Ricky Church chats with Legion of Super-Heroes director Jeff Wamester…
Next week the next DC animated film Legion of Super-Heroes is set to be released, taking viewers along a ride to the 31st Century with Supergirl as she learns to hone her powers. Training alongside new Legion recruits as well as the egotistical Brainiac 5, a descendent of Superman’s enemy, Supergirl and her new friends discover a threat that could destroy the universe and must work together in order to prevent it.
We spoke with the film’s director Jeff Wamester, who previously directed Justice Society: World War II for Warner Bros. Home Entertainment. We talked about bringing the Legion to their first animated feature film, introducing them to a wider audience and what makes Supergirl such a popular character. Check out our interview below…
Ricky Church: The Legion are made up of a lot of fan-favourites in the comic community, but they’re not well-known characters like the Justice League to the mainstream audience. What made you want to center the movie around the Legion?
Jeff Wamester: That was Butch Lukic’s and Jim Krieg’s decision. I came in afterwards when the script was made to tell the story. Butch is a huge comics fan and I think any chance he gets to throw characters up there on the screen that we don’t get to see enough of is something he loves to do.
It’s also interesting because even in this movie the known Legion characters like Saturn Girl are not even the focus. It’s a bunch of the recruits trying to get into the Legion. What advantage was there for you, Butch and the rest of the team to focus on a group of lesser known superheroes?
The whole point, the main thrust, of the movie is about someone being out of place and they’re trying to find that place, right? I think the characters that we pick from the Legion are actually mirrors for Kara. They’re versions of her that she’s trying to fit and that she can connect with so that the audience gets an idea that what she’s going through is going through these other characters too.
As you just brought up, Supergirl is kind of the central focus of the movie as she’s trying to find her place on Earth and get her life back in order after decades in space. She’s a very popular character, especially in recent years with the Supergirl TV series. Did you feel any intimidation tackling her for this story?
No, I think Jim and Butch came up with a great story for her. I don’t really think about that stuff. I’m more, when I walk into stuff like this, I’m trying to tell the story that we’re trying to tell and I’m not really looking at other stories in terms of context of it. Usually the stories we tell here at DC are not dependent on the other ones and not centered. We’re just more interested to say “Hey, we’re the guys that do DC animated films. We’re going to do the best interpretation that we can.”
Cool. You brought up a minute ago with how everyone in the movie, from Supergirl to the other Legionnaires, they’re all trying to find their place within the team and the world. You could really say that this movie is a coming of age story. Can you talk a bit more about that, how that fed into your inspiration and placing them in the Legion Academy?
Obviously any school you go into, that’s going to be a part of coming of age because you’re being exposed to people other than your parents and the safety of your parents. You’re starting to step into that new world where you don’t have those safety nets as much as you used to. This is a great example, Kara was kind of thrust into that world, right? She was put in and she was really, especially in Superman’s world, she was seeing someone else being able to do that and she was struggling because she lost her parents. She’s very close to her mom. She lost her when she was a teenager versus a baby. Anytime we can, when telling the story, have a place or a time or characters that can mirror our experience as human beings always allows us to have a doorway into that character and empathize with that character and relate to that character.
What do you find so popular about Supergirl, especially in this time period where, like you say, she’s just arrived on Earth, she’s still fresh off of losing Krypton and her mother, she’s still finding herself. What do you think makes her so popular and distinct from Superman?
Well, I can speak to how it is in this particular movie is that Superman lost his parents as a baby. He never really knew them, right? And he was given new parents before he knew any different. His story is really, he’s growing up as a human without the loss, right? Only the loss of who he is in terms of like someone who is adopted, which is not knowing where they come from. Kara knows where she comes from. The problem is she lost all of that. And there’s a lot of trauma and a lot of difficulty trying to grow up from that when you have those kinds of losses. I think it’s a very accessible version of Superman in Supergirl where you’re like “Oh, I get that’s where she’s coming from.” The key to Superman is he’s this character that’s from the Midwest. He’s friendly, he’s good, and he’s trying to do his best. There’s a whole different doorway into Supergirl than Superman. Supergirl comes from a point of trauma and difficulty growing up.
Legion of Super-Heroes is also an ensemble piece, which you’ve had a lot of experience in with your other shows and films. How do you balance such a large group of diverse and eccentric characters?
I think the most important thing you can do is make sure that you don’t have any hollow characters. That they have to have wants. And even if they’re short and quick and we get it, they have wants, needs and things that are important to them.
This is also marks the third DC movie you have directed and you’ve worked on several more as a storyboard artist or animator. What is it about DC that keeps you coming back and how do you keep each project distinct from the other?
Well, first off to answer your second question, every movie has a different thrust, a different thing that is trying to say. Every one of these characters powers can symbolize something or their struggle can symbolize something and also the circumstances that they’re faced with are always different. So there’s always like, what’s the interpretation of this? What’s this thing they’re being challenged with? They kind of give us a little more nuance into what that character is and what they have to deal with and how they decide to answer that.
I think as filmmakers, what keeps us coming back to this stuff is that there really isn’t like anything that’s the same. There’s a new challenge, a new way that goes in a different kind of character and a different place that they’re coming from for each character. Superman’s not the same as Wonder Woman. They come from a different place. Same as like, even though Supergirl and Superman come from the same place, Supergirl comes from a different place. In a place of trauma and what they have to deal with as they’re growing up. And I think that’s what makes it exciting, telling these kind stories. It’s always different.
Thank you to Jeff Wamester for speaking with us!
Legion of Super-Heroes will be released on 4K, Blu-ray and DVD February 6th and digital February 7th.
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