Zorro Deep In The Dead

by Vince Brusio

The man who leaves his mark is back, and knee-deep in the living dead! Los Angeles is overrun by an army of hellish horsemen, and Zorro is the only man who can save his home from becoming a banquet of torn flesh. In this PREVIEWSworld Exclusive interview, writer David Avallone details how this new type of adventure was conjured and sent to the drawing board to make a comic book that is pure action/adventure theater featuring the world’s greatest swordsman.

Zorro: Swords of Hell #1 (MAY181327) is in comic shops October 3.

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Vince Brusio: David, you have done something in Zorro: Swords of Hell that is refreshing, but quite frankly a surprise. You took a classic newspaper strip character and put him in the middle of Hell on Earth. That’s like bringing the mountain to the man. How did get this project approved?

David Avallone: I was approached by American Mythology about doing something for the company, and when they told me they were launching a Zorro comic I wanted in. I’m a big fan of Zorro, since seeing the 1940 movie when I was a kid. (On television… I’m not THAT old.) They told me they were looking for a supernatural angle for this series, and they approved my first pitch.

Vince Brusio: For those who are not as familiar with the mythos of Zorro, tell us who Don Diego is, what drives him, and what makes him a hero?

David Avallone: Zorro, like any iconic character who’s been around for a 100 years or so, has a lot of history and a lot of different interpretations. My Zorro/Don Diego is a synthesis of all my favorite versions, from that Tyrone Power movie in 1940 to the recent Isabel Allende novel. But many aspects are consistent through every version: Don Diego is the American Robin Hood. He’s a rich kid from a rich family. His father is a tough old soldier who’s been the Alcalde (essentially mayor) of the small but growing pueblo of Los Angeles, around the turn of the 19^th century. He goes away to military school in Spain, and when he comes back he finds out his father has been deposed by a new dictatorial new Alcalde, who’s backed up by a sadistic Captain in the Spanish army. He’s moved by the plight of the people of Los Angeles under the yoke of the new Alcalde, so he harasses the Captain and his men, and eventually overthrows the evil regime, restoring his father. That’s the tried-and-true origin story of Zorro, and the point I jump off from.

But who is Don Diego? He is a good man, who doesn’t know just how good he is until he’s tested. This is true of most people: your self-image is one thing, but you don’t really know who you are until the crucible of experience molds you, and so it is with Don Diego. His father and his tutors have trained him to be a Hidalgo, a gentleman of manners and a devil with a sword. His mother, a Tongva Native American, has gifted him a more sensitive and thoughtful nature and an empathy for the oppressed. But my favorite part of Don Diego’s persona has no traceable origin: he is full of joy and laughter. Some of that laughter is the bravado of a man facing death… but Don Diego is genuinely full of mirth and charm and wit, and doesn’t give in to despair. In my story that sunny disposition is tested to its limit. 

Vince Brusio: Can you let us peek behind the curtain a bit? Could you tell us how you formulated the premise for this story? How did you start in draft form? Did any details or plotting change from concept to production?

David Avallone: The story was shaped by a number of things, beginning with the fact that – like Zorro – I am a longtime resident of Los Angeles California. When I started thinking about supernatural events in LA, and what I could do that would be a unique reflection of the area and its history… for whatever reason my mind drifted to the La Brea Tar Pits. (That’s how we refer to them in English, but if you translate the Spanish you realize you’re saying “the ‘the Tar’ Tar Pits.”) I had an image of demonic zombies rising out of bubbling tar.  And what would they look like? The cursed dead of the New World? I would think you’d find a lot of Conquistadors in Hell, so I asked our artist, Roy Allen Martinez to depict them in Conquistador armor. 

My pitch laid out the overall arc of the series, and when that was approved I went right to the first script. In the process of writing it, I discovered the Allende novel, and started reading it. I was very pleased to see that she (gently) nudged the character and his origin story in a direction that I had also wanted to go – a more historically accurate direction -- and I took that as a blessing to amplify those elements. Allende also, amazingly to me, refers in passing to the Tar Pits as a place of unquiet spirits of the dead. I have no idea if she’s repeating a local legend or if we both had the same inclination about the pits… but either way, it was a cool bit of synchronicity. 

Vince Brusio: In this story, Don Diego speaks to his father, begging forgiveness because of lateness to a party. Diego remarks that his betrothed armed with a rapier kept him from being timely. The father replies, “The De La Vega Men seem cursed to love dangerous women.” Will that statement serve as any kind of foreshadowing by chance?

David Avallone: It’s not so much foreshadowing as backshadowing (not a word.) In the Allende novel referred to above, Zorro’s mother is a former rebel against the Spanish colonizers – an actual historical figure named Toypurina – who Zorro’s father met in combat, and wounded. They fell in love during her convalescence. I don’t think there will be time in the mini-series for me to go into that, but I wanted to at least foreshadow to the audience that both Lolita and his mom (now going by “Regina”) were going to be part of the action.

Vince Brusio: Tell us about the fun factor for this story. How did you throw yourself into it? How did you make it electric? What is it about this story that made you commit yourself to a new chapter in the history of Zorro?

David Avallone: The fun mostly comes from Zorro himself, and placing him against foes who are more and more challenging. In this series he faces off against Conquistador Zombies, a were-jaguar, prehistoric demon sabre tooth tigers… and eventually will encounter a deity known as Tolmalok. When you have the world’s greatest swordsman, you have to give him challenges he can’t stab his way out of. That’s what makes a hero: facing impossible odds and finding new solutions. That was what excited me about this series… testing everything about Zorro, challenging everything he believes and pushing him to his limits. And when I did that? Zorro laughed and kept swinging. That’s why we love him, and that’s why we’re still telling stories about him a hundred years later.

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Vince Brusio writes about comics, and writes comics. He is the long-serving Editor of PREVIEWSworld.com, the creator of PUSSYCATS, and encourages everyone to keep the faith...and keep reading comics.