For fans of richly detailed shared universes, from the Bronze Age of Marvel Comics to the early days of Valiant, our guest today will be a familiar spirit. Barry Reese, the driving force behind Reese Unlimited, was inspired by that very sense of interconnected continuity. We’ll be tracing the 20-year journey of this universe, starting with the character of The Peregrine, and discovering how Barry has built a literary landscape where new readers can jump in anywhere and long-time fans can explore a vast history.
First Comics News: I’ve been fascinated by the world-building in your Reese Unlimited line of books. It’s impressive how you’ve created such an expansive universe.
Barry Reese: Well, thank you! It’s my nature to want to tie things together, so it just developed naturally—and over the years, it just kept getting bigger and bigger. I don’t think I could have deliberately set out to make something this large. It started small!
1st: I notice your books follow a timeline that helps readers understand the scope of your universe. When does this timeline begin, and where does it currently end? I imagine it’s constantly growing as you add new stories.
Barry: Yes, I add to it with every new story that I do. Currently, the earliest entry is set in the year 800 A.D., which is the timeframe in which a Viking hero of mine—Grimarr—is adventuring. The timeline currently ends in 2027, which means that my universe currently spans a little over 1200 years.
1st: Just to give readers a sense of scale—how many books and individual stories make up the Reese Unlimited universe at this point?
Barry: The universe currently consists of 37 novels and about three dozen short stories. That number will be increasing very quickly, though—we expect to be releasing 1-2 titles per month for the next year.
1st: I’m curious—how many years have you been developing this shared universe? It seems like quite the undertaking.
Barry: The story that started it all was a novel entitled Conquerors of Shadow, and it was an Edgar Rice Burroughs pastiche. That one was published in 2005, followed quickly by the first adventure of Max Davies in 2006. Max was known as The Rook back then and was renamed The Peregrine to avoid confusion with the old Warren Magazines character a few years later. From those two books, everything else has followed. So this year is actually the 20th anniversary of that first story!
1st: There aren’t many shared-world universes with this kind of depth. I assume comics were a major inspiration for you?
Barry: They were! I grew up during the Bronze Age and loved the tight continuity that was prevalent at Marvel Comics at the time. Later on, that same thing attracted me to the early Valiant books. Continuity was a constraint to me—in fact, it’s just the opposite. It makes the world feel more lived in, and there’s always new avenues to explore.
1st: I got into comics in the ’70s and loved how I could jump in with any issue that caught my eye and then explore backward and forward through character histories. Do you design Reese Unlimited with that same approach in mind? Can new readers start with any book that interests them, or do you recommend specific entry points?
Barry: I try very hard to write every story as if it’s someone’s first. That does mean that for longtime fans there’s a certain amount of exposition that often gets repeated in one fashion or another. I also got into comics during the Seventies, and I also loved the way there was a sense of history to various titles. Today, publishers always think that we need a new first issue to serve as a jumping-on point… but I liked the idea of diving in headfirst into an ongoing narrative and figuring things out, then doing a deep dive into the past… for me, it was literary archaeology, and it was part of the fun. I definitely lean into that in my own storytelling.
1st: I’d love to hear about the character who started it all. Which character was your first major step towards creating Reese Unlimited, and what should readers know about them?
Barry: The second book that I wrote was a novel called Lucifer’s Cage, and it introduced everyone to a 1930s masked vigilante named Max Davies, aka The Peregrine. Set in Atlanta, the Peregrine was a Shadow/Doc Savage type that slowly built up a group of allies. He typically ended up involved in supernatural mysteries, but sometimes he fought your garden-variety gangsters. I didn’t write the book thinking it would tie in to Conquerors of Shadow or even be the start of its own series… that didn’t occur to me until the second volume in the series, when I realized that it would be fun to tie everything together. Again, at this point, it was just two Peregrine novels and the Conquerors book… but then came a third Peregrine book, and then we were off to the races. In the end, there were six volumes of stories about Max and then a collection of stories written by others about the character. All of those have been collected in three massive omnibus editions. Given that the Peregrine character will turn 20 next year, I’m planning some cool things for him.
1st: Was there a moment when you realized you weren’t just writing about a single character anymore but building something much bigger? How did adding a formal timeline change your approach to storytelling?
Barry: That idea started to form with the second Peregrine book, but it was relatively minor until I decided to write a couple of books in other genres and then decided to include references to them in the Peregrine series. By the time I decided to start telling stories about other characters in Max’s world, I knew I was headed towards the deep end (haha). The timeline initially began to help me keep the continuity straight for myself, and then I decided that other people might find it useful as well. Once I had that in place, everything started to feel much more connected in my head and in the stories themselves. To my surprise, the timeline began to collect a lot of fans and actually helped draw in new readers.
1st: From that first character, you’ve developed this explosive universe of heroes and villains that’s honestly too big to capture in one interview!
Barry: It’s gotten pretty big, to be sure. There are times when I even forget about characters just because there are so many. I’ll be at a convention, and someone will mention how much they liked a one-off villain, and I’ll be like, “Wait—what story was that??”
1st: Roughly how many heroes populate Reese Unlimited now? Do you have particular favorites or characters who’ve surprised you with how they’ve evolved?
Barry: Wow—if you include the ones that only appear in a story or two, there’s well over 50. In terms of favorites—that changes sometimes, but The Peregrine will always have a place in my heart as he kind of kicked things off, but I love so many others, too: Gravedigger, the various Catalysts that I have introduced, Lazarus Gray… and they are always surprising me. Often, they definitely write themselves, sometimes over my objections!
1st: Every hero needs villains. What kind of villainous archetypes tend to populate Reese Unlimited, and how do they reflect the broader themes you explore in your universe?
Barry: My stories that are set in the Thirties and Forties feature some classic archetypes—Nazi and Japanese super-agents (though I try hard to make it clear that there are good people, even heroes, out there in the Axis nations), as well as your standard gangsters. My universe is magic-heavy, so there are tons of horror-centric villains and monsters as well.
1st: Many shared universes eventually deal with major “event” storylines that affect multiple characters. Have you created any universe-shaking events in Reese Unlimited, and if so, how did they change your world?
Barry: I’ve done team-ups and mini-crossovers aplenty, but I did a book called Gotterdammerung that brought together all of my characters at the time in a big adventure. It ended with the apparent death of a major character, which was then explored further in that character’s series. And the recent Dark Society Volume One brought together characters from various books like the Lazarus and Straw-Man series to form a new team. I’ve had numerous requests for another Gotterdammerung-style novel, but the universe has gotten so much bigger since then… I’d have to come up with an appropriate idea.
1st: Your universe spans many time periods. How do you handle the passage of time for long-lived characters? Do they age naturally, or have you developed other approaches to manage their timelines?
Barry: It varies depending upon the character. For most of them, they age normally, getting older, having families, eventually retiring and/or dying. But then there are some characters that are immortal for various reasons, and so they adventure in multiple eras.
1st: Your timeline spans such a vast period and embraces so many heroic traditions from different eras.
Barry: Yeah, it gives me the freedom to tell a lot of different stories, depending on my mood and where my muse takes me. I can tell futuristic sci-fi stories, gothic horror, or straight-up superheroes.
1st: I’m impressed by how many genres you’ve incorporated into your universe. Could you walk us through the main genres represented and maybe suggest one essential title from each that would give new readers a good introduction to that aspect of your world?
Barry: For Sword & Sorcery, I’d recommend the Sword of Hel collection, which details the adventures of a Viking warrior named Grimarr. Most of the things I’ve written in the Thirties and Forties are traditional hero-pulp adventure: You could go with Lazarus Gray or The Peregrine there. For horror, I’d recommend Rabbit Heart. Dark Society and the Straw-Man books are both occult superheroes—think the Marvel monster mags from the 1970s or the Midnight Sons stuff from the Nineties.
1st: The settings in your stories seem as vivid as the characters themselves. Could you tell us about some of the most important locations in Reese Unlimited and how they’ve helped shape your narratives?
Barry: Sovereign City is home to the vast majority of my characters—Lazarus Gray, Gravedigger, and many more have called the fictional city home. Sovereign was originally a shared setting with Derrick Ferguson and Tommy Hancock, two of my best friends in the New Pulp world. Derrick’s character Fortune McCall was set in Sovereign, and Tommy’s Doc Daye also operated there. Eventually, Sovereign came to be mine alone, as Tommy’s stories slowed to a stop and Derrick unfortunately passed away. Eventually, I created a nearby town known as Grove’s Folly, and that is home to the Straw-Man, Catalyst, the American Crusader, and others. Those two towns are the core of my universe—Sovereign is your prototypical Gotham type, while Grove’s Folly is smaller and is home to an enormous amount of supernatural activity.
1st: Let’s talk about what you’ve been working on recently. What are some of your newest releases that readers should check out, and what makes them special?
Barry: The first two books of the Dark Society series are out by now, and that’s something I’m really excited about. It’s a modern-day occult superhero series that spun out of my Straw-Man series. It brings together characters from various novels and is where I’m handling most of the major modern-day and near-future events. I also recently released the fifteenth book in the Lazarus Gray series, which was written in collaboration with Dale Russell, my longtime editor. It was fun to work on that one with him.
1st: And what’s coming up that you’re particularly excited about? Anything you can tease for your fans?
Barry: Lazarus Gray volume 16 will be coming along soon and will feature the end of World War II! It also ties in to the Dark Society series in a really fun way. I also have a new Peregrine novel on the way from a really talented author named Glen Held. And, finally, there will be a collection of horror short stories that I have written over the past few years. That one will actually not directly tie in to the overall Reese Unlimited universe—it’s a standalone.
1st: Creating something as comprehensive as Reese Unlimited must have had its challenges. What aspects of world-building turned out to be surprisingly easy, and what proved much more difficult than you expected?
Barry: Occasionally, I’ll come across an idea—a cryptid, an occult mystery, etc.—and want to use it, but when I look through my timeline, I realize that I’ve already covered it! Sometimes I think my new idea is better than whatever I did the first time around, but it’s hard to undo something once it’s become part of the established lore.
1st: Marvel and DC’s famous crossovers are memorable. I have to admit, cross-company crossovers are exciting. And you happened to crossover with a company that, in its early days, holds a special fondness of appreciation for me. Reese Unlimited crossed over with AC Comics. What sparked this unexpected convergence of worlds?
Barry: This was the second time that I’d done a crossover, actually, having featured Ron Fortier’s Brother Bones in an adventure with Lazarus Gray. Since that one went so well, I thought it would be fun to do something similar, and I was a longtime fan of AC Comics, having discovered them back in the 1980s when they were publishing a lot of things besides just FemForce. I reached out to Bill Black to see if he might have any interest in having his characters translated into prose, and when he said he was curious, I put him in touch with my publishers at Pro Se Productions. They hammered out an agreement to do a lot of things, but one of those things (which was actually suggested by Bill) was to cross over some of his characters with mine. Because my universe is already so steeped in magic, it made sense to use Nightveil, and I was already very familiar with her adventures. I ended up writing a Nightveil novel called The Quiet Girls and then teamed up Lazarus Gray, Gravedigger, and Nightveil in a book titled Worlds Collide. I consider that book canon in my universe, but in the timeline, it avoids mentioning Nightveil by name for obvious reasons. Unfortunately, most of the AC/Pro Se collaboration never came to pass, but there were my two books plus an excellent Nightveil book written by Bobby Nash.
1st: How did this intermingling of universes reshape the established world-building of Reese Unlimited? Or, perhaps, what was the Reese Unlimited characters’ perspective of their crossover adventure? I can only imagine that uniting your own creations with established characters like AC Comics’ Nightveil, a figure with a history and definition shaped by other creative minds, must have presented a unique dynamic in the writing process. What was it like for you to navigate this interplay of established and original creations? Did it offer new creative avenues or present particular challenges compared to solely developing stories within the Reese Unlimited framework?
Barry: It was really fun. I enjoy working around existing continuity, and the AC characters have several decades’ worth at this point. When using characters created by others, I always try to find the core essence of the character and remain true to their voice as established by their creators. I can’t help but add some of my own style to them, but I always want to be respectful of the pre-existing material. I’d love to do more of that sort of thing. I thought it was a blast.
1st: Beyond the AC Comics crossover, characters like Black Terror have also found a home within Reese Unlimited. What was behind bringing these pre-existing characters into your fold? What considerations come into play when integrating public domain figures into Reese Unlimited?
Barry: I love public domain! So many classic characters just gathering dust. I’ve used tons of them — heroes like the Black Terror, Nature Boy, and the Fightin’ Yank, along with villains such as Lev Gleason’s Claw. In some cases, I’ve tweaked them, but for the most part, I try to maintain their past continuity as much as possible. Again, it’s all about being true to the spirit of them. I would never pick up a character like Nature Boy and turn them into a psychopathic killer… if I wanted that, I’d just make up a new villain. One of the members of my Dark Society team is the great-grandson of Bart Hill, the original Daredevil, so I have incorporated them into my ongoing saga in a variety of ways.
1st: I’m always fascinated by how authors keep track of their worlds. How do you manage all the details—characters, events, locations, and all the connections between them? Do you have a special system?
Barry: 90% of it is just in my head, to be honest. When I do want to touch upon something that I haven’t used in a while, I will go and look at the old stories to remind myself of certain facts. The Timeline is useful for placing things in relation to one another, but it doesn’t include every tiny detail, so I usually just have to research my own stories.
1st: How do you balance creating standalone adventures versus stories that build on the larger mythology of your universe?
Barry: Most of my writing is set in the shared universe, but occasionally I do get an itch to do something that’s totally free of the continuity. I recently did a novel called Macavity that’s completely standalone, and then there’s the horror collection I have coming up. For the most part, I like staying in the main universe that I’ve created, though.
1st: For writers who might be inspired to try their hand at world-building, what advice would you offer based on your experience?
Barry: Let it develop naturally. Start small, define a certain set of characters and their environment. Build from there. I know people that have written hundreds of pages of background material without ever actually creating a story set in that world. If that makes you happy, go for it—but I do think sometimes people over-plan.
1st: And what about readers? In comics, there are always fans who get hung up on continuity issues. How do you approach that side of things with your readers?
Barry: I’m sure there are some people that are intimidated by the size and scope of my universe, but nobody has ever reached out to me to complain about it. Most people seem to embrace it, actually.
1st: I know your creations have changed publishers over time and are now at your own imprint. How has having complete creative control changed your approach to storytelling and world-building?
Barry: It’s still very new, so at this point, I’m not sure if it will really change anything. At both Wild Cat and Pro Se (my former publishers), I was given a lot of leeway and only rarely encountered any resistance—and even then, it was mainly of the, “Are you really sure you want to do that?” variety, lol.
1st: Have you ever collaborated with other authors on stories set in your universe? If so, how do you maintain consistency when multiple creators are involved?
Barry: Well, Dale Russell co-wrote Lazarus Gray Volume 15 with me, but that was easy as he’s been my main editor for the past five years and knows some aspects of the universe better than I do! Otherwise, there’s only been a rare handful of occasions when other writers have dabbled in the universe. A bunch of folks did some Peregrine short stories years ago, and we’ll soon have a few novels written by Glen Held and others, so we’ll see how it all goes, but most people have hewed very closely to the situations that I have set up.
1st: I’m curious about how your characters have evolved over time. Have any taken unexpected directions that surprised even you as their creator?
Barry: Of course! Characters ‘write’ themselves all the time. The Peregrine, in fact, was meant to be a one-off. That’s why in his first adventure, he fought (literally) Satan! If I’d known that the character was going to continue into a long-running series, I wouldn’t have started off with such a lofty premise—I would have worked up to the Lord of Lies! LOL And there have been other times, particularly in the Lazarus Gray series, where characters have died in ways that surprised even me.
1st: With a universe spanning different time periods and genres, maintaining consistency must be challenging. Have you ever had to retcon elements that no longer fit as the universe expanded?
Barry: Kind of? Sorta? LOL In one of the early Peregrine books, I had the world merged with the setting from Conquerors of Shadow in 2006… but later on, I realized that this would alter Earth to a huge degree in any future modern-day adventures. So I ended up changing how I described it, localizing it to a specific section of the world and then removing what I called the Black Mass Barrier in 2012, limiting its effects to just a six-year period.
1st: Beyond comics, what other influences—books, films, historical events—have shaped the development of Reese Unlimited?
Barry: Obviously, I love World War II and the decades leading up to it and following it. That’s one reason so many of my stories are set in that ‘Golden Age.’ I also love horror stories, so the occult is huge in my universe.
1st: Your work bridges traditional pulp storytelling with modern sensibilities. How do you honor those traditions while making your universe accessible and relevant to contemporary readers?
Barry: I try to keep my stories moving, with fast-paced storytelling that is reminiscent of the classic pulps…but I also try to approach things in a way that the old stories never could. I’ve dealt with homosexuality, racism, the notion that some people who were our “enemies” at various times might have had their view on things, etc.
1st: Are there themes or ideas you find yourself returning to across different characters and time periods in your universe? What core messages run through Reese Unlimited?
Barry: Hmm. I don’t really write with those things in mind, but I’m sure they do recur throughout my work, just as a result of my own interests and beliefs. Overall, I think that while the world is a dark and violent place, there are many good people out there, and that if they stand up for what they believe in, it’s possible to push back the darkness. It just requires us to take action—as Martin Luther King Jr. once said, injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
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Thank you, Barry, for sharing such a fascinating glimpse into the creation and evolution of the Reese Unlimited universe. From the Viking adventures of Grimarr in 800 A.D. to the modern-day mysteries of Dark Society, your dedication to crafting a cohesive and engaging world is truly remarkable. With new releases on the horizon and the 20th anniversary of The Peregrine just around the corner, it’s clear that the stories of Reese Unlimited will continue to captivate readers for years to come.
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