Purchase Nomad: Girl Without a World #1

Nomad: Girl Without A World cover

Sean McKeever is the popular writer of such books as The Waiting Place (offered as a collection from IDW this month), Marvel’s Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane, and DC’s Teen Titans. This month he returns to Marvel with Nomad: Girl Without A World. Westfield’s Roger Ash recently spoke with McKeever about this new book.

Westfield: How did you become involved with the Nomad: Girl Without a World project?

Sean McKeever: I had just come off of my exclusive with DC and I had expressed to several people at Marvel, including Tom Brevoort, that I was interested in doing some work there again. Tom had read Ed Brubaker’s script for Captain America #600 and he saw an opportunity in there to take the Rikki Barnes character and spin her out into her own mini-series. He thought of me and got in touch. It immediately appealed to me because I like the concept of this character. The original Nomad, Steve Rogers, using the definition of nomad, was a man without a country. This is the girl without a world, as the subtitle clearly says. What kind of mindset would that put you in to be in a world very much like your own but not like yours in some very specific ways? In her world, she was Bucky, the plucky sidekick to Captain America. Here, the Captain America she knew was assassinated. The place where she lived doesn’t even exist anymore. It’s very unsettling for her. It’s very disorienting. So it’s a story about someone who needs to find a tether in this world to keep her from slipping away.

Westfield: For people who aren’t familiar with Rikki, what should they know about her?

McKeever: She comes from another world which folks would know as the Heroes Reborn world that was created in the mid-’90s by Rob Liefeld and Jim Lee. Most recently, in Onslaught Reborn, she was transported to this earth thinking that she was sacrificing her life for her comrades and her entire planet. In a way she did because now she’s in a sort of purgatory in the sense that this new world is discombobulating for her. She’s trying to find her role now. She’s also trying to meet the current Captain America hoping that he might be able to help her find that role.

Westfield: What can people look forward to in the mini-series?

McKeever: Captain America will definitely show up. You’re also going to see Black Widow. You’ll see Rikki Barnes come up against the Secret Empire which is an old group of Captain America villains. You’ll also see her shift from her role of Bucky to becoming the new Nomad. There’s a mystery  behind her becoming Nomad as well.

Westfield: It sounds like you’re enjoying writing Rikki. If this mini-series does well, would you like to tell more stories with her?

McKeever: Absolutely. So far it’s been really enjoyable and I think there’s a lot of story to tell with her. Hopefully people will enjoy it enough that there will be demand for a second one. Maybe even an ongoing.

Westfield: Are there any other projects you’re working on that you’d like to mention?

McKeever: I’m still writing the Ravager back-ups for Teen Titans. Those are 10-page back-ups and it’s a 12-part story. I’m working on a couple of other things that I can’t announce yet. I’ve got another little project at Marvel that I recently did that will be out sometime around the end of the year. The book that started it all for me, The Waiting Place, will be collected this fall by IDW. Mike Norton and I are doing a new 24 page story for it.

Purchase Nomad: Girl Without a World #1

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