Summer is for everyone, whether you’re a student who’s just finished their semester finals, an office worker looking to cash in some vacation time, a baseball fan excited for the return of America’s Pastime…or a ruthless super-villain trying to beat the heat AND the Justice League.

DC’S BEACH BLANKET BAD GUYS SUMMER SPECIAL is a tribute to long days in the sun, hot dogs on the grill, rising temperatures and taking a break from your everyday life. It’s an 80-page anthology showing us a lesser-seen side of DC’s villains that’s perfect for reading poolside, and it features the work of writers and artists like Corinna Bechko, Tim Seeley, Otto Schmidt, Gabriel Hardman and more. In this exclusive sneak peek, we get a glimpse of two of those adventures—a Deathstroke tale by Shea Fontana and Carlos D’Anda and a glimpse into Giganta’s past by Michael Moreci and Max Raynor. And as a little summertime bonus, we asked writer Moreci to drop by to discuss his contribution. Enjoy!

So, what’s your Beach Blanket Bad Guys story about?

First of all, let me say I'm so happy to be talking about this story—we really had a blast making it, the entire team, and it's great to see it as part of this amazing collection. The story I wrote, “Giganta Strong,” is a take on the classic "you can never go home again" tradition. What if you're Giganta, and you can go home again—and you have the power to literally stomp it out of existence? 

Were you interested in writing a Giganta story, or did someone at DC suggest her to you?

I think it was a little bit of both, if memory serves. I believe a few characters were offered to me, and I leapt at Giganta. She's a ton of fun, for starters (I mean, she's basically a human kaiju), but there's so much terrain to explore that hasn't already been covered. I felt like I could bring something a bit new and interesting to her character, and that's always, to me, the best challenge to have. 

I find it amusing that someone as big as Giganta would come from a really small town. Was that by design?

Great insight—and yeah, for sure. There's a lot of contrasting going on in the story, between who Giganta is now (a super-villain) and who she was in high school (a chronically ill teenager) as well as the smallness of her town and her stature now. I wanted to play with the past and the present, and those things are always in conflict; so, adding more contrasts helped bring out that idea. 

You’ve written characters like Batman, Nightwing and the Flash. Was it fun getting the chance to work with a character who isn’t seen as regularly?

Very much so. It gives you a little more freedom to bring something new to the character that hasn't already been said before, or at least to say it in a new way. I mean, with Doris, we know she was once a very sick child who ultimately becomes a powerful adult. It was cool to examine, even just a little, what that means for her and how she reconciles these two sides of her life. 

We know that Doris Zeul isn’t big on high school carnivals. What do you think is Giganta’s summer activity of choice? I could actually see her and Wonder Woman making an amazing beach volleyball team if they could just stop fighting with each other.

That would be amazing. I could also see her on Venice Beach, at those outdoor gyms, putting all those huge, muscular dudes to shame by out-lifting them all. That'd be pretty hilarious.

DC’S BEACH BLANKET BAD GUYS SUMMER SPECIAL #1 by Shea Fontana, Michael Moreci, Carlos D’Anda, Max Raynor and many more is in stores this Wednesday.