“Justice League” comic book writer Geoff Johns is talking about the timing of their Issue 36 introducing Amazo Virus storyline just as news of the Ebola virus is hitting the United States.
Johns spoke with IGN about creating the issue before the Ebola stories hit the news and the world was aware of the virus. Johns said the team had no idea how relevant the Issue 36 to current events.
“Obviously, it's really weird and strangely timely, I guess, that the fear of the unknown -- and the origin of this story came from a couple different ideas,” Johns told IGN. “But first off, how do you challenge the Justice League with a world-level threat that they've never been challenged with before?
“Thinking about it, if humans have become superhuman or metahuman, what if another species on Earth started to evolve into a superhuman species to almost combat that? This was of course designed and perpetuated by Luthor, but it's almost like a meta-virus -- and that's kind of how they refer to it.
“It's the next stage in disease. If people are worried about a man who can fly and lift a car and shoot heat vision out of his eyes, imagine the hysteria and panic that comes from a virus that survives indefinitely outside of the human body and does what it does to both humans and metahumans and reacts to them differently, as you see in the issue.”
Johns claimed the creative team for the “Justice League” issue talked about the world’s reaction to the Black Plague, a disease that is still taking the lives of thousands.
The writer added diseases that have been “eradicated” actually still exist in CDC labs today. Johns tapped into the fear that comes with the uncertainty on how diseases spread and affect the body.
“The potential for disease is I think pretty frightening, and that's what we wanted to tap into and see how a team like the Justice League could unify and face something like that,” he told IGN. “One of the terrifying things is the people that can best combat it, if they get sick, then what happens?
“You've got to rely on other people. Right now, the Justice League is down to a few members, and they're forced to rely on Lex Luthor. They obviously causes a lot of strain and stress in the team. We'll see how that plays out in this story. But I guess it's ironic. It's also timely. It's a little scary.”
Read more of Johns’ interview with IGN here.
