Last week, it was announced that the creator of Katana, Mike Barr, would be working on the new 6-issue Suicide Squad anthology book: SUICIDE SQUAD MOST WANTED: KATANA, this January. We talked to Barr over the phone about the upcoming book and what we can expect to see next year.

COMIC VINE: How much has Katana evolved since you and Jim Aparo created her?

MIKE BARR: Well, the interesting thing about it is that she hasn't changed all that much. Her personality was pretty well determined when we first created her and anyone who has been working with the character as pretty much followed through with that. She has a very strong personality on her won.

CV: What's happening in your story?

BARR: In my story, Katana is looking for some information about her mystic sword the Soultaker and she winds up trying save the European country from the invading forces of the DC villains Kobra.

CV: Is she going to be on her own here or working with members Suicide Squad?

BARR: Yeah, she does become hooked up with a member of the Suicide Squad. I'm not 100% sure of this, but in this continuity, this is the first time she's met the Suicide Squad.

CV: What favorite things about this character?

BARR: My favorite about Katana is that basically she's almost always pissed off. She basically gets up every morning with a very strong desire of what she wants to do and unfortunatly, something always gets in the way of that, so she has to find a way to deal with that and that's where the drama comes from.

CV: She's ultra-motivated, angry character ready to kick some butt.

BARR: Yeah, the tagline for Katana would probably be "she's 5'2" of bad attitude."

CV: What more can you tell us about who she's dealing with in this book?

BARR: She'll be facing off, of course, against the Suicide Squad and this is partially because to tie into the movie. The Suicide Squad movie, which will be coming out in August. It'll be a somewhat different iteration of Katana in there. It's very exciting me.

CV: How did that all go down?

BARR: I got a call from Geoff Johns back in May, just before the news dropped about Katana being in Suicide Squad about the casting. I was just so delighted about it. I think I will be really nervous to see her on the big screen. The actress playing her [Karen Fukuhara] really looks the part and I think she'll have a lot of fun doing it.

CV: How did you get hooked up on writing this current story?

BARR: After I got that phone call from Geoff Johns, I sent a note to Dan Didio saying essentially if there was any publishing for Katana to tie into the Suicide Squad movie, I'd love to be a part of it. Then I proposed this six-issue mini-series.

CV: How's the art looking for the issue so far?

BARR: I've written the first two issues, but I haven't seen any interior art on the first issue. The artist, Diogenes Neves, is sort of a proposal piece for the series which has been on all the comic book sites. It's really quite good. I'm looking forward to it. He does very beautiful women and I'm sure he can do Katana with the proper amount of attitude.

CV: For people that may be unfamiliar with Katana, what stories would you recommend?

BARR: I've enjoyed the... in Batman and the Outsiders and the later iteration of the Outsiders, we often did a lot of short stories and a lot of those are my favorites, especially the ones with Katana. The first of those was drawn by Jerome Moore and a lot of them were drawn by Trevor Von Eeden. They all seemed to enjoy the character. Also artist Jan Duursema did a couple Katana stories. She liked the character very much.

Thanks to Mike Barr for talking to us and make sure to check out SUICIDE SQUAD MOST WANTED: KATANA when it comes out in January.

Nice. I can't wait to see her action in Suicide Squad movie.

im in. I even liked the batshit crazy new 52 book that so many people hated, This should be on a whole other level though

Mike Barr lives in my neck of the woods. I've met him a few times at conventions. He's very knowledgeable about the history of comics. (Even recall a Marvel employee referencing to Mike on how "Daredevil" got his name, and I don't think Mike's done much work for Marvel.) Given that, of course he's going to know all the ins and outs of someone he created. Should be interesting.

P.S. Read his Camelot 3000 sometime if you haven't.

I'll try to give it a peek if I can

Awe, she looks like a Rai look alike

Hm, I'm not really a fan of the character but I'll give it a shot

I would've rather seen a Katana team-up with Halo...

Katana and deadshot are two of my favorite characters. I'll diefinetly give this a shot

They have for about 4 years, we can be totally purist if you want and give her a bowl cut again ^-^

@dman1366: Now that you mention it, I can kinda see the resemblance

Sounds good.

Nice to see an O G come back to work his craft. I'm not a huge Barr fan; I'm not sure I ever read a story from him that astounded me, but he's always been solid. He simply writes consistently solid stories, and that deserves credit.

I'm a little confused on this series. Is it supposed to tie driectly into the Cinematic Universe or is it just regular DCU stories featuring these characters because they will be in the movie?

Sounds really cool. I will definitely read this.

@manwhohaseverything: Camelot 3000 is bonkers! I love that story.

Side note: So far this is the only miniseries we've heard talked about in a while. What about all the others DC announced back in the spring? Wonder when we'll see Swamp Thing, Poison Ivy or Metamorpho announced?