Back in May, DC Comics announced their latest Digital First project: BOMBSHELLS.
Starting August 12, the popular line of pin-up inspired statuettes will leap onto the page in their own series. The setting? A world where super-powered women fight on the front lines and behind the scenes to help the Allied Forces fight against Hitler and the Axis powers.
HitFix Harpy caught up with author Marguerite Bennett to get the inside scoop on what to expect when BOMBSHELLS begin dropping next month.
HitFix Harpy: When did you find out that you were going to be writing this?
Marguerite Bennett: Oh God, last September. I had to be quiet about it until May. It was atrocious! I feel like I deserve an award just for my patience alone because I”m so excited about this! Nothing in my career – except maybe Batman and he the king – has made me as excited as Bombshells.
How did you get involved?
Bennett: Jim Chadwick called me up. He knew that I was a huge fan of the designs for the Bombshells statues and the series. I was over the moon when he floated the idea to me. I just hit the ground running. He was so encouraging and we came up with this enormous outline. But then we needed to wait for the project. But it”s tremendous and it”s just so wonderful to have it in the world.
There was a pretty immediate reaction when you were finally able to let the cat out of the bag!
Bennett: The day that I announced it on Twitter Babs Tarr, Kevin Wada, Kate Levin and a bunch of others immediately hit me up with “We”d be interested in doing variants.” It was so fantastic just within the first hour just to see that level of enthusiasm and excitement.
The official word is BOMBSHELLS will star Wonder Woman, Supergirl, and Batwoman. Will any other fan favorites make an appearance?
Bennett: We”re going to work our way though the entire lineup. There are going to be more heroines than there are statues. Just to back a bit. How it”s going to work is every Saturday a Digital First ten page chapter will be released. The first ten pager is going to be Batwoman. The second one is going to be Wonder Woman and the third one is going to be Supergirl and Star Girl. Then on the fourth week it”ll all be collected into a single print issue that you”ll be able to buy from your comic book store.
After that we go into our second issue. There we”ll have two of those three characters and then a NEW character. We”re going to sort of braid together the different plots until eventually they”re going to start overlapping and interacting with each other.
It is a period piece, yes? Does it take place during WWII?
Bennett: It”s an alternate history World War II. There were some social elements that I didn”t want to deal with. To be frank about it, when I want to see my heroes I want to see them being heroes. I don”t want to see them constantly put down and I didn”t want to have to do that to pay lip service to historical accuracy. So we had the women”s lib movement happen earlier. I got rid of segregation. As Americans we”re so often so guilty of regurgitating our history in the media that we”ve seen before. So when you see white actors in war stories you assume okay, it was a completely white war or something. But there were a large number of people of color that played integral parts in the war effort. I didn”t want people to be picking up BOMBSHELLS and, because they don”t know their history complained that it isn”t historically accurate. “She”s doing this whole diversity push.” It was actually funny because we”re being more historically accurate but it”s easier to label it as alternate history to undercut the armchair historians before they show up.
A best defense is a good offense, as they say. Earlier you said you were a huge fan of the Bombshells statues. Do you have a favorite?
Bennett: Oh the Batwoman. I mean, that woman is my favorite hero.