A Maze of Secrets In The Scorch Trials

by Vince Brusio

With Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials (APR151191), writer Collin Kelly and Jackson Lanzing are two creators that give us comic entertainment from BOOM! Studios based on the science fiction film thriller. The Scorch Trials shares the same name as the film’s sequel, which raises the bar on an apocalyptic story that has fantastical events juxtaposed against humanity’s best and worst qualities. In this interview with Kelly and Lanzing, we ask what this dystopian world and its inhabitants mean to them.

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PREVIEWSworld: The premise of Maze Runner is that a global catastrophe has wiped out most of humanity, and now young adults are being subjected to sinister experiments. In Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials (APR151191), we have 5 new stories introduced that act as an official “prelude” for new characters that will be in the second theatrical film, correct? What can you tell us about these characters? What endears them to readers?

Collin Kelly: In the universe of The Maze Runner, one thing is very clear: The world as we know it is done. In the world outside the Maze, entire governments have fallen, a military dictatorship has risen to power, and flare-infected zombie-esque cranks roam the desert wastes. By telling stories featuring characters from all corners of this apocalypse, we get the amazing chance to explore corners of the story that, until now, have been shrouded in mystery.

It’s James Dashner’s characters that we fell in love with, so we’re thrilled to bring them to life. In Jorge, we have a hardened drifter who has watched firsthand as the world fell apart. When he meets the teenage Brenda for the first time, he’ll be forced to embrace the fact that the world might be dying, but humanity isn’t dead. On the other hand, we have the origin story of Aris, the only boy in Group B, as they struggle with the mystery of WCKD’s second maze. Of course, everything looks different from the top, which is why we chronicle the friendship of Dr. Mary Cooper and Chancellor Ava Paige—the two people who were at the start of the disaster and who might just have the key to saving us all.

PREVIEWSworld: How have you attached yourself to The Scorch Trials? What does this book mean to you?

Jackson Lanzing: Honestly, this was an incredible challenge and opportunity to step into a fully-formed world and treat some potentially outlandish concepts with real humanity and an eye toward science. The first film only scratched the surface of this incredible world and James’ books gave us a great context to operate within, but with the three stories we wrote for this, the creators really gave us free reign to create and innovate on elements like WCKD, the Scorch, and the Maze program. Essentially, the source material brings up a LOT of questions—and we got to have a ton of fun answering a few of them.

Why would a government agency that kidnaps children and seeks to portray itself as benevolent call itself “WICKED”? Would the Maze be fundamentally different if it were filled with girls, rather than boys? What must it be like to live in a world that’s been ruined beyond any possible repair? Why build the mazes at all? We chased each of these questions, telling stories of people in this world from all angles, and ended up with a single united query: regardless of your station in life, what happens to one’s humanity when questions of survival trump questions of morality? How far would YOU go to survive?

Those aren’t new questions — survival horror has tackled the same conflict countless times — but rarely as a writer do you get to tackle the same crisis from so many different perspectives. From the top of W.C.K.D. to the poor souls who scavenge the Scorch, we got to work on a huge canvas with a ton of morally compromised characters. Needless to say, it was a blast.

PREVIEWSworld: How does The Scorch Trials cut through the noise? What is it about this work that grabs the reader by the throat?

Collin Kelly: The Scorch Trials doesn't just want to cut through the noise; it’s looking to smash the speakers. None of us — from our editors at BOOM!, to James, to the play-callers at Fox — were content to make this simply a book of prequels. Instead, this is the story of a truly cataclysmic Apocalypse, told by a panorama of characters whose stories underline and illuminate different corners of the world. In only 78 story pages, we’re taking the readers from the Flare Crisis, through the collapse of the world, inside the birth of the rebellious Right Arm, and right up to the opening moments of the next film. In five stories we’re covering a span of 13 years and exploring one of the most mysterious periods of time in a book series well-known for its mysteries.

If you’re not familiar with the books or movies, this is a brilliant place to start. But if you are, within these pages you’ll find some answers you’ve been waiting for.

PREVIEWSworld: Without giving too much away that could be considered spoilers, what can you tell us about the stories in this trade paperback that’ll keep readers crazy until the book hits stores June 3^rd?

Jackson Lanzing: This book features five stories. Two of them have already been published previously with the Maze Runner Blu-ray: “Run Alone,” featuring Minho and acting as a prelude to the first movie, and “My Friend George,” written by Wes Ball and T.S. Nowlin, which gives some insight on the first days inside the Maze. Both are drawn by Marcus To, who is one of our very favorite artists, so everyone should be psyched for those to finally hit shelves in this format.

The first of our three new stories is “The True Maze,” which follows a very different kind of Maze from a very different kind of perspective. Artist Nick Robles did an incredible job on that story and debuts a whole new kind of monster to the Maze Runner universe. This is a story hinted at by the books — but we really ran with it to create our own counter-narrative to the events of the first film.

Our second is “Scorched,” which features two characters from the second film who will be familiar to fans of the books: Jorge and Brenda. We basically wanted to bring the dynamic from The Professional into the broken world of the Scorch—think The Walking Dead meets Lone Wolf & Cub. We’ve never really gotten a great look at what everyday life is like in the Scorch—when the world is burned and covered in Cranks, survival isn’t an easy objective. Compromises are often necessary.

Collin Kelly: Finally, we have a story we lovingly call “World Gone Wicked.” Beginning in the immediate aftermath of the Flare, we leap directly into the frantic scrambling of the world’s collapsing governments as they attempt to hold the world together. But it’s relative unknown Ava Paige and the timid Dr. Mary Cooper who begin to put together the plan that will save the world—and in so doing, doom us all. If fans of the books have ever wondered wanted to know more about the killzone, how and why the mazes were made, or what WCKD’s true intentions are, the time for answers has arrived.

PREVIEWSworld: If readers want to reach out to you for updates and news, are there any social media sites they can use to connect?

Collin Kelly: On Twitter I’m @cpkelly, and on the interwebz I’m over at www.thecollinkelly.com.

Jackson Lanzing: Twitter, y’all. @jacksonlanzing. You can also hit my website at jacksonlanzing.com for all the latest. Sometimes I use Periscope. It’s mega weird.