There’s no waking up from this. Dreamer is dead.

Tired of being used as a tool by Amanda Waller in her war against the world’s superhumans, Nia Nal heroically sacrificed herself at the end of Absolute Power #2 to save Superman and others from the Brainiac Queen. It was a shocking moment for a character who’s all but made keeping us on our toes her calling card. And yet, the biggest surprise of all just might be Nicole Maines’ involvement in the buildup to it. How does it feel to write the final days of a character so close to your heart? And if Dreamer is dead, then how do you explain her appearance in Absolute Power: Super Son, the one-shot dropping this week that Maines co-wrote with Sina Grace?

With so many questions about Dreamer’s future—or lack thereof—in the DC Universe, and with a little time now under our belt to process and grieve, the moment seemed right to welcome Maines back to DC.com for a conversation on Dreamer, Absolute Power, Super Son and more. Will this conversation be our final farewell to the young trans superhero? Only time will tell, but if it is, it’s a good one. Maines offers plenty of thoughts how she sees Dreamer’s recent actions and her relationship with Amanda Waller, as well as what we can expect from her newest DC project over the course of our free-wheeling conversation.

Is it difficult as a writer who also physically embodied this character to write such hard moments for her?

No.

Really?

It’s easy. I was always the kid who when I was playing with Barbies or action figures, I was doing soap operas. It was like, "What is the worst possible thing that could happen at this given moment to this character? Let's do that and let's see what happens."

And that's kind of been my process for writing Dreamer. Especially when you have a power like seeing the future, you have to counterbalance that with, "But it goes poorly anyway."

This is someone who wants to do well, who wants to be a hero, and—

Everything that she does turns out bad. It's like me trying to garden. I kill everything.

But I think the stakes are a little higher for Dreamer.

True.

Not that your plants aren't really important.

Rest in peace to them.

How do you imagine Dreamer would feel about the situation she got in with Amanda Waller and the Trinity of Evil?

In the Free Comic Book Day comic that they put out for Absolute Power, I love that panel of her sitting on the bed in Amanda Waller's base of operations, just really drawn into herself. This isn't where she wants to be. This isn't how she saw anything going.

She just wanted to make her mom proud. She's just trying to live up to this expectation, this legacy that she has for herself, and it's all just gone to shit. She just wanted to do the right thing. She just wanted to keep her town full of people—who never treated her with any shred of respect, by the way. She just wanted her home not to be doxxed. She didn't want her family to get hurt. How has that intention brought us here? She's 18 and she's just broken inside, and she doesn't know how to pick up the pieces.

And worst of all, she knew this would happen. Jon told her this was not a good idea. When Amanda Waller knocked on her door, he told her, "Do not get mixed up with her." But she was like, "I want to do the right thing. I have to save these people. I have to protect my home."

You said something I didn't think about. Dreamer's only 18. If this stuff struck her later in her life, do you think she maybe would've handled it better? Because I'm thinking about how I was when I was 18. I had no self-confidence. Anyone could have manipulated me and used me, and people did. I'm sure we've all had experiences like that.

Exactly. And I don't think that's lost on Amanda Waller, who's picking the little impressionable 18-year-old precog to do her dirty work.

Yeah, I think if she were a little bit older, if she were more versed in her powers, if she were working with a little bit more clarity, I think we would've had vastly different response. She probably would've just killed Amanda Waller before she even knocked on the door. Shot her through the door, maybe.

I thought a bit about Amanda Waller as a result of some of the stuff that's happened lately with her, first of all in the Suicide Squad comic, but also now in Absolute Power. And I realize one of the things she does is use people's love of their family, their friends and their relationships to her advantage. And in the process, they end up destroying the other relationships in their lives. She weaponizes love and care for people. And I feel like that's vile, but it’s also extremely effective and powerful. I don't know who's immune to it.

She's done it with Dreamer. She's done it with Jay. She's done it with Jon. Because she knows firsthand the pain that losing family causes. She’s lost her son and her daughter. She's lost her husband. We see that in Dream Team #2.

She knows in her heart of hearts that what she's doing is wrong, but she's too far gone. I think Amanda Waller is the epitome of "if you can't beat them, join them." And she has lost so much in her life that she knows exactly the pain that that causes and she knows exactly how to weaponize it.

I'm curious. As someone who’s written her, do you have sympathy for Amanda Waller?

Of course.

I mean, look, she is a Black woman working in the United States government. In Suicide Squad: Dream Team #4, she's like, "I have had to claw, drag and scrape my way to the top of a world that would rather I be dead, that would rather you be dead too. And now that I have positioned myself at the top, you're damn right I am going to abuse my power because every other person who has ever been in this position has done the exact same thing. And I'm going to actually hopefully do it for some freaking good. Then, maybe, all the sacrifices that I have had to make might maybe amount to something. Maybe it will all be worth it if I can finally create this world that I have told myself I'm fighting for."

Do you think Amanda views herself as a mentor to Dreamer, almost like a surrogate mother thing? Or do you think she was just completely using Nia?

I think she definitely sees a lot of herself in Dreamer. These are two people who—Dreamer through her visions, Amanda through just being Amanda—have seen the world come too close to ending too many times. The difference is Amanda isn't one to apologize for abusing her power and playing God.

I love their dynamic. I love that they are just two sides of the same coin. I think if circumstances were different, Dreamer could have absolutely gone down the path of Amanda Waller. But she didn't want to, at any point, use her powers to play God.

So, what can you tell us about Absolute Power: Super Son?

So, before Suicide Squad, before Absolute Power, in Action Comics #1060, we saw Amanda Waller knock on Dreamer's door. And Jon Kent was there to tell Nia, "Hey, this is a bad idea." And Nia said, "I hear you, but I don't have a choice. I have to protect these people and you have to go be Superman."

Now that all of this has happened, Super Son is the first time they come back together after everything, and hopefully show each other a little bit of grace and comfort. Because they are both coming at this from this position of, "I have failed, and everything's my fault, and I'm bad."

It’s so great to see you working with Sina Grace on this. You've been collaborating with a lot of interesting people, like Mark Waid.

I've been very, very lucky. Everyone has been so amazing, and so gracious, generous, nice and supportive. I've gotten so much good advice from people. Tom Taylor especially has been such a mentor to me through everything. I will never be able to say enough nice things about Tom because he's one of the real ones.

Before we finish up, I do want to ask about Bad Dream. You have a real knack for writing for a YA audience. Would you like to write more YA?

Yeah, I'd be open to it. I really liked it. Something I was really trying to be intentional about with writing for a younger audience was not writing like I was talking down to them at any point.

I remember being a young, queer kid, reading some of this stuff written for me that felt a little condescending, and feeling kind of like, "Okay, this is an adult talking to me like I'm an infant." And that wasn't helpful and that's not what I wanted. So, I just really wanted to give young, queer fans a story for them that isn't going to at any point be presumptuous or anything.

The note I kept getting was my editor being like, "Hey, so this is a little brutal. I don't know if we can get this to print."

See, I loved how unflinching it was. I love that it has such a bittersweet ending.

It felt refreshing for me. It felt a little bit like, "Yeah, don't piss on my leg and tell me it's raining." Her mom's dead. Her sister's an asshole. Nia's lost everything, it's all her fault and she just got beat up. There is nothing to be happy about right now, and that's okay. Because I think a lot of young, queer people feel bad. I had hoped that it would be at least of some comfort or solidarity to show that not everything has a happy ending, and it doesn't always feel great, especially when you're fifteen.

I do feel like the fact that she finally told her dad about her powers and that she has these friends—it felt like a first step.

It's building the foundation for something better. At least until Dream Team and Absolute Power come along!
 

Absolute Power: Super Son #1 by Nicole Maines, Sina Grace, John Timms, Travis Mercer, Hi-Fi, Adriano Lucas, Pete Pantazis and Rex Lokus is available Wednesday in print and as a digital comic book.