Yeah, I don’t really know what Easternal means either, I just needed another title to key into the fact that today is apparently Easter, one of those shifting around holidays that insist on confounding by jumping about the calendar every year.
Sorry I missed this until now. Paul is a character Amazing Spider-Man fans hate that I think is married to Mary Jane right now, or something? I'm honestly not sure about specific details because I am not reading it. I just know people are mad at Paul!
Hi Tom, hope you had a great Easter this year. Although I understand your reasoning, I still disagree with the idea of using X-Men Legacy's numbering for the upcoming Adjectiveless volume. It seems really counterintuitive for one of your (for the lack of a better term) "mission statements" for From The Ashes to be that there will be more solo ongoings and then choose to use the legacy numbering of the title that was revamped to become a solo ongoing to once again belong to the team book. I would have rather had the legacy numbering be those 67 issues and group it with lose numberings of other X-Men titles that aren't seeing any use that ran alongside the titles that count up for Uncanny X-Men's legacy numbering (like Extraordinary X-Men for example).
Speaking about your "mission statements" my question this time is about one of them.
I noticed in the interview over on Den Of Geek that you stated that the mutants of the world *need* to go back to live among the humans again. The thing here is that From The Ashes is picking up from Fall of X, where Orchis was operating in every country hunting down mutants and were either deporting them to Arakko, forcefully depowering them or just simply placing them in gulags. All of this was being done while majority of humanity did pretty much nothing but let it happen. Prior to that, Judgment Day had humans en masse celebrating that the Eternals were declaring war on the mutants.
With solicitaions of the Heir of Apocalypse miniseries confirming that Arakko is still going to be around, why exactly would (the majority of) mutants *need* to want to go back to live among humans again after such recent horrific events where they would once become "hated and feared" and not go live on the mutant planet?
For the X-Men relaunch, in the next year do you see any non-mutants being a part of the story line? Currently the only thing I'm reading X related is Iron Man, which has a perfect balance of a non-X hero playing in their part of the world. But going back to the 60s the best part of Marvel is the use of other characters in books and the development of supporting characters. I'm on the fence of coming back to the X-Men after 12 years off, and knowing there will be aspects of both will help reassure me.
"Stuff like this is why we keep elaborate spreadsheets concerning the Legacy numbers and try to check and re-check them as we go. And we still foul things up pretty regularly."
I would LOVE if you could give us a glimpse into those spreadsheets. That's the kind of thing I'd love to see in the Marvel website, if that were possible.
In regards to second stints in titles by legendary creators, I'm loving what Dan Slott is doing with Spider-Man, Superior and Spider-Boy.
Clonegeek, around these parts, we treat everybody with respect, regardless of whether they disagree with us. Please abide by basic decorum if you’re going to post here.
Speaking of concurrently running series with common numbering, could you comment on why Avengers: No Road Home got the Avengers numbering? Was it simply to get #50 to a round legacy number? Was that a factor in the series even being approved?
And as for "second go-rounds", um. I think there is currently a certain writer finishing their second X-Men run that is quite popular. Also would you consider something like Grant Morrison on Batman, years after Arkham Asylum to go in this category?
How are editors assigned specific characters/teams? Are you able to trade or hand-off characters or is it a little more complicated than that?
Another question, are more secondary characters, like Taskmaster, also given to specific editors? I know Taskmaster’s had his own miniseries in the last, but he’s normally not a title character (and if you know if Taskmaster’s going to be in anything soon are you able to share it with us)?
"It was during the production of this issue that Raspler was let go from DC, and consequently Mike Carlin wound up finishing things off as DC’s editorial representative."
To add to this: My memory is that it was during the plotting of the issue that this happened, and I don't think I'd dialogued any of it at this point. Certainly, Mike was credited as of issue 1, so he was involved in that issue at some stage.
My memory is that things immediately got a lot easier, too, since after the difficulties of issue 3's plot, Mike was a dream to work with. He wanted to get the material done and out the door, he wanted it to read well, but he didn't feel a need to put his imprint on it, so his reaction to each batch of script was pretty much, "I like it! Keep going!" There wasn't any wrangling over details.
This may also be down to Mike having an editorial sensibility much more in tune with yours, mine and George's, while Dan was an architect of the post-Bronze (heck, post-Emerald Twilight) era.
From what little Wacker has told me about it over the years, my sense is that Dan didn’t love our structure for issue #3 from the start, but when the four of us group-plotted it in Florida, he didn’t think he could sway the rest of the group. But he didn’t care for any callbacks to the classic material. So by cracking #3 open because we couldn’t lick that Heroes in one another’s universes concept, we inadvertently gave him the opportunity to redress something he’d been bothered by the whole time. I should have put an end to it sooner, but like you, I was trying to be a good collaborator and partner. And yes, Mike wasn’t worried about any of those same things.
I remember him saying very firmly that we couldn't spend virtually the whole issue with Hal and Barry as GL and Flash, because they were gone and they were _never_ coming back, and the modern audience didn't care about them.
Yeah, that was a big sticking point for him, having invested so much time and energy into Kyle and Wally. He and Steve also had the impression that our plot boiled down to, “Comics used to be good years ago and they suck now”, which certainly wasn’t our intent at all.
Tom, it was a pleasant surprise to read today that you are an aficionado of Paul Grist's work. He is one of my favorite comic creators. I was sorry his recent scripts for Marvel didn't lead to further assignments; I'm also sad it has been so long since new independent work has come from him. Perhaps you could ask Paul do some more work for Marvel sometime in the near future?
Some people can draw an issue in a few weeks, others take a month or two. Do artists tell you what their speed is, or does everyone promise they can deliver monthly, the way auditioning actors all swear they know how to play a piano and ride a horse?
Sorry for the second comment, but this is being an important topic this monday and I would like to know your opinion. Is Roy Thomas a co-creator of Wolverine? What specifics must be met to consider an editor as co-creator of a character?
1. How was the transition from the Avengers world to the X-Men world? Did you read every single comic in existence to develop your take on the new line?
2. What are your favorite and least favorite X-Men titles from the Krakoan Era of books?
3. What was the original pitch for Donny Cates' Ultimate Universe project before his accident?
I never knew Denys was upset by the Guice cover...I always loved that he inked it! It's on interesting to me that he felt under the shadows of Guice...who ditched us, lol...and Denys SAVED us! This was the first time I got to work with John Hebert, but not the last! Got him some work in the Punisher office with me and did a bunch of coloring jobs over him. We've stayed friends for years and swap all kinds of "stories" not fit for print. Even though it was a "fill-in" issue, I wanted to try to establish our own villains. As it turns out that was really a good fill in to use at this point since we had had so many guest stars. Mainframe was ours, and I had hoped to make Ben Jacob's in his armor something more as well. I do think we should have focused more on creating our own villains and supporting cast.
The recent press about Roy Thomas being added as an officially recognized co-creator of Wolverine has me confused. Leaving aside the propriety of an editor stumping for credit (although I liked your comments under Mark Waid’s recent Facebook post, so please expound upon this if you like), I was wondering how character creator credits get assigned. It’s clearly not as simple as the people who worked on the comic where the character debuted.
For example, only writer G. Willow Wilson and artist Adrian Alphona are directly acknowledged as co-creators in the credits of the MS. MARVEL show. That leaves out editors Sana Amanat and Stephen Wacker, as well as freelance character designer Jamie McKelvie. It also ignores writer Kelly Sue DeConnick and artist Scott Hepburn, who gave Kamala an unnamed cameo appearance in CAPTAIN MARVEL 14.
With Wolverine, we now have the writer (Len Wein), the staff art director (John Romita Sr.) and the editor (Roy Thomas) as the credited co-creators. That leaves out Herb Trimpe and Jack Abel, the penciller and inker of Wolverine’s debut in INCREDIBLE HULK 181.
I can see an argument that staffers like editors shouldn’t receive character creator credit, but why does a staff designer (JRSr) get credit but a WFH designer (McKelvie) doesn’t? Why didn’t Trimpe or Abel share in the credit?
In the late 90s Hulk relaunch under John Byrne and Ron Garney - is it true that Byrne submitted a plot that simply said 'Wolverine and Hulk fight"? Was he fired off the book?
Too bad as it was off to an interesting start (early hints that the Hulk may be responsible for casualties, mind control, return of Tyrannus, etc). I can see Byrne being obtuse about something like that though.
I was reading this week's Venom, and in his goodbye on the letter's page Devin Lewis said he disagrees with you about Mission: Impossible. I gotta know, what's your Mission: Impossible hot take? Also, with the recent shuffle of the editorial staff, is there still only a Heroes, X, Spider-Man, and Star Wars office? Has there ever been an idea of adding a dedicated Magic office for instance?
“Though I think ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN needs more Paul…”
Truly incredible stuff, Tom. I laughed.
I didn’t get the Paul joke! (And I asked the question :D) Could you explain it to me? :D
Sorry I missed this until now. Paul is a character Amazing Spider-Man fans hate that I think is married to Mary Jane right now, or something? I'm honestly not sure about specific details because I am not reading it. I just know people are mad at Paul!
Hi Tom, hope you had a great Easter this year. Although I understand your reasoning, I still disagree with the idea of using X-Men Legacy's numbering for the upcoming Adjectiveless volume. It seems really counterintuitive for one of your (for the lack of a better term) "mission statements" for From The Ashes to be that there will be more solo ongoings and then choose to use the legacy numbering of the title that was revamped to become a solo ongoing to once again belong to the team book. I would have rather had the legacy numbering be those 67 issues and group it with lose numberings of other X-Men titles that aren't seeing any use that ran alongside the titles that count up for Uncanny X-Men's legacy numbering (like Extraordinary X-Men for example).
Speaking about your "mission statements" my question this time is about one of them.
I noticed in the interview over on Den Of Geek that you stated that the mutants of the world *need* to go back to live among the humans again. The thing here is that From The Ashes is picking up from Fall of X, where Orchis was operating in every country hunting down mutants and were either deporting them to Arakko, forcefully depowering them or just simply placing them in gulags. All of this was being done while majority of humanity did pretty much nothing but let it happen. Prior to that, Judgment Day had humans en masse celebrating that the Eternals were declaring war on the mutants.
With solicitaions of the Heir of Apocalypse miniseries confirming that Arakko is still going to be around, why exactly would (the majority of) mutants *need* to want to go back to live among humans again after such recent horrific events where they would once become "hated and feared" and not go live on the mutant planet?
For the X-Men relaunch, in the next year do you see any non-mutants being a part of the story line? Currently the only thing I'm reading X related is Iron Man, which has a perfect balance of a non-X hero playing in their part of the world. But going back to the 60s the best part of Marvel is the use of other characters in books and the development of supporting characters. I'm on the fence of coming back to the X-Men after 12 years off, and knowing there will be aspects of both will help reassure me.
"Stuff like this is why we keep elaborate spreadsheets concerning the Legacy numbers and try to check and re-check them as we go. And we still foul things up pretty regularly."
I would LOVE if you could give us a glimpse into those spreadsheets. That's the kind of thing I'd love to see in the Marvel website, if that were possible.
In regards to second stints in titles by legendary creators, I'm loving what Dan Slott is doing with Spider-Man, Superior and Spider-Boy.
I really wouldn't call Slott legendary though.
Well, he is a legendary Spider-Man AND Silver Surfer writer for me.
You got low standards on Spider-Man pal. Remember this is the same guy that thought Silk was a good idea.
With all due respect, I'm not going to continue a conversation when somebody tells me I have "low standards" for liking a writer. Have a nice day.
You didn't have to reply back at all though.
Clonegeek, around these parts, we treat everybody with respect, regardless of whether they disagree with us. Please abide by basic decorum if you’re going to post here.
Speaking of concurrently running series with common numbering, could you comment on why Avengers: No Road Home got the Avengers numbering? Was it simply to get #50 to a round legacy number? Was that a factor in the series even being approved?
And as for "second go-rounds", um. I think there is currently a certain writer finishing their second X-Men run that is quite popular. Also would you consider something like Grant Morrison on Batman, years after Arkham Asylum to go in this category?
How are editors assigned specific characters/teams? Are you able to trade or hand-off characters or is it a little more complicated than that?
Another question, are more secondary characters, like Taskmaster, also given to specific editors? I know Taskmaster’s had his own miniseries in the last, but he’s normally not a title character (and if you know if Taskmaster’s going to be in anything soon are you able to share it with us)?
"It was during the production of this issue that Raspler was let go from DC, and consequently Mike Carlin wound up finishing things off as DC’s editorial representative."
To add to this: My memory is that it was during the plotting of the issue that this happened, and I don't think I'd dialogued any of it at this point. Certainly, Mike was credited as of issue 1, so he was involved in that issue at some stage.
My memory is that things immediately got a lot easier, too, since after the difficulties of issue 3's plot, Mike was a dream to work with. He wanted to get the material done and out the door, he wanted it to read well, but he didn't feel a need to put his imprint on it, so his reaction to each batch of script was pretty much, "I like it! Keep going!" There wasn't any wrangling over details.
This may also be down to Mike having an editorial sensibility much more in tune with yours, mine and George's, while Dan was an architect of the post-Bronze (heck, post-Emerald Twilight) era.
From what little Wacker has told me about it over the years, my sense is that Dan didn’t love our structure for issue #3 from the start, but when the four of us group-plotted it in Florida, he didn’t think he could sway the rest of the group. But he didn’t care for any callbacks to the classic material. So by cracking #3 open because we couldn’t lick that Heroes in one another’s universes concept, we inadvertently gave him the opportunity to redress something he’d been bothered by the whole time. I should have put an end to it sooner, but like you, I was trying to be a good collaborator and partner. And yes, Mike wasn’t worried about any of those same things.
I remember him saying very firmly that we couldn't spend virtually the whole issue with Hal and Barry as GL and Flash, because they were gone and they were _never_ coming back, and the modern audience didn't care about them.
Ha, I say. Ha.
Yeah, that was a big sticking point for him, having invested so much time and energy into Kyle and Wally. He and Steve also had the impression that our plot boiled down to, “Comics used to be good years ago and they suck now”, which certainly wasn’t our intent at all.
And the part of it might have given someone that impression is _still there_.
Tom, it was a pleasant surprise to read today that you are an aficionado of Paul Grist's work. He is one of my favorite comic creators. I was sorry his recent scripts for Marvel didn't lead to further assignments; I'm also sad it has been so long since new independent work has come from him. Perhaps you could ask Paul do some more work for Marvel sometime in the near future?
Some people can draw an issue in a few weeks, others take a month or two. Do artists tell you what their speed is, or does everyone promise they can deliver monthly, the way auditioning actors all swear they know how to play a piano and ride a horse?
Sorry for the second comment, but this is being an important topic this monday and I would like to know your opinion. Is Roy Thomas a co-creator of Wolverine? What specifics must be met to consider an editor as co-creator of a character?
I have a couple of questions:
1. How was the transition from the Avengers world to the X-Men world? Did you read every single comic in existence to develop your take on the new line?
2. What are your favorite and least favorite X-Men titles from the Krakoan Era of books?
3. What was the original pitch for Donny Cates' Ultimate Universe project before his accident?
I never knew Denys was upset by the Guice cover...I always loved that he inked it! It's on interesting to me that he felt under the shadows of Guice...who ditched us, lol...and Denys SAVED us! This was the first time I got to work with John Hebert, but not the last! Got him some work in the Punisher office with me and did a bunch of coloring jobs over him. We've stayed friends for years and swap all kinds of "stories" not fit for print. Even though it was a "fill-in" issue, I wanted to try to establish our own villains. As it turns out that was really a good fill in to use at this point since we had had so many guest stars. Mainframe was ours, and I had hoped to make Ben Jacob's in his armor something more as well. I do think we should have focused more on creating our own villains and supporting cast.
The recent press about Roy Thomas being added as an officially recognized co-creator of Wolverine has me confused. Leaving aside the propriety of an editor stumping for credit (although I liked your comments under Mark Waid’s recent Facebook post, so please expound upon this if you like), I was wondering how character creator credits get assigned. It’s clearly not as simple as the people who worked on the comic where the character debuted.
For example, only writer G. Willow Wilson and artist Adrian Alphona are directly acknowledged as co-creators in the credits of the MS. MARVEL show. That leaves out editors Sana Amanat and Stephen Wacker, as well as freelance character designer Jamie McKelvie. It also ignores writer Kelly Sue DeConnick and artist Scott Hepburn, who gave Kamala an unnamed cameo appearance in CAPTAIN MARVEL 14.
With Wolverine, we now have the writer (Len Wein), the staff art director (John Romita Sr.) and the editor (Roy Thomas) as the credited co-creators. That leaves out Herb Trimpe and Jack Abel, the penciller and inker of Wolverine’s debut in INCREDIBLE HULK 181.
I can see an argument that staffers like editors shouldn’t receive character creator credit, but why does a staff designer (JRSr) get credit but a WFH designer (McKelvie) doesn’t? Why didn’t Trimpe or Abel share in the credit?
Why exactly hasn't OMD been undone?
In the late 90s Hulk relaunch under John Byrne and Ron Garney - is it true that Byrne submitted a plot that simply said 'Wolverine and Hulk fight"? Was he fired off the book?
Too bad as it was off to an interesting start (early hints that the Hulk may be responsible for casualties, mind control, return of Tyrannus, etc). I can see Byrne being obtuse about something like that though.
I was reading this week's Venom, and in his goodbye on the letter's page Devin Lewis said he disagrees with you about Mission: Impossible. I gotta know, what's your Mission: Impossible hot take? Also, with the recent shuffle of the editorial staff, is there still only a Heroes, X, Spider-Man, and Star Wars office? Has there ever been an idea of adding a dedicated Magic office for instance?