Pacific Rimwas one of the most entertaining movies from the last few years.

Den of Geek: How did you come to thePacific Rimproject?

Joshua Hale Fialkov:You know, Im just a huge huge fan of the franchise.

And the guys sort of chuckled to themselves, push an NDA across the table for me to sign.

I signed it, and then they said SOOOOOOOO youre willing to work for free I hear…

So I think it was just I was in the right place at the right time.

Tell me a little about the story that youre telling in the book.

So it takes place after that, but before the movie.

Its a complete story in and of itself across four issues.

I love it so much.

Theyre a single unit.

Theyre just completely opposite each other, they have no…they literally do not speak the same language.

And as they go through their own pasts, thats actually the thing thats helping them fight the battle.

Tell me a little about your writing process.

Thats my favorite part.

I actually love when I think about writing, I work in television as my day job.

One of those things about building a story is really mathematics.

If we do this plus this, we can do that.

If we cross cut this, we can do that.

So getting to do that part of it is actually honest to god my favorite part of writing.

Then they gave me a lot of freedom to come in and make the story my own.

Its weird to say, but it was a joyful process.

It was really a ton of fun.

How much access have you had?

How much have you worked with Guillermo and Travis on building it out?

Travis wrote the original master documents for what were doing, and I met with Guillermo once or twice.

Guillermo chimes in on every script, chimes in on every page, but in the very best way.

They know the world, they know the franchise better than anybody.

Its their baby, so theyre super protective of it.

But that also means they know that part of being protective is letting people have their creative say.

Marcos and you, how much do you guys work together to flesh out the designs for the kaiju?

Or is there a pretty firm bible for every monster that came through the rift?

Then Marcos did several designs for each one, and they would go through the design process with Legendary.

I was positioning them and taking pictures and just trying to figure out how they would fight.

Its always fun when you have a job that is literally playing with toys.

How do you shift up your headspace going from a story likeThe Bunkerto something huuuuge likePacific Rim?

You know, again, I tackle everything I do from that same place about humanity.

It really is…the thing thats great about genre is that genre gives you pants.

So a pair of jeans is a pair of jeans.

They give you a form, you dont have any of your naughty bits hanging out.

But then what you do around those jeans is what lets you do whatever you want.

Its sort of the same thing.The Bunkerhas a super high concept, right?

That is super high concept, super science fictiony.

But the execution of the book, that is the catalyst rather than the driving force of the book.

Its about the consequences.

And then you haveThe Life After, and we have our new volume startingon Wednesday… withExodus.

Its a huge story, its about the afterlife.

Its a giant journey through the afterlife.

But, within that, its really a love story.

Its a story about how Jude feels about Maddie, and what happens when the abstract becomes real.

Whether its his love for her or their understanding of the universe.

So withPacific Rim, I tried to do the same thing.

The idea of the drift is a super awesome idea.

Its so cool that youre two people who share one consciousness.

So far beyond that.

But at its core, that is actually what were all looking for.

Every minute of our life is about trying to find our other half.

Theres this song, Original Love, fromHedwig and the Angry Inch.

I think it was actually a Greek creation myth.

Are we going to see any fun cameos?

You are going to see fun cameos.

I dont want to spoil it, because theyre coming up in the second and third issues.

By the time were getting to it in the movie, its already fallen into disarray.

Is it a challenge coming in and writing a prequel like this where theres a defined end point?

So having it be the complete story of Duc and Kaori, you get around that stuff.

We do know ultimately where its going, but what really matters is how it affects our characters.

So last question, did they let you retcon in your own Jaeger with an amazing name?

So I almost did it.

I got very close.

Im not 100% sure if that jaegers been seen anywhere before.

It might be a brand new jaeger.

But theres all new kaiju, and the kaiju are awesome.

And getting to see Tacit Ronin kick ass is a delight.