Comic Book Resources Interviews Gates about Worlds Finest and Supergirl[]
December 8. 2009
Comic Book Resources: Not only are you bringing these two families back together, you're also showing fans the first time Dick Grayson and Kal-El meet as Batman and Superman. That's a pretty massive responsibility - were you nervous at all into writing the issue?
Sterling Gates: Not at all, actually. Of the four, Batgirl-Supergirl and Batman-Superman were the easiest to write for me.
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CBR:What's been your favorite team-up to write so far? Were there any that you pitched that ended up on the cutting room floor?
SG:My favorite? I don't know, I think they were all really enjoyable to work on. There are some really fun bits in the Supergirl-Batgirl team-up I love, and I loved Guardian catching Robin out of the sky in issue two.
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CBR: Obviously, one of the most exciting things about the series for fans is that some of the newer members of the Bat-family are teaming up with some of the newer Superman characters - Red Robin and Nightwing, Damien and The Guardian - but you've mentioned in other interviews that you're a big fan of Stephanie Brown. How cool is it to have her team up with Supergirl?
SG: Oh, it's a total blast. Stephanie and Kara are really similar - both young women who are trying to live up to a mantle, both very misunderstood by the people in their respective crime-fighting families - so it was a lot of fun to introduce their relationship and see them notice one another and become friends. I'm really proud of that issue, and I hope we'll get to see their relationship continue to blossom.
If anything, a Batgirl-Supergirl crossover would rock!
Newsarama Interviews Sterling Gates about World's Finest[]
October 28, 2009
Nrama: And Issue #3 is Batgirl and Supergirl? Since you write the Supergirl book, how was it to throw her up against the new Batgirl?
Gates: That issue is a blast.I love Stephanie Brown a lot. Since I learned that she was going to be Batgirl, I’ve been dying for her and Supergirl to team up.
Stephanie and Kara have had tough lives as super-heroines, and I thought they’d get along really, really well. They both look as they leap, rather than exercising a lot of caution or analyzation. They’re both trying to live up to the families that have accepted them. And the pair of them really hit it off. Two old friends who didn’t know they were friends yet. Through Issue #3 – and even through some of #4 – you see their relationship and their friendship blossom.
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Nrama: Since most of these characters have never met, you're basically starting from scratch, aren't you?
Gates: Yeah, there wasn’t a lot for me to worry about coming into it, continuity-wise. Which allowed me to write it without worrying about what we’d seen before, who’d seen what. I could just have fun throwing these characters up against each other and against the villains of the piece and see how the story played out.
And I think readers will find a lot of fun in this series. Each issue is completely different from the last, as characters, villains– heck, even artists switch out. That first issue is a race against time to save Nightwing’s partner, the second one is the Odd-Couple-as-cranky-superheroes, the third one is a huge romp through Gotham, and the fourth issue is the big action movie finale.
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Nrama: And every issue is a different artist? Does that play into how each issue has a little different feel to it?
Gates: Absolutely. It helps to give each issue a distinct tone and look. We’ve got some of the most talented artists out there on this series. It makes me smile just thinking about how sweet our art teams are.
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When we figured out what Issue #3 was going to be, I immediately called my partner-in-crime on Supergirl, Jamal Igle, to ask him if he wanted to draw the first-ever Supergirl-Batgirl team-up. He literally accepted as I was in the middle of asking the question. So Jamal is taking a couple issues off of Supergirl so he can draw an issue of World’s Finest, then he’ll jump back to Supergirl for the double-sized Supergirl #50! And just wait til you see the first time Supergirl and Batgirl go across Gotham together.