While JMS may one day want to pair Vertigo and DC characters and more, but as has now been revealed, Brave and the Bold will see something more.

Using the book as his platform, Straczynski will be taking on and introducing the group of heroes commonly known as the “Archie heroes”, that is, the super-hero characters that were generated by Archie Comics beginning in the ‘40s (and who have had various incarnations in the decades since). Among the more famous of the characters are The Shield, The Web, The Comet, The Fly, The Jaguar, and The Black Hood.

Newsarama: Right off, tell me about your personal relationship to the Archie hero characters. Are they a group that you yourself fondly recalled? How did the prospect of your working on the characters come to DC?

J. Michael Straczynski: I enjoyed the characters a lot as a kid, and had a real fondness for them born of nostalgia and the sense that they were just really off-beat and interesting characters. I wasn't as keen on the later incarnations or reinterpretations of them, because I thought they went a bit afield of what made them compelling, but never lost my fondness for the originals. When it was decided I'd start with B&B at DC, Dan mentioned that they were working on getting some of these characters and that I could, if I wanted, fold them into the DC universe by way of this book...not as later incarnations, or revisions, but as themselves, rebooting their origins from the start. I thought it was a terrific and exciting idea, as I love the idea of rediscovering or redefining heroes, as evinced in The Twelve. So for me, this is a seriously fun thing to do.

NRAMA: Will the characters be part of the wider DC Universe proper?

JMS: That's not my call, but it's my understanding that yes, they want to re-introduce those characters into the DCU proper.

NRAMA: How many of these characters will you be handling? Anything you can mention in terms of specific characters?

JMS: I'm still awaiting the final list of cleared characters from DC. Once that list is in hand, I can answer more intelligently.

Dan DiDio on Bringing the Archie Heroes to the DCU

For those who don’t know them, “Archie heroes” surely brings up all the wrong mental images. This isn’t Archie, Jughead and the gang dressing up as superheroes – “Archie heroes” refer to the superheroes created prior to Archie and published by MLJ Comics in the ‘40s through the ‘60s. The roster of characters include the first patriotic superhero, The Shield (he beat Captain America to the newsstands by 14 months in Pep Comics #1, January 1940), Jaguar, The Fly, Hangman, Black Hood, The Comet, The Web, the group called The Mighty Crusaders, and more.

Newsarama: Dan, how did the deal get rolling with Archie for the use of these characters? Obviously, you had use of the characters before with the Impact line in the mid ‘90s, but that was an administration or two ago... So how does the deal work? Is this a full-on acquisition or a license deal?

Dan DiDio: It’s a license deal, but we’re handling it differently than we did with Impact. The characters and the interpretations of those characters as they were done with Impact will not be used in the DCU. We’ve gone back to the original incarnations of the characters, which were introduced in the ‘40s and ‘60s and such, and distilling down to what we feel are the strongest characters of the bunch.

What we want to do, and the best part about this is having such a great writer like Joe Straczynski on board for this, is that we wanted to give Joe a point of difference for the Brave and Bold book. It just wasn’t going to be about “Batman and...” Here, working with the Archie characters, there will be both team ups with Batman and among themselves, and even the potential for solo stories. This allows us a really great showcase to introduce these characters and slowly bring them into the DC Universe.

NRAMA: What’s the larger plan here by introducing them into the DC Universe?

DD: My goal is to help broaden or expand on what the DCU is, both with the Archie characters and with the Milestone characters. The stories will be taking place inside the DC Universe proper. Because of that, I feel that it helps to broaden the horizons of the DC Universe as well.

NRAMA: Speaking both as a fan of the characters and as someone who’s overseeing what Joe has in store, who’s an odds-on favorite for being the breakout character?

DD: That’s a tough one. I have my own personal favorite – I’ve like to see The Hangman break out, along with The Hood and The Shield...there are several of the characters that I really do enjoy and feel that they serve as particular areas that, when presented properly, and knowing that they’re in Joe’s hands, I know that they will be presented property – that I think can be strong examples of the types of characters that we don’t currently have in the DC Universe.

NRAMA: And the Mighty Crusaders? You looking for a team book to spin out of this as well?

DD: You bet.

NRAMA: Are they going to have their own flavor as characters?

DD: I hope so.

Hey, now Alan Moore can go back to DC and do Watchmen the way he originally intended

Kill off the Quality heroes? It's been done.