Who doesn’t love a good fighting game? The colorful characters, the badass special moves, the tragic backstories that provide motivation for all manner of punches, kicks and shoryukens.
But what if the fighters found out the game was empty, a means to an end for those with darker intentions, and the players soon lost interest and instead turned their attention to carrying out petty personal vendettas and fomenting revolution? And also there was a baby?
Such is the plot of Dead Legends II, the sequel to the 2019 tournament series by writer James Maddox and artist Gavin Smith, published by A Wave Blue World.
Dead Legends II picks up a few months after Yan Nakamura’s crushing victory wherein she exacts revenge on her husband’s killer and changes the Dead Legends tournament forever. She and her diverse squad of teammates — the scarlet-haired assassin Red Death, mentor Jee See, the large, be-Afro’d Stalk and the sensitive Barbosa — are now on the run from deadly assassins. But there’s another wrinkle: Yan’s new daughter, Yoshi. As they flee and fight for their lives, the crew also has to raise a kid. Yan isn’t alone, but neither are her enemies, some of whom have their own agendas for upending the tournament and its mob of killer bad guys.
The series has been released digitally on comiXology but will be collected in trade Oct. 13 with a cover by artist Adam Gorham.
ComicsXF caught up with Maddox ahead of Vol. 2’s release.
Dan Grote: How far along was Dead Legends I before II was greenlit/conceived?
James Maddox: Gavin and I worked up the first eight pages of fully lettered art when we teamed up with A Wave Blue World, but we had the entire first volume outlined. When we got the green light, completing the script was a breeze.
Dan: What was different about making this volume vs. the first one?
James: I feel the second volume allowed us to dip more into the emotions of our characters. While there are still several great fights, we see our group interact with each other as a unit, which draws out more of their personalities. While we got a good dose of character in Vol. 1, Vol. 2 amps up that aspect of this series.
Dan: Did COVID-19 end up having any effect on production?
James: Not at all. Both Gavin and I were worried we’d get a pencils-down instruction, but A Wave Blue World quickly jumped in to tell us we were moving full steam ahead.
Dan: The silent chapter was very cool. Where did the idea to do that come from, and also for the silhouette fight at the end?
James: One of the major wants that Gavin listed when we started dreaming up Dead Legends was that one of the issues be a giant fight. Since the issue would be a fight, we decided to push that further into a conceptual area by making it a total silent issue.
Dan: What’s the give-and-take like with Gavin when it comes to this stuff? Do you tend to give detailed notes in terms of fight choreography, or simpler prompts like “Yan and Tigress fight in the rain”?
James: Gavin takes complete control for the fight choreography. I’ll have bullet points for things that need to happen in any given encounter, but as far as the fists and fury are concerned, Gavin is the driving force there.
Dan: Did … did you actually drop a post-credit scene? For something so big in movies nowadays, it’s much less common in comics.
James: Yes! We do what we get a kick out of, and post-credit scenes are definitely a thing we enjoy.
Dan: So since the back cover refers to Gavin as artist of the “Dead Legends Trilogy,” where y’all at with Vol. 3?
James: We are in the scripting phase, but not rushing anything. Gavin is going to be busy with Star Trek for a while, which is allowing me to make sure the script for DL3 is going to rock socks.
Dan: You’ve also got a Kickstarter going right now for a collection of your Webtoon series Metaphorical HER. Webtoon’s format is built pretty distinctly for phone reading. What are the challenges in adapting that for print?
James: Thankfully, neither Dave Stoll nor I had to deal with the adaptation process. Rocketship Entertainment took point on that endeavor and gave us the final approval. And the final product is more impressive than we could have ever hoped. I cannot wait to hold that volume in my hands.
Dan: Any thoughts on DC and Archie’s recent arrival at Webtoon? Are you of the mind that it’ll bring more eyes to other work on the site or that it will drown out other voices?
James: Webtoon is a huge platform of comic readers who don’t read traditional comics. DC is tapping into a potentially huge audience, and if they play their hand right and create audience-specific stories, they might have a winner on their hands. That said, Webtoon will always have readers that enjoy things off-the-beaten-path, and who will shun anything connected with mainstream. I think the other stories there will do just fine in finding their audience.
Dan: You contributed to HELP, a Kickstarter anthology of one-page stories for the Hero Initiative, earlier this year. How challenging was writing a one-pager?
James: I thought it would be, but honestly, it flowed pretty easily. Of course, it helps that I had some inspiration going into that story (an image by artist Morgan Beem sparked the idea), and the fact that I had Jorge Corona on art meant that I could do no wrong. It was destined to be beautiful to look at.
Dead Legends II is available in trade Oct. 13 from A Wave Blue World.
ComicsXF Editor Matthew Lazorwitz contributed to this interview.
Dan Grote is the editor-in-chief of ComicsXF, having won the site by ritual combat. By day, he’s a newspaper editor, and by night, he’s … also an editor. He co-hosts The ComicsXF Interview Podcast with Matt Lazorwitz. He lives in New Jersey with his wife, two kids and two miniature dachshunds, and his third, fictional son, Peter Winston Wisdom.
