#151: Don't Be Embarrassed To Scream!

This week’s title is inspired by this on-screen proclamation from a 1950s horror movie trailer that I ran across online. Can anybody tell me what film this trailer was advertising?

To start things off with matters that nobody other than me cares about: we have presently surpassed 7000 subscribers for this feature! This would be an impressive statistic were this material not absolutely free—just think of how many imaginary simoleons I’d be raking in were that not the case! In any event, welcome to all of the newcomers and thanks to all of the people who’ve kept hanging around the place for a while now.

So top of this week, I attended a celebratory lunch for writer Chris Claremont commemorating his anniversary of working for Marvel. Both Chris and his wife Beth attended, as did much of our senior editorial staff. But the big takeaway for me was that Chris asked me to send him PDFs of a number of current X-Titles and revealed that he’d been reading a bunch of them, but that he’d inadvertently missed a couple of issues here and there. This pretty well knocked me out, especially as Chris was so complimentary to the work of folks such as Gail Simone, Eve Ewing and Stephanie Phillips, enough so that it was clear that he’d actually been reading the work. Say what you like, but it’d be difficult to get a more significant endorsement on X-MEN titles than that.

Also, wanted to bring to your attention the fact that noteworthy comic book historian Peter Sanderson has just started his own Substack newsletter, Sanderson on Comics. I would anticipate that for anybody interested in the history of the medium, it’s going to be worth paying attention to, and I’ve already gone ahead and subscribed. So maybe you want to do the same?

And now, the news. By which, of course, I mean the weekly selection of reader questions.

Paul from ASM

Any big, a-list creators you'd love having in the x-office? or is there anyone who's doing something that hasn't been announced yet? The Fabian and Warren Johnson announcements made me excited!

Yes, Paul, but not that we’re ready to announce just yet. When we are, have no doubt that you’ll hear all about it. And as for creators I’d like to have, I feel like it isn’t wise to show my hand in that regard in a public space such as this one.

Jess Nevins

How do you, as editor, handle a situation where there's a conflict between personalities that's affecting the work? Is it as a simple as (metaphorically) knocking two heads together and telling them to be professional? I'm thinking in particular of one occasion in which Creator #1 loathed the work of Creator #2 and wrote an issue undoing the events of Creator #2's previous comic? (In this case, there was no doubt about what was going on--Creator #1 was vocal about what he was doing).

Well, as a general rule, Jess, I don’t think that we should be publishing a whole lot of “comics about comics.” So I really don’t pursue stories that don’t have any other reason for existing apart from putting the torch to some other prior story that the writer in question didn’t like. So the way I handle that is by just not buying those stories. In situations where there are perhaps collaborators who aren’t getting along, that will depend on the specifics of the situation, and as much as possible, I’ll try to give everyone involved an equitable resolution, even if that means that some of them may no longer be working on the same projects.

Adam

But you did somehow confuse Alyssa Wong, the writer of Psylocke, with Alyssa Moy, Reed Richard's ex-girlfriend from the pages of FF. Just an fyi! Probably not a big deal!

I did, Adam, because I’m a goon and my brain is wired to remember obscure comic book facts. Very sorry about that, Alyssa Wong. Everybody should go out and buy a copy of PSYLOCKE as a way of making restitution.

X of Alex

The upcoming volume of Amazing Spider-Man was announced upfront with two artists: Pepe Larraz and JRJR. Which is both unusual and delightful, to a JRJR fan like me.

Have you considered announcing multiple artists like this on fast-shipping titles you edit, X-Men and Uncanny X-Men? Netho Diaz, for example, has done as many issues of X-Men as Ryan Stegman has, but Diaz fans had no idea he would be working on the book until solicitations for issue four were announced.

Well, yes, Alex, but we didn’t know at the outset how many artists we would need and how often we might need them—and even there, the plan that we had didn’t completely work out due to other outside factors. At the moment, though, Netho Diaz is every much a mainstay artist on X-MEN alongside Ryan Stegman—as you say, Netho has worked his ass off on the title since being pulled in and done great work along the way. And over on UNCANNY X-MEN, Luciano Vecchio is poised to join artist David Marquez as the anchor of that series, hopefully bringing to a close the momentary instability that led to me having to pull in additional artists on an as-needed basis.

Dan Regan

A few months ago you mentioned your grand unifying theory for Scott and Jean. I was wondering and hoping if we will learn it in the books soon?

Yes, you will, Dan, at least the essence of it. It’ll be in a story that will be solicited for June. But it’s a particular project that we haven’t entirely announced yet, so I can’t point you directly at it at the moment.

Seastar

With Valentine's Day coming up, I wanted to ask what you think about doing an X-Men series that is a straight up romance? Maybe an anthology series that revisits all the most iconic mutant couples in the present, or even one that explores specific couples. Seems to me that while romance is always a part of many great comic runs, I wondered if making romance the central part of a comic run was something you'd ever consider?

Having done books such as SILVER SURFER and the current CABLE: LOVE AND CHROME that were covertly relationship books masquerading as standard super hero titles, yes, Seastar, I would. And in fact, editor Darren Shan pitched a romance-based concept earlier in the week, so we’ll see if that ends up getting approved and activated in the weeks ahead.

Alex Redwing

I was curious about what the editorial process looks like for confirming/making a character queer in some way? I know recently, Tini Howard and Leah Williams spent a couple years building up to Betsy and Rachel getting together, whereas its been said that numerous writers wanted to confirm that Iceman was gay over the years before Bendis finally did. Is there ever a concern for its impact on the IP or what higher ups in the corporate side might say?

I think the question here really comes down to he use of the term “making”, Alex. when you’re speaking of new characters, they are typically conceived as having a specific sexual identity, so there isn’t any move to change anything. With more long-established characters, it’s always a question of whether such a revelation would seem to fit with the established history of the character and make for a good ongoing development of them as an individual. Certainly, as you say, a number of writers and readers had theorized that Bobby Drake was gay for decades before he eventually came out—and he was limited in doing so before that because it simply wasn’t allowable at that time to feature a homosexual character. That all said, it’s something that we only do after serious consideration. There isn’t any specific push to “turn all of our characters gay” or whatever, as some knuckleheads think. But especially in a field of 9000+ characters, you’d have to imagine that a decent number of them aren’t completely straight.

Chris Sutcliffe

No question comes to mind this week, but saw today that you were the writer on Funeral for an Octopus and so wanted to commend the very good issue title: A Farewell to Arms.

Thanks, Chris. That title was almost certainly the brainchild of my co-writer on those issues, Mike Kanterovich.

David Brazier

I have a question about the original and excellent ‘Thunderbolts’ series which you edited. One strength was the consistent art by Mark Bagley, who seems the master of long runs. How did he manage this? He even produced an annual with about Captain America and Citizen V. What are your memories as Editor and did he ever, nearly, miss a deadline.

Mark has done a number of long runs, David, and he does so by sitting down and drawing every day. There’s no secret to it beyond that. Possibly, the fact that he was employed digging drainage ditches when he was younger motivated Bags to work so hard as an artist—no matter how much time he spent at the board, it was easier than digging ditches. And like anybody, he’d need the occasional breather. I can remember issues early in that THUNDERBOLTS run where we had to bring in folks like Ron Frenz and Leonardo Manco for scheduling reasons from time to time.

JV

Any thoughts on the current Diamond distributors crisis and how it will affect Marvel and the comic industry at large?

I don’t know that I can really speculate about what effect the situation might have at large, JV. On Marvel’s end, we switched our distribution to another company years ago, so while there were certainly a bunch of retailers who were still getting their Marvel books through diamond as a wholesaler, Diamond’s troubles aren’t likely to impact us all that greatly, at least not directly. But smaller companies and outfits that were being distributed exclusively by Diamond may be a different story, alas.

Leigh Hunt

I'm curious about One World Under Doom and how the first issue was solicited as The Rise of Emperor Doom and the event instead was called One World Under Doom. Why this change?

This was really just a case of us looking at the situation more closely, Leigh, and deciding that having one title for the storyline made a lot more sense than having two. So we consolidated everything under the One World Under Doom title.

Michael Perlman

In this week’s newsletter Behind The Curtain section you wrote “subscription copies are today a relatively infinitesimal part of a title’s circulation.” I was not aware that Marvel, or any publisher, offered subscriptions directly to readers. Where can I get information on what subscriptions Marvel offers?

I think you got what you needed in the comments section, Michael. As was pointed out there, our subscriptions are presently fulfilled through Midtown Comics.

Neon Frost

Jed MacKay and Black Cat are a perfect combination of writer and character. Black Cat has appeared in nearly all (I think) of MacKays books. You might not be able to answer this but is the trend going to continue with X-Men? Are we going to get a BC and X-Men crossover?

There aren’t any plans for it at the moment, Neon. But given Jed’s affinity for the character, it isn’t impossible that we’ll get there at some point.

Jeff Ryan

Is there any legal worry if a photo reference is _too_ recognizable? Say an Iron Man artist draws Tony Stark as straight-up drawing Tom Cruise? Would Tom Cruise's agent get a courtesy call saying that he's now a superhero?

Yes, it’s always a problem when anybody’s specific likeness is used, Jeff, particularly in cases where we may not have the rights to use the likeness in question. Which is why we scrutinize our books carefully to prevent any such problematic situations from arising.

Mark

On my X-Men question you mentioned the vocal cohort of fans that were fearful of what they'd regard as a regressive turn. Generally speaking, does the online sentiment you see tend to correlate to the commercial success (or failure) of the books you put out?

The situation is seldom as cut-and-dried as that, Mark. Especially since, for any project that you might announce, you can look around and find people holding almost any possible opinion on what is to come. I will say that it’s always far better to have readers talking about a project than not, even if what they’re saying is largely negative. The opposite of sales isn’t anger, it’s silence. So lots of angry people tends to correlate with a lot of people following a project, even if a bunch of them loudly do not like it.

Jonathan

I’m curious if you can share why Alex Ross’s run of covers on Fantastic Four ended with #24? Was it simply a matter of constraints on his time necessitating he drop an assignment and he chose to continue on Immortal Thor instead?

We had a conversation internally, Jonathan, in which the point was raised that, as beautiful as Alex’s covers always are, they weren’t necessarily conveying the same vibe as the stories they were covering. So we chose to make a switch on the covers in order to mitigate any dissonance. And Alex has continued to do plenty of other covers in the meantime, including the ones for IMMORTAL THOR, as you indicate.

Geo Harriett

May I add an Alex Ross question? Other than his work being instantly recognizable to many of us here, any idea why he does not put a signature on his artwork?

I think you’d have to ask Alex that question, Geo. I don’t have any particular insight that I can share with you on this.

Neil Cohen

Here's an offbeat one: is there any obscure comic quote you find yourself using? For me, whenever it's a rough day, I'll paraphrase Ben from FF 165 after the Crusader and go "I'm gonna mark this day on the calendar so I can play like it never happened."

“One Less Mouth to Feed is One Less Mouth to Feed. You’re Welcome.”

Brandon Giles

What’s the best way for fans to let Marvel know they want an older series collected or a collection reprinted? Corollary to that, how is it decided which series will get Epic Collections before other series?

Our collections department works out a publishing plan every year as to what books we want to manufacture in each of our assorted lines, Brandon. As for a particular volume that you’d like, it’s always good to write in and ask for such a book, and also to let your local retailer know so that they can pass along the message as well. If enough similar-minded people do this, it’s more likely to end up on our radar where something might be done to fulfill this demand.

Cian McDarby

To flip over my question in this edition, are there anything that you thought was a brilliant idea way back when that with the passage of time you’ve looked back and thought “What was I thinking?”

I don’t know, Cian, not really in the way that you’re talking about. There have certainly been projects and runs that I thought would connect with an audience better than they did, but not in a “What was I thinking?” manner. And I’ve certainly made choices in the past here and there that I wouldn’t make today (and I expect that I make choices today that I wouldn’t make ten years from now—so it goes.) But in general, I make every effort to make everything I release a comic that I can “look in the eye” when it gets released, so I don’t feel a whole lot of regret about projects that didn’t score as we might have hoped.

Shaun

With Love & Chrome, Timeslide and Weapon X-Men, classic Cable fans are eating good recently. However, is there any chance Kid Cable will feature in a book any time soon?

I've always thought that Cable could be more popular than he already is, or at least reclaim some of his former popularity, but I think the time travel stuff puts people off either because it gets too convoluted or it makes the character too disconnected from the X-Men. That's why I loved Kid Cable who was introduced back in 2018. It meant that the younger version could put down roots in the present 616, reintroduce back into the X-Men proper and get mentored by Cyclops, while old man Cable can continue his classic time travel shenanigans. Especially since Kid Cable is going to be a prominent character in X-Men 97 season 2.

I’ll be honest, Shaun, I don’t really feel much of any connection to Kid Cable at all. Likely, that’s due to the fact that he was only introduced recently, so I don’t have any history of reading his stories and connecting with him. But that doesn’t mean that other creators don’t feel that connection and may want to revisit it in the future. I’m just not likely to be the instigator. The stuff that I like about Cable can all be found in CABLE: LOVE AND CHROME.

Ducc

I just wanted to ask regarding the upcoming Weapon X-Men comic: is it an ongoing or a miniseries? Several sites are reporting that it is the latter, but the writer themselves has stated that it's an ongoing in interviews.

Assuming that enough readers come out and support it, Ducc, WEAPON X-MEN is an ongoing title. But as usual, that’s really in the hands of the audience.

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Off The Wall

A bit over ten years ago, I celebrated my 25th Anniversary of working at Marvel. At that time, artist Mike Perkins, one of the nicest individuals in the business, gifted me the above drawing of the Thing. And it’s currently framed on a wall in my room.

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On The Spinner Rack

Here’s what’s being displayed on my Spinner Rack this week: Starting at the top, we see Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely’s very good WATCHMEN pastiche PAX AMERICANA, a pair of bronze Age issues of Superman (including the one in which the Man of Steel’s super-strength came to reside in the pet cat of a handicapped boy, causing Kal-El to need to utter the word “Lynx!” whenever he wanted to use it. Comics!), AVENGERS ANNUAL #6 with art by George Perez, A Tom DeFalco/Ron Frenz issue of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN that introduced the Puma, a random issue of THOR, the first of the “Earth Stories” issues of Scott McCloud’s ZOT!, a DeFalco/Frenz issue of THOR introducing Quicksand, a DOCTOR STRANGE ANNUAL that I wrote a back-up story for (in which I named almost all of the characters after players in MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM) and a random issue of Doug Moench’s SPECTRE. truly, a pretty eclectic assortment of books, with the DeFalco/Frenz connection being maybe the strongest linking element to them.

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I Buy Crap

That’s right, it’s another comic book that I in no way need. I first read POWER PLAYS back in 1984 when it was reissued in expanded form by AC Comics, and I really enjoyed it. It had an interesting take on the “people begin to gain super-powers” concept, centering around a support group for such individuals. Cartoonist Mike Kelly had a fun and engaging style, and I quite enjoyed it. Unfortunately, it was another victim of the Direct market boom-and-bust cycle, lasting for only 2 issues under AC, and a further one from another publisher. Eventually, years later, Kelly collected everything that had been completed along with a new finale in a BARKER THE BEAGLEMAN collection, which I also picked up. But I never owned a copy of Kelly’s original self-published version of the strip—and so now I do.

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Behind the Curtain

Here’s a little bit of a two-fer for you!

Back when we were working on the cover for CAPTAIN AMERICA #25, the well-remembered assassination of Cap issue following CIVIL WAR, we went a couple of rounds before landing on the eventual final cover. At the upper left is a quick concept sketch that I did and sent over to artist Steve Epting at one point. I’m not certain whether that was before or after Steve did the concept drawing that you see above—I tend to think after, but I’m not sure after all this time. These are both pretty solid cover concepts, but neither of them is as good as what we ended up doing, so i thikn we made the correct choice.

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Pimp My Wednesday

A big X-week this time out! Hopefully you’ve been saving up your quarters for Wednesday!

Despite the credits on this mock-up, this issue of UNCANNY X-MEN is by Gail Simone, Andrei Bressan and Matt Wilson, and it’s the second part of the Outlier’s adventure facing off against the Wolfpack Sentinels.

Meanwhile, EXCEPTIONAL X-MEN #6 kicks off a multi-part storyline that will see the group’s new young mutants cross paths with a well-established figure from X-History. Plus, they all get internships with Verate, whose App has been mentioned a couple of times already during the run. As usual, it’s the work of Eve L. Ewing and Carmen Carnero.

And STORM #5 is a One World Under Doom tie-in (though perhaps a bit less than the previous issue might have been, had OWUD started a month sooner) in which we learn more about Ororo Munroe’s possession at the hands of Eternity. Murewa Ayodele and Lucas Werneck bring the thunder.

And the definitely-an-ongoing-series WEAPON X-MEN kicks off with its own One World Under Doom tie-in (though this one is a bit more “red skies” than STORM) as a killer Alex Ross cover introduces our cast of badasses, and Joe Casey and Chriscross provide the electrifying interiors.

And finally, Associate Editor Annalise Bissa is dropping NYX #8 in which Laura Kinney, Wolverine, has an emotional reconnection with Julian Haller, Hellion. It’s written by the Hivemind of Jackson Lanzing and Collin Kelley and illustrated by Francesco Mortarino.

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A Comic I Worked On That Came Out On This Date

Now here’s a comic book with a strange path to creation. For a brief time in the mid-2000s, immediately following Bill Jemas’ removal as Marvel’s President and Publisher, we had an interim person in that role, Gui Karyo. Gui came out of the financial side of the business, so while he was very well educated, he didn’t have any particular expertise in storytelling or publishing. But that didn’t mean that he didn’t have any ideas. At the end of an internal Editorial summit to go over that year’s publishing plan, Gui declared that we needed to have more books featuring robots, that artificial intelligence was the coming thing and that we ought to be tapping into that market. Now, I didn’t have anything immediately to hand, and neither did anybody else—this was all an unexpected curveball. And so, my brain racing through the history of the company as the minutes ticked away, I remembered a concept that Bob Harras had been trying to get going in AVENGERS when he was writing it, and that he eventually ported over to X-MEN after his time writing AVENGERS was done: the Mannites. Bob’s original idea was that, when the Vision was disassembled in John Byrne’s AVENGERS WEST COAST run, the government operatives behind the disassembly made off with a key element—effectively, the Vision’s robotic sperm. From this substance, they were going to begin growing their own machine-based life forms, something that would sit in opposition to the mutants as a forward step in human evolution. I didn’t remember just how far this had all progress in X-MEN, but in that moment, I pitched that general concept, explaining it to everyone. By the end of that meeting, MANNITES was amazingly an approved go-project, despite having no creative team and only the shakiest of concepts underneath it. But these were always the situations that I liked best, in that I’d pretty much been given a blank check with which to make a comic book series, and relatively few specifics that needed to be adhered to. I turned to creator Adam Warren to figure the series out. I had been a fan of Adam’s for several years, dating back at least as far as the mid-1990s when he’d done an especially cool future TEEN TITANS story in which he introduced an entirely new cast of science fiction-based characters. I was looking for Adam to do the same thing here. My other touchstone, which Adam was able to understand given his own interest in anime and manga, was GUNSLINGER GIRL, a series about young girls turned into cyborg assassins by the Italian government. Adam was on board with all of it—but he didn’t like the name. Which was just as well, because having finally had the chance to do a bit more research, I discovered that the original Mannites story had reached a resolution of sorts in X-MEN. So while we kept a loose connection to that material, this new series would go in a different direction. What Adam came back with was LIVEWIRES, which starred a quintet of all-new robotic characters who had been created by a shadowy government project and programmed to destroy other shadowy government projects within the Marvel Universe. It was full of crazy science and big ideas. Despite the fact that he wound up doing detailed layouts for every single page that frankly could have been inked and printed, Adam was uncomfortable with producing the finished artwork for the series, so we drafted in Rick Mays to handle that end of things. And the process was a bit crazy, with Adam pretty much drawing every issue in its entirety as a part of his writing process, and then Rick taking those pages and effectively redrawing them in his style. It all worked, but it was a lot of wasted effort for no real return—I’d have been just as happy to have printed Warren’s pages. Anyway, the six-issue LIVEWIRES limited series was rolled out under the Marvel Next banner that was supposed to denote future-looking series in some nebulous fashion, and it sank like a stone. With no pre-existing characters in it and no obvious connection to the larger mythos, it was difficult to get readers and retailers to give it a try. But I love it all the same. As far as I can remember, it’s also never been collected at typical Trade paperback size. The one and only collection of this material was issued in smaller proportions intended to appeal to the manga marketplace, something that it completely failed to do. The first issue came out on February 16, 2005, which makes it twenty years old today. Well worth checking out if you ever run across any copies in back issue boxes anywhere, trust me.

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The New Warriors Chronicles

There really isn’t a whole lot to say about NOVA #14, the next issue in Chris Marrinan’s run on the title. After a pair of issues with fill-in artwork, Chris was back for this one as well as writing it. But this would be a short-lived return, as he had to skip the following issue so as to insure that he’d ben around for #16, which was planned as the climax of his Deathstorm storyline. But it does mean that the artwork this time out is a bit stronger than it had been since I came aboard as editor.

This issue guest-starred the entire New Warriors team, and in an attempt to maximize matters, I called out Darkhawk separately on the cover, even though he functions within the issue as just another member of the Warriors. But I figured if I could pull a couple DARKHAWK fans in by doing so, it would be worth it.

Looking back at this issue now, it’s very action-centric, with a lot of shouting and teeth-gritting, which is the way that most comics tended to roll in the wake of the Image revolution which was then still going on. There isn’t a whole lot of depth, and even the characterization feels pretty surface-level. I’m not sure why I’m meant to be invested in Richard Rider apart from the fact that he’s got a logo on the cover, he comes across in this story as an angry, shouty guy who doesn’t really know quite what he’s actually doing.

The big threat of the story, the Aakon, had first appeared in some earlier CAPTAIN MARVEL adventures, but they were saddled with the same deficiency that had doomed Timestream over in the DEATHLOK series: they spoke in a faux-Latin speech pattern. Which meant that they all sounded like poorly-written versions of Yoda. It’s tough to take them seriously as a threat because of this—they’re simply too goofy in their delivery and diction.

By this point, I had already started to think about what could be done to save the series. And I had my gameplan in mind, and may even have begun carrying it out while this issue was being worked on. What did it entail? More on that as we cover the next few issues.

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Monofocus

INVINCIBLE has returned on Amazon Prime for its third season, and based on its initial three or four episodes, it’s still a fairly engaging show, and a very faithful adaptation of the comic book series. It’s very much like a perfected version of comics like Chris Marrinan’s NOVA, in that it’s very action-heavy (and violence-heavy; it delights in having heroes and villains alike tear one another’s bodies apart with blood flowing everywhere) and revolves around a typical everyman sort of kid hero in the person of Mark Grayson. But it’s a lot more successful in terms of its set-up/payoff construction, and there’s a legitimate feeling that just about anything can happen at any point. So it isn’t daring per se, but it also isn’t cookie-cutter either, which makes it consistently interesting.

Over on Netflix, they’ve released another batch of episodes of the anime HAJIME NO IPPO: THE FIGHTING, now carrying the addition subheading NEW CHALLENGER. As before, it’s a boxing anime about a good-natured kid who becomes a contender, growing along the way as he rises in the ranks of professional boxing. It’s very much of-its-type, and you need to go into it with a sports anime mindset (which means that, in the world of IPPO, there isn’t anything that is more important than boxing competitions.) but it’s very good at getting drama out of professional fights and making you care about its cheerful protagonist.

And I downed the final third of the final season of COBRA KAI on Netflix, and sadly it did nothing to change my opinion based on the earlier two portions: this was a really fun show for its first couple of seasons, but by this last one, it ran out of things to say and new places to take the characters, resulting in a lot of weak non-conflicts, absurd resolutions and ridiculous plot twists, none of which was especially satisfying. I can understand why they didn’t—who ever wants to stop when things are going well?—but the show would have been better wrapping matters up the prior season.

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Posted at TomBrevoort.com

Yesterday, I wrote more about MOVIEMAKING ILLUSTRATED: THE COMICBOOK FILMBOOK which used comic book panels and sequences to illustrate different filmmaking concepts.

Five years ago, I wrote about this wonderfully self-loathing issue of INFERIOR FIVE #6

And ten years ago, I wrote about this great pink SUPERMAN cover

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Well, my taxes await doing, so I’m going to call it here. And so, unless I owe Uncle Sam my soul, I ought to return in seven more days to pick things up with you again.

Hat’s All, Folks!

Tom B