Joss Whedon

TALKING CIVIL WAR, MILLARWORLD II, & ’08 WITH MILLAR

Newsarama: Okay - on to Civil War proper. First off, one of the questions that is still dogging the series, even at this point - and you can be perfectly honest here Mark - it’s just us - is the vilification, either perceived or real of Iron Man. At this point in the series, we’ve seen Iron Man do some pretty lousy things to his friends, and stand by as other bad things were done to them. We’ve seen moments of doubt from Peter Parker and Reed, obviously...but where are the moments of doubt, the "Holy shit, I really could’ve made a bad choice here..." thoughts form Iron Man? Is he even having them?

Mark Millar: Well, some of the tie-in books have played this up more than me. Generally, the main title has Tony played quite sympathetically. He knew SHIELD was either going to close down all heroes or he could get his smart friends together and work out a compromise where they all worked directly or indirectly for SHIELD and the government. It’s a war and he’s done some things he wouldn’t be proud of and so has Cap. It’s the nature of the beast and a fall out between friends is always ugly. But in the real world you’d be rooting for Tony. Cap’s an idealist, but in the real world we’d want heroes to be trained, tested and carrying badges. Would you want a sixteen year old guy with super-powers punching people through buildings in your neighborhood? Tony rocks.

NRAMA: Figured that was coming...

Something we asked Tom Brevoort for issue #5’s "Civil War Room" (coming up later today) about revelations of elements of the story - speaking of the tie-in issue in Fantastic Four #540 - "42" - the Negative Zone jail played a role with Tony and Peter apparently visiting it for the first time. Yet, this wasn’t the debut, as it showed up in Front Line #5, first. Had everything stayed on schedule, would FF #540 have been the debut of "42" as being something in the Negative Zone and things went from there, with it playing a major role in Civil War #5 as well?

MM: Yeah, I made all this stuff up when I was plotting the book and the big Negative Zone reveal was supposed to be in my 5th issue. But when a book has this many tie ins it’s incredibly complex and a couple of the little reveals happened in places where they weren’t supposed to. It didn’t affect the story, but it affected the order I wanted them to be revealed in. It was no biggie, though. I didn’t mind. I just said when I started doing this book that I wasn’t interested unless I could do something like the original Crisis where we had a pre and post Civil War Marvel Universe. These are all the ideas I came up with on a plane-trip after the meeting and quickly fired them back to Marvel. I had an idea for revamping Thunderbolts using the JLA or Avengers notion of all the big hitters on one team, an idea for a Champions reboot, a starting point notion for an Alpha Flight relaunch and a creator-owned series I was planning called The Initiative.

NRAMA: But that’s now an element of Civil War...

MM: Right - the idea for The Initiative was a super-team with 200 characters that covered the whole USA. I basically just donated this to Marvel because it was such a neat idea for Civil War I couldn’t help myself. Stupid, as I won’t see a penny now, but it works well for the story. Anyway, I had all these notions and wrote them all up in a big document and passed them onto anyone who wanted them. Civil War was enough work for me. I wasn’t interested in following this with anything else that big so I got to do what I enjoyed best... conceiving stuff and leaving all the hard work to others.

NRAMA: With each major development we’ve seen in the story, you’ve naturally received criticisms that characters were out of character, or miscast. First off, in writing - what was your personal barometer in regards to how the character would act, and how much leeway were you willing to give yourself? For example, Sue leaving Reed - she’s done it before, but in this particular instance, and leaving the kids behind...why did that move ring true and sound "Sue-like" to you?

MM: When 400,000 people read a book you’re always going to have people saying it’s not the way they know the characters. Stan did them differently from Scott Lobdell and every writer in between had his own take. Hank Pym was a hero and then he was a wife-beater. Tony was a paragon of virtue and then he was an alcoholic sleeping in the street. The nice thing about Marvel is that it constantly evolves. I wrote the characters the way I knew them growing up... Reed is a distracted scientist, Sue loves him despite his ego and flaws and tries her best to hold the family together, Tony has big grand schemes (like the original Avengers) and dodgy connections (he’s a former weapons dealer and munitions man at SHIELD) who’s big schemes often blow up in his face. You just have to trust your instincts and, given that crossovers are always slaughtered, I’m amazed how much people are digging this. The anticipation before each issue online is like nothing I’ve ever seen. The tie-ins - which normally increase a book by 15% - are doing double or triple usual numbers. People like this and I’m pleased because it was a shit-load of work.

NRAMA: In this vein also, you obviously have the defense of "Well, Civil War isn’t like any other story they’ve ever been in," to explain away what some readers may see as aberrant behavior. Have you had to pull that lever, even in your own mind to explain any character’s actions, or is everyone, as you’ve seen them, acting along prescribed routes as forges by previous experience?

MM: Yeah, they’re in an ideological war. Tony believes Cap will have superheroes closed down forever. He’s convinced he’s very dangerous and is causing huge problems because he won’t back down and accept reality. Cap believes Tony is getting them into bed with people who can send them to the Gulf if they want and he loves the autonomy of the pre-Civil War Marvel Universe. They’re both willing to die for their beliefs because they both believe everything is at stake. That means, like the original Civil War, they have to get their hands dirty.

NRAMA: Speaking of how characters are behaving, I think, at this point, even Iron Man’s remaining friends would tell him he’s acting like a dick. Take us inside his head - what’s keeping him going?

MM: He needs to keep going because he’s right. If this fails then superheroes get outlawed. That’s what the alternative was.

NRAMA: So this is an all-or-nothing, failure is not an option, win by any means thing for him?

MM: Right.

NRAMA: Why hasn’t he started drinking again? True, it would be an extreme reaction, but this is an extreme situation...

MM: I like Tony drinking. He gets too intense when he’s sober. I like the idea of Avengers meetings where Cap feels uncomfortable because he can smell booze drifting out of that face-plate. Do you think he ever had a Jack Daniels button in his wrist beside the lasers and the chest-light?

NRAMA: Since he’s not using alcohol, at this stage in the game, how important is Tony’s armor to him, both metaphorically and symbolically? There’s always been talk of the armor keeping the world away from him...it almost seems like, with the armor, he can give himself some deniability...it wasn’t the "man" doing these lousy things - it was this "other" being...Iron Man.

MM: Try saying that in court.

NRAMA: Worse has been tried, but speaking more from the metaphorical point - this isn’t "Tony Stark" saying and doing these things...it’s "Iron Man," and whenever Tony wants an escape, he can take the armor off...

MM: I know what you mean. Tony’s a great character. I absolutely identify with him on too many levels and feel he’d be an easy one to write as a monthly. I’m amazed Iron Man’s own book hasn’t been bigger for a long time. Cap and Iron Man have, for a decade, just been stuck at 45K. I swore blind that Civil War would push both books over 100. I want people to invest in these guys because, like you say, there’s so much untouched.

NRAMA: Looking at the bigger picture, from the Pro-Reg side, has the Anti-Reg side done anything at all, to this point, to prove Registration is a bad thing? I mean, from the public’s point of view, what has been seen? Does the public have any real reason to side with one or the other at this point, or is this still largely a sporting match for them, and they end up siding with Cap’s side because they were vets, or Tony Stark’s side because they’ve always liked Iron Man? Or more simply - has either side clearly shown to the public the benefits of their viewpoint? It seems as though, from the public’s point of view, there’s been a lot of posturing, proclaiming, and then just heroes fighting heroes, showing that they’re all a danger to everyone...

MM: Tony’s people, as you’ve started to see in the main book, are being vindicated because crime has plummeted since they started working with SHIELD. It’s just fallen through the floor and so people are really into it. The price, of course, is freedom. But the Anti-Reg guys are motivated by a fear of change. They don’t want to work for Uncle Sam. They do their thing because it’s the right thing to do and that’s a compelling argument.

NRAMA: But speaking of what the public are supporting - the Thunderbolts that were used in #5 - barely controllable killers. Is their use a sign of desperation by the Registration side? After all, it seems hard to believe that Maria Hill would use untrained killers to catch Spider-Man, rather than just flood the tunnels with SHIELD Agents...

MM: She did both, but Venom could take on ten SHIELD agents. And they’re desperate, like we saw in six, because so many of the guys are heading over to Cap’s side. Tony has a big plan for the T-Bolts and it’s cool. He has a big, final battle planned where this all ends. All the pieces are moving into place because Cap has something cool planned too.

NRAMA: On that front - as you said, there was talk of use of the Tbolts in the "final" battle. Does the Registration side actually have a plan for the "final" battle, or is it like pornography - something they’ll know when they see it, that is, when Cap and all the big guns are making an concerted assault on a large target?

MM: No, they have an endgame. There’s a final battle where one side wins and the other loses. And it might not be who you think...

NRAMA: Obviously, and as you noted, with the large readership Civil War has, this work has you standing as a lightning rod for criticism, probably more so than any other - that said, has there been any criticism out there that’s been particularly tough to swallow for you?

MM: Not really. It swings between glowing and blasting, but the glowing outweighs the blasting a lot— especially in the main reviews— and the blasting is just in the blogs, but you have to expect that. I’ve made this ten times harder by trying to give every character a piece in this and there’s always somebody’s favorite either getting under-used or not done the way they want them. It’s a huge undertaking and very political even in the office because you’re borrowing characters from other writers. But the other guys have been brilliant. Just incredibly generous and the fact a bloody Summer crossover is getting all these great reviews, all this mainstream publicity and insane sales means I’m happy.

NRAMA: On the other side of the coin, this series seems to have caught the public eye and attention outside of comics like no other "mainstream" superhero work from DC or Marvel in decades. Does that fact bring any kind of new self-doubt or stress to the table?

MM: Obviously, yes, the bigger the crowd the more butterflies you have in the stomach. But the fact they’re sticking around is very heartening and I hope they try other books too. Marvel and DC is doing great stuff right now. I’m loving more books at the moment than in a very long time and indie books are probably the best they’ve ever been. I grew up in a time when the only indie books I really dug were Mister X, Love and Rockets and Yummy Fur. Now I’m reading more indies than Marvel or DCs. Walking Dead is my new favorite book. Loving it. I hope these new readers browse around the rest of the shop too.

NRAMA: Finally, with Civil War #5 out, that means the event is essentially entering its third act. Now third acts are universally-over the most difficult to execute, in any storytelling medium. Ending stories satisfactorily have probably short-circuited more great premises than any other factor. So obviously, without giving away the ending, what can to say to readers to try to convince them this is going to deliver on the expectation you, your marketing department, and the first two acts themselves, have promised?

MM: Joss Whedon made a great point when we were all talking about this at the meeting. Joss said somebody has to win and somebody has to lose for this to be satisfying. This sets up a very different Marvel Universe and that’s very exciting, but there needs to be a sense of conclusion and any war needs a victor. That sounds obvious, but so many stories don’t actually remember that very simple rule. That’s all I can say to lure you in. There’s a winner and a loser. But, like I said, it might not be who you think. A lot of misinformation has been put out there and anti misinformation, if such a thing exists. I think we’re going to own the charts for the next few months and ’07 is going to be a monster year for Marvel after all the stuff this sets up. So why am I going away to do creator-owned and just stockpiling for ’08? I’m a bloody idiot.