Interview: Justin Jordan’s Legacy of LUTHER STRODE

This April a legacy will be fulfilled by a legend. Writer Justin Jordan (Green Lantern: New Guardians, Spread) and Tradd Moore (All-New Ghost Rider) are completing the story of Luther Strode: the boy who gained superpowers through an innocuous exercise program that actually turned out to be so much more. This is the third installment of the Luther Strode series. Strode goes from being on the run to hunting down those who seek to control him. It’s a story layered with historical and biblical characters as well as Tradd Moore’s massive overdose of violence and gore art. Justin Jordan took some time to talk to us about the changing direction of this series, The Legacy of Luther Strode, which hits stores April 1st.

1_legacy_01_coverJessica Boyd: When you originally conceived of Luther Strode, did you know it would end with him cross crossing the world?

Justin Jordan: No. I mean, I saw how the bigger story could go pretty early on, before the first issue of the first series came out, but at the beginning beginning it was just the one story.

But as soon as I realized that there was a story that lead to Cain, it became pretty clear we’d end up going worldwide.

JB: Luther has gone from defending his home, to going on the run. In this third volume, becoming the hunter. How do you transition a character through these phases without losing the qualities that make readers like him so much?

JJ: CAREFULLY.

I mean, that’s an actual constant fear. We’ve intentionally tried to do something different with each Strode, and that runs the constant risk of fucking up the good stuff. We’ve been evolving the characters, too, and so that’s also a risk.

I think having a sense of what people like about the characters is the key to keeping those core qualities, but even so, I’m not yet convinced we won’t lose them with Legacy, although I think that’s mostly irrational. I hope it’s mostly irrational.

JB: Luther Strode is known for having over the top violence. Even more has been promised in Legacy. How do you keep the fights so fresh and creative? Are there any types of movies or media you check out for inspiration?

JJ: Mostly I just let Tradd go.

I happen to like a lot of action movies and comics, which is helpful. Not so much for lifting sequences, but learning more about how to choreograph a fight. Which has an art to it – the fights need to shift back and forth and have a rhythm to them you know?

I mean, for instance, take the Affleck Daredevil and the Cage Ghost Rider movies. Aside from whatever else is wrong with them, they both fail to have compelling fight scenes because they all play out the same way. There’s no suspense or excitement to the fights. They all play exactly the same.

So figuring out why fight scene don’t work is also a key part.

JB: There are biblical tones with your story, considering the names and histories of some of your villains. After all, Luther goes on the hunt for Cain. What caused you to hone in on these references? 

2_legacy_02_coverJJ: The Cain thing comes down to him being, at least in Western culture, as being the first murderer. So once I had that, the general themes and references sort of spun out of that. It wasn’t the only choice – the Hercules Method is named after Hercules for a reason – but it was the one that felt right for the story.

JB: Did these themes influence the character design? Luther’s hair has become extremely long, while Petra is taking on a full shaved head punk aesthetic. How much did you just turn over to Tradd Moore to play with?

JJ: Tradd and Felipe and I tend to be of one mind on things, and this was pretty much an example of that. Petra’s look is basically just her evolving on a path that seems pretty reasonable for the character – she’s a little punk in high school, and once she gets out she just goes for it. Her look in Legacy is meant to be a little more militaristic – she’s consciously trying to be kind of a bad ass and this is what she thinks that she look like.

Luther’s look is a little more….well, it’s like this: when Legend happened, we basically started with the idea that Luther wasn’t really taking care of himself, so he ended up long haired and beardy. Annnnd then Tradd drew him fighting in the second issue sans shirt, and the whole look was just cool. So we kept that.

So when Legacy rolled around, we stuck with the long hair thing because it looks pretty awesome. Now the rest of his look is meant to show a man who is more at peace with himself. It’s deliberately a little more monk-like.

JB: Both you and Tradd have had you’re hands busy with work from big publishers lately. How do you juggle those with your own creator owned series?

JJ: In my case, with some difficulty. I keep getting offered money to do things that are cool. That is reallllllly difficult to turn down. I mean, as a freelancer, it’s just hard to turn down work period, but when it is stuff you want to do it becomes even harder.

So I play this game where I tell myself if everything goes just right, I can say yes to everything. The problem being, nothing ever goes just right. The end result being that while I hit the deadlines, I turn myself into Zongo the Stressmonster.

I am trying hard not to do that. Right now I’m just working on creator owned stuff, and I am tremendously lucky to be able to do so. But it still takes some doing. I probably should get someone to help me out there.

3_luther_legacy_designJB: Image has been saying that this first issue will be “double-size.” What does that mean for readers? Double the fights, double the reveals? 

JJ: In this case, it’s literally double the story. I like to go long on first issues, just to really give new readers a meaty chunk of story. But I intended to keep the story to 28 pages, which is the most story pages you can fit into a regular sized comic without using the covers.

So, naturally, I wrote a 32 page story. I asked Tradd whether I should try to edit it down or whether we should just make the jump up in size. He, like me, thought the 32 pages was the right size.

But we had also done an eight page story called The Bridge [click here to read it] to connect the previous series to this one, with the intention of releasing it for free online. Which we’re still going to do. But since we were bumping up the page count anyway, we decided to go all in with 40 pages of story for issue one by including The Bridge.

We are pretty much giving you twice of everything, if not more. This issue features a thousand people being killed in the first two pages, no joke, and a fight that takes place on moving traffic. So we’re going big. And Petra swears a lot.

JB: Is there anything else you’d like to let our Comicosity reader’s know about the Legacy of Luther Strode?

JJ: That we’re making the biggest baddest, funnest book we can. If you liked my work on….anything, or Tradd’s work on anything, then you should check out Legacy of Luther Strode.

If you would like to order the first issue of The Legacy of Luther Strode  you can use the Diamond Order Code: FEB150498 with your local comics shop. You can also read the first two volumes of the series on Comixology. 

Plus, remember that 8 page story called “The Bridge” Justin was talking about? We’ve got it right here on Comicosity: read it here.

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