INTERVIEW: Baltazar and Franco on “The Green Team”

It was announced via my piece at The Huffington Post that Art Baltazar and Franco would be writing their first book in the New 52. The Green Team is a book about the wealthy and wonders what would happen in the DC Universe if you had limitless financial resources, could you buy power? Could you buy superpowers?

The book doesn’t come out until May and the details I know are literally contained completely in the interview and solicitation for the book below:

Bryan Young: On the surface, this book sounds silly based on the solicits, but it seems like it has a pretty important grounding. What brought you to want to do this book, and I’m assuming it’s retaining your sense of humour?

FRANCO:DC knew we were the right team for the job. They knew our sense of humor would be an important element of the book but they also knew we could bring the story that would make this something people would want to read. Intrigue, young love, money and even these superpowers beings that inhabit the world.

ART: Who are they again?

FRANCO: You know, Superman, Wonder Woman, those guys.

ART: I looked at the original designs and concepts of these characters and was looking forward to giving them a major update. This gives us the chance of making older, obsolete characters relevant …and awesome in the new DC universe. We also had certain pop culture and social media references and questions that we wanted to bring up.

FRANCO: Yeah, when we started to talk about what these characters looked and acted like if they were around today what would that be and the answers and stories wrote themselves, it was our job to type them up in script form and send them in.

BY: It sounds like this book is going to have some socially redeeming qualities, can you tell me more about that?

FRANCO: What comes to mind is: Can money make you happy?

ART: The real question is: Can money buy you anything in the DC universe? Would it make you powerful? Can it make you a hero? Can money make you…Super?

FRANCO: If you had unlimited wealth, could you use that to make the lives of people better? Would you help your fellow man? Would you buy powers? You need to read this and find out.

BY: What makes you proud of this title so far?

FRANCO:The honor to work along side the talents or Ig Guara and Amanda Conner!

ART: And this is officially our first story in the New 52, which you cannot deny, is pretty cool!

BY: What is it you hope comics readers come away from the book with?

ART:I want the readers to want the next issue so bad that they can’t wait a month to find out what happens to these characters.

FRANCO: I was going to say something different but what he says sounded really good. I want to write the book with this guy.

And here’s the official retailer solicitation of the book:

THE GREEN TEAM #1
Written by ART BALTAZAR and FRANCO
Art by IG GUARA
Cover by AMANDA CONNER
1:25 Variant cover by CLIFF CHIANG
On sale MAY 22 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T

This issue will ship with two covers.
INVENTORS! EXPLORERS! ADVENTURERS! Do you need money to finance an important project? Then you should set up a meeting with THE GREEN TEAM!
• Nature of world-changing idea:
• Amount requested:
• Does your project have the potential to:
Fracture space-time?
Replace the combustion engine?
Attract extraterrestrial attention?
Prove/disprove existence of deities?
Piss off The Justice League?
Render the human body obsolete?
If any of the above are checked, please fill out liability release form GT2013-05. Send any 82 drawings, plans, models, or photos with request.

Be sure to check out our interview with Gail Simone as well!