Interview: Talking Dynamite Entertainment’s ‘Captain Planet’ With David Pepose

Welcome to the table,

 

I’ve always been a creature of anxiety. Because of this, the big existential threats like climate disasters, quicksand, nuclear war, and drive-by shootings that my cartoons and comics warned me about were always front of mind and I was certain before I reached the venerable age of 12 I was going to be taken out by a combination of those horrors in some spectacularly awful way.

I think the constant dread is why I really liked Captain Planet though. Where He-Man and the Masters of the Universe and G.I. Joe would drop in during the last minute of an episode to tell me to brush my teeth or not play with a downed power line, Captain Planet and the Planeteers — from start to finish — was an story about kids taking an active role in solving the destruction of our planet in very tangible ways. Now, those kids did have the ability to summon a mid-drift-wearing superhero with magic energy rings, but the connection was enough for me to get involved as a kid and go on tons of beach cleanups, conservation camp outs, and can collecting walks. It was something that was quite difficult when you are dependent on mobility aids and have very little support from anyone else, yet there I was, sand filing the space between my leg-braces and shoes as I tried my best to prevent sea turtles from eating plastic bags and straws all because an underwear-on-the-outside, green haired man told me I could make a difference and I believed him.

All of that to say when Dynamite Entertainment announced Captain Planet was going back to the printed page, I actually said “hell yeah!” out loud in an empty office.

We live in … really interesting times right now, and with the all-consuming dread slithering its way in from every side, I think it’s time for a return of Big Blue and his world-saving teens. I got a chance to sit down writer David Pepose to talk about the upcoming Captain Planet comic book and, honestly, I am really stoked to see what he is going to do with the title.

 

Anton: Hello, David! Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me about Captain Planet. Before we dive into the questions, could you please let our readers who may not be aware of your vast body of work, know a little bit about yourself?

David Pepose: Sure thing! I’m David Pepose, and for those who aren’t familiar with me or my work, I’ve written on titles like Savage Avengers, Punisher, Moon Knight: City of the Dead, and the recently released Cable: Love & Chrome over at Marvel, as well as the currently-ongoing Space Ghost series at Dynamite, and my upcoming Speed Racer relaunch at Mad Cave Studios. I’ve also written plenty of creator-owned titles, including Spencer & Locke, Going to the Chapel, The O.Z., Scout’s Honor, and The Devil That Wears My Face.

I’m a third-generation comics fan — I came by this hobby honestly, thanks to my mom and my grandfather. Ever since the day I read my first comic (Amazing Spider-Man #346, in case you’re curious), I’ve been in love with this medium, its perfect marriage of art and concept and morality plays. Over the years, I’ve worked as an intern, a journalist, an editor, and as a writer, because I’ve worked in every other stable job and it wasn’t nearly as fun. (Laughs) I don’t get a whole lot of sleep these days juggling my workload, but it sure beats honest living, right?

A: Captain Planet is one of those titles I never thought I would see hit the printed page again. From the geo-cruiser to the power rings, the earth logo shirts to Gia’s headband, the series is imprinted on me in a major way. What was it like sitting down to tell a story with such iconic characters at your fingertips?

D: What makes Captain Planet such an exciting project for me is that I’ve been lobbying to write this series for a decade. I’ve felt for ages that Captain Planet has all the elements of a blockbuster success — it’s inherently diverse and multicultural, in a way that’s just as organic as Giant-Size X-Men #1. It’s timely, tackling the dangers of environmental disasters and the human greed that fuels it. And it’s got a great pop culture hook — five ordinary people granted a set of elemental rings that can summon an immortal champion of the wilderness? That’s exciting, that’s dynamic, that’s just plain cool — I’ve pitched this book as X-Men meets Avatar: The Last Airbender, and I think readers are going to be excited at what that looks like.

But to answer your question more specifically — I love the voices of all of these characters. They each come from a unique walk of life, a unique perspective and worldview, just really strong personalities. And on top of that, because Captain Planet and the Planeteers wield the elements, they lend themselves nicely to different archetypes, which you can embrace or subvert whenever it suits the story. Being able to throw these characters into the same room and see what kinds of sparks fly is a real gift as a writer — I’ve loved these characters for a long time, and I’m thrilled for fans to go on this journey with us.

 

A: Now is this a re-imagining, a continuation of the original series, or are we something totally new?

D: Our run on Captain Planet is a full reboot, so this will be brand-new continuity. Similar to my approaches on Space Ghost and Speed Racer, I saw this as a win-win — you don’t need to have watched the original cartoons to understand our story, but we’ll also be introducing plenty of classic characters for the diehard fans to appreciate. When you’re relaunching a dormant property like Captain Planet, my goal is always to make the book as accessible as possible, so I can show our readers why these characters are so engaging, and have stood the test of time.

A: The Planetters each come from different parts of the world, making this one of the true global team stories. How did you approach writing each of their voices and personalities?

D: The Planeteers all have very distinct backgrounds, personalities, and contexts within the greater environmentalist conversation, and so it’s been such a treat to be able to flesh them out even further than what we were able to see in the original cartoon.

Some of how I’ve approached these characters has been in terms of their personalities. Captain Planet is a great example, in that I didn’t want him to feel grim or gritty — he’s got this classic sense of heroism and this reassuring vibe that feels timeless. Being able to extrapolate his mission into his personality — this idea that he doesn’t want to see anybody die — has made him a really fun character to explore. Kwame is another favorite, in that I pitched him as Cyclops meets Sam from Ted Lasso — he’s got a calmness and a quiet charm about him, and that thoughtfulness makes for some compelling characterization as he finds his way as the Planeteers’ leader. And Gi is the bubbly kid sister of the group — I love having a science person on my team, but watching Gi get so excited about what she does is so fun and endearing to me.

Another element we wanted to take into consideration was that geopolitics have changed significantly since 1990 — Linka is a big example of that, where in the original cartoon, she was the conservative Planeteer from the Soviet Union. Given how much has shifted in Russia over the last 30 years, we’ve re-imagined Linka as our most liberal Planeteer, headlining an underground eco-activist band in the vein of Pussy Riot. Similarly, we’ve recontextualized Wheeler as an auto worker from Detroit, who’s got a very complicated view of the environmentalist movement in terms of how he thinks that’s impacted his own livelihood. And Ma-Ti is another big shift — this is someone who’s seen a lot of horror and tragedy in his native Brazil, where his people’s lands are being mined for lithium. What does that do to someone? And how do you reconcile that when the Power of Heart cleanses your mind of hatred and violence? He’s our brooding X-factor, our Batman, our Shang-Chi.

At the end of the day, when you’ve got personalities that are this strong, you almost don’t need the powers — but we’ll see the Planeteers’ elemental rings interact in some interesting ways as well. Like I said, writing a cast like this is a true gift for any comics writer.

A: I have seen some of the design sketches and it seems like Kwame has a leg brace and a walking stick. As a disabled kid, I never got to see much representation in cartoons and comics unless it was an old man getting knocked out of his wheelchair a lot or a side character for a burger franchise. Is Kwame disabled or is this a temporary injury?

D: Thank you for asking that question! Yes, Kwame is permanently disabled, following an injury that sidelined his once-meteoric soccer career in Ghana. (Or football, if we want to use accurate regional-specific terminology!) We’ll dig into the specifics of Kwame’s origins as the series progresses, but the idea of inclusion was a core element of the original Captain Planet series — the whole message was one of empathy, that people from all walks of life can come together, because we’re stronger together than we are apart.

For the year 1990, Captain Planet was already forward-thinking enough to the point of nearly being counterculture — to have a heroic character from the Soviet Union in the waning days of the Cold War would be considered downright subversive today! And that’s something I wanted to push even further in our reboot, including featuring a disabled character in Kwame, as well as LGTBQ representation with our new take on Gi. These aren’t throwaway backstory elements, either — I think these are elements that really help shape who these characters are, y’know?

To me, even beyond its environmentalist messages, the core value of a book like Captain Planet is to instill empathy towards people from different walks of life — maybe that’s because I grew up Jewish in Missouri, but I instinctively want every group to have the same kind of rights, safety, and tolerance that I’d want for my family. Representation is something tangible I can do towards those goals, and it’s a major reason I’ve lobbied for this book for so long. There’s always room to build a bigger table, and I want this to be a book that people can feel seen in.

A: Are we going to see any of the classic villains like Looten Plunder, Dr. Blight, or Duke Nukem make appearances?

D: Yes to all three! Some people used to criticize the Eco-Villains as unsubtle, but I’d argue reality has gotten a lot less subtle over the last few years. Characters like Lucian Plunder, for example, fit a very clear archetype in today’s society — the ruthless billionaire who dresses up his schemes for power under utopian buzzwords. Similarly, our take on Dr. Blight and her artificial assistant MAL feels like it has some major relevance in a society that’s having its own reckoning with AI. And to say nothing of Eman Casallos’ epic redesign of Duke Nukem. But I think what I appreciate most about the original Captain Planet cartoon was that there was a very universal motivation to the Eco-Villains — they don’t care about anything besides greed and power, and they certainly don’t consider the consequences to anybody else. It’s a broad motivation, but it’s one that I think we’re seeing play out all over in today’s political landscape. Of course, there are some other classic villains we’re going to hold close to the vest for now…

A: Looking at the news as much as I can without truly losing hope, it really feels like a Captain Planet book is so timely and honestly much needed. On a scale from Saturday Morning cartoons to Akira, how heavy can we expect this story to get?

D: Yeah, boy, let me tell you, it’s a weird time to be the guy writing Captain Planet right now! (Laughs) This book feels more timely by the second, sometimes uncomfortably so. As far as our book’s tone is concerned, I’d say this is somewhere between X-Men 2 and the first Avengers movie. It’s a bit more street-level and grounded than the original cartoon, in that I really wanted this series to feel like it could plausibly be the world outside our window, beyond the heightened elements like Captain Planet and the five elemental rings. I wouldn’t consider this book gritty by any means — it’s even less dark than my take on Space Ghost, which is on par tonally with a traditional superhero book. There’s fantasy action to everything, but there’s nothing with any gore or swearing or anything too bleak. I’d clock us at a PG-13.

A: Now, I saw that Dynamite was going to be printing the book on recycled paper, can you tell me a little bit more about that?

D: I think it’s super-cool that Dynamite is printing this book on recycled paper! I think it’s a great way for our publisher to help us put our money where our mouth is. When it comes to environmentalism, I think it’s easy to despair at the lack of big, sweeping change — but I think there’s something to be said for taking consistent steps forward on the ground level as well.

A: For me there are so many iconic moments in Captain Planet’s lore from Zarm being behind every dictator in human history to Captain Pollution being summoned by the Planeteers’ rogues gallery, to the constant mischief Suchi, Ma-Ti’s monkey, gets into — I can think of a hundred things I would love to see show up on the pages of this series. Was there anything you were super excited about exploring at the helm of this book?

D: Without spoiling too much, the thing I’m most excited about is bringing the Planeteers together. This is an ensemble-driven book, so seeing these characters unite for the first time is going to be a learning curve for all involved. Seeing them learn how to use their powers is going to be one challenge; watching them figure out how to work as a team will be an even bigger one. It’s been really fun getting to meet the Planeteers in their normal context, before letting them loose in the hectic streets of New York City.

A: Before we wrap up, is there anything we should keep an eye out as the book hits stands?

D: You know, we haven’t had a chance yet to talk about Eman Casallos, my incredibly talented collaborator on this book, and he absolutely deserves a ton of praise. Eman was instrumental in redesigning Captain Planet, the Planeteers, and the Eco-Villains, to really make them feel firmly rooted in the year 2025, in an adventure that you could almost imagine taking place outside your window. Eman’s got a style that evokes Gary Frank and Steve Dillon, but with bits of Doug Mahnke and Frank Quitely as well — he does the Avatar-style elemental bending so beautifully, like a blockbuster movie, but where his true strengths lie is in the acting and expressiveness of all our characters. When you fall in love with the Planeteers, it’s because of Eman’s efforts, as well as our spectacular colorist Jorge Sutil and our dynamic letterer Jeff Eckleberry.

In particular, I want to shout out Eman’s spectacular redesign of Captain Planet himself — his mullet and crop-top were certainly a product of 1990, and we wanted to give Cap a bold new design that really leaned into his background as this immortal elemental champion. Not only did Eman come up with a design that showed Cap as an avatar built from stone, ice, and flames, but he also introduced the Hot Dad Beard. (Laughs) Everybody went nuts when we saw that sketch. Not only does it give Cap a bit of a sexiness upgrade, but I think that his role in this book really is as a fatherly mentor figure. He’s Earth’s dad now, and he’s gonna look hot doing it.

A: Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me. I am seriously excited about Captain Planet and can’t wait to see what you bring to the table. Where can our readers keep up with all you have going on?

D: You can follow me on Twitter, Bluesky and Instagram at @peposed, on Facebook at @davidpeposecomics, or visit my website at www.davidpepose.com!

 

Until next time, there are times during these interviews where I am truly impressed with a creator. Sometimes, we have guardrails where we are trying to limit our questions and follow guidelines and David, unprompted, made sure to take some time to talk about his creative collaborators on this book. I already liked his run on Space Ghost, but the fact, without them even in the room, that he took the time to showcase his team really endeared him to me. This is a person who understands the point of comics is sharing them with your friends and that it is truly a collaborative art form. David already had my admiration for his talent as a storyteller, but now he has my respect and has ensured if he is working on a book I won’t skip it, regardless of how big the pulls stack is.