Earth, Fire, Wind, Water, and…uh, Heart (20 years later and I’m still unsure about that last one) with these combined – we can summon the planet’s greatest hero — Captain Planet! Go, Planet!
Yup. Dynamite Comics announced the return of Captain Planet weeks ago in a surprise move that continues to see the publisher adapt some of the best Hanna-Barbara stories. Written by David Pepose (Space Ghost) with art by Eman Casallos, the new Captain Planet comic will take the environmental protector into the 21st century with a brand new group of Planeteers. All while addressing a lot of the climate change problems we’re facing today.
We spoke with writer David Pepose all about the significance of this comic in this moment in time just below. We also got the full details on what’s to come and how this momentous return even happened!
This interview was edited for clarity
CHRISTIAN ANGELES: Was the Don Cheadle Captain Planet parody your impetuous for pitching Captain Planet? And if you could turn someone into a F*#(ing tree who would it be?
DAVID PEPOSE: I can’t really answer that because Don Cheadle and I already had to turn a lot of people into trees just for me to land this assignment. Just kidding… or am I? You should probably keep recycling just to hedge your bets.
But in all seriousness, Captain Planet has been my white whale for a decade — like many children of the ‘90s, I grew up watching Captain Planet, but it wasn’t until I was an adult that I realized the sheer potential behind the concept. It’s multicultural and diverse, with a cast hailing from around the world; it’s incredibly timely and political, dealing with the dangers of climate change and the human greed that fuels it; and it’s got all the ingredients for incredible action, with a dazzling array of elemental powers and mythology that dates back millennia.
For years, I’ve asked every publisher in the business to let me write Captain Planet — and now artist Eman Casallos and I finally get to show you why he’s such a perfect hero for our times.
ANGELES: Alright, seriously, it’s been 30 years since this has been done. I think we all need to know: How did you land Captain Planet?
PEPOSE: Chutzpah. (Laughs) I’ve been writing Space Ghost over at Dynamite for the last year and change, so I was already on Nick Barucci and Joe Rybandt’s radar, and when I learned at San Diego Comic-Con that Dynamite had gotten the rights for Captain Planet, I sent them both an email that night telling them that I had to be the one to write this book. I’d been developing the concept behind our Captain Planet relaunch for a full decade — how could I not shoot my shot? Fortunately, Nick and Joe saw my enthusiasm, especially on the heels of Space Ghost’s success, and they let me run with the book.
ANGELES: What’s your elevator pitch for the series and is it accessible to new fans (who didn’t watch the originals in the 90s)?
PEPOSE: Just like my run on Space Ghost and my upcoming relaunch of Speed Racer over at Mad Cave Studios, our take on Captain Planet is brand-new continuity — you don’t have to have read or watched anything previously to get in on the ground floor of our book, but we’ll also have plenty of Easter eggs for diehard fans to appreciate. To me, the guiding principle behind this book was that if Captain Planet originally debuted in 1989, how would this concept look if it were launched in 2025, with all the historical and geopolitical context that’s shifted since then?
The result is something that really feels like the best of all worlds — we’re opening our series with the invasion of Hope Island, as Gaia, the High Priestess of Earth, is kidnapped by forces unknown. While Captain Planet fights valiantly to protect her, Gaia ultimately has to fall back on her plan of last resort — scattering her five Elemental rings to worthy bearers around the world. Can the Planeteers find each other, and survive in a world that won’t stop hunting them down? Can they hope to save Gaia from the schemes of industrialist Lucian Plunder? Ultimately, this book is like X-Men 2 meets Avatar: The Last Airbender — a group of underdogs on the run, who find themselves suddenly granted powers they don’t necessarily know how to control. It’s honestly one of the most fun books I’ve ever worked on!
ANGELES: What’s it been like working with Dynamite and the team on this?
PEPOSE: Boy, I can’t say enough good things about working with artist Eman Casallos on this book. I wasn’t aware of his work prior to teaming up with him on Captain Planet, but he has come out of the gate absolutely swinging — he’s so thoughtful and deliberate on every page, and he brings such a beautiful sense of acting to these characters. When you fall in love with the Planeteers, it’s because Eman is elevating the story in such a profound way — and then you’re gonna cheer when you see the way he’s been delivering these action sequences. Even Eman’s layouts are beautiful works of art — this is me getting into the weeds a bit, but he lays out his pages using shapes and negative space, and it’s such a cool way of showcasing the mood and storytelling of each page before we see any of the major details… it’s absolutely sensational.
I also want to give a shoutout to our editor Joe Rybandt, who I’ve been working with since we started working on Space Ghost, as well as the amazing crew at Warner Bros.-Discovery, who have given Eman and I an incredible amount of latitude to follow our instincts as we introduce this new iteration of Captain Planet. They not only believe in the vision, but they’ve given us all the tools to make it as exciting and action-packed as possible. This book, along with Space Ghost, has been some of the best experiences I’ve ever had working on a licensed project.
ANGELES: David, we’re facing some of the world’s greatest climate change problems of our lifetime. What are some of the ways you plan to address that in your run?
PEPOSE: That’s honestly the core of our series, and maybe one of the biggest differences from the original cartoon — in 1989, so much of what the Planeteers faced was hypothetical, that they were tackling symptoms before they caused more systemic problems. But in the year 2025, climate change is undeniable — and we’re seeing the costs in human lives. I lived through Hurricane Sandy in New York, and now I just watched as wildfires ravaged Los Angeles for the better part of a month. Climate change isn’t a “maybe” anymore, it’s something tied deep into our politics, and we’re already seeing the effects right now — and so too will the Planeteers.
You’ll see in our first issue how they come from various contexts of environmentalism, whether that’s dams flooding in Ghana, auto workers grappling with green technology in Detroit, or how environmental activism is seen in Russia, seismic changes in South Korea, or corrupt mining operations in Brazil. But even beyond the Planeteers’ origins, I think climate change is just one side of the coin; human industrialization and greed is the other side of the equation, and we’re going to see these elements in conversation with one another throughout Captain Planet.
ANGELES: Let’s talk about the redesign of the characters. That beard. You and Eman have a, how you say, DILFY Captain Planet going on. Talk to us about the choices made.
PEPOSE: DILF Captain Planet is the only global warming I will accept. (Laughs) That came about as a really fun bit of creative alchemy — after I’d done a quick writeup with some elements I thought might be fun to see incorporated into our Captain Planet redesign, like turning his hair into green flames or giving him his rocky pauldrons, artist Eman Casallos drew up a few options for us, and we were all immediately taken when we saw his idea for giving Captain Planet a beard. Not only does it give Cap a little bit of a sexy dad vibe like Ultimate Peter Parker, but it also leans into Captain Planet as an immortal champion of the wilderness. In a lot of ways, Captain Planet has always served as a little bit of a father figure to the Planeteers — and now he can serve as a daddy figure for our readers. (Laughs)
In general, we really wanted to take an approach to Captain Planet and the Planeteers, as well as their cast of villains, and figure out a way to ground them and recontextualize them in the year 2025. We wanted the Planeteers to really feel like actual young people in their early 20s — they’re not superheroes in my mind, or even necessarily an organized team at the outset, they’re ordinary people who have been granted extraordinary power. And so with that in mind, we wanted them in everyday outfits, with various design choices that speak to who the Planeteers are as characters.
ANGELES: What about the Planeteers? Tell us about them.
PEPOSE: I love writing team books, and the Planeteers have been one of the most fun ensembles I’ve tackled in my career to date — in part because I’ve had them in my head for so long. We’ve got the five classic Planeteers in our book, but their personalities and geopolitical contexts have shifted since the cartoon’s debut in 1989.
For starters, we’ve got Kwame, who hails from Ghana, who has been granted the power of Earth — I see him as Cyclops meets Sam Obisanya from Ted Lasso, a quiet but naturally charming leader. Kwame was once a promising young football star until his career was sidetracked by an injury to his leg. He’s the character who already knows what it’s like to be part of a team, but his disability has also taught him to think outside of the box. He’s an incredibly fun character to write, his voice really popped at me immediately.
We’ve also got Wheeler, who’s an auto worker from Detroit — he’s got a complicated relationship with the environmental movement as it reflects the shifts in how he makes a living. As the American of our group, he serves as our point of view character, because his whole character arc is about realizing why the Planeteers’ mission is important, and how much impact people on the ground can have. He’s like classic Hawkeye, totally headstrong and combative, particularly in the face of Kwame’s even-keeled leadership.
Meanwhile, Linka is one of the most interesting twists on the original cast — when Captain Planet first debuted in 1989, she hailed from “the Soviet Union,” which changed quite a bit as world history caught up with the show. Given that Russia has shifted even further since that time, Linka’s gone from being the most conservative Planeteer to the most liberal, headlining a subversive eco-activist band in the vein of Russia’s Pussy Riot… which only focuses her hot temper when she gets the power of wind. Serving as a counter to Wheeler, Linka is the true believer, the person who knows how important the Planeteers’ mission truly is. She’s got a lot in common with Magik from the X-Men, she’s the team scrapper.
Gi is one of the most fun characters to write out of the whole team — a marine biologist from South Korea, I wanted to lean into her not just being a sporty swimmer type, but she’s also a scientist who is genuinely excited about her job. She’s the bubbly kid sister of the team, someone who wears her heart on her sleeve and is incredibly endearing about it. But that sunny demeanor causes even her fellow Planeteers to underestimate her, but Gi is by far the smartest member of the team, the one who connects the dots that lead them to victory. By virtue of her job, Gi knows the stakes of this series better than anybody — and she chooses to remain hopeful and fight for the future, rather than give into despair. She reminds me a lot of my take on Black Knight when I wrote Savage Avengers, and has quickly become a favorite.
And then we have Ma-Ti, who might have the biggest tonal shift in the whole series. I’m very aware of Ma-Ti being seen as a punchline in the original cartoon — if I had a nickel for every time I heard, “what’s the power of Heart?,” I would have many nickels. (Laughs) But his power is really more like tactical telepathy — being able to connect with people’s minds, being able to summon animals, his power set is truly versatile, his potential largely untapped. But having grown up as an Indigenous person in Brazil, Ma-Ti’s has endured plenty of oppression and violence from corrupt mining interests pushing his people from their land — yet the power of Heart has cleansed his heart of anger and violence, leaving him an avowed pacifist… who could absolutely take you apart if he wanted to. He’s sort of our Batman, our Shang-Chi, and he plays such a crucial role in our story. If you thought DILF Captain Planet was sexy, wait until you meet smoldering, mysterious Ma-Ti. (Laughs)
ANGELES: There are so many directions you can take this series, as the catastrophic effects of climate change are hitting everything. I need to know, who’s your bad guy, and is this series more about fighting evil corporations or saving the planet? In layman’s terms, what are we (all of humanity) really up against in this book?
PEPOSE: The stakes are higher than the Planeteers realize, as they need to rescue Gaia from corporate titan Lucian Plunder before catastrophe ensues. For me, something that’s so compelling about Captain Planet as a concept is it’s half-superhero book, but also half-disaster movie — whereas climate change was seen as a hypothetical in 1989, we’re living in it now, whether it’s hurricanes hitting New York, record freezing temperatures in the Midwest, or wildfires plaguing Los Angeles — and Captain Planet and the Planeteers are going to be the ones in the middle trying to stop innocent people from getting hurt.
But we’ve also got some human villains in the mix as well — beyond Lucian Plunder and his lieutenant Argos Bleak, we’ll also see classic Captain Planet villains including Dr. Blight, Duke Nukem, and a few other big names that we’re holding close to the vest. Needless to say, our heroes are going to have their work more than cut out for them — but ultimately, I wanted to make sure that both the environmental threats and the human greed behind it was presented in the most immediate and accessible way possible.
ANGELES: Final question. First, you went policing Outer Space with Space Ghost. Then you’re taking on the planet’s greatest protector with Captain Planet. What comes next, Starman? The Guardians of the Galaxy? Seriously, you’re on so many cool things right now, are there any in particular you’d like to shout out?
PEPOSE: I’m definitely keeping pretty busy — my Marvel miniseries Cable: Love & Chrome just released its second issue, and we’ve been thrilled by the positive response to that book. I’m also still writing Space Ghost, and we’ve got some really fun stuff coming up as our heroes face a murderer’s row of villains joining forces as the Council of Doom.
Meanwhile, as far as upcoming work, I’m kicking off my run of Speed Racer starting on Free Comic Book Day, and we’ve got a truly sensational artist on board for that one — I pitched that series as Rocky in a race car, and I’ve got a nice long run planned for that series. And finally, I’ve got my self-published title The O.Z., which will be making its triumphant return to Kickstarter later this year. Plus an unannounced creator-owned title that’s been near and dear to my heart, due out in the final months of 2025!
There’s not much sleep in my schedule at this point, but I’m having the time of my life, and I couldn’t be more grateful to all the fans, retailers, editors, and press who have championed my work, and allowed me pursue my dream job like this. Every day in this job is a great day, and I’m truly thankful to be a part of such an inspiring industry.
Seriously, big thank you to David Pepose for taking the time to talk, to Eman for the new design, and to Dynamite for brining back a classic favorite!
Captain Planet is available in stores this April 2025.
