we go, those chances diminish. We're going to lose a few of our good guys. And it's going to get pretty bleak for them. That's all I can say at this point.

What’s it like to play in a bigger DC sandbox and give characters who don’t often get a chance to shine a bigger spotlight?

Yeah, I think that's really the joy of getting the whole DC Universe is that we all have characters that we love that don't get enough time on the page or you're like, that person could get a real cool moment to shine. Obviously your Batman's and Superman's and Wonder Woman's and Flash's are the big guns. But part of the idea of the book was that this is a calculated war on the DC Universe, and the big guns are going to get taken off the table. So, who are the characters who really shine and can step up and fill those roles?

It's just really, really fun to just be like, Jaina from the Wonder Twins is going to save the world. Steel is going to be a really important heavy hitter in this book. I'm a diehard Wildstorm fan. So the temptation is always constantly to be like, the Wildcats and the Authority are going to come in and save the day. Like, Planetary is going to fucking make everything work. But you have to have some moderation there. So, Zealot appears we had Grifter in the previous one, and there are a few other Wildstorm characters if you keep reading. Obviously Midnighter was in the book for a bit and a few others.  

It's just about finding our favorite toys to play with and hopefully making other people fall in love with those characters if they didn’t before. But also the thrill is the fans of those characters getting excited. Obviously, Zealot has a lot of fans, and she's been awesome in Kelly's [Thompson] Birds of Prey book. But yeah any time you can have more Zealot fans are excited.

Killer Croc is also a big part of the book, and I think he's just such a beautiful character. And so I'm hoping that Killer Croc fans show up and give him some love.

What's your favorite death so far in the series? 

The whole Bat-Family getting wiped out really fast… But obviously, I'm a Red Hood nerd. I love Jason Todd. He sacrifices himself to take some of the vampires down.

When Batman falls, Jason is ready to go and knows what he has to do, and that, to me, is such a great… if you're going to kill a character in a book, it should say something about the character, and I wanted to give Jason the moment where I say that Jason is one of the greats of the DC Universe, and that's what I tried to do. So that, for me, was the hardest to write, the saddest, and probably my favorite.