E.S. Raye

Well, I’m finally doing it. I’m going to write the Cobalt Fist books.

Let me back up a bit.

For around ten years, I’ve been thinking about a story. Before I wanted to be a writer I thought it would make a great comic book. But it was my wife who said, “Why not write a novel?”

That was the first moment I ever considered becoming an author. And now, here I am six years later, one novel under my belt, a pair of screenplays with an indie film company, and a short story getting published tomorrow.

But I digress.

As a lifelong fan of comic books, when I discovered another great interest of mine – World War II history – I was struck by the decision made by writers and editors of what we now call DC Comics to keep their mainline superheroes out of the war.

It made sense, of course, for a few reasons. Put Superman on the battlefield and he wipes everyone out in one fell swoop. Not to mention his and his contemporaries’ “No Kill” credo and the complexities of such a thing in war.

It occurred to me that that had the makings of an interesting story: What would happen to a Golden or Silver Age of Comics hero if they were thrust into the brutality and violence of the Second World War?

I would need a hero, but not one so powerful as a Superman or Wonder Woman. I had an image of a character who could fly, but only near the end of his story, definitely not at the beginning – and the explanation for his flight would be “It’s like telling every cell in your body to move up three feet at the same time.” This led me to a character that has control of every cell in his body – something of a polymorph like Mr. Fantastic or Ms. Marvel, but with less stretching. I found the possibilities for body horror there to be interesting, especially as he grew stronger and unlocked new abilities.

I decided that if this character was going to be intermingling with real-world history, they should be from a real-world city, rather than a Metropolis or Gotham. Boston seemed an obvious choice – I spent much of my childhood and teenage years in and around the city, its similarities to Gotham are undeniable, and there just aren’t a lot of superheroes from there.

And thus, The Cobalt Fist, AKA Gorman Durnin, was born. He’s the eldest son of Irish immigrants, and a street-level superhero in the early 1930s and ’40s. I won’t go into his origin story here (that I’ll save for another post), but suffice it to say it is tragic and more than a little cosmic.

When World War II breaks out in Europe, Gorman, as the Cobalt Fist, speaks out, but is weary to put his money where his mouth is and enlist – he fears for the city. But when Pearl Harbor is attacked, a special branch of the 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment tries to recruit him, he is forced to reconsider.

What follows is an epic mashup of superhero, science fiction, fantasy, and cosmic horror, with descendants of the Knights Templar, alchemy, Nazi flying saucers, time travel, alternate histories, higher dimensional monsters and gods, and the cult that worships them.

I aim to not only entertain with these Hellboy and The X Files-inspired stories, but also showcase the real-life, everyday heroes of the war, like the Doolittle Raiders, the Desert Rats, the Marines at Guadalcanal, the Night Witches, the Tuskegee Airmen, the 320th Barrage Balloon Battalion, and many more.

I started all my world-building a few years ago, and now have multiple notebooks brimming with details. But I paused when I got the idea for Gas Giant Gambit, and turned my attention there. I learned so much from that experience that I now feel I am ready to do Gorman’s story justice. Now I just need to reimmerse myself in the lore and into World War II documentaries!

I hope you’ll come along for the ride. It’s gonna take a while, but it should be fun.

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