'Captain Planet' set to return from Dynamite
Word Balloons #1265: Writer David Pepose discusses environmental hero's return for 2020s
The eco-friendly superhero Captain Planet returns to comics in May in “Captain Planet” #1 from Dynamite Entertainment. “Captain Planet and the Planeteers” debuted in 1990 as an animated series from Turner Entertainment that aimed to share environmental lessons. Writer David Pepose chatted with me for Comic Shop News about how Captain Planet and his Planeteers are a dream assignment — and here, you can read extended answers and additional questions that didn’t make the CSN cut — including my question referencing Bruce Springsteen. Check out the Q&A below!
MP: What is your experience with the Captain Planet character?
DP: Like most kids of the ‘90s, I grew up watching the original Captain Planet cartoon. I remember being struck by the Planeteers in particular — how they were such an eclectic group of kids who came from such different backgrounds, but who were able to find common ground and establish such deep and loyal friendships. Combine that with the amazing assortment of powers and the unforgettable villains, and I was hooked.
MP: Why is now a good time for a revival?
DP: I’ve been championing a Captain Planet series for literally a decade, and nobody is more struck than me that the character is truly a hero of our times. We live in a world where climate change is running rampant, with real-world consequences ranging from Hurricane Sandy in New York to the wildfires in Los Angeles to record freezing temperatures in the Midwest — and we also live in a world of unchecked greed, where billionaires are asserting unchecked power across every facet of our lives.
I’ve always felt that Captain Planet as a concept was ahead of his time — but now, the world has caught up, and exploring this new historical and geopolitical context has become the heart of our relaunch. Now more than ever, Captain Planet and the Planeteers are the heroes we need, and I think readers will be surprised at how well they fit this moment.
MP: That Mark Spears cover is, pun partially intended, dynamite! How exciting is it to have perhaps the hottest cover artist in the industry on your launch issue?
DP: Such a thrill! I truly believe that Mark Spears is such a singular talent, but I actually didn’t know he would be drawing covers for Captain Planet until we made our series announcement — we’re so excited to have him as part of our team! And I’m also grateful to Dynamite for enlisting a talent like Mark on our series — they’ve been nothing but supportive of this brand-new take on Captain Planet, and it means a lot for them to be putting a creator of Mark’s caliber as one of the faces of our series.
MP: Tell me about your collaborators on the series.
DP: Eman Casallos is the most talented and dedicated artist you haven’t heard of yet, and I sincerely hope to change that with Captain Planet. I hadn’t been familiar with his work until our editor Joe Rybandt recruited him to the book, but Eman has come out swinging with every single page — the way he’s redesigned and recontextualized the cast is nothing short of sensational, and the acting he gives his characters is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced in the industry. Eman really is elevating this book at every conceivable level, and I think fans are going to look back at books like Captain Planet as the beginning of Eman’s well-deserved career trajectory. I can only hope he’ll let me ride on his coattails for more projects in the future!
I also want to give a shoutout to our amazing team of cover artists, including the aforementioned Mark Spears; Jae Lee, who is returning from my run on Space Ghost and delivering his next-level covers to this project with a series of connecting covers; the incredible Christian Ward, a true champion of my work who is delivering some of the most eye-catching visuals in the entire comics industry; and Ben Oliver, who so wonderfully captures Captain Planet’s spirit as a heroic champion of our planet. We’ve been truly fortunate to enlist such top-tier talent for this series!
MP: How did you go about updating or modernizing the concept?
DP: Similar to the approach I’ve taken with Space Ghost and my upcoming Speed Racer series at Mad Cave Studios, my approach to Captain Planet has been asking myself what would this concept look like if it was introduced in the year 2025 instead of the year 1989. For starters, the geopolitical context has shifted greatly, and there’s more and more inspiration ripped from today’s headlines and today’s pop culture.
Starting with the mythology and action of it all, we’ve drawn from a lot of cool inspiration points for Captain Planet, including the elemental powers of Avatar: The Last Airbender, the international underdog elements of the X-Men, and even the personality-driven rebooting of something like JJ Abrams’ Star Trek. The result is a Captain Planet who has a long history of saving our world, but who is able to flex his powers in unique ways — think of Superman or Captain America, but with Metamorpho’s powers — while the Planeteers are able to double down on their own senses of agency, now that they’re able to “bend” their individual elements in various offensive and defensive ways.
But the world has definitely changed since Captain Planet’s debut in 1989, and exploring those changes in the characters is the heart of our series. One major example would be Linka, who was introduced in 1989 as coming from the Soviet Union — things have changed quite a bit in Russia since then, and as a result, Linka has gone from being the most conservative of the Planeteers to the most liberal, headlining her own eco-activist punk band. Meanwhile, we’ve recontextualized Wheeler as an auto worker from Detroit, who serves as kind of the point-of-view character for many of our readers, as he goes on this character arc of figuring out why the Planeteers’ mission is important, and how we need individuals on the ground to help save the world. And Ma-Ti has grappled with a lot of oppression and violence as an indigenous person in the face of corrupt mining companies in Brazil, which makes his relationship with the power of Heart that much more bittersweet and dramatic. All of our characters are built to feel of this moment, and I think that’s what makes Captain Planet such an exciting series.
MP: You're probably familiar with Barbara Pyle, who co-created Captain Planet with Ted Turner. I was fortunate enough to interview Pyle back in 2011 about Captain Planet, where she told me that her father was partially the inspiration for Wheeler and her mother for Gaia. You may also know that Pyle was the photographer for Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band's "Born to Run" tour. My question is -- did Bruce's "Born to Run"-era beard have any influence on the Captain Planet beard seen in the promo material for the new series?
DP: You have taken me on quite the journey with this question! (Laughs) No, I can’t say the Boss was the inspiration for Captain Planet’s beard — when Eman was drawing various versions of Captain Planet for his redesign, he threw in one version with a beard, and we all were instantly taken with it. It speaks to Captain Planet as sort of an immortal champion of the wilderness, but it also is a mission statement — this is a new and altogether different take on Captain Planet, one that’s instantly grounded in the world of 2025. And in an industry where you’ve seen the success of Absolute Batman, Ultimate Peter Parker, and Jonathan Lau’s massive take on Space Ghost, I think these kinds of bold changes can only be good for iconic characters like Captain Planet!
MP: What are your hopes for the Captain Planet series?
DP: Honestly, I just want readers to feel as excited about Captain Planet as I am — this is a character that has been long overlooked, but he’s a character that is inherently timely, with a globe-spanning cast tackling environmental catastrophe and the corrupt businessmen who are causing it. I’ve said for a decade that Captain Planet was my white whale, a concept that has every ingredient to be an A-lister — and I can’t wait to show our readers why.
MP: Is there anything else you'd like to tell me about?
DP: Beyond our upcoming relaunch of Captain Planet, I’m still working with the amazing Jonathan Lau on our run on Space Ghost, which will see our heroes tackling the Council of Doom in an epic three-part showdown; I’ve also got Cable: Love & Chrome over at Marvel, which kicked off in January with artist Mike Henderson, which is a time-bending adventure as Cable finds new love and face his own mortality in the face of the Techno-Organic Virus; and I’ll be relaunching Speed Racer at Mad Cave Studios with a truly sensational artist I can’t reveal yet, as we kick off a brand-new reboot charting Speed’s path to becoming the fastest racer in the Formula X racing circuit. [Editor’s note: After this interview, the “Speed Racer” artist was revealed by Mad Cave to be Davide Tinto.] And a couple other creator-owned projects I can’t talk about yet…? 2025 is looking to be my busiest year yet, and I hope all the fans and retailers reading check out the exciting stuff we’ve got coming down the pipeline!
Matthew Price, matthew@matthewLprice.com, has written about the comics industry for more than two decades. He is the co-owner of Speeding Bullet Comics in Norman, Oklahoma.