Joss Whedon

NEW JOE FRIDAYS - WEEK 22

This week, Joe Quesada talks NEW New Warriors, a little Civil War #5, this past week’s Marvel editorial planning session, and takes reader questions...

Newsarama: Joe, a little more than a week ago you revealed to our friends at Fanboy Radio that the New Warriors would be returning. Now, you’ve mentioned in this forum a number of times that Jubilee is returning in a big way in 2007, as well as hinting that there were plans for a number of teen heroes. Most recently you named Speedball and Jubilee as characters to watch out for in 2007...

So we’re going to take a stab at this ... hell, we’re allowed to speculate. All your talk about Speedball the last six months have been part of a conscious effort to raise his profile, and the New Warriors will return, with him and Jubilee, and perhaps others characters like Gravity, Arana, Scorpion, in keeping with an update of the New Warriors’ original premise?

Close?

Joe Quesada: The New Warriors concept is pretty cool and while we’ll be introducing you to all sorts of new faces, there will be one returning member. I guess you can use your imagination and kind of figure it out [winks]. As for Jubilee, she’ll be showing up in a very unexpected title, but she won’t be sharing the same book with Speedball.

NRAMA: C’mon, what else can you tell us? Readers wanna know!

JQ: You’re just going to have to wait and see. The writer of the new New Warriors project has done an incredible job with the first few scripts and I think it’s going to have people talking.

NRAMA: Also on Fanboy Radio you revealed the name of your’s and JMS’s four-issue Spider-Man limited series. For those who missed that, can you mention it now and say whatever you can regarding the meaning/significance of said title?

JQ: The title is simply “One More Day.” There really isn’t much that I can say about it that won’t give too much away other than sometimes all we need in life is one more day.

NRAMA: With Civil War #5 this week, things seem to have taken their "Empire Strikes Back" turn, that is, things went from dire to downright crappy, with Tony playing the erstwhile Darth Vader role...now with Cap and Spidey on the Anti-Registration side, can the argument still be made that Iron Man and those in favor of registration aren’t being vilified here?

JQ: You have to wait until the fat lady sings and then we can speak about such things, but I do want to point one thing out. If you recall, there was a lot of flack within fandom at one point because things were going so well for Peter Parker, it was almost disturbing and completely foreign to what was normal for the character. He was living in a high rise New York apartment, he was working for Tony Stark, Aunt May was getting some of that Jarvis good lovin’, I mean everything was just coming up roses.

Well, the reason all of that was set up in the first place was exactly to make moments like the one between Peter and Tony in issue #5 resonate so much more. Here’s the pay off to that student/mentor, father/son relationship we were creating. Without that groundwork, none of this stuff in Civil War would have mattered or would have had any emotional resonance; it would have just been two guys beating on each other.

So, why do I bring that up? Well, because we do these things for a reason, so whatever is happening now in Civil War and however it ends, you can be sure that it’s leading us to some incredible stuff for our characters down the road.

NRAMA: Playing devil’s advocate though - from the Pro-Registration side though, has the Anti-Reg side done anything at all, to this point, to prove Registration is a bad thing? Meaning, 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?

JQ: You’re hitting on some great points, points that are crucial to the story. Yeah, how does the layperson feel about this? It does seem like the people on the street are being forgotten, marginalized have the heroes may have forgotten how they feel? All of this will be addressed because it is very important. Unfortunately, I can’t address it as I don’t want to give away any story points of any of the Civil War books.

NRAMA: Again, with issue #5 out, the story has entered its third act, which is often the hardest to pull off. As we asked Mark Millar, ending stories satisfactorily have probably short-circuited more great premises than any other factor. So 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 itself, have promised?

JQ: I agree with you, it’s always the toughest thing, especially if you don’t have your ending clearly figured out. So many great stories or stories that show great promise get derailed in the end because of that kind of thing. If you remember back to some of the original discussions we had here at New Joe Fridays about the formation of Civil War, you’ll recall that Joss Whedon was in town and had stopped by our creative summit and really pushed us to make sure that the ending was as tight as it could be. We had our ending, we knew where we wanted to go, but we had three or four ways of getting to that point. Joss was instrumental in helping us find which one of those ways of combinations thereof would serve the story best.

While you can never guarantee that everyone will be satisfied with the ending of any story, I think that both Civil War and Frontline will deliver some decent punches to the gut in the end. But, again, this is a great question, because as soon as you asked it I flashbacked to my own days as a reader. I recall so vividly how some fans were disappointed with the end of Watchmen, claiming that it had built up to a conclusion that couldn’t compare to the first and second acts. I couldn’t believe anyone could feel that way, to me it was a masterpiece, but it just shows you how subjective this kind of stuff is.

Ultimately, the barometer for us will be where it leaves our universe and characters. What’s the point of taking our readers along on this significant journey if nothing significant happens in the end?

We’ve worked very hard on Civil War from the opening scene to the very last, we think its good, we hope people like it, but it will be up to the fans to decide in the end.

NRAMA: Of the three titles offered in February, Civil War: The Initiative, Marvel Spotlight: Civil War Aftermath and Civil War: Battle Damage Report, which one would you consider the most essential reading? All three seem to be recaps of Civil War and previews/guidebooks to the new status quo of the Marvel Universe. Is there one that stands out above the rest, and/or what’s unique about each of them? Damage Report and Aftermath seem the most alike?

JQ: I would say, Civil War: The Initiative if I was forced to pick one. It sets up some very important stories and it’s got Marc Silvestri!

NRAMA: Speaking of which, the Initiative promises to “debut the all new IRON MAN.” For no other reason than to give you a chance to drop a one of those teases you love so well, what does this mean..?

JQ: He’s going to have big spider legs.

NRAMA: Righto... will there be any changes to the creative team, or is it status quo for the foreseeable future.

JQ: Are you referring to Iron Man? Yes, there will a small change in the creative team that will have Iron Man fans talking.

NRAMA: And the solicitation of a variant cover in February by Gerald Parel doesn’t exactly quiet the “Director of S.H.I.E.L.D, speculation, which if you recall we ask you about a month ago. Anything you want to say on that front this week?

JQ: Not really, I kind of spoke about it at length last week. I don’t know what more I can say about it that I haven’t already. Well, except for the mechanical spider legs.

NRAMA: A February title that we took notice of what the Marvel Handbook 1990’s edition. Now the 90’s wasn’t exactly a highlight decade, either creatively or especially commercially. In fact, the irony of this is during the late 90’s a Marvel Handbook wasn’t seen as economically viable by Marvel. Now we’re getting one in 2007. Should this be taken as the ultimate sign publishing sales are healthy? That there’s an audience out there that will buy a handbook to the decade that almost killed Marvel?

JQ: Yes, that and the fact that David Gabriel is a retro nut [laughs]. The business is healthier, I just don’t know how much more I can say it before people actually start to believe it. I realize that it’s sometimes tough for us as an industry to accept it, I mean we were as done as we could be, but yes, things are much brighter these days [laughs] There’s still a lot of work to be done and we need to be judicious with how we do our business, but all signs are pointing in the right direction.

NRAMA: Joe, we understand that there was a "mini-retreat" this week at Marvel - who was there, and how does this differ from the full-on "editorial retreats" that occur?

JQ: This was just a nuts and bolts style meeting. No creators, just the editorial staff along with marketing and sales folk. The purpose of this meeting was to get as many of our ducks in a row as possible in order to make the big creative summit that much more productive.

We spent most of the day blocking out where stories would appear on the calendar next year. What you find is that certain big storylines and events overlap or butt up too close to one another, so you move something a month here, you make another project shorter by an issue there, it’s really more planning than anything else.

Now, when we have our creative summit we get to spend that much more time just being creative and we have a better road map by which to go by. Yes, things will shift again, but there’s more structure behind it now.

So, there’s really nothing glamorous to report from this meeting other than perhaps a project that we said was debuting one month, will move to another a character launch date or two may be changed and other boring things like that.

NRAMA: Ballparking a little - how far out do you have planned, and at this point of the game, what do future plans look like? Is it a matter of just having major "beats" mapped out, and greater and greater detail is added from there as they get closer?

JQ: As far as projects we know we’re doing, about a year. Projects that we’ve spoke about doing, about a year and a half. This changes radically at the creative summit as writers come in with ideas they’ve had percolating over the last few months that we know nothing about. By the time we’re done with the creative meeting, we’re closer to two years out with respect to probable projects and storylines and perhaps the odd idea or two thrown out.

NRAMA: If we are taking about plotting milestones and major "beats" in the future...just generally speaking, what guide those? What informs the change that the big beats (say, a "Planet Hulk" scale event) represent?

JQ: Usually it’s just a simple idea or sometimes it can even be an offhanded remark that forms the beats of stories like these. In the case of Planet Hulk to World War Hulk, it started with me blurting out that it would be so cool to see the Hulk as a gladiator on an alien planet, doing what Hulk does best. That mushroomed first into a story about how he gets there, who sends him off planet and by incredible synchronicity, sparked ideas for the Illuminati and then ideas that fed into Civil War.

Keep in mind, that there was no Civil War when the initial idea for Planet Hulk was presented. And now we move onto World War Hulk which is really the second act of this massive Hulk saga we’re working on. So, really there’s no way of knowing or defining how the major beats happen, it really is an organic process that by the time you get to the end result, you’ve forgotten what’s gotten you there in the first place.

And by the way, that’s what makes the whole creative process so much fun. I can look at a book like Civil War or a Frontline and see different ideas and story elements that came from different people, but it’s the whole of the product that really matters in the end and the way that Mark, Steve, Paul, and his gaggle of artists are telling their stories.

NRAMA: Speaking of future plans and Mark Millar, we recently spoke with him and he mentioned that he’s working on a 36-part storyline that won’t take three years to come out for ’08. Obviously - way too early to talk about plots, characters, etc...but given the volume and timespan mentioned...is this going to be a weekly book?

JQ: Absolutely not.

NRAMA: Earlier, you’d expressed some doubts about a...well... let’s call it a higher-volume book in regards to schedule, and whether or not it was the right thing for Marvel. Has that view moderated somewhat? Changed? Is Wacker putting something in your coffee?

JQ: Let me say this, a few years ago, we had this wild hair of an idea that was presented at one of our creative summits that had my editors shooting me daggers out of their eyeballs. You would have thought someone had set their long boxes on fire. To me it seemed like an obvious thing that we could be doing that would make a lot of fans and retailers very happy. Now, to be fair, I completely understood why people were freaking and why we didn’t do it at the time. However, recently, one of my editors came through my office door and simply said that I was going to think that they were crazy, but that they wanted to revisit that wild hair idea and make a go of it.

So, be warned, we’re working on something but it’s not as ambitious as a weekly comic.

NRAMA: Wizard just named you “Man of the Year”. What does that mean to you, both personally, and professionally? Is this a "you love me, you really love me!" moment?

JQ: It’s an honor and I truly appreciate it, but it has nothing to do with people loving me or not. If I wanted people to love me I wouldn’t have taken the job as E-i-C [laughs]. All I’ve ever asked of myself as E-i-C was to try to remain effective at my job each day that I’m here. I don’t want to be the guy who did something cool and radical for a couple of years and then ran out of ideas or direction the rest of his tenure. To me it’s all about the stories and the fans. If we’re making great comics, that’s all that matters. I could care less about popularity or legacy. Still, it’s very flattering but truthfully undeserved.

NRAMA: Comparing the external adulation to the internal - ego aside...if possible when talking about an award...do you agree with their assessment and reasoning?

JQ: Nah, I can’t agree with assessment, to be honest, as flattering as it is, it’s also a bit embarrassing. The truth of the matter is that I get way too much credit for all the great things that happen here at Marvel and to be singled out, when I have so many incredible editors, writers and artists working on these books, it just makes me kind of cringe because it’s a collaboration.

I mean, for example, no one has worked harder on Civil War than Tom Brevoort, and while a “Man of the Year” award that is obviously linked to our success with Civil War is incredibly flattering, it’s tough to accept it fully when I know the work that Tom and his crew have done to get us to this point.

NRAMA: One last one - we heard you went to school this week? Care to share what you learned with the class?

JQ: [Laughs]! I’ve been dabbling more and more with 3D art on my computer these days and looking for ways to apply it to my artwork and to Marvel in general. This week I just took a day to attend a lecture on a program I’ve been working with and pretty fond of. It’s going to be the next big wave for comic artists and it’s a tool than more people than you even know are currently using. There’ll be more to talk about in the future with respect to this, Marvel and the industry in general, so stay tuned.

NRAMA: All right then, reader questions time...

RQ: “dazzler80mi” - Big props to the Ms. Marvel, She-Hulk, Heroes for Hire, and now White Tiger series/mini’s. It’s soo great to see strong female leads in Marvel books, and I was just wondering, is there any other female lead character mini’s series coming from Marvel anytime soon?

JQ: Well, dazzler80mi, lets see. Omega Flight will feature two strong female characters, Black Panther is now really a Black Panther & Storm title, a bit down the road we’ll have Spider-Woman by Bendis, Blink and Nico are leaders of their respective teams in Exiles and Runaways, Ms. Marvel plays a prominent role in Mighty Avengers and there will be a very powerful new female character coming out of Annihilation.

Also look out for the heroes formerly known as Turbo and Lightspeed (and a few more surprises) in Loners. There are more on the horizon, but I just can’t tell you yet.

Oh, yeah, and then there’s Jubilee.

On the Dabel Brothers front we also have Anita Blake and Ptolus: City by the Spire, which features a kick ass, sword wielding Shiva! By the way, issue #2 is out next week, so check it out.

RQ: “MoriartyL” - It was my understanding that J. Michael Straczynski’s Dr. Strange mini-series was the new canonical back-story of the character. It made several changes from the original, such as Strange doing plastic surgery rather than neurosurgery and losing his hands in a skiing accident rather than in a car. In the recently released Doctor Strange: The Oath #2, however, references are made to his former job as a neurosurgeon and his car accident. For the record: Is Strange: Beginnings and Endings canonical, or is it now being retconned out a la Spider-Man: Chapter One?

JQ: As far as I recall, JMS’ Doc Strange series was a screenplay he had written for a Doc Strange movie that never materialized. We liked the screenplay so much, and JMS had already done the bulk of the work that we asked him to adapt into comic’s form which he did along with Sam Barnes.

RQ: “Spidey616” - just wondering if you’ve seen the latest Spidey 3 trailer yet, and if so what’s your reaction to it? Do you think the films are overstepping their boundaries by making Sandman the actual killer of Uncle Ben? Speaking of Sandy will we be seeing him soon in any Marvel book? What about this Venom/Sandman mini-series you mentioned a while ago, is that being done or not?

JQ: Spidey616, I loved the Spidey trailer, it was mind blowing. First let me say that we’re not retconning Spidey’s origin in the comics and as for Sandman being the killer in the movie, who knows, all I’ve seen is the trailer. But at the end of the day, if indeed he is, that doesn’t bother me that much. We’re talking about one of Spidey’s rogues and not anything that effects the origin of Spider-Man at its core I a way that it changes Spider-Man. If it were to be true, the only thing it does is make Sandman that much more of a villain in Spidey’s eyes.

I’ve always said one thing with respect to the Spider-Man movies, “In Sam I trust.” Sam Raimi can do no wrong in my eyes.

RQ: “danfinnegan” - It’s been a little while since we’ve heard anything about the new Thor book. While we know JMS will be writing it and I believe you’ve mentioned who the new artist is, can you give us a general idea when the book will be coming out and perhaps a general idea of what direction we can expect to see the character be taken in and what his role will be in the Marvel Universe that makes him important to the MU?

JQ: Hey, danfinnegan, how the heck are ya!? Thor is coming and he’ll most likely come back in summer of 2007. What role he’ll play I’ll and who he is I’ll let you story tell you. Wish I could be of more help but I got to sell some comics here [laughs].

RQ: “Andrew” - Assuming that the new Thor series begins again at issue #1, that would make issue #13 correspond with issue #600 going by original numbering. Will Marvel considering bringing Thor back to original numbering with issue #600, especially considering a character like Thor could always use a sales boost and something big like a #600 is all too convenient an opportunity to do so?

JQ: La la la la la, I can’t hear you, la la la la la. [laughs]

RQ: “Starman76” - Joe, building on the discussion regarding the number of ads in Marvel’s comics, do the ads factor into comics’ price points? In other words, issues with heavier ad counts around November and December bring in more revenue. Could the savings be passed onto the consumer? Thanks.

JQ: Great question, Starman. Let me be straight up with you, while it’s very evident that our ad count has gone up, it primarily happens in the months of November and December (that seems to be the trend), and should drop back down to shortly afterwards. Changing price points for two months just isn’t a practical solution for retailers or Marvel. However, what we do try to do is balance it out across the year and provide extra value on many books at no extra charge. For example.

We’ve published a number of no ad titles recently, Punisher Black and White, FF: The End Rough Cut, all the “Director’s Cuts”, “Must Haves” (or Must Haves style books), the Handbook A to Z and Marvel Spotlight to name a few.

We’ve also inserted bonus material into books at no extra charge like Franklin Richards stories, Masked Marvel, Four Horseman of the Apocalypse, X-Men Deadly Genesis back ups and the Guiding Light eight-page story.

We’ve also increased page counts without raising prices in a few new launch books like Punisher War Journal #1, White Tiger #1, and Moon Knight #1, Ultimate Spider-Man, several Civil War titles have extra content pages and Front Line had no ads for the first seven issues.

I could go on, but you get the point. And also please remember, the extra ads have in no way infringed upon the number of story pages.

There’s always a compromise that has to be struck when you’re dealing with decisions like these and all you can hope for is that you strike the right balance. Yes, there’s no denying that we have more ads these next two months, we’ll try to make it up to you as the new-year rolls along.

RQ: “MantaFan” - Will Marvel have any presence at next year’s WonderCon in San Francisco?

I’ve attended WonderCon for the past several years and notice Marvel doesn’t host any panels highlighting their upcoming output like DC does. It would be nice to see something like that, especially since Marvel is coming out with a lot of new titles next year.

JQ: MantaFan, we’re still working out or convention plans for next year so I honestly don’t have a concrete answer for you as of this moment.

RQ: “aries_insaneus” - When is Ultimate Iron Man 2 coming out, and is Orson Scott Card going to be writing it?

JQ: The reason it’s taking this long, aries_insaneus, is because we’re waiting for Orson to finish it. Orson has a bunch of scripts in and we’re just waiting on the conclusion.

RQ: And X-Men #186 ended with a voice telling Apocalypse "It is time..." are we going to find out what that means any time soon

JQ: Oh yeah, don’t you worry, we haven’t forgotten, you may just have to wait a bit to find out what the voice is talking about.

RQ: “HotRob” - In a post under the Newsarama thread where Jimmy Palmiotti talked about the third issue of the latest Painkiller Jane series, he mentioned an announcement about Ash sometime in the near future.

Do you have any tidbits to share?

JQ: HotRob, Jimmy and I have been hammering out the next Painkiller Jane story arc, which translates to Jimmy doing all the hard work. So, at the moment, Ash is still a bit off our radar, but there may be something to report in 2007.

RQ: “Greg Basore” - I just got caught up on some Marvel comics and some Joe Friday Q&A’s in the last week so I apologize if this is a question you’ve already taken. In Civil War #4 and in Fantastic Four #540 readers are given two distinctively different scenes of Sue leaving Reed. Millar has her leaving him an apologetic letter while Straczynski has her directly confronting her husband. What’s the dealy-o with this? Was there a lack of communication with the writers? Did Sue write the letter, leave and then change her mind and come back to do a face to face good bye? It’s hard to believe that this could be a mistake, yet the idea that Sue would waffle over how to leave her husband and try both ways also seems unlikely. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

JQ: Hey, Greg Basore, as I’ve said in the past, fret not, we can always go back and make huge changes to the hard collected edition [laughs].

In all seriousness, let’s go to Tom Brevoort for the answer.

Tom Brevoort: I’m too busy to type this up again, so here’s the link to my blog entry where I explain it all in detail.

RQ: “davew” - What plans does Marvel have to use Michael Gaydos in future projects? I loved Alias and Powerless and his various other work that I’ve seen at Marvel, and I’m keen to see what he does next. If it features Jessica Jones and Luke Cage, you’ve got a reader for life.

JQ: Michael is just finishing up penciling Snakewoman at Virgin and we’re in discussions with him now about making his return to Mighty Marvel.

RQ: “ChrisG” - Just wanted to know if there’s any update on Young Avengers. Have they even started and how are things coming along because there was no February solits. Any news on that?

JQ: Jim Cheung is busy drawing the New Avengers Illuminati limited series (here are some pages), and Allan Heinberg is enmeshed in all things Grey’s Anatomy, so at this point there is no set timeframe for Young Avengers to return.