Fan-favorite creative duo Matthew Rosenberg and Stefano Landini (The Punisher War Machine vol.2) are bringing a brand-new creator-owned series, We’re Taking Everyone Down With Us, to Image Comics. I had the chance to talk to Matt about the book and I am beyond excited. Like all his books, it’s an amazing concept filtered through relatable characters. Read our chat below and make sure you pick up We’re Taking Everyone Down With Us when it debuts in March.
Monkeys Fighting Robots: Matt, for those folks who haven’t heard about or had the pleasure to read the first issue of We’re Taking Everyone Down With Us, what’s your elevator pitch for it?
Matthew Rosenberg: We’re Taking Everyone Down With Us is both a spy-fi love letter and a tongue-in-cheek satire of the over-the-top romanticism of the 60’s and 70’s spy thrillers like James Bond. But we’re approaching the story from a different angle, instead of being about the super macho spy and the devious villains he fights, it is about the teenage daughter of one those villains whose life becomes collateral damage in their games of global domination. And then I throw in a lot of the stuff I like to talk about like family, revenge, growing up, and some robots for good measure. When all is said and done the recipe is probably equal parts Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Leon: The Professional, Diabolik, and Paper Moon. But that’s really pretentious so I’d just say it’s about a foul-mouthed kid and her robot bodyguard on their quest to kill a very powerful man.
MFR: You’re no stranger to revenge stories, having written The Punisher for many issues. What about revenge stories makes them so appealing to read, and in your case, to write?
MR: The best motivators in all of fiction, and maybe all of life too, are love and revenge. So when you can do a revenge story that is also about love? How can you pass that up. For me, writing revenge is really cathartic. It’s something we all fantasize about doing in both little ways and grandiose ones. So when I get to dig in and explore both the gratification aspect of it, but also the moral consequences, it really is the kind of story that I feel like I’m learning about myself as I go. And hopefully, that leads to me saying something worth hearing.
MFR: Did anything other story or genre in particular inspire this series?
MR: Yeah, with all of my stuff I try to really wear my heart on my sleeve. I get why people obscure their influences and inspiration. It’s romantic to think ideas sprung forth from nothing. But I am a big story nerd so it feels really disingenuous to me to try and play the instructable wizard. Obviously, a lot of spy movies were a big influence, Connery and Moore era Bond, but also the more modern stuff- Bourne, Mission: Impossible. But also things like John le Carré and Graham Greene for their more grounded approach. Rucka’s Queen & Country, Brubaker and Epting’s Velvet, and Millar and Gibbons’ Secret Service. But we’re also pulling a lot from other places, coming-of-age stories like La Haine and Heathers, buddy road trip stories like Midnight Run, Nice Guys, and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. And then at its heart, the book is about family too. So stuff like Paper Moon, The Royal Tenenbaums, and To Kill A Mockingbird were all sort of guiding lights.
MFR: Is this a story you’ve been cooking up for a long time? When did this idea first hit you? And how did the project come together?
MR: In 2020 Stefano and I were supposed to do a series at Marvel, but the pandemic hit and everyone was told pencils down and the book was paused. When things were unpaused we were no longer on the book that we had been so excited about. So Stefano actually approached me about us doing a creator-owned book together and I was really into the idea. He sent me some drawings of this robot character that he’d been playing around with and I just fell in love with the design. From there I built a whole world for the robot to live in. Some of it was born at that moment, some of it is stuff that’s been in my head for years. I tend to really focus on a few themes and dig deep into them, and sometimes that spills over into the next book. So in some ways this book is in conversation with my other titles We Can Never Go Home, 4 Kids Walk Into A Bank, and What’s The Furthest Place From Here?. They aren’t literally connected but I think there is a thematic throughline as I reassess things I’ve said, if that makes sense.
MFR: I love how you can come up with these evocative, long titles that fit the books perfectly. What’s your secret to this?
MR: I start with a title that is way too long and make everyone mad and then I cut and cut until they just kind of ignore me.
MFR: Like so much of your work, you have this amazing ability to come up with insane high concepts, yet ground them in ways that connect the characters with readers. How the hell do you pull off that magic trick?
MR: I don’t think I’m exactly weird in this, but I also have talked to enough of my peers about process to know it’s not how everyone works. I start with characters and relationships and build the world and the story up from there, and not vice versa. I think a lot of what we forget in comics, especially in the days of IP farming publishers and people chasing the Hollywood bag, is that what makes people come back every month and spend $4 or $5 on a story is caring about the characters. That goes back before Homer and Aesop. Although I don’t know how much they charged per issue. Character is at the heart of what we’ve always done. It’s cool if you have an awesome idea for a time travel story about Hamlet or figured out how to do John Wick in space, but if I don’t give a fuck about Cyborg Hamlet or Martian John Wick as people then none of that matters.
MFR: You’re teaming up again with artist Stefano Landini, who you worked with on The Punisher. What made you choose Stefano as the artist for this book?
MR: I mean, he chose me as the writer. But yeah, I love Stefano. We worked on
The Punisher and those are some of my favorite issues in the run. And then we did a Grifter story at DC that was great. I think he is one of the best storytellers I’ve ever worked with. He knows how to handle action and acting equally, and he can go small or go big. There is just an ease to his storytelling that makes it a joy because you know you can try anything. I hope more people fall in love with him from this book.WTEDWU 01 01 (1)
MFR: Another aspect of the art that stood out for me was the coloring. Roman Titov just kills it. What made you choose them for the book?
(NOTE: Roman and Jason Wordie split coloring duty on the book. It’s all a bit confusing.)
MR: Roman was coloring my other book What’s The Furthest Place From Here? for a long time and I just love the imaginative simplicity of it. Big, gorgeous colors that work in service to the lines but never overpower them. Unfortunately Roman had to take a big gig outside comics. We talked about it and I’m happy for him and was sad that we’d probably lose his colors. But the great Jason Wordie stepped in to take over. When I told Jason he can redo everything so it’s only his work, he looked over what Roman did and appreciated it as much as I do. So he suggested maybe taking Roman’s work and building off of it, and that’s sort of how the final colors came together. It really is everyone sort of building on top of each other in a cool way and I can see clearly this influence of Roman’s in Jason’s work, and I can see where Jason is making it his own completely and it’s very fun to watch.
MFR: And of course you once again have Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou doing the lettering. What made him the right choice for the project?
MR: He’s the best letterer in comics.
MFR: What do you hope is the final takeaway readers will have about We’re Taking Everyone Down With Us?
MR: I hope it makes them laugh, and yell in joy and anger, and I hope it makes them cry. All of us are looking for ways to feel numb these days, and art can be great for that. But that’s not what we’re trying to do. Be vulnerable. Feel things here. Let a foul-mouthed little girl who kills people and her robot friend into your heart. We promise not to break too much stuff.
MFR: Any final words for our readers?
MR: I don’t know, man. I write comic books. Practice caring about all the people you’ll never meet. Don’t fuck up
We’re Taking Everyone Down With Us is out from Image Comics on Wednesday, March 26.
