In one of today’s features for our Guardians of the Galaxy Month here at Multiversity to benefit to Bill Mantlo (which you can read more about here and here), we continue our chats with various people behind the current iteration of “Guardians of the Galaxy.” And, as part of a continued look back at the run that inspired the upcoming film, today we’ll be chatting with the editor of Abnett and Lanning’s run, Bill Rosemann.
Honestly, if you’ve ever wanted a VIP All Access pass towards the genesis of their impressive, lengthy and highly influential Cosmic Marvel run, this is the interview for you. Rosemann goes into such detail about the project that it’s basically the Oral History of “Guardians of the Galaxy,” but considering how big the run has turned out to be and how important it is to the upcoming film, this is a can’t miss chat for anyone fascinated by the modern day Guardians.
Read on as we talk about all things “Guardians,” its origins and more with Bill Rosemann.
One thing I want to start right off the bat with is, I don’t think the average comic reader has an appreciation of what the editors role is behind the scenes. Can you talk about what your role is, both on “Guardians of the Galaxy” previously and everything that came after?
Bill Rosemann: By nature, editors don’t seek the spotlight; our job is to stay behind the curtain and do whatever we can to help the creators tell their best story. We never want to distract from the reading experience. Instead, readers should feel that the comic was exactly how it always was, and it just all came together perfectly.
However, I know comic fans like to know the inside story on things, and this was a case where, you know… comics don’t just happen, especially if it’s a new launch. Most are initiated by the publisher. We decide to do something and then we cast the talent that we think will be great at it. That said, sometimes you have a great relationship with the talent and they say “I want to do Deathlok!” and we file that in the back of our minds. Then we wait for the right time and the best platform, and then try and put that book together.
In this case, this version of Guardians of the Galaxy was a book I built. It all began about eight years ago when Joe Quesada asked me to come back to Marvel. I had an eight-year run on staff at Marvel, then I worked for CrossGen and DC, and then Joe asked me if I wanted to come back and edit full time. We went out to lunch, and he said “I want you to take on the Cosmic books.” I was very happy to hear that because while I was at DC, I was very much enjoying the “Annihilation” event, and what I liked about it was I could relate to it.
When I was growing up in the ‘70s and ‘80s, I was more a fan of the Earth-based heroes. To me—and your mileage may vary—Marvel Cosmic was very fantasy influenced–it was almost “Lord of the Rings” in space. Lots of men with beards and staffs. While I now totally appreciate what they created, but it just wasn’t my cup of tea at that time. But when I picked up “Annihilation” I got it. “Oh, it’s a war book!”
When I saw the first “Annihilation” promo pic, and I saw Nova front and center, I thought “Cool! Nova’s back and he looks badass!” “Annihilation” did an amazing job of modernizing and making accessible many of Marvel’s best cosmic characters. If you hadn’t seen these heroes in five or ten years, you now understood who they were and what they wanted. So when Joe asked me to take on the cosmic books, I was more than happy. I tried to approach it all with fresh eyes as a person who hadn’t been neck deep in the continuity, but still tried to respect it.
I was first tasked with launching “Nova” with Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning, and Sean Chen, which was a lot of fun. We grabbed a healthy amount of readers and kept sales at a stable level for year. Then I was asked to put together an event, which was Conquest, and as DnA and I were doing that, we had a goal of “What could we spin out of this?” There seemed to be a demand for more Cosmic, especially as we kept it very tightly intertwined.
Continued belowWe had our solo cosmic book in Nova, who was functioning as the Lone Ranger. He was the last of his kind being asked to police the entire universe. It was a dramatic and effective twist for him because he could no longer count on the Corps to swoop in and save his butt if he got in a jam.
So having the solo book, I thought, “Can we launch and maintain support a team book? And if so, like Nova, can we make them underdogs?” I was interested not in the heavy hitters, but instead in a Bad News Bears team of outgunned, outnumbered, and outpowered outcasts.
While writing “Conquest” Dan and Andy picked up Peter Quill, who was a character that Keith Giffen had brought back and used in “Annihilation.” We were interested in putting him back in his Star-Lord identity because it was such a cool name and he had such a great looking costume. Let’s put him back in his costume, and let’s create a team around him. So we talked to Keith about doing a tie-in mini called “Conquest: Star-Lord,” which we wanted to be a Dirty Dozen style book built around Peter, and he’s going to be responsible for this crazy team.
One night I sat there on the floor and opened up my Marvel Universe handbook and started flipping through them and marking pages with post it notes, when my wife said “What are you doing?” I told her I wanted to build a cosmic team, and I said “Check this out!” and she said “is that a raccoon?” and I said, “YES! It’s Rocket Raccoon!” [Laughs] I was a huge fan of the Rocket Raccoon mini that was in the ‘80s that was written by Bill Mantlo and drawn by Mike Mignola. It was a crazy, awesome book, so I thought let’s bring back Rocket, but don’t make him a joke. Let’s make him funny, but approach him seriously. The humor will come from the fact he thinks he’s a badass. He doesn’t think he’s crazy looking, and the rest of the world is like, “that’s a raccoon with a bazooka!” I thought there was great potential there for a breakout character.
So I went to Keith and said “here’s my list of characters. I went through the Handbook and there’s Bug and there’s Mantis and Deathcry from the Avengers in the ‘90s. I know you’re going to think I’m nuts but do you remember a character named Rocket Raccoon?” Keith says to me “you know I co-created him, right?” I said, “of course I knew that!” [Laughs] Keith was onboard from the get go.
Dan and Andy and Keith deserve all the credit in the world for the success of Guardians, and another unsung hero in this was Tom Brevoort. Andy Schmidt—who of course also deserves applause for getting the Cosmic ball rolling again at Marvel—had championed and built “Annihilation”, which was all created under Tom’s guidance. Tom was now overseeing me on “Conquest” and I was bouncing everything off him and taking his advice, and he contributed immensely to the Marvel Cosmic books during the run from “Annihilation” to the “Thanos Imperative”.
I went to Tom and said I wanted to put together this team book and here’s all my characters, and Tom said, “you know, it’s interesting you have characters from every decade. You have someone from the ‘70s and ‘80s and ‘90s. Why don’t you add someone from the ‘60s?” I said, “well, aside from the original Captain Marvel, do we have anyone?” Tom said, “what about some of the giant space monsters?” I said, “Oh, right!”
We had this monster handbook that included all of the creatures that had invaded Earth in the ‘50s and ‘60s, and I was looking through and I see this entry for Groot, and I loved how he talked about himself in the third person. He thought he was the most unbeatable, greatest character of all time. And yet in his first appearance he was defeated by termites that a scientist had set upon him. [Laughs]
So I said, “I want to put Groot on this team because every team needs a big guy, and why not a huge walking tree? And even better, let’s make him a member who wants to kill everyone else!” Groot’s motivation was, “Well, I’ll go along with you on this adventure, because it will get me out of jail, but after this, I, the monarch of Planet X, will destroy you!” I thought there’d be great humor and tension from that, and a fantastic visual.
Continued belowIt was Keith Giffen who teamed up Rocket and Groot. I got the first script, and he said “there’s a scene in there I think you’ll like where Rocket and Groot become buddies.” And I said, “why would they do that?” He said, “one’s a raccoon and one’s a tree, so of course they’re going to go together.” [Laughs]
Keith is the first one that wrote the scene where you see Rocket and he’s there firing a giant gun and you pull out more and he’s standing in the palm of Groot. It just worked. That was drawn by Timothy Green, and Tim did an amazing job of designing the characters.
Another person who deserves credit is artist Marko Djurdjevic. I hired Marko to redesign about four characters who were going to be key in “Conquest”. I loved how they redesigned some of the characters in “Annihilation” to make them more visually relevant. So I picked about four characters and asked Marko to design them. One was Star-Lord, one was Phylla-Vell who had taken the character named Quasar, and he designed another character named Wraith, but it was his design for Star-Lord that we applied to the rest of the Guardians. To me, the mask that Star-Lord wears in the movie looks like it’s based on Marko’s design.
Marko told me his inspiration, when he heard the name Star Lord he felt it was very British and connected to the military, and so his design for Star-Lord was based on World War I British officer uniforms. That mask was a version of a gas mask.
That’s really interesting.
BR: I thought it’d be really interesting for Star-Lord to have this team of knuckleheads all dressed as him. I thought having Groot, Bug and Rocket Raccoon and everyone else dressed as him would add to his frustration, and I thought it’d be a hilarious visual. Then Tim Green took that ball and ran with it.
That was the breakout of the “Conquest” event, the “Star-Lord” mini, and I said that was the team I wanted to launch. I went to my bosses. I went to Tom and Joe Quesada and Dan Buckley and said, “Can I use the name Guardians of the Galaxy? It’s a great name, you know exactly what they are…” They agreed, “that’s a great name! Let’s use it!” So I said, “Yeah, they’re the first team to use it in the present, and maybe it will inspire the team in the future.” Eventually Dan and Andy did an awesome story that brought the two teams together, and made that link – that connection – and planted that seed that the future Guardians got their name from the current Guardians of the Galaxy.
DnA and Paul Pelletier launched “Guardians” and that ran for 25 issues, “Nova” ran for 36 issues, and we did all of the events – “War of Kings”, “Realm of Kings”, “Thanos Imperative” – and then we were asked to close up shop, so we said, let’s go out on a high note with the end of “Thanos Imperative.” “Annihilation” began by spotlighting Nova and Star-Lord, so let’s focus on them let them go out in their Butch and Sundance moment as heroes. And that was it. It lasted over three years and I loved every second of it.
One cool part of the ride was when I was told that the guys on the West Coast liked the Cosmic books, and I thought “that’s cool.” “No. They REALLY, REALLY like them.” I said, “Oh, okay!” They couldn’t share more, but I suspected there were plans afoot. Then when I heard they were doing a “Guardians” movie, I figured assuredly they’d start with the 70’s “Guardians,” but then when I saw a picture, I saw it was Groot and Rocket. “They’re doing our Guardians!” We were all just knocked out. Myself, Dan and Andy, all of the artists, Paul Pelletier. We were just thrilled.
We knew that even though our readership at the time was only 30 to 35,000, we knew there was potential there. We knew these characters were awesome. We just thought more people needed to see them, and now the movie is going to provide that platform. Now Rocket is going to go from this joke from where people used to say to me “what, Rocket Raccoon?” to “of course Rocket Raccoon!”
Continued belowIt’s interesting to me that when you started, you mentioned you weren’t a big fan of Cosmic stuff. That it was too removed for you. But hearing how you talk about it and how it was a war story and all these things that drew you in, what sort of steps did you find you needed to take in order to say, “here’s what I didn’t like about Cosmic before, but since this is a big sci-fi epic now, here’s what we need to do now”?
BR: I don’t want to imply it was in any way bad content. Far from it. “The Kree/Skrull War,” the Silver Surfer stuff by John Buscema and Stan Lee, the Warlock stuff — it’s beautiful, brilliant, wonderful stuff. And the ‘90s “Guardians”…What a successful book that was. It just didn’t appeal to me…so that’s on me. When you edit something, you want to connect with a core aspect of it. You want it to appeal to you. You want to create something you’ll spend money on. And also, we were bringing back a lot of characters people hadn’t seen in 10 years. So the question was, how do you make it accessible, and how do you make people care about these characters today?
Part of it was trying to find the characters we liked. So we did a lot of work with the Inhumans and Black Bolt, and a lot of work with the Imperial Guard and Gladiator, then kind of hand picking the Guardians and bringing back the ‘70s characters we really liked like Vance Astro and Starhawk. It was a matter of cherry picking all these amazing characters.
Number one was examining the characters, dusting them off and getting to their core. Always asking, “who are they, what is their personality, and what do they want?” So if I’ve never read a book before starring any of them, we can bring it out in the story, so I can hand an issue of our “Guardians” to someone who hadn’t read it before so they can get it and like it and relate to these characters.
You speak about the original Guardians with such a reverence, but I think the current iteration of Guardians with Rocket and Peter Quill and Groot is being taken now as the “classic” Guardians. It’s what everyone is familiar with. How do you find this sort of reversal where we had this team from the future named Guardians, and now the team from more recently is the classic Guardians?
BR: Part of it is they are built with classic pieces. Gamora and Drax and Star-Lord from the ‘70’s. Rocket from the ‘80s. Groot from the ‘60s. They’re all established characters, they’re just combined in a new way; approached in a new way.
Part of it is visual. Part of it’s assembling this group in a way they hadn’t been before, and seeing how their personalities bounce off each other. I guess they’re quickly becoming the classic Guardians even though they weren’t the first group of Guardians. But I’d argue they are classic characters, they’re just being approached in a fresh way.
Looking at the “Guardians” run, I think what stands out to me about “Guardians” – maybe a bit more so than “Nova” – is I think “Guardians” played a long con on the readers. Very early on we had the space church and we had the cocoon and we didn’t know who was in the cocoon, all of these things that built up over time and through events. When building that road map and helping that book follow along its path, was it a difficult thing to keep track of the moving pieces that came up? Since there were so many different pieces that came up, like minis tied to events and all these Cosmic spinning plates.
BR: Right. That’s part of the job in editorial. You’re asked to keep 8 to 10 plates spinning at all times. It wasn’t hard. We are lucky and blessed to have this job. I’ve had hard jobs of moving furniture and waiting tables. That’s hard work. This works different muscles and takes concentration and planning, but at the end of the day, it’s fun…because we’re creating fun.
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One thing that really helped is I stuck with Dan and Andy. I really enjoyed working on “Nova” and I said, “I want them to write Guardians.” Some people said I was putting too many eggs in one basket, but I said I like this basket. This is a great basket. They have the imagination. They made me relate to Rich Rider. They have a way of grounding these characters. They come from the British, “2000 AD” side where the sci-fi is much more grounded and realistic. I like their approach and I want to trust them with building this universe. I want them to write both of these books so they can be intertwined closely, and readers will appreciate that.
It took a lot of planning, and each month we were fighting for readers and, you know, trying to hook them with covers. When you look at the “Nova” covers, each one was a stunt. Here’s a female Nova! Here he is fighting Gamora! Same thing with “Guardians.” I think number two or three was Groot and Rocket holding Captain America’s shield, and that turned out to be Vance Astro. We were constantly fighting for attention, trying to shock people. And all those things you mentioned – the church, Vance Astro – again, that’s all been used in previously existing pieces. Dan and Andy were so smart about looking back and finding pieces and presenting them in new ways.
Yes, it was a lot of planning. A lot of keeping spinning plates and creating events. Our goal was to have a Cosmic book coming out each week of the month. Who can we elevate? Can we elevate Darkhawk? Can we elevate Gladiator? And it’s very cool to see a lot of the things we elevated are still in play. Gladiator still leads the Shi’ar. The Inhumans are back and Black Bolt has a huge role. We removed Black Bolt as the King of the Inhumans and installed Medusa as the Queen of the Inhumans.
A lot of the things that Dan and Andy and all of the artists did had a great impact on these books. A lot of the things that we elevated and brought together, even Thanos, they’re all in play today. It’s very cool to see.
It’s interesting because, you know, I remember reading this run of Cosmic Marvel and, like you said, it was so contained to these two writers that everything always felt interconnected. Currently, you’re on “Avengers Undercover” and it’s using pieces alongside other “Avengers” books by different writers and artists, but Cosmic Marvel was always on its own. How do you find the difference working on those books versus the ones you’re editing now?
BR: Well, there’s a tremendous amount of communication between all of the editors. The Cosmic books were easier in a way because it all came from my office and from Dan and Andy or when we bring in new writers as well. It was more self-contained. It was more work, but we had direct and clear line of sight on all of the books, so we intertwined them very tightly.
The challenge of editing any book that is part of a larger family that comes from other offices is there is a lot more communication, but it’s the same process. I share all my scripts and plans with Tom Brevoort, who shares them with the other editors in the group, and we’re constantly asking each other whether we can use certain characters or villains and we’re constantly trying to update one another on what we’re doing. There’s just a whole lot of communication. When it was the Cosmic books, it was all in one office. It made things quicker and easier, but we still had to keep all of the artists and writers we’d bring in and keep them on the same page.
So looking back on this era of Cosmic Marvel, and maybe comparing it with what’s going on in the current “Guardians” book and the “Nova” book, is there anything from this particular run of “Guardians” and “Nova” that you’re particularly excited that you got to use or got to get away with, such as in featuring certain characters?
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BR: I love the cover to Guardians #15, drawn by Salvador Larocca, with Rocket Raccoon and Cosmo the dog. We actually published a cover that featured a telepathic dog and a jet-packing raccoon…and that was one of my all-time favorite covers. Of course it was a raccoon with a jetpack and a dog with a bubble helmet. [Laughs]
The whole run was fun. We got to play with all of these great toys and pick up the baton from creative giants that came before us. We owe it to all to the creators that did the initial work on the cosmic books in the ‘60s, ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s, and it was a lot of fun working with Dan and Andy and all these great characters like Silver Surfer, Thanos, Rocket and Groot… and now it’s fun because I get to just read the books as a fan. I get to just pick them up and read more stories of the Guardians and Nova and the upcoming Star-Lord and Rocket books, and I get to sit back and just read them as a fan.
It’s a lot of fun.
You touched on this earlier, but I’m curious: what was your immediate reaction to seeing a Guardians poster or the actors or the first trailer for the film? Do you remember how you first reacted to the feature film?
BR: I was shocked and delighted. I saw my first piece of concept art and then I saw the trailer, and I felt very happy. If in some small way we contributed to a new franchise that is going to make a lot of people happy, then that’s a great thing.
You know, hearing you talk about all of this, I think it’s interesting that editors don’t speak up more about the roles they play on the book, as you sound as much of a proud parent as Dan and Andy do when they talk about the book.
BR: That’s not our position. That’s not our mandate. We are behind the scenes. Our job is not to write or draw. Our job is to offer ideas and suggestions help them do their best work. We want to give our creators the room to tell their stories, and we want the spotlight to be on them, and if they feel like mentioning us, then that’s great. Sometimes if we’re asked, we’ll talk about what we did, but we’re not taught to blow our horn. At the same time, if you want to know the insider story, then yeah, we’ll say this is what happened.
I was happy to do it, but that’s the job. Our primary goal is to just step back and let the creators do their thing. But we’re their every step of the way.
Looking at the higher profile that cosmic has now – an upcoming movie, multiple books coming soon – and looking at the evolution of Cosmic from where it was before you started, how do you feel about where this era of “Guardians” sits with the rest of the extended Cosmic Universe?
BR: I think they’re leading the way now. The Guardians are at the forefront—the new Star-Lord and Rocket Raccoon books are fantastic—and it’s awesome that this great group of creators, editors, and readers have found these freaks and rejects and put the spotlight on them. I think the current group of books are amazing and the talent that is on them is awesome, and the movie is going to be fantastic.
It’s a thrill to see these oddball characters that we love so much getting the attention they so richly deserve.
