Greg responds...

For the last two seasons, Brandon and I skipped the premise stage entirely, and we broke every episode together on index cards, and I took those cards to outline. Then Brandon, myself and the freelance writers are handed a completed outline. (We have no staff writers on the show, and haven't after season one, for budgetary reasons.) So, no, a writer can't come in and say "I have my own really cool idea for an episode." Freelancers are not in danger of being fired; they simply don't have that opportunity on this series. It's too intricately plotted. They do come on at the outline stage, and we talk through everything and try to stay very open to their ideas for the episode they've been assigned and to the other episodes in the writers room that day. But the story is the story. If they decide to bring Wally back in an episode where we didn't previously plan to bring Wally back, it's simply not going to happen.

But no one ever suggests going that far off book, anyway. That's just not this gig, and that's made clear up front.

Greg responds...

They'd say otherwise.

Greg responds...

1. "More powerful" than whom? I'm not too big on power comparisons. Her powers are different but overlap with other psychics we have in the series.

2. I think he states it fairly clearly in the episode.

3. They thought he might be useful, and by that time there was no fear that his existence would out their clone.

4. I don't understand this question. Cover story for whom?

5. It's a good question... that I'm not going to answer, as any answer could constitute a potential spoiler.

Greg responds...

Assuming they survive to the end of Team Year Ten, they will be...

1. 18

2. 15

Greg responds...

I don't have conclusive or definitive feelings about them in the way you seem to be implying.

I am very fond of Independence Day, Misplaced, Summit, Endgame, Evolution and Overwhelmed. But I honestly love every episode (like a proud papa).

Greg responds...

1. The iris change allowed them to take in more light on Mars, I believe.

2. Fostered.

3. His reaction startled her.

4. Dou worked as a character designer on Season Three under Phil. Phil moved on after Season Three, and Dou was promoted to Model Supervisor. We also brought back Jerome Moore, who did characters for us during Seasons One and Two, and brought in Austin Reinkins to design with Dou and Rome.

Greg responds...

1. Well, both, I guess. The Outsiders are autonomous, reporting in Season Three - and until the first few minutes of Season Four - to Beast Boy. But Beast Boy initially reported to Team Leader Miss Martian (and later Tigress), who in turn reported to League Chairperson Aquaman (and later Black Lightning).

2. The two groups tend to stay separate, but overlap can happen situationally, as when Geo-Force joined the Team for their mission to the Orphanage.

3. Secret. Though they know the two groups are friendly.

Greg responds...

1. These kinds of questions are not really of much interest to me. You're trying to remove all situational criteria, but life is entirely situational. I guess by the terms you're using that Atlanteans are stronger than Martians. But the terms only exist in a vacuum of circumstance, which can never occur - not even in a vacuum.

2. Now, you're crossing shows? No. I'm not going there. Watch the two series. See what you see. Make your own evaluations.

3. Every Martian is different.

Greg responds...

Hi emmy,

I'm glad you liked the scene. But I take issue with you saying that Halo is not a real person. She's as real as Miss Martian or Tigress or any of the others. What difference does her origin make? Now, she's a living, breathing person - with super-powers, sure - but in every other way, she's currently a human being.

Greg responds...

I see where you're coming from, but that's not where we were coming from.

The X on the building comes from the X on Martian Manhunter's chest. In our mind, that was the symbol of the M'huntrrs, i.e the Martian police, that J'onn J'onzz was a member of before coming to Earth. I totally see how you got there, but I promise you it literally never occurred to us to associate that X with M'comm to create any kind of Malcolm X reference or analogy.

The name M'comm was, for us, just following in the tradition of most Martian naming, i.e. you take a relatively average human name and Martian it up a bit. Hence John becomes J'onn, Megan becomes M'gann, etc. M'ree, M'aatt, J'ann and M'comm follow along those lines. So, yes, M'comm is a Martianing up of Malcolm, but I never specifically thought of associating him with Malcolm X, any more than I think of J'onn being associated with some specific Jon or John.

Way back when we were developing Season One, Brandon and I rejected the idea of there being an evil race on M'arzz. I find that notion from the comics very troubling. But we did think that the MYTH of an evil race would be useful for the ruling castes to justify their caste system. Scapegoating, in essence, creates a self-justifying belief: "Oh, so the A'ashenn are angry about the way we treat them? They don't like how we keep them in their place? Well, that's because they're hate-mongering would-be conquerors! Thank C'eridyall we DO keep them in their place!"

I've said before that I regret having used White Martians at all. We were following in the footsteps of the comics, but I do wish we had thought to use Grays instead of Whites. For one thing, the idea of Martians being either "little green men" or "Grays" feels right to me, in terms of alien-mythology. But mostly, it's because here in the real world, the word "white" is obviously associated with people of European descent (such as myself) - i.e. so-called Caucasian - and not with the actual color white, i.e. the snow white or chalk white of our A'ashenn. In essence, we were distracted by the visual look of the White Martians and didn't have the sensitivity to focus on the actual and very real connotation of the WORD "white".

That's one of the main reasons why, this season, we made a conscious choice to largely stop referring to the Martians as White, Green, Red and Yellow, in favor of A'ashenn, G'arrunn, B'lahdenn and Y'ellonn. We actively wanted to create some mental distance between the A'ashenn and Caucasians by avoiding the common word "white". We don't want the oppressed A'ashenn associated with the decidedly NOT oppressed Caucasians in any way, shape or form. It's not a perfect solution, but after consulting with our multiple sensitivity readers, it felt like the best we could do, given our failure of imagination and sensitivity way back in Season One.