Switch and Blue Eagle is a coming-of-age superhero novel where a young sidekick battles villains, expectations, and his father’s outdated ideals in a world that no longer sees justice in black and white. What inspired you to explore the father-son dynamic at the heart of the story?

It’s actually an element from my worldbuilding. When I first started doing this, I was inspired by the TTRPG Masks. When me and a gaming group I was part of were preparing to start a campaign in that, I looked over the basic information and saw that the ages of comic book history–the Golden Age, the Silver Age, and so on–were canon as Generations in Masks. So I decided to follow suit with in-universe Ages of Heroism. I’ve always loved the contrast between more serious, darker takes on superheroes and their lighter, more kid-friendly takes of old. So Blue Eagle and Switch ended up being the first two characters I created–along with Queen Venus and one more character that you can likely guess who it is if you read the epilogue–as a contrast between the Silver Age and the Modern Age of Comics and Heroism.

So, in my larger world, I have Silver Age characters and their values, I have Dark Age characters and their values, and I have the younger Modern Age characters trying to find their place in the world.

I know that sounds like an answer to a different question, but the father-son dynamic in this story was actually built from worldbuilding rather than character exploration, at least in the beginning. Once that foundation was built, I started asking myself, “What would people from different Ages of Heroism disagree on when it comes to superhero-ing? What differences would a superhero from each era of comics have, like Superman of the 1950s and Rob Liefeld’s Youngbloods characters in 90s Image Comics, and today’s teen heroes like Miles Morales and Kamala Khan? What complications would those differences create when the people who have those differences also have a father-son and superhero-sidekick relationship? What are some real-life, dare I say political, equivalents to those disagreements?” And this was ultimately my answer.

Jack often questions what makes someone truly “good.” How do your own views on morality shape the story?

Haha, when I was a dumb, edgy 20-something, I really hated Superman (now that I have a fully functioning frontal lobe, I’m now a huge Superman fan). I thought he was way too powerful to have good stories with suspense and stakes, but I also hated how he was essentially a paragon of perfect morality. It was like being super strong allowed him to dictate what was right and wrong. One thing I always said was that, unless a hero possesses “super-morality” as an actual superpower, they have no more credibility on morality and ethics than anyone else.

I now see Superman in a different light, but Blue Eagle represents that part of the old me that was right. That feeling that those in power—churches, pundits, corporate compliance departments—shouldn’t get to dictate what is right and wrong just because they have societal power. A conservative media influencer has no grounds to determine that trans people are immoral while saying nothing about school lunch programs being defunded; a company shouldn’t be able to say an employee having outside income is a conflict of interest while it funds destructive pipeline construction on sacred indigenous land; an elected official shouldn’t be able to say that the presence of migrants is immoral criminal behavior while they take bribes and makes laws that help their rich friends at the expense of education, healthcare, and the environment.

Switch, on the other hand, represents in his teens the moral awakening I didn’t have until my thirties. That society has a real responsibility to lift up its “lowest” and give people real chances to succeed. People don’t succeed in life on their own. We all have support from family, friends, community, and institutions. And when those systems fail people, they are left with paths in life that we would never choose for ourselves. So instead of using force to punish those we deem to be immoral, rightly or wrongly, I believe there is a duty for society at large to ensure that we all have the tools to live happy, dignified lives.

It was that moral conflict that I wanted to place at the core of Blue Eagle and Switch’s disagreements. The father-son conflict and Switch’s desire for independence aside, there is a difference regarding the moral responsibilities that come with power.

The book blends superhero action with introspective realism. Did you set out to challenge typical comic tropes from the start?

Not really. This is another thing born from worldbuilding. This is not the first story I’ve written in this universe, only the first one that I’ve published. And even before I decided to write SWITCH and Blue Eagle, the Blue Eagle Universe, as I call it, was always a superhero universe played mostly straight. It certainly plays with, satirizes, celebrates, and challenges, as you say, comic tropes as well. But it also is one played straight, meant to exist alongside the Marvel, DC, Image, Astro City, Valiant, and other shared universes.

If anything, I would say that the world this book is set in is less “What if superheroes existed in the real world?” and more “What if realistic people existed in a superhero world?”

Jasper’s subplot humanizes the villains. Was it important for you to blur the line between hero and antagonist?

Not really. Not for this book, at least. That’s because I don’t really view Jasper as an antagonist, but one of the two main characters. He just works for the bad guys. The actual antagonists of this book—other than any high-minded literary concept like “Switch’s inner struggles” or something—are the villains. Queen Venus is the primary antagonist, which is fitting as she is the primary member of the Blue Eagle Rogues Gallery.

Actually, the idea for Jasper and the broad spot he sits between the two conflicting ideological positions presented was inspired by a movie I saw from 1990. It was a very high-brow, snooty, underground arthouse film you’ve probably never heard of, called Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Haha. But seriously, in that movie, there are two characters in that film whose fate is really the thematic center point of the movie, and that’s Charles and Danny Pennington. Fatherhood and family are the central themes of that film, with the Turtles and Splinter representing a nurturing and loving family and Shredder and the Foot Clan representing harshness and distance. They present two sides of it, while the Penningtons are teetering on the fence. In the end, they fall into the Turtles’ side, reuniting and beginning the process to reconcile and become closer.

Broadly speaking, Jasper is the same as the Penningtons. Switch believes in societal responsibility and rehabilitation, while Blue Eagle touts personal responsibility and tough love. Jasper’s the case study to prove one of them right and one of them wrong.

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