Ram V on the Evolution of DC's Unkillable Hero in "Resurrection Man: Quantum Karma" (Interview)
One of the DC Universe’s most perplexing heroes is back from the dead in Resurrection Man: Quantum Karma. Over a decade after his last series, Mitch Shelley has returned in a story by Ram V and Anand RK that takes the undying hero on the most grand adventure of his many lives.
For those unfamiliar, Resurrection Man is one of DC Comics’ most bizarre heroes and has the ability to come back from death, no matter how he’s killed. And every time Shelley returns to life, he comes back with a new power that stays with him until he dies. Now, after an extended absence from the spotlight, DC's most resurrected superhero is back and Ram V is spilling the secrets behind Mitch Shelley's latest revival.
Screen Rant: What drew you to the idea of making a new Resurrection Man story?
Ram V: Oddly enough, there was a time, I think, that predates the now known as the 5G initiative at DC, which, for many reasons, didn't come to fruition. But there was a list going around of characters. And given the nature of my introduction to comics, there were so many characters on there that I had no idea who they were. I was like, "I don't know half of these characters!". So I went and bought a DC Who's Who book and as I was looking for some other character, I saw there was a character called the Resurrection Man, and I'm reading through his Who's Who, and I'm like, "This is pretty cool.". And I noticed there was a famous team-up with Garth Dennis's Hitman as well. So I was like, "Well, I know Garth's work. Let me go read all of this!". And then I went down this kind of rabbit hole of a corner of the DCU that I really hadn't paid much attention to.
Ram V: And as I was doing this, I came up with the amusing question of like, "Okay, how many ways is this guy gonna die and how many new powers are they gonna get?". Because that's one of those sort of childlike, fascinating things that you get to do as a comic book writer is to go, "Oh, cool. How many ways can you shape this toy and play with it?". And my brain came across one way that no one had used, and it was, to me, the most obvious way. And I felt like, "Oh, if I do that, there's a whole story to be told there.". And that's how this book was born.
You’ve talked in the past about how you enjoy creating stories about stories. The framing device presented here with Mitch’s new powers is a very creative spin on that. Do you want to talk about how that worked?
Ram V: Yeah. I mean, superimposing that with my own influences, I love the idea of the Hindu philosophy behind reincarnation and the idea that you've been put here for a purpose, but knowing that purpose is not something that is that belongs to you, which is this very sort of human, existential thing. Like, "I know there's a reason why I'm here, but if I look too hard for that reason, I'm kind of missing the point of why I'm here in the first place.". It's this kind of weird contradiction between just having feeling like, "Oh, my life is pointless and aimless, and I'm insignificant to the larger scope of things" versus "No, I'm here for a purpose, therefore all existence revolves around me.".
Ram V: And I took that and superimposed the idea on top of this, the mechanism that I talked to you about, which is, what if Resurrection Man decides to give up being a superhero and just grows old and dies a perfectly natural death? That's still a death, and that's still part of his power set. And so when he dies and wakes up, he realizes, slash, is shown that he has died to time, and therefore, in waking up, he now has power over time. Not in the way most people think, but the power to view time as a singular point, rather than a circle or a line, if you will. And the moment that happens is the moment he realizes, "Oh, I have the ability to make different choices in every single lifetime that I have lived.". The possibilities are endless.
I like how you connect this story to mythology, and I noticed you do something similar with The New Gods series. Do you want to talk about Resurrection Man's powers and how they relate to this resurrection cycle?
Ram V: I'm less relating it to mythology here than I am to philosophy, if you will. Yes, there's mythology, but really, Hinduism only uses its mythology to talk about this philosophical idea of existential purpose as a way of discussing that philosophy without being didactic much of the way this story exists. It's a way of discussing that philosophy without getting mired in this "God said this and this happened.". And so it's very much a Resurrection Man story. It's very much a, I would say, sci-fi drama, time travel, a kind of story. Maybe alt-history elements added to it, but it's not very mythological in its context, outside of this metaphysical discussion of similar concepts that are in Hindu mythology.
Let’s dig into the series a bit. First off, this book is beautiful. You’ve worked with a lot of talented artists but Aanad RK really hits it out of the park. How has the collaboration been working with him?
Ram V: We worked on comics long before I had made any comics that anyone had paid attention to. So I think the first work that we did was a little short comic called Miracle Men, and it was entirely painted on canvas, and it's not available anywhere because we stapled four pages of it together and took it around the conventions. The next comic we did was Graffiti Wall, which was published in the UK first, and then Dark Horse in America and beyond. And then he did Blue and Green with me, which was nominated and won an Eisner for the art. And he did a couple of these short DC things. And, yeah, he's just a really versatile, really interesting artist who has a voice to his work. Like, it doesn't look like anybody else's work. It doesn't look like he's trying to mimic anyone else's work. And I think that's very rare, and certainly it makes for interesting comics, because especially with a book like this, with a Black Label book, and the fact that the book is trying to do things that you know are interesting, beyond just the realms of being visually entertaining. I think it's great to see his work on a book like this.
It's interesting with a character like Resurrection Man, because I think he's had two short runs, the last one was during the New 52, I think. And I know you said you went down the rabbit hole to find him. But this book still feels very accessible. Was it hard or easier, making a story that pretty much anyone could just pick up and enjoy?
Ram V: It's very accessible, because that's the kind of reader I am when it comes to this, right? Like, I wasn't a hardcore Resurrection Man fan. You know, I wasn't counted among the dozens. But I came to that character because I picked up a Who's Who and I was like "Yeah, I wonder what that is.". This is a general spirit of inquisitiveness that I think is common to readers everywhere, inquisitive whether they know something or not, whether they're aware or not. And yes, there are fandoms, but I don't think you can necessarily just keep serving the fandoms, otherwise look at all the wonderful storytelling opportunities that we miss. And so part of my endeavor, I mean, not to put too fine a point on it, but even with the New Gods, it didn't have this kind of massive readership when we started off. And look at that book now, it's done really well. Multiple reprintings. People who weren't aware of the new gods are reading The New Gods. And so my hope is that in a similar way, there is stuff here for both fans of the character, because it does get a little bit heady in terms of how we reconcile all the histories of this character in one. Because this is a character you can do that with, right? You could potentially say that every version of him that has existed exists along the continuum. You just can't see it.
Ram V: And so doing that, I think, will be great for the fans, because there will be all those details that they look at and go, "Oh, it all makes sense. It accounts for everything." And so I feel vindicated and involved in this story somehow, and it's great for people who are reading the story for the first time, because they're going, "Oh, there is all this history that I'm not aware of. I still understand the story, but I wonder what that history was. Let me go look it up." And so that's those are the kind of readers that I like to cultivate, if you will, people who are generally inquisitive and interested in finding out things that aren't necessarily on the page for them.
As a character, Mitch Shelley’s kind of existed in a twilight sphere in the DCU, but this series does touch on his previous involvement with other heroes and it gives him a freedom you don't find with many characters.
Ram V: Yeah, and it's also an important story beat, in that the insinuation when we start the story is that he stopped at some point. He just went, "Nah, this whole thing isn't for me. I'm going to go live in the countryside. I'm going to have family. No one's going to know. I'm just going to be a regular guy." And so it makes complete sense that this person who hung out with heroes and fought battles with them, and for some reason decided, "I'm going to go away.". It makes sense then that he exists in this twilight zone of "How come we don't know about him? Well, we don't know about him because he decided to stop and he went away.
Let’s also talk about the series’ main antagonist, because Resurrection Man isn't someone with a deep bench of foes. Talk about building your new villain.
Ram V: This is a slightly spoilery thing, because the person you think is the villain isn't necessarily the villain. So, within the first two issues, yeah, clearly there's an antagonist set up. But I suppose by the time you get to the end of the story, you realize there are many antagonists and many protagonists to this tale. But in as much as we can talk about it, I like the idea that Resurrection Man is sort of called into action because the villain is, to some extent, created by himself, in that we catch up with him in a World War Two prison camp in New Guinea. And a lot of this has historical context. There were camps run in New Guinea at the time, under the command of the Japanese, where legend is, as the war grew to a close and things got really crazy, there was eating of prisoners involved. And so my brain naturally got very fascinated by this idea. And I went, "Well, what if someone ate the Resurrection Man? Do they get their powers? And if he dies to eating, what happens to him?". And so the villain came through that idea. And then obviously my brain does the next step, which is, "What can I philosophically say about a villain who is obsessed with eating other people?".
Ram V: And so there's that sort of very Hannibal-esque bent to that character, but unlike the Lecter of it all, here, he is more obsessed with, "Where is the boundary between one person and another? And does that boundary exist as a measure of our cleanliness, where we refuse to take in the other because the other is filthy, the other is dirty, and the self is pure?" And he's trying to transcend this boundary, this idea of purity, human purity, if you will, and it takes him to some very, very strange places.
Quantum Karma isn’t just a new Resurrection Man book but a Black Label one. What does that freedom mean to you as a writer and what you can do with this particular story?
Ram V: A couple of things, I think, in terms of the mechanics of it all. The book becomes less concerned with the ongoing continuity. It can tell a story that, for instance, happens in a both in World War Two and 2050 and beyond, without sort of concerning myself with, "oh, if I do this in 2050 are all the other books in the DCU going to have to sort of reconcile that somehow?". I don't think I necessarily work with that as a general concern in any case, but I know editorial has to, and it just made sense to have this book be something that could kind of stand on its own without necessarily messing up too many other things for other books. And then also Black Label being this kind of slightly mature imprint, I think less in terms of content, but more in terms of how the story is told. The subject matter is certainly what I would consider to be adult comic book reading, just because, you know, you don't want to be talking to 15-year-olds about what our purpose is in this world, and at the end of your life, will you have done anything useful? Maybe that's a question for a slightly older audience. And so, yeah, I think just in terms of his preoccupations, probably a more mature read.
It’s been great seeing DC highlight heroes that haven’t shined in a while. Aside from his powers, what do you think makes Resurrection a captivating character?
Ram V: There are some characters that are just existent manifestations of existential questions that we have about ourselves, right? And I think Resurrection Man is definitely one of those characters where I guarantee you, whether you're into superheroes or not, you've asked yourself this question, "What if I could come back and I could fix things, and I could make things better, and I could solve all the problems?". What if people didn't die? What if they could just come back and get a second stab, a second chance at doing something? Wouldn't things be great? And so I think that kind of existential question of, "What if we didn't have death?", or "What if we could conquer death in some way?", has always existed. And so on that fundamental level, Resurrection Man is always a fascinating concept. Beyond that, the character is lovely because it's very easy to write this kind of character as a god. In one of my other books, The Many Deaths of Laila Starr, I had to take a god, a god of death, and write them as a human being in order to find my interest in telling that story. I think that's pre-built into the character, because Mitch is such a grounded character, despite being this kind of possibly demigod hero. And I think that's a really hard thing to pull off, where you can make someone feel grounded and regular, like, "Why is this person who's lived through all of existence continue to live like a homeless person under an overpass?" And I think I love comics that do that because, on some fundamental level, they're about you and me, and not about Mitch Shelly or Resurrection Man or the end of the world. And I think that's also a preoccupation of this book.
Ram V: If I'm not getting too into the weeds, when I was writing this book, early on, I had a conversation with Tom King, and I mentioned this to him, I was telling him this concept, and I said, "You know, and then he has to do this to save the universe." And Tom went, "Well, you know, it can't be about saving the universe. It has to be about saving something he loves. And you can't love the universe.". And that kind of became a overlying preoccupation of this book. I think even in issue one, there's this conversation about falling in love and saving the universe. Do you think they're the same thing? And I think hopefully by the end of this book, we answer that question, but that question is only possible to answer for a character who is capable of falling in love, and for a character who readers feel like, "Oh, this is a person capable of falling love, because this is not a god, this is a regular person like me.".
Anything you’d like to tell fans to make Resurrection Man: Quantum Karma a day-one pull?
Ram V: If you want a story that is set across the history of the DCU told from the perspective of a character who like you and me and possibly one of the forgotten great heroes that no one will ever know of, this is your story.
Resurrection Man: Quantum Karma #1 is available on April 2nd from DC Comics.
