Post by goldenfist on Oct 10, 2007 17:16:44 GMT -5
Tackling two critical Secret Invasion players.
October 9, 2007 - This is something of a big week for Captain Marvel and his old friend Ms. Marvel at IGN Comics. Last night we gave you The Life and Times of Captain and Ms. Marvel, which listed everything you could ever want to know about these two (and a least a few things you probably didn't want to know). Whoever said the Internet couldn't be educational?
To help us in our research, we contacted the writer of the current Ms. Marvel series, Brian Reed, as well as two editors connected to the characters, Tom Brevoort and Steve Wacker. While some of this interview material made it into the guide, we've decided to provide the entirety of the discussion for your enjoyment. Read on to learn why these characters have endured for so long and what the future might hold in store for them.
IGN Comics: Let's start with the most basic question - who is Ms. Marvel? What is her role in the Marvel Universe, and in an Initiative era, why is she significant?
Brian Reed: As the beginning of each issue says: "In a brilliant flash of light, former U.S. Air Force pilot Carol Danvers was transformed by alien Kree DNA-altering technology, becoming the hard-hitting, high-flying Ms. Marvel!" These days she is leader of the Mighty Avengers, she's heading up her own super-powered strike force to take down super villains before they're Avengers-level threats, and she's teaching the Initiative recruits how to be better super heroes. She's in every corner of the Marvel Universe, and carrying a lot of influence.
IGN Comics: As a writer, what compels you to write this character? Of all the hundreds of Marvel heroes, why put her on an Avengers team?
Reed: Carol is a woman who wants to be the best she can be, and I think that's something we can all identify with. But she's also a rather broken person personality-wise, always charging into situations without thinking them all the way trough. She's a pragmatist to the extreme, willing to sacrifice friends if it appears to be for the greater good. And at the same time, she's pretty fragile emotionally. A lot of what the last few stories have been building up to is Carol realizing she doesn't like who she is very much, and she really doesn't like some of what she's done, and she's going to start trying to change that.
Steve Wacker: That she's a soldier....and comes from a family of soldiers, some of whom (like her brothers) paid the ultimate sacrifice. She dedicated a large part of her adult life to the ideals of duty, honor and discipline but there are times I think when she looks into the mirror and doesn't recognize the person looking back at her. More importantly, she often doesn't recognize that she's a better leader than she believes herself to be. that kind of self-doubt is something very relatable and I think it goes a long way to making her a deeper character.
Tom Brevoort: She's a powerful female character who's as likely to hit things as to zap them. Given that most Marvel heroines tend to be of the point-and-zap variety, having somebody like Carol around who can mix it up with the best of 'em comes in handy when balancing out a team.
IGN Comics: Ms. Marvel has been in the Marvel Universe for an extremely long time and yet she isn't well known. Why do you think this is? What has been causing her surge in popularity lately?
Reed: Carol was born and then got left by the side of the road, creatively speaking. And then she went through phases as Binary, and Warbird and just never had anything stay the same long enough for her to have a fanbase beyond the core comic audience. What we've seen in the last two years is that a group of writers (including myself) that remember Carol from our childhoods have decided she's a character that could be more than she has been, and we're going to polish her up and use her. The side-effect of that is that she's everywhere now, and people who might never have encountered her in the past are discovering her.
Brevoort: Well, she hasn't had a title to call her own for several decades, and during that time she went through a couple other identities. And the name "Ms. Marvel" ties her permanently to the '70s in some ways. But I think her recent surge in popularity is simply a reflection of the fact that writers who grew up with her are using her in a more prominent way, and that's translating into more consistent high-profile appearances.
IGN Comics: Newer fans of Carol Danvers might not be completely aware of her storied past. She has ties to the X-Men as Binary and through Rogue. She has been and is an Avenger. She also has ties to Captain Marvel and the Kree. Do you feel that these complexities should be embraced by writers and fans? At what point is a smaller character like Ms. Marvel hurt by these details?
Reed: The only way you can ever hurt yourself with details from a character's history is to make those details required knowledge and assume the reader already knows all there is to know. Or (and this is worse) spend pages and pages detailing this historical tidbit that's important to your plot without editing it to the essentials. So long as you can condense the previous events into a line (two at most) of pertinent exposition, you're safe to play with any character, no matter how storied their history.
Brevoort: Like any character, Carol is defined by her history. The trick is in letting that history be a springboard into new stories and situations, and not a millstone that makes the character impossible to fathom for newcomers. We needn't deal with every single facet of Carol's background every time she turns up, but that aggregate history should inform what she does and where stories come from involving her.
IGN Comics: Moving to Captain Marvel before discussing the two characters together - Captain Marvel has been dead for some 25 years. For newer fans, who is this character and why does he matter? Why is his return significant? What does it symbolize?
Reed: Captain Marvel was an alien who made Earth his home, and vowed to protect it and us. He was also the first superhero, to my knowledge at least, to die of cancer, which is a very real and hard hitting way to take down a comic book character. On top of that, he stayed dead for all those years, which is something else we don't see superheroes do very often. His return to the Marvel Universe is a man out of time story. He's bringing a viewpoint from this more innocent time up to the present. Of course, in 1972 (during the Kree/Skrull War) Rick Jones was complaining that heroes weren't as nice as they used to be, so "innocent" is relative.
IGN Comics: Older fans certainly hold Mar-Vell's death story in high regard. What is it about this story that worked so well, and why is it still so popular? Were you worried that bringing him back would tarnish this legendary story?
Reed: It worked because it was real. Mar-Vell's death was played straight and painful, and reminded me in many ways of a friend of mine who passed from cancer. I'm sure I'm not the only one to have been through that event in real life, and then seen it played out on the pages of The Death of Captain Marvel. My great fear of doing a "return" story for Mar-Vell was that it not tarnish this classic story, or break its continuity. So that's why we settled on a man-out-of-time story since we could play with the character, but be honest right up front that we weren't undoing this classic bit of Marvel history.
Wacker: I think that this kept all of us up at night at the beginning of the project. We wanted to take pains to make sure we didn't do anything in our story that took Starlin's Death of story out of continuity. Brian (ingeniously came up with a way to tell a story that actually needed the Death of Captain Marvel story to work. We respect the heck out of the graphic novel and rest assured it still stands as one of the finest Captain Marvel stories ever.
Brevoort: I think the reason The Death of Captain Marvel worked as well as it did, and really held up over the years, was that it was a very human, very relatable story that hadn't been touched upon in comics before then. Mar-Vell died in bed, in a very ordinary way. Plus, he was the last of the Stan-created characters, so his death felt like a big thing. So sure, you're always a little bit concerned when you go near a story like that.
At the same time, there have been a number of replacement Captain Marvels over the years, and none of them has really worked out. There's something about the classic Mar-Vell that people respond to more strongly than any of the latter-day replacements. Again, this could be as simple as the fact that he's a character that Stan created. But in any event, pulling Marv from the past was a good way to eat our cake and have it too, in that we don't in any way discount the Death of story-in fact, that's one of the prime motivators Marv has to deal with now, the knowledge that he'll at some point have to return to the past and live out his fate.
IGN Comics: What has Mar-Vell been doing since Civil War? We expect most fans probably remember his role as the warden for the Negative Zone prison. Also, what is the premise of his upcoming mini-series and what can fans expect from that?
Reed: Mar-Vell has gone missing. We know he's in France, but why and what he's doing there are a mystery at first. The miniseries itself helps to bridge the gap between the Initiative-era and the Secret Invasion since, as you can imagine, putting a bunch of Skrulls on Earth at the same time as one of their greatest enemies returns can cause a bit of trouble.
IGN Comics: There have been plenty of other Captain Marvel's since Mar-Vell's death. Of those, which are the most significant? Will we see any of them interact with their predecessor?
Brevoort: Each reader no doubt has his or her own favorites, and they've each served their own stories well over the years, but I don't think any of them have proven to be all that significant over the long haul. And right this second, there's no immediate plan for any of them to cross paths with Mar-Vell.
IGN Comics: Let's move onto the relationship between these two characters. Captain Marvel and Ms. Marvel do have a good deal of shared history. Can you touch on that and how much of that will we see play into future stories? When will we see Ms. Marvel interact with Mar-Vell? How integral is one to the other's story?
Reed: Ms. Marvel's powers are all based on Captain Marvel's since their DNA was mingled during an explosion. She would not exist without him, and she knows that. When Mar-Vell died, Carol was Binary and was out gallivanting about the galaxy, so she didn't get the chance to say goodbye. That's something I touch on in Captain Marvel #2.
IGN Comics: Seeing as how both characters, Mar-Vell and Carol Danvers, have ties to the Kree, and seeing as how the Kree are enemies of the Skrulls… see where we're going with this? Secret Invasion! Will either of these characters play a significant role in the series?
Reed: Oh yes. As I mentioned a moment ago, the Captain Marvel mini-series is a big step towards Secret Invasion, setting up a few mysteries and revealing a few more...
Brevoort: Yes.
IGN Comics: While we're thinking Kree, we'd like to slip in a question about Marvel Boy. Any significant developments with him in relation to Secret Invasion and/or Ms. Marvel and Captain Marvel?
Reed: The Illuminati went to visit Marvel Boy. And they told him something important. We have to wait and see if he fully understands what he was told.
Brevoort: Yes.
IGN Comics: More Kree drama! We have to ask about Hulkling/Teddy Altman, the Young Avenger who is the son of Mar-Vell and the Skrull Princess Anelle. Will we get to see some interaction between Teddy and his father in the coming months?
Reed: There's a Young Avengers limited series launching in January that I'm part of. My issue is all about Teddy and Mar-Vell meeting for the first time.
Brevoort: Yes, we'll see Teddy meet Mar-Vell in Young Avengers Presents #2, written by Brian Reed.
IGN Comics: Thank you, gentlemen!
So what does everyone think about the interview.
October 9, 2007 - This is something of a big week for Captain Marvel and his old friend Ms. Marvel at IGN Comics. Last night we gave you The Life and Times of Captain and Ms. Marvel, which listed everything you could ever want to know about these two (and a least a few things you probably didn't want to know). Whoever said the Internet couldn't be educational?
To help us in our research, we contacted the writer of the current Ms. Marvel series, Brian Reed, as well as two editors connected to the characters, Tom Brevoort and Steve Wacker. While some of this interview material made it into the guide, we've decided to provide the entirety of the discussion for your enjoyment. Read on to learn why these characters have endured for so long and what the future might hold in store for them.
IGN Comics: Let's start with the most basic question - who is Ms. Marvel? What is her role in the Marvel Universe, and in an Initiative era, why is she significant?
Brian Reed: As the beginning of each issue says: "In a brilliant flash of light, former U.S. Air Force pilot Carol Danvers was transformed by alien Kree DNA-altering technology, becoming the hard-hitting, high-flying Ms. Marvel!" These days she is leader of the Mighty Avengers, she's heading up her own super-powered strike force to take down super villains before they're Avengers-level threats, and she's teaching the Initiative recruits how to be better super heroes. She's in every corner of the Marvel Universe, and carrying a lot of influence.
IGN Comics: As a writer, what compels you to write this character? Of all the hundreds of Marvel heroes, why put her on an Avengers team?
Reed: Carol is a woman who wants to be the best she can be, and I think that's something we can all identify with. But she's also a rather broken person personality-wise, always charging into situations without thinking them all the way trough. She's a pragmatist to the extreme, willing to sacrifice friends if it appears to be for the greater good. And at the same time, she's pretty fragile emotionally. A lot of what the last few stories have been building up to is Carol realizing she doesn't like who she is very much, and she really doesn't like some of what she's done, and she's going to start trying to change that.
Steve Wacker: That she's a soldier....and comes from a family of soldiers, some of whom (like her brothers) paid the ultimate sacrifice. She dedicated a large part of her adult life to the ideals of duty, honor and discipline but there are times I think when she looks into the mirror and doesn't recognize the person looking back at her. More importantly, she often doesn't recognize that she's a better leader than she believes herself to be. that kind of self-doubt is something very relatable and I think it goes a long way to making her a deeper character.
Tom Brevoort: She's a powerful female character who's as likely to hit things as to zap them. Given that most Marvel heroines tend to be of the point-and-zap variety, having somebody like Carol around who can mix it up with the best of 'em comes in handy when balancing out a team.
IGN Comics: Ms. Marvel has been in the Marvel Universe for an extremely long time and yet she isn't well known. Why do you think this is? What has been causing her surge in popularity lately?
Reed: Carol was born and then got left by the side of the road, creatively speaking. And then she went through phases as Binary, and Warbird and just never had anything stay the same long enough for her to have a fanbase beyond the core comic audience. What we've seen in the last two years is that a group of writers (including myself) that remember Carol from our childhoods have decided she's a character that could be more than she has been, and we're going to polish her up and use her. The side-effect of that is that she's everywhere now, and people who might never have encountered her in the past are discovering her.
Brevoort: Well, she hasn't had a title to call her own for several decades, and during that time she went through a couple other identities. And the name "Ms. Marvel" ties her permanently to the '70s in some ways. But I think her recent surge in popularity is simply a reflection of the fact that writers who grew up with her are using her in a more prominent way, and that's translating into more consistent high-profile appearances.
IGN Comics: Newer fans of Carol Danvers might not be completely aware of her storied past. She has ties to the X-Men as Binary and through Rogue. She has been and is an Avenger. She also has ties to Captain Marvel and the Kree. Do you feel that these complexities should be embraced by writers and fans? At what point is a smaller character like Ms. Marvel hurt by these details?
Reed: The only way you can ever hurt yourself with details from a character's history is to make those details required knowledge and assume the reader already knows all there is to know. Or (and this is worse) spend pages and pages detailing this historical tidbit that's important to your plot without editing it to the essentials. So long as you can condense the previous events into a line (two at most) of pertinent exposition, you're safe to play with any character, no matter how storied their history.
Brevoort: Like any character, Carol is defined by her history. The trick is in letting that history be a springboard into new stories and situations, and not a millstone that makes the character impossible to fathom for newcomers. We needn't deal with every single facet of Carol's background every time she turns up, but that aggregate history should inform what she does and where stories come from involving her.
IGN Comics: Moving to Captain Marvel before discussing the two characters together - Captain Marvel has been dead for some 25 years. For newer fans, who is this character and why does he matter? Why is his return significant? What does it symbolize?
Reed: Captain Marvel was an alien who made Earth his home, and vowed to protect it and us. He was also the first superhero, to my knowledge at least, to die of cancer, which is a very real and hard hitting way to take down a comic book character. On top of that, he stayed dead for all those years, which is something else we don't see superheroes do very often. His return to the Marvel Universe is a man out of time story. He's bringing a viewpoint from this more innocent time up to the present. Of course, in 1972 (during the Kree/Skrull War) Rick Jones was complaining that heroes weren't as nice as they used to be, so "innocent" is relative.
IGN Comics: Older fans certainly hold Mar-Vell's death story in high regard. What is it about this story that worked so well, and why is it still so popular? Were you worried that bringing him back would tarnish this legendary story?
Reed: It worked because it was real. Mar-Vell's death was played straight and painful, and reminded me in many ways of a friend of mine who passed from cancer. I'm sure I'm not the only one to have been through that event in real life, and then seen it played out on the pages of The Death of Captain Marvel. My great fear of doing a "return" story for Mar-Vell was that it not tarnish this classic story, or break its continuity. So that's why we settled on a man-out-of-time story since we could play with the character, but be honest right up front that we weren't undoing this classic bit of Marvel history.
Wacker: I think that this kept all of us up at night at the beginning of the project. We wanted to take pains to make sure we didn't do anything in our story that took Starlin's Death of story out of continuity. Brian (ingeniously came up with a way to tell a story that actually needed the Death of Captain Marvel story to work. We respect the heck out of the graphic novel and rest assured it still stands as one of the finest Captain Marvel stories ever.
Brevoort: I think the reason The Death of Captain Marvel worked as well as it did, and really held up over the years, was that it was a very human, very relatable story that hadn't been touched upon in comics before then. Mar-Vell died in bed, in a very ordinary way. Plus, he was the last of the Stan-created characters, so his death felt like a big thing. So sure, you're always a little bit concerned when you go near a story like that.
At the same time, there have been a number of replacement Captain Marvels over the years, and none of them has really worked out. There's something about the classic Mar-Vell that people respond to more strongly than any of the latter-day replacements. Again, this could be as simple as the fact that he's a character that Stan created. But in any event, pulling Marv from the past was a good way to eat our cake and have it too, in that we don't in any way discount the Death of story-in fact, that's one of the prime motivators Marv has to deal with now, the knowledge that he'll at some point have to return to the past and live out his fate.
IGN Comics: What has Mar-Vell been doing since Civil War? We expect most fans probably remember his role as the warden for the Negative Zone prison. Also, what is the premise of his upcoming mini-series and what can fans expect from that?
Reed: Mar-Vell has gone missing. We know he's in France, but why and what he's doing there are a mystery at first. The miniseries itself helps to bridge the gap between the Initiative-era and the Secret Invasion since, as you can imagine, putting a bunch of Skrulls on Earth at the same time as one of their greatest enemies returns can cause a bit of trouble.
IGN Comics: There have been plenty of other Captain Marvel's since Mar-Vell's death. Of those, which are the most significant? Will we see any of them interact with their predecessor?
Brevoort: Each reader no doubt has his or her own favorites, and they've each served their own stories well over the years, but I don't think any of them have proven to be all that significant over the long haul. And right this second, there's no immediate plan for any of them to cross paths with Mar-Vell.
IGN Comics: Let's move onto the relationship between these two characters. Captain Marvel and Ms. Marvel do have a good deal of shared history. Can you touch on that and how much of that will we see play into future stories? When will we see Ms. Marvel interact with Mar-Vell? How integral is one to the other's story?
Reed: Ms. Marvel's powers are all based on Captain Marvel's since their DNA was mingled during an explosion. She would not exist without him, and she knows that. When Mar-Vell died, Carol was Binary and was out gallivanting about the galaxy, so she didn't get the chance to say goodbye. That's something I touch on in Captain Marvel #2.
IGN Comics: Seeing as how both characters, Mar-Vell and Carol Danvers, have ties to the Kree, and seeing as how the Kree are enemies of the Skrulls… see where we're going with this? Secret Invasion! Will either of these characters play a significant role in the series?
Reed: Oh yes. As I mentioned a moment ago, the Captain Marvel mini-series is a big step towards Secret Invasion, setting up a few mysteries and revealing a few more...
Brevoort: Yes.
IGN Comics: While we're thinking Kree, we'd like to slip in a question about Marvel Boy. Any significant developments with him in relation to Secret Invasion and/or Ms. Marvel and Captain Marvel?
Reed: The Illuminati went to visit Marvel Boy. And they told him something important. We have to wait and see if he fully understands what he was told.
Brevoort: Yes.
IGN Comics: More Kree drama! We have to ask about Hulkling/Teddy Altman, the Young Avenger who is the son of Mar-Vell and the Skrull Princess Anelle. Will we get to see some interaction between Teddy and his father in the coming months?
Reed: There's a Young Avengers limited series launching in January that I'm part of. My issue is all about Teddy and Mar-Vell meeting for the first time.
Brevoort: Yes, we'll see Teddy meet Mar-Vell in Young Avengers Presents #2, written by Brian Reed.
IGN Comics: Thank you, gentlemen!
So what does everyone think about the interview.