Live Reddit AMA with Steve Orlando!

Steve Orlando is currently a writer on Midnighter and Batman and Robin Eternal.

He’s taken time out of his busy schedule to do a live Reddit AMA about Batman, comics and anything you want to know about.

"Hey! Steve Orlando here, writer of Midnighter, Batman & Robin Eternal, Justice League: Darkseid War. AMA! (self.DCcomics)"

"submitted 3 hours ago by thesteveorlando – stickied postDrop your questions here and I’ll be answering 2:00 – 5:00 PM EST!"

The event starts at 1pm central, so I’d get there as soon as you can! From DC’s interview with Orlando when DCYou launched:

"MIDNIGHTER #1, which kicks off the black-clad, openly gay vigilante’s first ongoing solo comic in five years, launches this week. Earlier this year, we spoke with writer Steve Orlando about this eagerly awaited new comic. Here’s what he had to say.The prospect of the Midnighter solo comic is so interesting and exciting. I’m curious, what are you most excited about, personally, when it comes to writing Midnighter?I’m most excited about the character’s unique blend and style—all of those proto-masculine, John McClane-esque traits, applied to a character that is unabashedly gay. I think that’s what makes him unique. When I was thirteen, that was what was appealing about the character for me. There is no one way to be LGBT. There is no one way to be queer. He can do all these things and command this respect, without having to shield any part of his life. The character is out of the closet in every way—there is no hiding that he is a super hero and there is no hiding that he is a gay man. I think that’s something that is pretty powerful and unique about the character.Midnighter isn’t the first gay hero to anchor his own ongoing title, but I think he’s the first that I would put in the category of definitely not a role model. How important is it to have that sort of spectrum when we’re talking about gay heroes and gay characters in media in general?Well, I think it’s kind of loaded to say that he is not a role model. He certainly has his issues, but I think the core confidence of the character is definitely something that is admirable. A lot of the problems in his life and his struggles stem from himself, so, yes, he is not a role model in some ways. He is very into violent citizen’s arrests—but his approach to life is something that I think is admirable and that hopefully will resonate with a lot of people. The idea that he is 100% himself all the time and really shows no fear in the face of a public that maybe isn’t behind his decisions, regardless of if he is in or out of his costume.But at the same time, I think it is important to say that this is really just a story about one man. The book is about one character. Obviously, there’s always this notion that doing a queer book, you’re representing the entire community and I think that’s kind of an unfair assumption. Midnighter is the story about one guy who is extremely flawed. Much like anyone else, he does good things, and there are things that people will like about him, but there are things that people may find unsavory about him as well. But you know, that is the hero of the 2015 audience. You have a readership that now prefers to read about Jaime Lannister than Ned Stark, and he’s much more unlikable than Midnighter, yet here we are with people rooting for him. I think the journey of taking this character that has all these problems and showing him evolve as a person, for readers, is actually just as important as him starting off as an idealized character."

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