DC Animation’s latest feature film Green Lantern: Beware My Power is notable for several reasons. First off, it showcases DC fan-favourite John Stewart as the lead in his first feature film in an origin story detailing how he became chosen as a Green Lantern and second, it launches DC’s new continuity into the cosmos as John and Green Arrow take a trip into space and meet intergalactic allies and enemies as they try to stop a war between two alien civilizations.
We spoke with screenwriter John Semper who co-wrote the film with Ernie Altbacker (you can read our interview with Altbacker here) Semper has had a long career in animation writing, dating all the way back to his time leading Spider-Man: The Animated Series in the mid – late 1990s and this marks his first time writing a DC film. We chatted about bringing John Stewart to screen in his first animated feature film, the impact of John Stewart’s legacy to old and current generations of fans and what he’s proudest of most with Beware My Power. Check out our interview below…
Ricky Church: Green Lantern: Beware My Power features John Stewart as the main Green Lantern. What’s the difference for you in writing a character like John Stewart versus Hal Jordan, who has more often than not been the Green Lantern in these animated movies?
John Semper: Firstly of course, we’re dealing with a prominent Black character and being the first Black animation screenwriter, which I believe I am, there’s a great deal of respect that I give to the character and it’s a great deal of responsibility that I feel in handling the character. He is not just simply a superhero. He is also a symbol. A lot of young kids look up to him, a lot of young kids of colour look up to him. So that there’s that and then also for an entire generation he is their only Green Lantern. They don’t really know Hal Jordan because they grew up watching the Justice League cartoon show and he’s their favourite character. So it’s a big, big deal for them to see him on screen.
Hal Jordan, you know, he’s a great character. I certainly grew up reading Hal Jordan in the comics. Whenever you get to handle a character that you grew up reading in the comics, it’s a very exciting thing, but this movie was always going to be about John Stewart. It was always primarily a vehicle for him to be reintroduced. That was the job we undertook as screenwriters and so Hal didn’t factor very much into our assessment of what we were going to do with this story.
You kind of touched on it, but John Stewart is such a beloved fan-favourite character for his legacy and what he means to fans. Did you feel any intimidation writing John since this is his first feature film?
No, because I’m just not that guy. I’m the guy that wants the responsibility of handling the most important character in the universe. I want to be in that crucible. That’s what I love to do. It’s my gift to be able to take a character like that. When I handled Spider-Man back in the day, I was the producer, story editor and head writer of the nineties series and it was the most important thing in the universe. There was a ton of pressure on me and people were beating me up left and right in that first season, yet that was exactly where I wanted to be. If you choose to do this for a living, then you had better be ready to be on the frontline handling the most important thing ever because that’s ultimately the highest position you can ever get and I do choose to do this for a living.
I’ll tell you a funny story. I wrote 19 issues of Cyborg and I was being brought in at one point for a meeting with Geoff Johns, who was still in charge of a lot of things over at DC. He called me into an office one day and he said “John, I want to show you something.” And we went into his office and he closed the door and then he ran for me the trailer for the Justice League movie, which no one in the world had seen yet. I was sitting in Geoff John’s office watching the trailer for the movie that everybody in the world wanted to see! They actually were excited about it. It was the most important thing in the universe and as I’m sitting there with Geoff I thought, yeah, this is where I want to be.
That’s awesome!
I love it!
Beware My Power is best described as a galactic space-faring adventure mystery. It’s a lot of different genres you guys pull from, which is super fun. Was there anything that influenced you to make this different from other DC superhero origins or the previous films?
Well, I wanted this to be a musical and I’m disappointed that they didn’t let me do that. (Laughs)
Missed opportunity for sure!
The funny thing is I’ve always sort of had an interesting relationship with the DC movies in that some of them I’ve loved and then some of them I’ve not loved as much. I had always kind of mused on whether or not… you know, as a writer you do this, if you’re reading a book or if you’re reading a comic book, you think “how would I bring this to life?” I always wanted to do one of the DC animated movies to see if I could make a good one. So getting to do this for me was a wonderful opportunity to prove whether or not I could be involved in the making of a really good DC animated movie. The thing I’m proudest of about this film is that it’s a good movie. The first time I ever saw Castle of Cagliostro directed by Hayao Miyazaki, I walked out of it and I thought that wasn’t a good animated movie, that was a good movie. Animation doesn’t even factor into it. It was just a good movie. The thing that I think we’ve accomplished here with Beware My Power is it’s a really good movie. That’s the thing I’m proudest of so when it comes to doing these DC animated films, I just always wanted to be involved in making a really good one.
Not only does this feature John Stewart, but it also features other Justice League heroes like Green Arrow, Adam Strange and Hawkgirl. What made you choose to pair John with those Justice Leaguers?
Well, you’d have to ask Jim [Krieg, producer] that because really the parameters like that came from Jim. I do know that the prelude to our film is the Adam Strange short that they did years ago. That’s sort of a nice lead in to what happens in our film as far as Adam Strange is concerned. That’s the only real tie you have to pay attention to. The rest of it, Jim made those choices. I was perfectly fine with them. I was actually a little relieved that we were not going to have Superman, Batman or Wonder Woman because I think that it just sort of made it a little different and in its own way unique and special. But Jim Krieg is really the person responsible for making that decision.
Cool. You referenced the Justice League series, which I watched a lot back in the day and was my first introduction to John Stewart. It was a great introduction for him, but it’s also a cool introduction for Hawkgirl and they’ve got a unique history with each other because of their romantic relationship in the cartoon. What did it feel like to have them team up again in Beware My Power? Can you talk about how their partnership evolves?
Yeah. Well, I think that’s one of the great things about this film is that we are aware of the fact that there’s a whole generation for whom John Stewart is their Green Lantern and they are thirsting for more. You know, I might have written the last John Stewart animated thing. I had John Stewart in an episode of Static Shock, for which I was a story editor, back in 2003 and it aired in 2004. It was called ‘Fallen Hero’ and I think that was the last time he was animated. I’m not sure, but I think it was certainly one of the last times. I think it was a whole generation like yourself that have been waiting for him to come back and waiting for him to have that interaction with Hawkgirl again. That was exciting to know that there is that thirst out there for this era.
If we lost anything at all, it would have been very minor and I’m sure that it had to do with time, but there were a few more conversations between the two of them. I like the dynamic between those two. Obviously it leads into something more down the line and hope it’ll be picked up in future films because I think it’s a really good dynamic. But yeah, it was great fun. Again, I’m not daunted by anything. I like handling really important relationships like that on screen. We had just a few more in the script. We had just a few more tiny little interactions and conversations, but I think what’s left stands up well and you get a really strong sense of who they are now and who they’re going to be to one another. The relationship is there and I’m very satisfied with it.
Thank you very much to John Semper for speaking with us!
Green Lantern: Beware My Power is now available on Blu-ray and 4K home media. Read our review here.
Ricky Church – Follow me on Twitter for more movie news and nerd talk.
