This information has been collected from several defunct websites and one that is currently active. I have reproduced it here in its entirety with the goal of preserving it. I have linked the source as well as describing where each of those sources got these interviews from.
This extensive site by Bill Walko has a ton of information and is accessible via the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. If you want to read any interviews about the Titans published before 2015 or so, this is the place to go.
A letter from Wolfman in TTtalk #6, published in January of 1984
Before I move on to news, let me say something about the Titans story Len and I did that never saw print. [Marv is referring to Teen Titans #20, where DC nixed the original story featuring a black hero named Jericho.] There is NO difference of opinion on it between Neal Adams and us. The story was done. Carmine Infantino decided for whatever reasons he had not to run it–we heard from reliable sources it was because we featured a black super-hero named Jericho. As Neal said, the story was very hard hitting, perhaps too much so. We were young then and thought we could help change the world with a single comic book story. However, the story was not bad, just overdone. Neal’s rewrite fixed the problems but Carmine still didn’t want to do it, indicating it was the very presence of the black hero, not our writing that he objected to.
Nick Cardy’s art was among the best he ever did. Some of it was printed in the finished book that Neal redrew and rewrote. I secretly plotted part two of Neal’s story – at that point most of DC wouldn’t use Len or me, however Dick Giordano and Joe Orlando tried to feed us small jobs that would be overlooked by the bosses until the stigma of being liberals passed over us. There are no records that I can find up at DC about the story. No stats seemed to have been made, no xeroxes exist. The art is gone. I have a hunch it might still exist but the person I believe who has it won’t say anything. I don’t even have a copy for myself. I do have a copy of our script, but by itself its useless. Frankly, if the art ever did show up and we could print it, I’d rewrite the whole thing. Believe me, I’d love for the job to see print. I’d love to have a copy–just for my files. I hope that ends all speculation and question.
And yes, the name Jericho for the new Titan is pretty much my way of saying you wouldn’t let us do it then – I’m doing it now! Of course, the management at DC is completely different. Dick Giordano is in charge of editorial and gives me complete freedom. Jeanette Kahn is a wonderful publisher who never reigns us in. Having lived through three administrations at DC – the original one, Carmine’s rule and Jeanette’s, I can truly say this is a NEW DC.
About the Titans. Well, George and I have had times to figure out what we’re doing… to some degree. You have, most likely, seen pictures in the various fanzines of Nightwing and Jericho, Dick Grayson and Joseph William Wilson. Good costumes by George – of course – but unless I’ve figured things badly you won’t have seen either Nightwing or Jericho in action. As I’ve mentioned I work on a computer. Therefore, due to the miracle of little green letters on a TV screen, I’m letting you see exactly who Jericho is – as I wrote it up for DC based on everything George and I discussed. You may be interested in knowing that Jericho’s powers were conceived by George as we both were hitting our heads against the wall to come up with something a tad different. One other thing. As with most characters, what you read is only a hundredth of what you’ll get. Type is cold and emotionless. When we actually work out story after story, Joe W.W. will then come to life. Anyway, here is Jericho…
Name: Joseph William Wilson
Age: 17
Height: 6’3″
Weight: l80 lbs.
Hair: Blond
Eyes: Light Green. They turn black when his powers are in use.
Father: Slade Wilson a.k.a. “The Terminator”
Mother: Adeline Wilson
Joe Wilson, Jericho – is, a mutant, his genes affected by the experiments Slade Wilson underwent to become The Terminator. Wilson is mute and we will attempt to avoid giving him thought balloons. His personality will come through his ‘body language’ and his deeds. Jericho is a warm loving person – he feels no hate for anyone including those he has to go up against in battle. He uses his powers quickly to avoid pain.
His powers: Jericho has the ability to ‘walk’ into another human being and take them over physically. To do this he has to make eye contact–’lock on’ to the person. They go rigid as he moves into them. If the person he takes over was conscious Jericho can only control their physical movements. The person can still speak. If Jericho takes over an unconscious figure he can utilize their vocal cords and actually speak for himself… the only time he can. However he speaks in the voice of the person he controls–with all their accents, slangs, etc. Logical? No…but it keeps Jericho from having a specific speech pattern of his own. He can remain in control of the voice just as long as the figure remains mentally unconscious. He can feel them awaken within him. After which he continues to control them physically.
Jericho is also a physical fighter, having learned his art from both his father and his mother. But unlike his father he does not wish to use his powers to hurt. He recognizes he has a job which must be done and Jericho does his best to do. it… while causing as little pain as he can.
He truly cares for his fellow man. He is, if it isn’t too corny to put it this way, a good person. Mute, he listens and people find him easy to talk with. He will be the first Titan Raven feels comfortable with.
Jericho is into all the arts. He paints, dances, writes. He has an artistic soul, a caring soul, a warm loving soul. He is cultured and knowing.
Yes, Jericho is a mutant. If George and I were doing some other book we wouldn’t have waited so long to introduce a mutant – long a stable of SF and comics. But because of the expected Titans/X-Men comparisons we waited and waited. But now we have one, too. Big deal!
Jericho is introduced in Titans #44. The four-part story concludes in Titans Annual #3. We intended it to be concluded in Titans #45, in a double-sized issue, but after the story was worked on we were told we couldn’t make that specific issue double-sized because it came out at the same time as the first of our Baxter books and DC didn’t want two dollar+ books out there with the Titans.
Cited as being from George Perez, but no source is given. This seems to be an automated transcription of something that was written down, based on typos (which I have tried to correct as I can).
Then there was Jericho. Marv wanted to introduce a new member to the Titans to replace the departed Kid Flash. However, he had the character’s name (an unused character who was to have appeared in the original 1960s Titans series) and the notion that he would be an offspring of the villainous Terminator, but nothing more. After weeks of pounding our heads against the walls, we had all but given up. We couldn’t think of anything for Jericho. Then it hit me. Overnight, I came up with the concept, personality, and design for Joseph William Wilson, the newest Teen Titan. Joseph, or Jericho, was the first Titan I ever designed solely and as such, he was more of an artist’s character than a writer’s character. By making him mute (and forbidding poor Marv the use of thought balloons for the character), I was forced to convey Jericho’s personality through body language and facial expressions. Such subtle nuances would have been unthinkable for me when I first started the series in 1980, but Marv was so confident in my improved abilities that he accepted my version of Jericho, who was a lot tougher for him to write.
Cited as being from Marv Wolfman, but no source is given.
Partially because he is mute, he has developed the ability. and the actual interest, to listen to people. He is one of those types who, because of the kind of nature he has a very easy, caring nature- people unload their troubles to him. There are people like that, and he’s one of them. The fact that he’s a listener, since he can’t talk, makes hint a very good person for people to care about. Raven finds that she is drawn to hint, because he’s one of the few people who has spent most of his life listening to people, as oppose to just hearing what they say. He likes people.
Joseph has the soul of an artist, a warm, loving, caring He does not harbor grudges, nor is he someone who enjoys the concept of fighting (though he will when he has to). He’s someone who’s inspired by a loving soul more than by anything else. He paints, is a musician, is into the Arts. He’s very bright, and not at all naive. He knows what’s going on; he’s just a person who very much believes that there can he good in people, sees good when there is, and does not necessarily hate people because they are not good. He knows the score, he just chooses to walk by himself in many ways, though he is with the Titans.
Cited as being from George Perez, but no source is given.
Jericho, on the other hand, is a character I created, and Marv was having a hard time handling the character when I wasn’t there. He was an artist’s character, designed for one specific artist: me. Jericho was initially being considered as an ouster from the Titans, but now that I’ve come back and have some ideas for Jericho, Marv is in love with the character again. I take the burden of Joey, since it is an artist’s character. He doesn’t have to do as much explaining because I take care of that visually.
Cited as being from George Perez, but no source is given.
We’re going so begin dealing with Joey as an artist. We’re taking him beyond the Arts that we’ve shown him doing already. He also takes ballet training and is a dancer. He also has a very, very healthy libido. Let’s face is, if he’s as a ballet practice or an art evens or a Renaissance Faire, when he makes eye contact with a girl, he really makes eye contact. (Laughs) For that one brief instant, they’ve shared an existence. What a turn-on! This guy s got it made.
He’s not a nasty person, nor a love’em-and-leave’em type. He makes it the girls’ choice, but he’s always straight ahead with them. He enjoys sex. He enjoys loving women. If they want that type of lifestyle, he’s willing so give is so them, and if not, he won’t desert them. He’ll still be their friend, and a good friend as that.
He does have a very healthy sexual appetite though. The one thing I would like so show, if we go in that direction with him, is that I’d like to do one scene in which he’s carrying a condom in his wallet. I don’t want so call attention to is, just establish it. If people object to it, to hell with them, because this is being responsible. If he’s going so be promiscuous, he’d better have the responsibilities involved with that. I don’t believe that a super-hero’s sexual desires make them any more or less a hero, bus Joey’s feeling of responsibility to those he’s involved with does make him a hero. To me, if he’s going to do that, then he had better be responsible.
This interview with Jonathan Peterson is from the Titans Companion, released in 2005
TTC: The storyline featured the deaths of a few members of the team. How did you decide who would be on the chopping block?
JP: Now at the one point, we had to decide who lives, who dies, as you asked. And basically…what we soon realized was “Well, we DO like these characters…we hate to see anyone go.” I mean, running down the list, NIGHTWING had to stay. I mean, that was a given. He was the leader, he was the star (to me)…plus, unbeknownst to Marv, in my back pocket I had plans for Nightwing. I just wasn’t ready to spring them on him yet.
Donna Troy… okay, another one I wanted to see stay. Though I was mad Marv had married her off. I wanted her hubbie [Terry Long] to go. Personally, I thought the hubbie was a whiner. He needed to be upgraded or tossed out.
TTC: No argument here!
JP: yeah, so he was always on the block [laughs]. Month to month we kept running a vote saying “Should we kill him now? He’s really annoying me this month!”
Victor…well, I wanted Cyborg to stay. Good character, and Tom liked him…but wanted to redo the costume. Which I agreed with. I thought a change was in order there. The good thing about a mechanical guy: he always needs new parts. Perfect reason for a perpetual redesign till you find one you like. [laughs]
Okay, then…dang! Who am I leaving out? Oh! Well, there was Kory. Had to stay…was part of my top secret Nightwing plan. Still hadn’t told Marv about that one yet. I was still putting the pieces together. [laughs]
And then there was Joey.
TTC: Yes, Jericho…
JP: Jericho we decided was sort of expendable. So if Jericho was to die, I think Marv was the one that decided to make it symmetrical. Let’s have Deathstroke be the one to do it; then we have the whole pathos of Deathstroke killing his own son. I mean, it was just too perfect. So by process of elimination, we all agreed he could go. Especially since, much like Terry Long, I thought Jericho was a bit too soft-edged. I mean, I know he has his fans and all, I just wasn’t one of them. [laughs]
Then we thought, “Well, why would he kill him? Let’s bring it back to Raven and Trigon. Let’s have him be possessed,” and someone else tossed out the idea of having a big moment where suddenly he can talk. That will freak people out! [But] we couldn’t just have him show up talking. [Since] we liked the Wildebeests and wanted to bring them back, we decided to make Jericho the leader of the Wildebeests. Then we brainstormed the notion that as part of their experiments, they end up creating an actual Wildebeest! So I get my Wildebeest!
This interview with Marv Wolfman is from the Titans Companion, released in 2005
TTC: You’ve mentioned that Jericho was mainly George’s idea, but as far back as the second issue when you introduced the Ravager, you mentioned that he had a brother.
MW: I did not have any idea of who that brother would be. I knew that he would come in eventually, but George came up with the idea of him being a mute, and I don’t remember who came up with the powers, or [if] we both did, but the whole idea of this mute character [was George’s]. He wanted to really make it difficult and would not let me use thought balloons. That was part of it. Obviously, I could’ve, but he didn’t want that because you should only [just] get through it, and I totally understood and agreed with him. The beauty of the relationship with George and myself was we were very much equal. We didn’t mind saying what we honestly felt, and the other person would almost always go along with it. So George really wanted to tax himself by creating a character that had to express himself through body language. Obviously, I gave him the name because I used the name from the old comic, but the feel of the character, the concept of the power of the muteness, the body language and the personality came from George.
TTC: What do you think Jericho brought to the team in terms of the group dynamic?
MW: This is going to sound very strange, but a quietness, and I don’t mean that because he couldn’t talk. He was one hundred percent comfortable in his own body. He had a quiet wisdom, and a very sweet personality. I think he brought an innocence that came out of the weirdest background in the universe, having been the son of the Terminator and Addie, and with his brother being crazy, too, yet he somehow escaped and became this really angelic type character.
[...]
TTC: That was the storyline in which Jericho died. Do you regret killing him now?
MW: Oh, it was the stupidest thing in the world. That whole storyline was stupid. What happened with him? Utterly a mistake.
TTC: Now that you’ve got some perspective on that decision, what do you chalk it up to?
MW: We were trying to shake up the book. I could tell you exactly what was happening. We were trying to shake up the book in some fashion, and we made a wrong choice. A disastrously wrong choice.
TTC: Would you agree with the statement that the death of Jericho made Deathstroke a better character?
MW: No, because it was a mistake to do.
TTC: But didn’t it give Deathstroke more depth?
MW: It did that, but we could have accomplished that differently. It was wrong. It was just wrong. I don’t want to justify it because something else may have gotten stronger, or weaker, or whatever. It was a mistake, pure and simple. Never should have happened. Easily can get out of it. Later on, I knew exactly how, and I tried to pitch the idea to DC, but they weren’t interested. I know it’s different from the way that Geoff Johns got out of it, though I don’t read the Titans. I’ve been told the story, [laughs] so I’m very familiar with it.
This interview with Geoff Johns is take from Titans Companion 2, released in 2008.
TTC: In your second issue, you used Deathstroke as the villain, just as Marv and George did over twenty years before. Was that intentional?
GJ: I felt that the first arc of Titans had to have Deathstroke as the villain. He’s the best Titans villain there is, so if you want the Titans to launch off big, they should face off against their biggest villain.
TTC: Who is Slade Wilson to you?
GJ: Slade Wilson is a guy who, since the beginning, has tried to be the emotionless, straight contract killer that we saw him first portrayed as, and then he lost his son, and it became personal to him. Even though he says it’s not, he’s gotta finish his son’s contract and take out the Teen Titans, and since that point, his family has always interacted with the Teen Titans, whether it be Jericho or his daughter Ravager. Deathstroke is somebody who’s intertwined, and his family’s become intertwined, with this group, so he’s somebody who’s always going to feel a connection to the team, even if he doesn’t want to.
TTC: You also used your first storyline to bring back Jericho. Did you see his death as a mistake?
GJ: No, I never saw it as a mistake. I thought it was a great storyline. I know Marv has said some different things about it, but I thought it was a great storyline. “Titans Hunt” to me was fantastic when I was reading it, but Jericho’s death never felt like it was the wrong thing to do. I did think, though, the reason I used him [was] because it fit right in with the story. He had motivation for the story.
He had a great power to have the Titans fight off against each other which I really liked, and eventually when I brought him back into a new body, I did so strictly because I felt that Ravager would have somebody great to bounce off of on the Titans group. She would have an older brother who would suddenly be this calming force on this wild kid, and a brother and sister on the Titans, I thought, would be a really interesting dynamic. I left the book, unfortunately, almost as soon as he came back, and they decided to move the character onto somewhere else.
TTC: Did you have those plans in mind when you first brought him back?
GJ: Well, no. When I first brought him back, I knew I was going to use him again because I thought, again, his power makes him such an interesting force, because he can be anybody, and then when Ravager became a mainstay in the Titans group, and she had her attitude and really got in there, and just got down and dirty, I had plans on bringing Jericho back then because I thought it would really be an interesting foil for her. We could have some great character interaction.
TTC: You mentioned how you used Titans # 1/2 to bring in Ravager. What is it about that character that appeals to you?
GJ: That’s one character, like Superboy, I always [liked. I always] had ideas for Superboy, even when I was reading comics. Rose Wilson was another character I always liked in comic books, and I always thought she’d be a great Titan. I always wanted to see Deathstroke’s daughter, a la Deathstroke Jr., in a costume on the team. I just thought she’d bring some real good dynamics to it, and I think she has.
TTC:You ended that storyline with her cutting out her own eye.
GJ: Yup.
TTC: What was the reaction when you told Eddie and Mike that was what you wanted to do?
GJ: They were like, “Awww!” Their reaction was cool. It was exactly what I wanted. I wanted people to turn away, and show how far this girl had gone, how messed up she really was.
TTC: Was it always your intention that her father was drugging her?
GJ: Yeah.
[…]
TTC: The villain of “Titans East” was also Deathstroke. He was there at the start of your run, and he was there at the end. Was that intentional symmetry?
GJ: You know what? Not really, because I had him in the Teen Titans, and I had always intended to go through fifty. So I set Deathstroke up for “Titans East,” and I had actually planned to do “Titans East” all by myself, and then, again, things got so hectic, I felt that it would be better to pass the baton off to somebody else, and let them finish the storyline and take over the book.
TTC: Deathstroke’s entire motivation for Titans East centered around the idea of family. Is that what the Titans are about to you?
GJ: Yes. Most of these teams are, to me, about family, ’cause you can’t hang out with a bunch of people and not [get close]. You know, it’s really friends. I mean, the Titans [are] friends, but to Deathstroke, it’s family, and like I said before, his family’s completely intertwined with the Titans. He did all this, and at the end, I always knew the reveal was Deathstroke just wanted to ingratiate his son and daughter into the Titans even further, because he felt that they were a good place for them, because he couldn’t be the father they needed.
This interview with Christopher Priest, writer for Deathstroke (2016), by Zack Smith was published on December 13th, 2019, and has since been removed from the site. It is accessible via the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine.
Newsarama: Priest, how do you define the character of Jericho/Joey? He's someone who's trying to be "good," but his efforts are extreme and often have terrifying, destructive consequences.
Christopher Priest: Joseph is probably a lot more like his father than Grant was. Grant was a lousy supervillain. Jericho is a great supervillain, only he doesn’t realize that’s what he is. HE thinks he’s a hero. But Joseph has at least as much Deathstroke in him as Grant ever did. And that’s his conflict: struggling to do good when he knows that evil lives inside him, as evidenced by his lashing out and (nearly) killing his ex-boyfriend.
Nrama: Joey is explicitly gay/bisexual in this iteration, but even with his family's acceptance, struggles with self-hatred and tries to appear straight. What was important for you to express in depicting the character?
Priest: I have gay Christian friends who are only in the closet for the church. In all other aspects of their life, everybody knows and most everyone accepts and, frankly, loves these women and men. That’s the model for Joseph. He is, for the most part, out. He was only in for Deathstroke, keeping that secret from his father, likely out of fear of his father’s reaction - a well-founded fear.
He kept his secret from his (female) fiancée because, at first, it simply wasn’t relevant and he likely feared for her safety as well - another well-founded fear.
For "Rebirth," I felt DC and other publishers had evolved to a place where diversity was being promoted and prioritized. I had no interest in presenting Jericho as either a pacifist or unhinged psychopath - both have been done. I wanted him to be Marilyn Munster [from The Munsters] - the normal kid in a bizarre family. And that’s who he is - normal.
Jericho is 'the Good Son,' or at least 'the Son Struggling to Be Good.' He is, to me, much more like Jack Kirby’s Lightray - after whom I deliberately designed his costume - a fun-loving, warm, friendly guy who routinely risks his life to help others.
It is my hope that I’ve built a fully realized human being, endowed with humanity and human dignity, and that his sexual orientation, while a source of conflict for story development, is not the beginning nor end of the character, nor is the character defined by it.
This site is still available and is a group for LGBTQ+ comics fans. They collect information on LGBTQ+ comic book characters.
Collected by Gay League contacting Perez via email.
While Marv and I did discuss the possibility of Joseph Wilson being gay, Marv decided that it was too much of a stereotype to have the sensitive, artistic, and wide-eyed character with arguably effeminate features be also homosexual. While I think that may or may not have been a righteous concern, we did establish the character as heterosexual throughout the series.