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Anonymous writes...

Dear Mr Weisman 1. How long have Zatanna and Madame Xanadu known each outer? 2. Has Madame Xanadu seen the movie Xanadu and how does she feel about it ?( especially the title being the same name as her last name) 3. When did Blue devil take up the role of "'Den Dad'' to the outsiders ? 4. how long have Vandal Vavage and the Phantom stranger known each outer ?

Greg responds...

1. I haven't locked in a day or date when they met. But it's been some time.

2. For all we know, she was inspired to choose that name BECAUSE of the movie. I'm not saying it's true but...

2a. For the record, Madame Xanadu is her stage name/nom de guerre. Her real name is Nimue Inwudu.

3. Again, I haven't nailed down a precise date, but sometime after Helga Jace, um... disqualified herself from the gig.

4. A very long time.

Response recorded on May 10, 2022

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Marvelman writes...

If Madame Xanadu is a true medium then she can communicate with the dead, right? If that's the case, why didn't Zatanna just bring Artemis to Xanadu so that Artemis could speak to Wally's spirit during "Overwhelmed"?

Greg responds...

It's not that simple. If a spirit is truly at rest, you generally cannot reach them. And in any case, you seem to think it's healthy to attempt to commune with the dead. Zatanna might not agree with you.

Response recorded on May 09, 2022

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Anonymous writes...

Is Helga Jace aware that zviad is a member of the light?

Greg responds...

No spoilers.

Response recorded on May 09, 2022

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Anonymous writes...

mister Greg why did you have Garfield join the Doom Patrol if you just kill them?

Greg responds...

History is a mystery.

Response recorded on May 06, 2022

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camila perez writes...

is supermartian your favorite couple? it feels like they're the mainstream couple and I'm absolutely in love with that

Greg responds...

I don't have one favorite. But I'm glad you like them.

Response recorded on May 06, 2022

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Anonymous writes...

when creating halo, did no one stop to think that killing gabrielle and having a motherbox use her corpse was a bad idea for your first (and only) female muslim hero? i know your response before was that it was taken from the comics, but now with oracle's origin we can clearly see you guys aren't afraid to change things. so you could've easily changed it to have gabrielle resurrected with the powers of a motherbox instead.

and i feel like you still don't see the issue here, which is that violet is not a muslim woman of color, so you don't get credit for "turning a woman of color from a victim to hero" as you've said. you killed a woman of color and possessed her corpse. i'm sorry but i just can't get over how no one saw a problem with that.

Greg responds...

We talked about this a lot, actually, with a number of people, including with a Muslim woman of color. And, no. No one saw a problem. As with all things, people's mileage varies.

We had not, yet, involved MPAC in our creative process. Maybe they would've had a problem with how we introduced Halo if they had been involved in Season Three. But MPAC's involvement and interaction with us began during the creation of Season Four. At that point, when we told them where we were going with the character, they were good with it. Even, I dare say, enthusiastic. MPAC and other Muslims we've consulted have been happy with who Halo/Violet has become, or in any case, with the journey that we've put them on.

But just so I'm clear, you'd have preferred - since we were doing THIS story - that the character had been white?

I mean I get that you'd have preferred that the character had been a Muslim woman of color with a different story, but I'm not a big fan of fans who tell me which story to tell. This was the story we wanted to tell. This was the version of Halo we wanted to create.

But we could have made Gabrielle a white girl, I guess. She's a white girl in the comics. We could have had yet another blonde in the cast.

But we already had aliens who present as white, including Superman and Hawkwoman, among others. We've also had a dead girl who was white, i.e. Secret.

It seems to me that having Halo be a person of color - even a person of color who (as you dismissively note) was created from a corpse possessed by an alien spirit - was a step in the right direction. Especially since we knew where we were going with the character. You may not like how Violet became Violet, and I respect that. (I don't apologize for it, but I respect it.) But now that you've seen where we've taken the character, I wonder if there's another way to look at it.

Yes, Gabrielle is dead. Her death is horrible and tragic. She was vulnerable. And she was exploited and murdered. Now, she's dead.

But Violet is alive. They are not Gabrielle. But they are definitely a person of color (as much as Clark Kent's a white guy - and I think we can all agree that Clark Kent is a white guy). And now they're a person of color, who's interested in exploring the Muslim heritage that mattered so much to Gabrielle. In essence, Violet is seriously thinking about converting to Islam, in part because of Gabrielle's memory of faith. And I doubt we would've gotten that story if we'd made Gabrielle a white girl.

Because, here's the thing: we're doing genre fiction here. That means we are using aliens, demons, ghosts, mermaids and robots to tell stories about the human condition. I reject the notion that all our diversity MUST somehow come from fully human characters like Dick Grayson and Artemis Crock. Again, no one doubts that stories about a Kryptonian aren't capable of telling us something about the human condition. Or that Atlanteans and Amazons aren't human enough to empathize with. So some of our characters are going to have bizarre and even horrifying origins. That's the genre. So do we play it safe and only do white characters when we go inhuman?

Some of our aliens look like space aliens. Some look like humans. Most of those humans look white historically. We're trying to turn the battleship on that notion. So Martian Manhunter - when he looks human - looks Black. Icon is Black. Highmother and General Zod are Black. Lor-Zod is biracial. B'arzz O'oomm, when he looks human, looks Latinx. And Halo looks Arabic. It's not much. But it's a start.

Now, don't get me wrong. I understand that a big problem that you have with Halo is that Gabrielle was the only Muslim woman of color in the show. (It's not actually true, of course. But no one wants to count villains like Queen Bee or Talia al Ghul, who probably only pay lip service to being Muslim.) So we need more representation. More representation is always better. We're working on it. Maybe not as fast as everyone would like. But we're trying. Truly, honestly, trying. In fact, I've been trying to increase representation my entire career for all sorts of different communities. I know my track record is mixed. I've taken a lot of swings, and some of those swings have been misses. (And maybe Halo was another miss - though I truly don't think so.) But Elisa Maza didn't come from nowhere. I PUT her in Gargoyles. And that was nearly thirty years ago. We need to do better, and we continue to strive to do better. And, meanwhile, we have increased the Muslim representation in YJ. Madia's role has expanded. Khalid Nassour joined the cast. We met his Muslim parents briefly. And we're only getting started, frankly. I can't promise you we'll get more seasons. So maybe our progress on this particular show will be arrested. But I'm not done (I hope). And I will continue to strive to do the best I can. Because this MATTERS to me. I promise you. And we're also learning to bring in more voices. More readers like the folks at MPAC and GLAAD and ASAN. More diverse writers. An increasingly diverse cast. Etc. We're a work in progress. But even that IS progress.

All of which is NOT to say that you need to agree with us, with me, with any of it. Again, I respect your point of view. The decisions we made still work for us. But I don't have any illusion that I can somehow TALK you into making it work for you. Your responses to what's on the screen are your own. And they're valid. Period.

Still, we've done everything in our power in Season Four to make sure that everything we do with the character of Halo is as respectful as possible going forward. We don't always succeed. I just hope you see that we're trying.

Response recorded on May 05, 2022

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Nate writes...

Hi Greg! Here are some rather odd-ball questions that you may or may not have thought about regarding the worldbuilding/characterization in YJ, that I hope you'll have fun answering/pondering about.

#1 - Do Martians (in their natural form) have tear ducts? We've seen Miss Martian cry in her more humanoid-looking Martian appearance, but I don't believe we've ever seen Martians (like J'emm, for example) shed tears.
#2 - Do you interpret the main colors of hero's costumes to symbolize that character's favorite color? For example, do you think Dick's favorite color is blue, given that's the color of his Nightwing insignia? Artemis' green/orange? Barry's red? Batman's black? Etc. etc.?
#3 - I know you're big on tracking dates and times and all that jazz, but are you a stickler for checking such things as the moon cycle, days of the week, differing sunsets/sunrises, etc. etc. when coming up with dates? For example, say you had a scene take place right after midnight on August 16 (of whatever year), would you go and check what stage the moon would be that night? What day of the week that landed on? Etc. etc.
#4 - In the recent episodes of Artemis' arc, it was revealed that Onyx was the granddaughter of Will Everett, a.k.a. the Amazing Man, who Cheshire (and later Artemis) seemed to be unaware of. It was evident that the League of Shadows knew about him (it was why they kept an eye on her in the first place), but given that everyone else hadn't heard of him, is it safe to say that the history of superheroes just isn't a basic subject in school? Do kids not learn about the Justice Society of America or the All-Star Squadron when learning about World War II? (I realize that Amazing Man might not have been a member of either superhero group, but given Onyx's reaction to him not being known it seemed to imply he was at least a public hero and not a covert one).
#5 - Is Bart legally known as Bart Allen or Bart Garrick on his documentation? I know his guardians were the Garricks, but was he posing as their grandson? An orphan taken in by them? A relative of Barry and Iris? This might constitute a spoiler, but I thought I'd ask anyway. The situation kind of reminds me of how Artemis officially handled her "death" back in S2 from a legal standpoint once she came back from undercover, if that makes sense.

Anyways, thank you for your time. I hope you had some fun (or at least some food for thought?) answering these, and I sincerely hope you're having a great day. I'm still binging YJ:Phantoms and crossing my fingers for S5 every day!

Greg responds...

#1 - Haven't given it any thought. I'd have to confer with Brandon for a final answer, but I'm leaning toward... yes or maybe no.

#2 - Not necessarily.

#3 - I try to remember to check things like that, but it's already hard enough, so I'm definitely not a stickler. I do try to get the times of sunsets and sunrises correct in various locations.

#4 - He was a public hero. I doubt it's a school subject. And I'm not sure I agree that Tigress didn't know about him. Keeping one's response close to the vest can be prudent.

#5 - Bart Allen. No one said he was posing as their grandson. Jay and Joan were his legal guardians. That doesn't mean they had to be blood relatives - even fictional blood relatives.

Response recorded on May 05, 2022

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Michael Broder writes...

Is Henchy an original character, based on someone from the comics, or both?
Have you ever thought of doing a motion comic where the actors read the whole comic?

Greg responds...

1. He's more-or-less original. He's based on a model created for the Green Arrow Showcase short and a specific voice that I love, which actor Steve Blum has used for me in multiple series: Raythor (W.I.T.C.H.), Blackie Gaxton (The Spectacular Spider-Man), Zeb (Star Wars Rebels).

2. Yes. I'd love to do that. But there's no budget for it, generally. The YJ Wiki did a few using volunteer labor and volunteer voice actors. Here's one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42QKFkSy4DU

Oh, and what the heck, here's another: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8N3Z2b-UlTE

Response recorded on May 05, 2022

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Anonymous writes...

A. Does Will Harper know Moo Gi Gong? What martial arts does he practice?
B. Does Will train regularly with the other Star City vigilantes?

Greg responds...

A. I've never done the research into this.

B. Nowadays? When he has time, I suppose. (And by "other Star City vigilantes," I assume you're talking about the Arrow Family.)

Response recorded on May 05, 2022

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Giorgio writes...

How did Steve Dayton find out were Beast Boy and Miss Martian living at so he takes Beast Boy from Miss Martian?

Greg responds...

I've never given it much thought. I guess the logistics of that don't interest me all that much. Beast Boy's legal guardianship was transferred to Megan Morse after the death of Rita Farr. There must have been an address of record. And Steve probably had some intel about Megan from his Doom Patrol days. It's not like Gar and M'gann never saw each other back then.

Response recorded on May 05, 2022


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