This week on Multiversity Comics Presents, we have an interview that was so big we have to split it into two parts. Literally. This is an extremely long interview. It’s with rising star Jason Aaron, writer of the critically acclaimed Vertigo title Scalped, Marvel’s Wolverine: Weapon X and PunisherMAX, and the upcoming Astonishing line launch book Astonishing Spider-Man/Wolverine.
We’re all huge fans of Jason over here at Multiversity and we are proud to present this interview. See after the jump for the interview, with this part sticking to how he got into comics and his work on Wolverine: Weapon X and Astonishing Spider-Man/Wolverine. Come back tomorrow as we’ll be talking about Scalped, PunisherMAX, and a challenge from our Editor-in-Chief to Jason.
Why comics? How exactly did you get into the industry?
Jason Aaron: It wasn’t really a direct path. It was a roundabout path. I’ve been a comics fan since I was a kid. The first comics I had were ones my mom got me before I could read. I’ve been a regular Wednesday comic buyer for about as long as I could remember now. I’ve had a pull list at god knows how many different comic stores over the years. One would go out of business and then I would go to the next one, and then I’d continue on.
In terms of how I got into writing comics, I always knew I wanted to write. I just didn’t know what direction that would take me or what was the practical way to make a living. I think I’d thought about writing comics as something I’d love to do as a kid but I just had no idea how to go about it. I grew up in Alabama, kind of in the boondocks, no one in my neck of the woods was working in comics. I think Mark Waid is from Alabama, but that’s about the only other comic book creator I know from that state.
I just kind of dicked around for years. I got an English degree, was doing some movie reviews, had a few short stories published here and there, and then I got lucky. I won a Marvel talent search contest that didn’t lead to anything, but it encouraged me and got my foot in the door a little bit. I started pitching different things to Marvel, and the first big thing I got was actually at Vertigo.
I kind of got lucky in that I found the right editor at Vertigo with a project I wanted to do. I hit it off with him, and the first book I did was The Other Side my Vietnam War book.
With Cameron Stewart?
JA: Yeah. I pitched that initially to Marvel as a relaunch of The ‘Nam. Marvel had their very short lived revival of Epic Comics so I pitched it for that. I pitched it all around, I pitched it to everybody. Vertigo was really the one place I would have wanted it at from the beginning, but to me the one that seemed the least likely. Luckily it was just the matter of making that connection and finding the right editor. Will Dennis kind of plucked me out of the garbage pile (laughter) and that book led to Scalped and Scalped and The Other Side together brought me back to Marvel.
I was actually curious about that. Besides Scalped you’re exclusive to Marvel. How did you eventually hook back up with Marvel?
JA: I’m fortunate because if I looked at the comic industry, out of all of the editors in comics, what two editors would I most want to work with? Those are the two guys I work with — Will Dennis at Vertigo and Axel Alonso at Marvel. Axel was a Vertigo guy for years. He was the guy that started 100 Bullets, was the editor of Preacher and a lot of great stuff.
Continued belowI actually didn’t know that.
JA: Yeah, Will Dennis took over 100 Bullets after Axel left, so Will very much took over Axel’s job. They’re very similar, they both have very similar interests. It’s no coincidence that those are the two guys I hook up with really because those are the two guys I’m most similar to in my sensibilities. Again, I got lucky and was able to get Will’s attention and then took the stuff I was doing for Vertigo and then sent to Axel and got his attention and he was the one who brought me to Marvel.
Axel is one of the reasons we have so many cool young talents. Part of his job is to go out and find those guys, guys like Matt Fraction, Duane Swierczynski, Rick Remender, and me and lots of guys. He’s the guy that goes out and finds those dudes who aren’t banging on his door to write Spider-Man or whatever. They’re the guys who are out there telling their own original stories, guys he sees potential in and realize what he can get out of them. I’m very happy to be working with Axel and Will.
That’s one of the really cool things the last few years with Marvel is that guys like you, Fraction, Jonathan Hickman, Remender, and everyone else. You started with Vertigo, Fraction started with Casanova and Five Fists of Science, Hickman was putting Pax Romana and The Nightly News…you all took that work over and almost implemented that style over on your Marvel work, almost creating a new generation of great Marvel writers. How does it feel to be part of that group?
JA: It’s great. I’ve known most of those guys for a while. It’s wild to be part of this new group that is coming up at the same time. It’s been a lot of fun. I marvel at a lot of the stuff those guys do. Fraction…I think his Iron Man is the best book that Marvel publishes these days, I’m loving that book.
Rick I talk to a lot about Punisher. He and I are both writing Punisher books — two very different Punisher books but we talk about them a lot. The stuff he’s doing just gives me goosebumps…I think it’s awesome. I think if I was writing the Marvel U Punisher that’s exactly the kind of stuff I’d kill to do.
You’re one of the busiest writers in the industry right now. Your Ghost Rider just wrapped up, Astonishing Spider-Man/Wolverine is just starting, you’re writing Scalped, Wolverine: Weapon X, and PunisherMAX, plus I hear about short stories like a Forbush Man story coming up. How do you balance all of that work and make sure you stay timely and still tell quality stories?
JA: I don’t know (laughter). I’m not nearly as prolific as some of these guys. I’m not even the same league as Bendis. I like the variety, I like being able to mix it up and do different things. I wouldn’t want to write just Scalped every week. I think I’d go crazy.
It might be a little depressing.
JA: Right, right. But at the same time I wouldn’t want to just write Wolverine or Ghost Rider, I like to be able to go back and forth. I would like to be farther ahead like Bendis. I know Bendis is supposedly always months ahead…I aspire to get to that point. I don’t know though, I’ve been able to balance it so far. I’ve been able to say no to some things just to realize I didn’t want to take on too much, or things start to suffer. It’s hard to say no to things especially because I’m new and my first time at exclusive.
When things are getting offered you kind of want to grab everything you can because you’re like “this might be my only chance to write this character or that character.” You want to say yes to everything but you have to think a little farther ahead because you don’t want to overburden yourself. Then your other work starts to suffer and you shoot yourself in the foot.
I’ve tried to be careful about the things I’ve said yes to so far. Ghost Rider I was really excited to get that, it was my first ongoing series. It’s not a book that’s going to launch you to superstardom or put you at the top of the sales chart but I was really proud of what I was able to do on that book and hopefully it will hold up for Ghost Rider fans. I also was happy because I think we brought some new fans to the character.
I can tell you one of our writers said your Ghost Rider work was some of the best he’d ever read. So apparently you’re pleasing your core audience. So good job!
JA: That book was what I try to do with most of my Marvel stuff. Hopefully it’s accessible to new readers but I still try to bring in new things here and there from the past to delight the long term fans. The ones who have been reading all along. It’s a hard balance to strike, but I want all of my stuff to be accessible. I want somebody who is just a big Vertigo fan and loves Scalped to pick up Wolverine, Ghost Rider, or Punisher, or whatever I’m doing at Marvel, even if they’ve never read those characters before and be able to enjoy it.
Whenever I read your comics I always find that there is uniformity to them, and that is that they are very badass and intense. They almost have a Western influence and sensibility to them. What would you say are your influences to drive this type of story to be your claim to fame?
JA: I wouldn’t necessarily to say that is my style, I think you can’t help but get that impression just because those are the characters I’ve worked on. Before I did a Black Panther war story, I did Ghost Rider, Wolverine, Punisher…those are stories that are always going to be…
Intense.
JA: Kind of gritty and macho and violent. I was really proud of the newest issue of Wolverine that just came out. Weapon X #10. It was a very atypical Wolverine story in that it was a relationship story, sort of about Wolverine accepting the fact he has a girlfriend (laughter) and all of these different women throughout his life that he had different sorts of relationships with. Nothing really macho in it. I did sneak in a few ninjas getting sliced up (laughter). A little bit of action, but not an action story.
With Scalped I have a big cast of characters and have done a lot of different stories focusing on a lot of different characters. A lot of different type of stories, most of them tend to be dark and kind of gritty, but going forward I think we’ll continue to mix that up. I don’t ever want to be looked at as the guy who can only do gritty, street level, violent, macho characters. I don’t think of myself in that way at all.
I’m really happy to be doing more Spider-Man stuff. I think I’m not a guy that a lot of people might think of as a natural Spider-Man writer, but I really like writing him.
Going back to Weapon X #10, that was one of my favorite issues in recent memory. I’ve loved all of your run, but it was really interesting to go through his history and see him as more of a three-dimensional story, with other interests than killing people. Is it in your plan to go into more stories where he’s more of a person than less of a killing machine?
JA: Yeah, we will see more stories like that. Going forward I’ll continue to mix it up. I love being able to do…the story that starts with issue 11 is a slam bang, sci fi action story. To be able to do this low key, romance, character driven issue and then switch it up and do this strange action story and then the issue right after that is a standalone one that is very much in that character driven vein. I’d love to be able to mix it up like that. We’ll continue to see that.
Continued belowWolverine’s girlfriend isn’t going anywhere right away. I didn’t introduce her…I intentionally wanted to introduce a girlfriend that isn’t going to get killed off…
Thank you (laughter).
JA: She’s not a vehicle just to make him pissed off or remorseful or to go off on a trail of vengeance. I wanted him to have a real, human relationship for once. That’s not to say that they’re going to ride off into the sunset and have lots of Wolverine babies. (laughter) We’ll see how it goes…like any relationship it’s bound to have its ups and downs. But I tell you, I didn’t introduce her to have Sabertooth pop up and kill her on Wolverine’s birthday.
I can say thank you from all of us here at Multiversity. It’d be nice to see a comic relationship that doesn’t involve the non-lead being brutally murdered. That is much appreciated.
JA: Thanks. Hopefully people still feel that way going forward. We’ll see, I wasn’t sure how people would take that issue. It’s kind of a weird Wolverine issue…he hardly kills anybody (laughter). He talks about losing his virginity and his sex life…I was really happy that people seemed to enjoy it.
I thought one of the coolest things in that issue was that it went through all of the women in his life that he’s trusted, because when you get down to it all of the people he’s trusted most in his life have been women. Jubilee, Storm…it was really cool to see that side of Wolverine. It was much appreciated.
JA: I think there’s interesting stuff there with Wolverine that I like to play with. Obviously you can look at his family life, if you’ve read Origin, he’s got a screwed up family life that would lead him to gravitate towards the mother figures over the years. I love being able to sort of explore these female relationships. Down the road a little bit, we’ll probably see the flip side and focus on those male relationships he has. It’d be like a bromance issue (laughter). The dude’s Wolverine hangs out with.
I’d love to see what Adam Kubert does with that cover. (laughter)
JA: It could be a good poker game scene.
Yeah that’d work. That’d be a hell of a cover. I’d pick it up it off the shelf if I wasn’t picking it up already.
JA: I’d write 22 pages of a big poker game if I could get away with it.
I think Dan Slott did that with an issue of The Thing or She-Hulk and Wolverine was in it. It was a great issue (it was The Thing #8).
JA: Dammit! Dan Slott!
He totally stole that idea from you. Except five years ago. You could still do it! (laughter)
JA: I’ll have to kill Dan Slott first. (laughter)
Exactly. Just tell him not to say anything on Twitter about it (laughter).
As far as Weapon X goes, it’s definitely a really fresh take and it does what Astonishing Spider-Man/Wolverine is supposed to in the fact that it exists in continuity and tells stories casual fans can join on. What was your plan from the beginning?
JA: Well yeah, just that. I think I said at the time that I looked at Garth Ennis’ Punisher run to see what I wanted to do. Not in terms of content or explicitness or anything, but I loved the Garth Ennis run. You could pick up pretty much any trade, read it and get a complete story and enjoy it. You didn’t have to know this long story of relationships. I think the problem with Wolverine is that so many of his villains are tied into his history in elaborate ways. In order to bring them in you have to explain his relationship to the character…and how can you explain this relationship in two lines, and so many of them you can’t because it’s complicated.
I wanted to boil things down and introduce some new villains…some new characters. I felt that he needed to boost up his Rogue’s Gallery a bit. That was the plan from the beginning to tell new standalone, new reader friendly stories. Initially part of the idea was that we’d attract the people who would see this blockbuster Wolverine movie that was coming out at the time…
Continued belowAnd then that was…
JA: (laughter) Which turned out to not necessarily be the case. But I think that has always been the mandate of the book — tell all new reader friendly stories and introduce some new life into the supporting cast and the villains, but still tell an over arching story. Obviously I’ve developed a girlfriend over these first 10 issues and that’s going somewhere, so there’s still an overarching story. Within that framework I think you can still mix it up and tell a lot of different kinds of stories. Going forward I think that will continue to be the case.
There’s a big story coming up where you’ll see a little bit more continuity references, but still done in a way, just like on Ghost Rider, hopefully in a way that is accessible to those who have no idea who these people are from past appearances.
I think the casual Wolverine reader could definitely pick up Weapon X and get enjoyment out of them, as opposed to some that are so continuity laden that I don’t even know what is going on.
JA: I don’t mean to talk bad about anyone. A lot of people love that, and I read a lot of books like that. But I don’t feel that’s what I’m good at in writing. Especially with the Wolverine book…I felt like we needed to take Wolverine into the future as opposed to staying in the past.
Well, I especially like what you’ve done with the Rogue’s Gallery. It seems that every one of them have been beaten to death and pretty much everyone of them has killed one of Wolverine’s girlfriends. It’s nice to see a new character like Dr. Rot that is creepy as hell. You have a gift at creating new villains. Why do you think it is that if you excel at that?
JA: Well I think it’s a lot easier to create a villain than it is to create new heroes. It’s a lot easier to create guys that are reprehensible than guys to cheer for. Maybe that’s just me for some sick reason. (laughter)
With Dr. Rot specifically I wanted a character that posed a real threat to Wolverine. It’s hard to create guys who pose a threat to him physically because what can you really do, how can you challenge him physically? With Dr. Rot obviously, you can strike at anyone mentally, somebody who can get into Wolverine’s head and really pull the strings…to me that was exciting.
We’ll see more of Dr. Rot…there’s another story there. There’s another story with the laser claw, Adamantium men from the first arc. Deathlok…the Deathlok character(s) we’re introducing in the next arc, there’s stories beyond that. These are all things I’m hoping to be able to put into play in the long term, not just one shot and done. We’ll continue on down in the next arc and see some more new villains. The biggest new villain I’ve created for Wolverine, plus some more new supporting characters.
As well as I’ll continue to dust off some old supporting characters here and there. I liked bringing back Maverick in that first arc and we’ll see him again.
We loved that. Maverick’s a great character.
JA: Yukio…we’ll see her again. Maybe other people from Wolverine’s past as well as some characters who are brand new.
Before we move onto Astonishing, I had an idea for a standalone issue. I don’t think we see Wolverine drink enough anymore. In this one issue of Astonishing X-Men while they were fighting a huge monster, you see everyone’s tactical thoughts while Wolverine is just thinking about beer. You should take him out on a bender with some of the X-Men.
JA: Look no further than issue eleven.
Oh my god, you read my mind. (laughter)
JA: It’s not a standalone story; it’s the first issue of a new arc. The main part of the story is that Steve Rogers is back, and Logan wants to take him out for a drink.
That is awesome.
JA: When you have one guy with a healing factor and the other guy with the super soldier serum, you have to drink quite a bit.
Continued belowI bet they could win some drinking contests.
JA: We have Nightcrawler piloting the plane flying them around the world, basically on a time zone hopping pub crawl so they can get wasted.
I haven’t even read it yet and I’m pretty sure that’s my favorite comic I’ve ever read. (laughter)
Moving onto Astonishing Spider-Man/Wolverine. First off, congratulations. That’s going to be a huge title. How exactly did it all come together?
JA: I was at the first Marvel summit that I had went to, which was last year…I don’t remember what month. It was when we first started talking about The Heroic Age. It was just kind of thrown out to me. They wanted me to write the first book as part of this new line…well not necessarily a new line, but sort of a new direction they wanted to do to create some stories that could be standalone and stories featuring major characters.
Still set in continuity, it’s not the Ultimate line, it’s not something different. When Adam and I are done we’ll have a nice Spider-Man/Wolverine hardcover that you could give to your girlfriend or your friend or whoever that has little to no understanding of the comics. You can give it to anybody. It’ll hopefully be an enjoyable little story spotlighting these two characters. It was kind of just thrown out to me and I was excited to be offered it but kind of terrified to be one of the first books rolling out as part of this initiative.
Adam and I had just done that short story in Wolverine #74 which…
Was awesome.
JA: Thanks. It was just eleven pages of Spider-Man and Wolverine just talking in a bar. When this was offered to me I thought about it for a long time and I thought about what I wanted to do. I knew instantly I didn’t want to do…what usually happens in the past when you team those characters up. You either get a Spider-Man story that happens to guest star Wolverine or a dark Wolverine story that happens to guest star Spider-Man. I didn’t want to go that route. I wanted something completely different, something special, something that really highlighted the relationship between these two guys.
That was what was most fun for me when writing that little eleven page story, the interaction between those two characters. They’ve fought side by side, they respect each other and trust each other, but at the end of the day they really kind of annoy the shit out of each other. (laughter)
So I knew that instantly that I wanted to put them in a situation that they had to spend way too much time with each other than they’d ever want to, really pushing their relationship to the brink. It’s part buddy cop story, but really, it’s more like the story of a bickering old married couple (laughter). I put these guys through this crazy journey that takes them through different reaches of the Marvel universe. It’s an elaborate way of putting them into various crazy situations and see how they respond to each other.
It’s not a typical Spider-Man story, it’s not a typical Wolverine story. It’s something hopefully different. Probably not what people will be expecting.
The book I really looked to for inspiration was Grant Morrison’s Marvel Boy. Very much the feel I wanted to go for…big ideas, new takes on existing characters, different tweaks on pre-existing ideas from the Marvel universe. I throw in some new characters, we throw in some old school Marvel villains. It’s a real mixed bag. It’s the biggest thing I’ve ever written and probably the craziest thing I’ve ever written. When I wrote the first issue and turned it in I waited to hear what came back (laughter). I wasn’t sure what anyone would think. I wasn’t sure if I gave them what everybody would expect from me writing a Spider-Man/Wolverine story. Thankfully everyone seemed to enjoy it and seemed excited. I’m really anxious to see what everyone thinks of it.
Continued belowAnyone who has talked to me about it so far, I’ve basically said read Wolverine #73 and #74. There’s this one frame you guys did that has Spider-Man hanging in front of Wolverine, being a chatter box as per usual, and has his back turned to like a thousand Hydra agents, and Wolverine is just sitting there saying “I hate you.” If you needed to sell someone, that works.
I was reading this morning about some of the new villain names…like The Czar and Big Murder and Doom the Living Planet. Can you shed some light on these new characters?
JA: The Czar and Big Murder are a combo. In my pitch I described The Czar as a cross between Kang the Conqueror and Barracuda from Garth Ennis’ Punisher run. Big Murder is his sidekick and he’s the world’s most badass, street fighting dwarf. What they’re doing and what their goal is…you’ll have to wait and see how they fit into things.
That sounds amazing.
JA: Doom the Living Planet is exactly what it sounds like — it’s Ego the Living Planet plus Doctor Doom.
I guess that makes sense. That seems quite daunting for Wolverine and Spider-Man.
JA: Those aren’t the biggest challenges they’ll face. Those are the lower level ones. It goes up from there. The main villain from the piece is a villain I’ve wanted to use since I got to Marvel, and it feels great to dust him off a little bit. There will be a few new characters, a few more old characters; there are references to Devil Dinosaur, Galactus, Morbius…a little bit of everything. It’s got big crazy, cosmic level stuff but it’s also got lots of small moments. To me it’s really about the small moments in between this stuff.
We see the small moments between Logan and Spider-Man and how they deal with all this. We revisit some key moments from both of their histories. It’s really a crazy mixed bag. At the end of the day it’s just six issues about these two guys and about what they’re like when you put them together.
Is it only a six issue series or is that just what the initial story is?
JA: It’s a six issue story. Beyond that there’s a chance I might do more…it kind of remains to be seen. I kind of have my hands full as it is. We’ll see what people think of this. This will be a six issue story with a beginning, middle and end. This is not a set up for anything later. There will be events that happen in this that will play out later, but this is still one story that you can pick up and read and get everything you need to get out of it.
You’ve worked with a lot of very talented artists in the past, but Adam Kubert has about as much as prestige as anyone in the industry. How does it feel to work with him?
JA: Oh he’s great. He’s one of those guys who is a superstar for very good reason. He’s incredible. He’s not a guy who comes in with any sort of ego. He’s a superstar, he’s a legend, he’s been doing this for years, and I’m kind of a guy who is fresh off the banana boat. When we work together you wouldn’t know that from the way he acts. He’s very open to things.
He’s been great. I’m not a guy who tries to tell an artist how to draw or how to set up shots, and I think he appreciates that my scripts are more loose and open and he kind of gets to go crazy. In my limited experience that’s when you get the best work. You give the guys a chance to really flex their muscles and feel like they are really getting to bring something to the table as opposed to just jump through hoops.
Adam has been great to work with, and I told him from the very beginning “look, tell me if there is something that’s been nagging at you to draw”, which can’t be much because he’s drawn so many different characters and stories. I told him, “look, whatever it is, wherever you want to go, we can fit it in because this story is crazy enough that we can do whatever we want.” I think fans of Adam will get to see him draw a lot of different things. Each issue is pretty much a radical change in terms of the status quo and where we are and who the villains are and everything. He gets to draw a lot over the course of these six issues.
Stay tuned for more tomorrow when we go over Scalped, PunisherMAX, and more with Jason Aaron.
