C2E2 Interview with Fred Van Lente
Yar! Read The Interview Here!
Mike Negin : Some news that I'm sure a lot of people are really excited about, myself included, is that there is a new Alpha Flight book on the horizon written by yourself and Greg Pak with art by Dale Eaglesham. How does it feel to be working on the original incarnation of the Canadian superteam?
Fred Van Lente : It's a huge thrill. It's literally a childhood dream come true. It's the book I fell in love with right off the spinner rack when it first came out. I must have been about 12 or 13. The characters were so quirky and the fact that the book was structured so they didn't go off together and have adventures -- each issue or story arc focused on a specific member of the team. I just thought that it was amazing and Byrne's art was terrific, as well as his writing.
MN : Alpha Flight was one of the first series to spin-off from the X-Men comics. Is it daunting in any way to be working on the original team that John Byrne made famous?
FVL : It is! It's definitely something you have to take with a certain degree of seriousness. I think Alpha Flight was, in fact, the first X-Men spin-off, and it sold a half million copies when it first came out. It was a huge success at the time, and they are certainly big shoes to fill. One of the things that we are going to be doing is bringing the original team back together that first appeared in X-Men. That's something that Byrne himself didn't even do. The first thing he did when he started the book was break the team up, he just thought that would be more interesting. And we are going to be doing something different, this is a government super hero team whose government turns against them. That's really the main hook of the story for us.
MN : Which of the characters are you looking forward to exploring the most?
FVL : I'm most interested in James MacDonald Hudson, Guardian, who is such a wonderfully reluctant superhero, and I've seen more than one person comment this is sort of a Canadian quintessential personality type -- somebody who feels very uncomfortable wearing a flag and representing a entire nation. And since he got killed off so quickly and has been killed off several times, I think it's really time to give him his due and a really proper and important arc and that's what we are going to try and do with him. He specifically is what I am most excited about. Byrne always said he found Guardian to be kind of a boring character that's why he decided to kill him off, so that's the interesting challenge for us, to develop some of those underdeveloped aspects of the team, and Guardian is definitely one of them. I am also a huge Snowbird nut. As people know, we stuck Snowbird into Incredible Hercules for a significant amount of time.
MN : You had what many are now considering a character defining run on Incredible Hercules, what were your original thoughts on bringing Herc into the forefront of the Marvel Universe after being in the background for much of the character's history?
FVL : We went back to the original myths, or at least I did. Honestly, when I got the job, I really didn't know anything about the Marvel Hercules, so I just read some old books about Greek Myths. You see a very troubled and conflicted character who murdered his kids and who was murdered by his wife for cheating on her. There was a lot of insane stuff going on in these myths, quite a lot of tragedy and dark stuff as well. It was fun to contrast with the Marvel Hercules, who has always been this kind of drunken buffoon, to show where that darkness comes from, and I think that is why a lot of people took to this series.
MN : Switching over to Power Man & Iron Fist, was it hard to update what is considered to be one of comic's most enduring partnerships? Did you have any concerns over pairing Danny up with someone other than Luke Cage?
FVL : We weren't really trying to update it, it's more of a different pairing because Luke is still around and Danny is still friends with him. Luke appeared in the Shadowland: Power Man series and still has a significant role in Power Man and Iron Fist, fittingly enough. The thought at Marvel, as I understand it, was that Cage has no interest in using the "Power Man" label, so it was time to take that name and give it to another hero. I created Vic Alvarez from whole cloth. There was also the totally crucial help of my artist on Power Man (and the new Power Man's designer), Mahmud Asrar.
MN : How is the dynamic is different between Danny and Vic than is was with Luke?
FVL : Luke and Danny even in the original series were pretty close friends, they had a very amiable partnership. Vic Alvarez, the new Power Man, is much more of a strong headed teenager who not only thinks he is invulnerable (as most teenagers do) but he actually REALLY is invulnerable! So it's very hard to keep a kid like that in line. The other part of this is that Iron Fist was raised in very strange conditions in K'un L'un basically by Kung Fu fanatics; it was a harsh childhood and he is trying to impose this K'un L'un discipline on a modern facebooking, smartphone obsessed American teenager, and it's not going very well.
MN : One of this summer blockbuster movies is Cowboys and Aliens based on the graphic novel you wrote with Andrew Foley for Platinum Studios. It must be very exciting to see your work translated onto the big screen?
FVL : It is. It's kind of a strange experience because I wrote the book in 2001, so it definitely took some time getting to the screen. But it's really neat, and from everything I've seen it looks terrific. The buzz around it has been incredible, and I can't wait to see it.
MN : Were you involved in the movie?
FVL : Not really. Platinum was good about keeping us updated on what was going on in the film, but that was the extent of it.
MN : From the trailer or any footage you might have seen, which character do you thing looks like it translated the best?
FVL : That's a good question. The character called Zeke in the graphic novel is definitely who Daniel Craig appears to be playing and he's got a nifty alien gun like he does in the book, so that was pretty cool to see.
MN : What made you want to become a writer? Was there a specific story that got you excited enough to think "This is what I want to do with my life?"
FVL : I don't remember a time when I wasn't telling stories and I wasn't writing. I think I originally started when I was in middle school. I can't remember a specific moment where I said this is what I want to do. I read so much. I was just a voracious consumer of stories it seemed just like a natural outgrowth of that. At first, I wanted to be a prose writer and then I went to school for screenwriting. In college, I started hanging out with a lot of guys in the illustration program who were studying to be comic artists. And once I started hanging out with them, I started writing stuff for them and seeing the immediacy of it being brought to life by them that was what really got me hooked into being a comic writer specifically.
MN : As a writer it's sometimes said "that a story takes on a life of its own". Has a story or character gone in a different direction than you originally intended?
FVL : Oh sure, all the time. I generally like to work from an outline. If you leave your house without knowing where you going, then how do you expect to get there? But that said, when you are doing a scene and the characters are interacting, you often stumble upon an emotional resonance or a conclusion that you didn't reach before you were actually in the middle of the scene. And that often times takes you in different and much better directions.
MN : Do you have a specific example of a story that ended up somewhere different than what you expected when you began?
FVL : It's hard because when you do that, at least for me, my brain then immediately deletes "the path not taken." There's no point in storing something that didn't happen. It's like an extinct species. Once evolution eliminates you from the gene pool, you're kind of forgotten about.
MN : Who's your favorite super-villain and why?
FVL : I'm going to have to be incredibly uncreative and say Dr. Doom. I LOVE Dr. Doom! He is not only a mad scientist, he is also a master of the mystic arts. Not only does he want to conquer the world, he already has his own country. There is just something so inherently awesome about Dr. Doom. At times, I feel like he is my favorite Marvel character period. I had great fun writing him in a comic I did called Iron Man: Legacy where he was the main bad guy and that was just huge heaping gobs of fun.
MN : Tell us about what you're going to be going at C2E2 this year?
FVL : Card tricks! On Friday at 3pm, I'm doing the "Breaking into Comics" panel run by the terrific C.B. Cebulski, who is one of the heads of talent management for Marvel. Mr. Ryan Dunlavey and I will be signing in Artist Alley all weekend. Comic Book Comics #5 is coming soon before C2E2, it's our all lawsuit issue. Comic Books Comics is our irreverent but accurate history of the comic book industry in comics form. The all lawsuit issue takes us back to Siegel and Shuster fighting for the rights to Superman with DC, DC fighting over Captain Marvel with Fawcett, the battle between Disney and the Air Pirates, McFarlane versus Gaiman over Marvelman, oh, I could go on and on and on. More litigation than anywhere outside a courtroom!
MN : I'm going to do a few "Speed Round" questions; I think fans would like some behind the scenes insight into the minds of their favorite creators. David Lee Roth or Sammy Hagar?
FVL : That's so hard! I was a huge Van Halen fan, but my first album was Hagar's first. I guess I have to say David Lee Roth otherwise I might get strung up by other fans.
MN : Ginger or Mary Ann?
FVL : Mary Ann.
MN : Jane Foster or Betty Ross?
FVL : Betty Ross.
MN : Keaton, Kilmer, or Clooney? Christian Bale is not an option.
FVL : Keaton, definitely!
MN : Soup or Salad?
FVL : I like both. I go with salad, usually.
MN : Final question, if you were on a desert island and could only bring one comic with you, what would it be?
FVL : You said comic. Do you mean floppy comic or a single unit of comics?
MN : I'll give you a graphic novel. You're going to be there for a long time, so I'll give it to you.
FVL : Unless someone wrote "The Cartoon Guide of How to Escape from a Desert Island", I would probably take my gigantic, doorstop-sized Steve Ditko/Stan Lee Amazing Spider-Man Omnibus because that is the comic that started it all for me, and it's large enough to beat off any pirates or carnivorous animals that attempt to attack me. So it kind of serves a dual purpose.
MN : Great answer. Fred, I want to thank you for taking the time to talk with me and look forward to seeing you at the show!
If you want to know more about "Writer at Large" Fred Van Lente , please stop by his website at fredvanlente.com or follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/fredvanlente.
Fred will have a table in Artist Alley and will be chatting and signing for fans all weekend. If you're attending C2E2, please stop by and say "Hello," but if you see the Amazing Spider-Man Omnibus on his table, you might want to keep on walking.
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