Newsarama: Howard Chaykin
HOWARD CHAYKIN ON GUY GARDNER: COLLATERAL DAMAGE
Little did Howard Chaykin know that a cover he produced years ago would lead to work today. That's the base story behind how the creator landed on Guy Gardner: Collateral Damage a two-issue (48 pages each) miniseries debuting in November.
"Dan Didio had approached me and said that, for him, the archetypal image of Guy Gardner was a cover that I'd done for Andy Helfer years and years ago[Green Lantern #196]," Chaykin said. "He felt that was the pivotal image in his head to what the character was all about - as a character, not necessarily as a drawing, but as a character. He asked if I'd be interested in returning to it."
So Chaykin started turning the idea of the character - as well as his place in the current DCU - over and over in his head.
"I played with a number of concepts - originally, we were talking about doing a pastiche of The Man Who Would Be King, since the character lends itself to that. Ultimately it all evolved into Collateral Damage, and it takes place on the edge of the Rann-Thanagar War. There's an old African proverb that says, 'When elephants fight, it's the grass that hurts.' That's the premise of the book - it's what happens to the smaller nations when big nations kick the shit out of each other. What gets it all underway is an attempt at back door peace negotiations between two non-official representatives of Rann and Thanagar. Guy gets drawn in when he's asked to serve as an arbiter."
For those who may have not been following Gardner's character arc lately, he's fully shed any vestiges of the "Bwhaha-ha" he had left over from the Giffen-DeMatteis Justice League days, and currently, is a competent, level-headed, if not opinionated, and occasionally obstinate member of the Green Lantern Corps.
And that portrayal fits perfect with Chaykin. "I never thought Guy was an idiot or a goofball," he said. "I always thought he was a guy with a lot of street-level smarts, who is plain spoken and hard boiled. I realized - and I'm not doing a likeness or anything like that, as the character is a blend of different sensibilities, in terms of a character, he's a lot like Dennis Leary - a smart guy, who's still a street guy. That's how I'm playing Guy."
The miniseries lets Chaykin play not only with the Green Lantern Corps, but the larger space side of the DCU as well. "I was a huge Hawkman fan and a huge Adam Strange fan, so incorporating those elements is really cool. In fact, one of the two representatives of the sides in the war - the Rannian representative is a Corps cadet. So we'll see her in action as a Green Lantern in training."
Additionally, Collateral Damage will allow for some dusting off, cleaning up, and re-introducing of a few more things around Gardner. "I've redesigned [Gardner's bar] Warriors so that it's actually a real bar," Chaykin said. "It's sort of like if the guys who franchised Planet Hollywood and Hard Rock Café were to do a superhero bar, but with Guy's flourishes. Having some experience at hanging around in saloons every now and then, I know what bars look like. Another function of the book is to clean up a lot of the discrepancies and the mess left over from stuff that I think a lot of people would like to pretend didn't exist, which is the Guy Gardner: Warrior period. I've gone in there and cleaned that stuff up a bit, and I think it all works together well.
"Also, we meet G'nort again. He's a little bit darker than we've seen him played, and not quite as goofy as the characters has been played previously - actually, nowhere near as goofy as the character has been played before. The story is also an opportunity to draw Hal Jordan - Gil Kane was my mentor, and Hal Jordan will always be drawn by Gil Kane in my head. My version of him isn't so much of me doing a pastiche of Gil, but those out there who know of my relationship with Gil will recognize the reference.
Additionally, as the art shows, Gardner will still be sporting, as Chaykin realizes some fans have come to call it: "That goddamn haircut."
But - as the creator sees it, Gardner's haircut, which, at times, has been played for comedy, works. "I've always felt that, in the best sense, that haircut is the same kind that was work by Teutonic Knights in the 12th century, and that's how I'm playing it," Chaykin explained. "It's not a Moe Howard look - it's short on the top, and shaved on the sides. He really does look like a Teutonic Knight of that period, and for me, that works. I know that some people see the Green Lanterns as the police of the galaxy, I've always thought of them as knights - with their own version of a round table with might used for right, as opposed to might making right."
That said, Chaykin said he found it a touch difficult not gong back to his mentor's original design - after all, it was Kane who designed Gardner back in 1969, when he first appeared. "And he didn't have the haircut. Gil was obviously using Martin Milner as a model for Guy. I've gone along with the more current version, but you'll see - I'm not making him look foolish. I have hard times doing characters who are butts of jokes that they don't know about."
The haircut, which unfortunately, did make Gardner the butt of jokes throughout the late '80s and early '90s, is too ingrained to lose at this point, Chaykin said. "It's an element of the character now, as much an element of the character as Superman's spit-curl. For me, I have to get past the idea that in my head, Batman still has a widow's peak like he did when he was drawn by Dick Sprang. For me, Batman has always had a jawline that you could use to rule a line. So the idea of creating realistic versions of these characters is a challenge.
"I'm working with the hair as it's drawn, but trying to make everything about him work in this 'real' world. For example, the first time we see Guy is in action over New York City, and it has to work in that setting. Then, shortly after, we see him wearing a suit in the bar, and he's not wearing one of those idiot suits that he seems wear in a lot of places, but wearing a well-tailored outfit. The outfit itself is motifed in Green Lantern - he's wearing a Green Lantern pattern necktie, he's wearing Green Lantern emblem cufflinks, and he's being a horndog, which is what Guy does. The sexism of the character is staying - that's an element that I believe is imperative."
And finally, as mentioned earlier, Guy's attitude isn't as…jerky as it once was. He's still opinionated, and very strong-willed, Chaykin said, but as the Guardians see it, that's what makes him invaluable to the Corps.
"I play him as the guy that the Guardians go to for dirty jobs that no one else seems to want to do," Chaykin said of Gardner's relationship with his little blue bosses. "That's my take on the character - he's a guy who's capable of just about anything. There are two major scenes of confrontation with the Guardians, and Guy treats them with the kind of contempt that he normally treats authority figures with, and discovers to his chagrin that they understand everything he's saying. They're not just cute little aliens - they may not have sense of humor like a human being would, but they certainly have senses of irony."
All told though, the mini has the creator grinning every time he puts pencil to paper. "It's got space opera, it's got action on earth, and lots of guy. I just turned in the first 25 pages of the second book yesterday, so I'm ahead of the curve, and having a great time with it."
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