Epilogue
Bob Benton nervously looked over the script he had prepared. It had been an exciting time in recent weeks, with all that he’d had to do. After the deaths of McIness and Schmidt, he’d helped explore the Indui village with Assistance Unlimited. He’d befriended the natives that remained and Lazarus had pledged to help protect them from the outside world in the future.
In return for all their kindness, the Indui had given The Black Terror a very special gift. It had taken some time to nurture it into full health but in the end it had bloomed, providing him with not one but two choice fruits.
They sat side-by-side now, a beautiful blonde and a young boy. Both regarded him with wide eyes. They were tabula rasa, waiting to be filled.
Bob stepped up in front of them and smiled. In return, they smiled back.
“Your names are Jean Starr and Tim Roland,” he said. “Now repeat them for me.”
AN INTERVIEW WITH BARRY REESE
1. What are the central themes of Die Glocke?
I never really think about themes when I’m writing a story but in hindsight, sometimes I can see recurring ideas. With Die Glocke, I really wanted to focus on the family dynamic that we’ve established with the members of Assistance Unlimited. These people would die for one another and I wanted to show why that was and how far that loyalty could be tested.
The story is also about paying homage to the many things that went into the creation of Lazarus Gray. Obviously, there are elements of The Avenger in the series but I also drew heavily upon Indiana Jones, the Hellboy stories by Mike Mignola and Andy McDermott’s novels. I wanted to incorporate elements from all of those, in terms of plot elements, specific scenes and just the overall feel of those works. Hopefully, I’ve taken all of that and combined it with my own creations to feel fresh and new — but with all my New Pulp work, I feel like I’m standing on the shoulders of giants.
2. You built a really strong team in Volume 1… and proceeded to put them through a meat grinder of sorts in Die Glocke. Was that a conscious decision or did the story just write itself that way? And if it was a choice, why?
Volume One was all about establishing the team and Sovereign City. That’s why all the stories in Volume One were set in the team’s hometown. With Volume Two, it was about expansion — expansion of the concept and their adventuring level. So we do some globetrotting, we raise the ante on the stakes and there is a corresponding level of danger for the team. There were definitely points in the story where I wasn’t really sure if certain members were going to live or die — it was only when I wrote the scenes themselves that I knew.
So, yes, it was a conscious decision. I wanted to do the biggest, boldest pulp story I’d ever done and really show that Assistance Unlimited could handle that.
3. You made it known with Volume One that Lazarus Gray was your homage to one of your favorite characters. How does Die Glocke take Lazarus Gray away from that initial inspiration and make him more of his own man, so to speak?
Well, The Avenger was very much of the “real world” mold. There were elements of the fantastic but generally the explanation for those things were grounded in reality. So if you had a ghostly-appearing villain, it would turn out that it was actually a gangster with a few tricks up his sleeve. Lazarus Gray, though, exists in the world of the supernatural. There were stories that played that up in the first volume but in Die Glocke, that’s really kicked up a notch. I’ve basically created an Avenger analogue who exists in a world akin to Mike Mignola’s Hellboy.
With this book, though, we see that Lazarus is not Richard Henry Benson in the most important of ways. While both are stoic, Lazarus is that way mostly by choice. He can express emotion and he can fall in love. The romance angle with Kelly Emerson was an important one, as well as the scene showing Lazarus’ melancholy at the beginning.
4. As great a character as Lazarus is, his teammates stand out as well. What was it like essentially breaking the team down to rebuild it and in the end, in what condition do you think the events of Die Glocke leave Assistance Unlimited?
What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right? Though the series is billed as Lazarus Gray, Assistance Unlimited are equal members on the missions, so I always want to showcase the various parts of the team in fun ways. I think any one of the core cast could carry a story on their own.
It hurts sometimes putting your characters into deadly situations but seeing them emerge through the gloom is inspiring to me as a writer and as a reader. After the horrors of Die Glocke, I think the team is confident that they can handle anything and everything that comes their way.
5. The second story in Die Glocke features your version of a public domain comic character. What inspired/influenced you to pull The Black Terror into this story and what did you do to make Black Terror your own, yet keep him true to his origins?
I’ve always loved the Black Terror and thought that he could be transitioned into being a pulp hero. But on the other hand, I didn’t want to completely ignore his origins — so I thought it would be fun to find a way to “keep” his comic book stuff while simultaneously making him pulpier. He’s just a fun character with one of the best costumes ever designed — honestly, the costume is the main draw for most people, I think. And I thought it would be fun to have a “team-up” in Volume Two. I teamed Lazarus Gray with The Peregrine in Volume One, after all.
6. Using five single words, describe what you have in store for Lazarus Gray Volume 3. Not five words in a sentence, five standalone words.
Eidolon
Rebirth
Murder Unlimited
Archetypes
Betrayal
I know that Murder Unlimited is two words but they go together, so….
And yes, that last one implies what you think it does. By the end of Volume Three, at least one member of the team is no longer on the side of the angels.
THE ADVENTURES OF LAZARUS GRAY, VOLUME 3:
EIDOLON
SECRETS OF THE DEAD
MURDER UNLIMITED!
Chapter I
Stabs In the Dark
Melvin Pemberley was fifty-one years old, though he could pass for a man in his mid-thirties. He was handsome in an Aryan sort of way, with shortcut blond hair, blue eyes that resembled chipped polar ice and a coolly efficient manner of conducting himself. He tended to wear the type of white lab coats so often associated with scientists and was rarely found without a pair of surgical gloves on his hands.
Doc Pemberley’s appearance generally caused people to believe he was a hard-working man dedicated to science. The truth was a good bit more sinister. Pemberley was completely amoral. Where the average person would cringe, Pemberley stared unabashed. When a normal man would rush in to save those in need, Pemberley was more apt to pick up a sheet of paper and begin recording the events occurring before him.