Marvel "Vengeance" interview

[sherkahn]

What happens when you get to play with the toys and try to go with EPIC, while still holding true (but not following) continuity. We get to find out.

Aint It Cool News has the interview with Joe Casey and Tom Brennan about their upcoming Marvel project "Vengeance".


From the article:

MATT ADLER (MA): To begin, how would you sum up the central premise of VENGEANCE?

JOE CASEY (JC): Funny you should ask that, because I’ve been angling to do a mainstream Marvel book that really had no “central premise” for a change. I think superhero comic books get too caught up in all that literary shit. Do you think Stan and Jack and Steve were sitting around thinking about “central premises” in 1962? Hell, no! They were just thinking up cool shit and putting it out. Well, that’s exactly what we’re doing. Make mine Marvel!

MA: How was the idea for the series developed?

JC: Very oddly. It morphed a few times before it got to where it’s at now. Not to mention, a story this big, this sprawling, this epic…it tends to develop even as it’s moving along. There’s a bit in issue #2 that I just wrote that I had no idea would be there. But, in the context of this series, it made perfect sense to go that way. I’ll give you a hint… it involves Bullseye and Lady Bullseye and it’s a love scene. And it ain’t a flashback. Can I get an “Awww, yeah!” up in this hothouse?!


Nice to hear creative teams "swinging for the rafters" with odd characters.

And now to overload you with art from the mini-series.

First, the widescreen editions.










I'll pic it up in trades, but I do love the art.

edit: And is it me or is Doom trying out for a Lady Gaga video?

Comments

[salinea]

"Funny you should ask that, because I’ve been angling to do a mainstream Marvel book that really had no “central premise” for a change. I think superhero comic books get too caught up in all that literary shit. Do you think Stan and Jack and Steve were sitting around thinking about “central premises” in 1962? Hell, no! They were just thinking up cool shit and putting it out. Well, that’s exactly what we’re doing. Make mine Marvel!"

wow, that's a remarkably stupid answer. And there I thought i'd read it and now he makes me rethink it...

[jarodrussell]

In regards to the "central premise" thing, I think there's a difference in Stan Lee saying, "What if Spider-Man was just an ordinary guy, but with super-powers?" and, "What if the super-hero team we wrote was an actual family instead of an organization?" back in 1962 and, say for instance, Matt Fraction needing three years and some change to tear down Iron Man based on some half-cocked notion of writing a mature, deconstructive science fiction story about the dawn of battery powered cars set within the MU.

Knowing what bits I know of Joe Casey, I suspect he's being a bit melodramatic for the sake of showmanship, but I tend to agree with him that today's comics take themselves far too seriously at the expense of celebrating their innate crackiness.

[salinea]

I suspect he's being a bit melodramatic for the sake of showmanship
That does not make me feel more inclined to read it either.

[filthysize]

He's obviously joking. He states the central premise later on in the interview.

[salinea]

Okay, i'll blame the OP's choice of quote then ^_^ (oh who am I kidding i'm gonna read it anyway cuz Magneto, but still.)

[btravage]

That bifurcated emo is a pretty cool design.

[sherkahn]

It's the In-betweener, without his smoking jacket.

[btravage]

He just looks like an alien from Star Trek.

[proteus_lives]

Oh no but smoking jacket is a must!

[auggie18]

Wow, that took a premise I like (moving away from everything having to tie into events) and phrased it in a very distasteful way. Huh.

Also, isn't Bullseye dead? Are they making Lady Bullseye a necrophiliac?


Love the design on the Mister Negative-esque guy though. He's like if Mister Negative and Nega-Scott (from Scott Pilgrim) had a baby.

[nezchan]

There's no pain and there's no pressure
no humiliation
there's no fear and there's no shame
there's no pulse now is it so strange?

[thanekos]

The best part of this new/old generation dynamic is that most of the old generation depicted probably doesn't give a good goddamn at this point.

(And I'm probably getting #1 just for the promised "Magneto breaks up a drug-fueled Beverly Hills party" scene.. there's no way that can't be laid out hilariously.)

[squirle]

Stacy X? They're bringing her back from the dead?

[protogarrett]

It does seem odd. She got zero love from editorial over the years. Written out, depowered, killed in a lame way.
Still, I am happy for her return.

[mrstatham]

Didn't Joe introduce her in the first place? More than enough reason for him to bring her back and actually do something with her, I guess.

I thought she was just depowered, anyway.

[auggie18]

I think she got killed off in the brief New Warriors revival with all the depowered mutants in it. They used technology to simulate superpowers. I think she was in, though the characters were all kinda interchangable and forgettable. Stopped reading it when there was a panel featuring three female characters, one black, one asian, and one latina, and they all looked exactly the same.

[nezchan]

The quoted comments are much funnier if you assume the last sentence of each is a Tourette's-esque vocal tic.

"Well, I think this is a serious project that'll really put us on the map. EXCELSIOR!!"

[jarodrussell]

JC: As many readers that bought the LAST DEFENDERS series -- which I had a blast doing, btw -- there will undoubtedly be even fewer who’ll buy this one. So I don’t know if familiarity with other, specific series is necessary. Familiarity with comics is necessary. This isn’t an outreach book. This is a pure comic book where we’re embracing the unique language of comic books. That might put a few casual readers off… but, let’s face it, we’re not getting any casual readers on this book anyway. But, rather than being bummed out about how horribly a book like this might sell, Dragotta and I are using it as an opportunity to stretch ourselves creatively. We’re not simply fulfilling the genre expectations…we’re actively blowing them up.

It kind of makes me sad that I won't be getting this series, because it sounds like something I'd enjoy, as I typically like Joe Casey's work in mainstream books, but...no, my goal is to whittle the pull list down to nothing not add more soon-to-be-canceled books to it.

[thehefner]

I said it before and I'll say it again, that has to be the most badass that Otto Octavius has looked in comics for, what, ten years? Fifteen?

[sigmund_droid]

Easily, it keeps his trademarks but really makes him menacing.

Lots of recent love for the Original spidey-villains I found.

[misterbug]

Which makes me NOT want to pick up the book, because based on Casey's descriptions it's probably just going to be about how disappointing the current Ock is compared to the fun-loving magnificent genius bastard above.

I feel this is a terrible shame.

[skalja]

Yes, yes, yes.

BTW, I was actually mulling over Doc Ock and Aunt May earlier today, and I thought of you!

[thehefner]

:D

Were you thinking about anything in particular when it came to May and Otto?

[filthysize]

Most encouraging part:

Turns out, Dragotta and I are like brothers from different mothers. It’s been an intense meeting of the minds. We’re having a blast pushing the limits of what a superhero “anti-event” can be. We send each other shit that’s inspired us over the years…the most recent example is me sending him a bunch of images from THRILLER, an early-80’s DC book by Robert Loren Fleming and Trevor Von Eeden (a favorite of mine from when I was pre-pubescent). He’d heard of it, but had never really seen it. The “cinematic storyboard” approach to superheroes -- in the actual comics -- needs to be destroyed once and for all. We’ve got movies for that stuff. Comic books are their own artform but most superhero comics, the bigger sellers in the Direct Market, play it way too safe to be all that interesting to me. Over the past ten years, I feel like I’ve seen it all. Dragotta and I want to come up with something that we haven’t seen at Marvel and it’s great to have a co-conspirator in that regard.

THANK YOU.

[baihu]

Uh, maybe I'm getting the wrong impression, but the 'cinematic storyboard' approach is basically what Japanese manga is, which is more about action. So how is it 'too safe', unless he's getting his definition wrong, or I'm getting my definition wrong.

[stolisomancer]

If I had to guess, it's moving away from the widescreen stuff in favor of some of the unique perspectives that comics possess, Scott McCloud-style.

[baihu]

Does that mean more self-contained stories again, and less copy-pasted panels with no speech to emphasize 'dramatic pauses'? Because I'm all for that.

[stolisomancer]

I don't know. Ask him.

[sigmund_droid]

This post just made me think about how much it would really suck to be Doctor Octopus fighting Magneto. .

I'm imagining a situation where he's using his arms to pummel him like a grade-school bully.

[toby_wan_kenobi]

Stop hitting yourself, Otto! Stop hitting yourself!

[protogarrett]

Stacy X - alive and repowered? SOLD. =D

Seriously, though, odd cast.

[naebler]

i love the look of magneto's costume.

[mullon]

Everyone's just mad, 'cause Doc Ock is so stylin'.

[artsybuzzard]

Oh hell yes he is. I have a new desktop wallpaper.

[dr_archeville]

Yay, Pudgy!Doc Ock is back!

[artsybuzzard]

Words right out'a my mouth. :D

[nezchan]

So...so much for kid Loki? Or is this somehow outside that continuity?

[thanekos]

That's still happening; kid Loki, along with Utopian Magneto, is being used as part of the " younger generation " of Marvel malcontents going " What the hell is going on with you old guys?! "

[greenmask]

Oooo those last six pictures are some good stuff, who's that art?

[long_silence]

I'm intrigued. It's cool to see the Young Masters again, and the Joaquin Pennyworth Nighthawk, and what looks like Stacy X. And one of those new characters looks like the love child between Cap and Quicksilver.

But I'm hesitant because of something Casey revealed in an interview
he did with CBR yesterday

For example: one thing we've decided about the new character, Miss America Chavez, is that she doesn't wear underwear. Believe it or not, that was an important creative decision. I think it says something about her personality that she deliberately goes out into the field sans underwear. You can see it in the art. How's that for selling it?

I'm still not sure what to think about that.

[nezchan]

That's funny, given the design above clearly has straps for a thong.

[jcbaggee]

Holy crap, that Magneto redesing is perfect.

[jcbaggee]

Redesign, even. Stupid typing.

[ogrebear]

Some nice looking art there - this does sound like a 'What If' Premise to me or more Marvel's take on an Elseworld.

[proteus_lives]

Magneto's costume is cool.