Perhaps the military world seems completely disconnected from pop culture media, where superheroes and sci-fi reign supreme. Yet, Jason Inman’s a writer whose roots are in both worlds. Deployed to Iraq, Jason carried a book with him wherever he went. His love of comic books, while uncommon amongst his uniformed companions, kept his mind entertained. Jason explains the connection between military life and comic books in his book Super Soldiers A Salute to the Comic Book Heroes and Villains Who Fought for Their Country. And his weekly podcast, “Geek History Lesson” as well as his CBS Television work shed more light on a world which people would never expect a veteran to embody.
Anything you want me to highlight in your profile intro?
You could always say Geek History Lesson (the podcast), you could always say my book Super Soldiers… everything I’m working on is covered under NDAs. I’m still working for CBS Television. That’s probably enough.
I did my charity drive for 5 years (charity drive donating comic books to soldiers overseas), and it’s one of those things where I did interviews recently and it’s all anyone wanted to talk about. And, it’s fine, but it’s a little hard to talk about something we stopped doing two years ago. Because people ask, ‘Well why aren’t you doing it now?’ and it’s because it was a lot of work! We had a good 5 year run, people donated over 300,000 comic books and raised $8,000. That’s pretty good for 5 years, I’ll take that win. I put a little bit of good in the world.
Right off the bat I wanted to ask, what keeps you writing? What about writing just keeps you going?
I grew up in a farm in the middle of nowhere, in Kansas. It was pre-internet, and even when the internet existed my parents didn’t get it. It was a lot of… I had to entertain myself. Write a whole bunch of stories, things like that. It’s that same impulse. It took me a long time to figure out that was telling stories–that was writing. Because I would make up scenarios and make up sequels to movies, and make up all kinds of things. And that’s… what keeps me writing. I guess I’m not bored with telling stories yet. And, when I think I am, I think it’s time to go.
Did you find that once you started serving overseas (in Iraq) that the need to continuously entertain yourself was elevated? That you needed to entertain yourself even more?
Oh yeah. That–that is the primary function of all soldiers. If you talk to them, you’ll find out that every soldier out in deployment, your first duty is to complete the mission, and your second mission is to fight boredom. But luckily, when I was deployed, PlayStation’s existed (laughs) so we used to play a bunch of video games. But yes, it was primarily because you’re far away from home, you don’t have any contact with family members… the need to entertain yourself doubles and quadruples.
Were there challenges for entertaining yourself overseas? Did you find that some days you just couldn’t get a story out?
There was something… I never understood why nobody else copied me. The way the BDU–Battle Dress Uniform–was set up, we had cargo pockets. And they were perfectly sized for a paperback novel. I always had a paperback novel in my pocket. I considered it a part of my uniform, because you never knew where you were going to be stationed that night, sleeping that night… and most of the other guys in the squad… we would be on some mission out away in the operating base, and we wouldn’t get through the mission parameters fast enough. And we would have to say, “Well we’re sleeping here tonight boys!” People would say, “Oh, damn it! I didn’t bring anything!” And I would always be like, “Cool! I got this book I’m reading!
And so, you’re clearly really into comic books. Were comic books harder to carry around?
So I didn’t take comic books with me. Before I was deployed to Iraq, I had gotten out of comic books. I think everybody who is a comic book fan has that period where you either discover girls or boys, or you discover video games and they’re just way more interesting than the Adventures of Superman. And then… again, it was this struggle for entertainment. And I think I found… I’d gotten an issue of Superman, and an issue of Ultimate X-Men in a care package just randomly. I became so interested in the modern update for the X-Men (that’s what Ultimate X-Men was) that I sent a letter to my friend with money, and said “Buy me these issues and send them to me.” So, being overseas is what got me back into comic books. Because I was like… “What is this weird Ultimate Spider-Man? He’s a kid again? Yeah, send it to me! I want to read this.” That is primarily what got me back into comic books. I was a big comic book fan when I was a child, but it was really post-deployment that the interest picked back up.
Did you get further into ‘geekdom’ when you were deployed? Did you have a similar ‘I’m getting out of this’ period, like with comic books?
Not really, no.
So it’s just always been a part of you? Because, Sci-Fi and Fantasy seem perfect for escapism.
Yeah, it’s always been a part of me. My number one franchise has always been Star Trek. I love that more than comic books, in fact. It’s always been one of those things about the perception, of how people see you. So it’s one of those things where people see me as the big comic book guy because I hosted for DC for 4 years. And it’s like, I love comic books and comic books are a big part of my life, and I’ve written comic books and things like that, but it’s not the all encompassing everything.
I get that, yeah. You basically become typecast as being into one thing.
Yeah. People are multitudes, right? But social media doesn’t allow for that.
So what about Star Trek? You wrote a book about Super Heroes and Military Service, and how you feel they have a connection to military service. Is there anything in Star Trek you feel has a similar connection?
Well yeah! Star Trek is very much connected to the military. Well one, it uses Navy ranks. Automatically… out the gate it’s connected. And Gene Roddenberry–the creator of Star Trek–he’s a veteran, and a former L.A. Police Officer. In fact, he sold his first TV script when he was still on the beat–The Riflemen is the show, I believe. So Star Trek does have a lot of that. Star Trek is also what I hope the military becomes. And I know people are dunking on Space Force right now, and that actually kinda makes me angry. I understand when you want to connect it to the President that created it (Donald Trump), and that’s totally fine, I don’t like that guy either, whatever. But man, if Space Force had been around when I was 17…? I would have joined Space Force over the Army 100%. And Space Force, to me, feels like we need that. We need that organization 100%. We would be remiss if we didn’t have it. But when you look at the military examples of Star Trek… Starfleet is a military organization. They do fight, but they’re more protectors than they are soldiers. And bringing that all back around to Space Force, the Space Force ranks are called ‘Guardians’ which I kind of like. It kind of gives me a little bit of hope that, ‘Oh maybe… maybe we’re gonna work this one out.
Oh man, I didn’t know they were called Guardians. I mean, I heard the name (Space Force), and I feel the way certain things are it just gets carried and then it becomes an internet joke, like Oh and here’s Space Force! This is ridiculous. But you have a good point, in the future we’re going to need something like that. I just would’ve never considered there’s almost a one-to-one connection between that and Star Trek. Maybe subconsciously, but I never connected that in my mind.
Well, that’s where I hope it leads to. I mean, they’ve got a long way to go.
And with that, did you find that there were a lot of people who were into the same things when you were overseas? Was ‘geekdom’ just part of service in a way? Where people would say, ‘Yes I’m into Sci-Fi… I’m into comic books.
No… it’s pretty rare, I found. At least in my service, I found it’s pretty rare. I will say though, because everyone wants entertainment, you can convince people to try stuff. I got my unit onto Firefly (TV series), my specific squad, we all watched Smallville (TV series). Y’know, they didn’t care–I was the one that said, ‘Yeah! Superman show!’. To them, it was an interesting show where a guy flies sometimes. And y’know, we were all from Kansas so they liked the Kansas aspect of it. It was things like that. And I also think, yeah, even though I said hardly anybody carries around novels, I remember a lot of people reading. There was a lot of reading, because when I went over it was also pre-smartphone, right before smartphones were a thing. You had a cellphone, but you just weren’t going to stare at your cellphone all day. So a lot of people just read all the time.”
That makes sense, you need to pass the time so you’d just end up reading a book. But that’s interesting because, in the public eye, you wouldn’t picture a soldier reading a book, just sitting down.
Man it was all over the place! We lived in tents, these giant, almost 10-man tents. So there was just a giant tent city at our base, just outside Nasiriyah, Iraq. You would always have lawn chairs outside–boxes or whatever–and I can tell you, it was a regular feature to see a soldier outside their tent reading a magazine or a book. And I would imagine nowadays, it would be the soldier staring at their phone.”
I can only imagine just… waves of tents, with soldiers sitting down reading a book. Sounds like heaven to me. So did you find that after you time was done, you’re heading back, and you’re going into writing… was there anything about service that you feel changed the way you write? Do you feel you write differently than people that didn’t serve?
I would like to say that sometimes my writing is more direct. And also more superfluous at the same time. I know that’s a contradiction, I know. Being deployed, especially to a combat zone, is a pretty extreme situation. It’s probably the most extreme situation that any human will ever see. That’s what all the training is about, that’s why basic training is hell. The drill sergeant is making it so when you end up in a real situation, you say ‘Well this isn’t as bad as basic training. I can handle it.’ I think because I experienced that, my writing is more direct. Because, I’m not going to beat around the bush. I’ve done XYZ, that’s how it’s done and that’s how it is. But at the same time, there’s a part of my brain that goes into the clouds and says, ‘I wish the world didn’t have to happen. I wish I didn’t have to experience that.’ I know it’s a weird contradiction. My writing has become more kid-like and more direct at the same time.
That makes sense. When I was at community college, I knew some people who were on their bill, just got done with their service. They weren’t really in art classes. I had a friend, he was really into country music. I was more into artsy music, he just didn’t like it. He needed it to be clear.
Yeah, that’s just from getting missions. You need to be direct, because if you’re not people will die. You’re not going to sugar coat it, you know that you might walk into a situation and 5 people are going to shoot at you. You just gotta get it done. You wouldn’t tell that person, ‘Inside there is a stuffed animal. And they’ll give you a hug when you walk in!
Did you find yourself, after enlisting, that your tastes have changed? For example, do you find yourself more attracted to a Fantasy-heavy story just because you don’t want to think about a battlezone? Or are you gonna pick up some war comic like Sgt. Rock?
No not really. To be honest with you, I’m more fascinated about how I’m more attracted to stories about anybody than I was before. I would say that was more me before the military, I was into sci-fi, superheroes, fantasy. And now, I’m more willing to give anything a shot. I think it’s because I’ve experienced the melting pot of the military, where it’s basically everybody from every different town, economic status, ethnicity, and even different countries. And you have to work with them. Now, I find myself very open to everything, it’s just whether or not I’m engaged with the story. I think I’m the opposite now.
That makes sense. The melting pot nature of it all, that’d make me say, Man, I just want to experience more.
Yeah, I find it has given me more empathy for people. Especially Americans, whose backgrounds I wouldn’t have understood before the military.
And so…with experiencing that melting pot, are there any types of characters you feel you’re more into now? For example, are you now more into that Han Solo, sorta roguish type? Or are you just into every type of character?
No… it’s always the same character man, it’s… I’m always into the person that starts at the bottom, and works their way to the top. Like the Luke Skywalker, the person who starts with nothing. Superman is a classic example of that too. Orphan farmboy who becomes the Galaxy’s favorite superhero. I’m more attracted to the characters that have nothing. I’m not a fan of Batman. I’ll watch his movies, I think they’re very interesting, but I’m always like: yeah, you always had 6 billion dollars, so really how tough was your life? Also, you should go to therapy and not beat people in an alley.
Interviewed by Michael Rezaie Weaver
ISSUED 