THE KURT BUSIEK AVENGERS INTERVIEW (Page 1 of 3)
--A WONDER MAN: COOLER THAN SUPERMAN EXCLUSIVE--
INTERVIEWER: MIKE McDERMOTT
In 1998 Avengers fans were about to have the ride of their life. Its not often that two big talents with great chemistry for a book and between themselves team up to create something great and too often those partnerships are never to be repeated. I can name a few examples: Stan Lee & Jack Kirby, Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams, Chris Claremont & John Byrne or Alan Moore & Alan Davis. But in 1998 the Marvel Universe was going to be rocked, and rocked BIG TIME with the relaunching of the Avengers by Kurt Busiek and dream title artist George Perez. Kurt Busiek fresh from his acclaimed Marvels limited series was going to take the title back to its roots and bring back everything that made this title a fan favorite in years past. With a great respect for history and a methodic understanding of each character's insides Busiek & Perez jetison this title back to a top ten book in a time when the comic book industry seemed to be dying and when bringing a group of characters deemed not hip (read X-Men) enough back to favorite status seemed like an impossibly feat. Through well crafted story, and interesting subplots Kurt Busiek not only set out to charm us into new interesting tales but also consolidated and straighten up Marvel Continuity mistakes and character's mishandles written during the decades of the title's history.
Of special interest to this website was their use of the character of Wonder Man who writers sacrificed years before to a publicity stunt of a new title launch and who Busiek and Perez brought back into the fore front of the series for the first few years. We had the pleasure of interviewing Kurt Busiek right after his last issue came out after an almost 5 years stint as writer of the Avengers title. This interview was conducted by Mike McDermott by e-mail on September 2002 from a series of questions submitted by a group of the Wonder Man: Cooler than Superman contributors including himself.
1-Whose idea was to start volume 3 with the resurrection of Wonder Man?
Mine.
2- What made you decide to bring Simon back from the dead (again)?
Partly, it's that I like him, and wanted to write him.
And partly, it's that I had story material for him
that I thought was good and effective and worthwhile. And partly, it's that he died in a story that was purely for shock value, to get people talking about a book that ultimately failed anyway -- and it was right after he'd discovered he was immortal! So I didn't think there was much value to be had by preserving that story, while there was a lot of value in the character himself.
3- What was the idea behind the ionic look?
It was to give him a new and striking look. Originally, I'd designed that "bleeding energy" look for a proposal for CAPTAIN MARVEL 2099, which didn't go anywhere. But I liked the look, and thought it would work well for Simon, so I showed it to George. He liked it, and adapted it into his own version, which looked pretty darn spiffy.
4-Where you thinking about keeping the new ionic look as something permanent since the beginning or was it originally intended to be used only with the pre-resurrection Wondy?
We planned it to be permanent.
5-Don't you feel that the ionic look makes more
confusing Wonder Man's nature since this look appears to falsely sustain the Wonder Man is not made of flesh and blood concept but its an amorphous mass of energy that takes the shape of a man from his ill fated ongoing series by Gerard Jones?
No, no more than the Human Torch appearing in a halo of flame suggests that he's an amorphous mass of
energy. The one thing I'd have wished for on Wonder Man's look is that I wanted the purple color-hold to be darker, so it read as almost-but-not-quite black. It was always too light for me, making him look too "ghostly." I wanted him to look like he was crackling with weird energy, but solid.
6- When Wonder Man was resurrected, he was blue ionic energy and then he turned purple when he was brought back for good. Was this color change your idea or someone else's?
I don't remember. It may have been the result of me trying to get the color holds to be darker, but I can't say for sure.
7-Did you and George discussed at some point having Wondy in another kind of costume other than the new
one, maybe a
previous one while deciding on his look post-resurrection?
Not that I recall. We did discuss his earlier costumes, but I don't think either of us advanced any desire to bring back any of them beyond doing some variation on the black-tank-top-with-red-W that he had in his solo series.
8- What made you decide to actually make Simon and Wanda a couple, after years of Simon's love for her
being unrequited?
Why do the same story over again? Part of the decision there came from the fact that I think the Vision and Wanda make a great couple -- but I didn't want to simply restore them to the way they were, since that'd be dramatically flat, and I didn't want to have them go through the same kind of courtship they did before, since Roy and Steve had already done it so well. So I figured they should stay apart for a while, and go down different roads, learning and growing and changing, so when they did come back together it could be different. Having Wanda and Simon become a couple was partly in service of that, and partly because I thought it'd be
interesting, both to give Simon one more "reward" he didn't feel he deserved, and to get Wanda involved with someone far different from the Vision.
9-Why did you describe Simon & Wanda's relationship later on your run as a physical one and said they were not much of talkers, seems to me like on your first scenes they seem like a couple that did communicate in both ways. Why the sudden change? Was your intention from day one to separate Wanda & Simon as we got into your run or you were going to weight fan reaction and make your decision based on that?
I think if you go back and look at their earlier scenes alone together, you'll find that they're reasonably often shown silent (as they fall into bed together, or as they sit by the fire in companionable silence) or each doing their own thing (as they hang out in the same room while Wanda practices her hexes and Simon reads a book). It's not meant as a criticism -- it's just the way they were. And they were planned to split up right from the start, though we had not worked out the circumstances yet, and had some various other ideas that didn't come to pass.
9-Even though I have read you post in favor of a reconciliation between Vision and Wanda you have often
rejected the idea of bringing back their twins, why?
Call it retcon fatigue. I didn't particularly like the story that did away with them, but I don't see that as a big enough reason to do yet another retcon. I like the Vision and Wanda together -- and if I stayed on the book, we'd have eventually gotten to that -- but I don't see the need to restore every aspect of their previous life. I'd rather have them go through new experiences.
10-What do you think of all the discussion that the
romantic triangle between Vision, Scarlet Witch and Wonder Man generated and still generates?
I'm glad readers are that passionate about the characters. There's a range of it -- some of the discussion I think is over the top, like when someone'll lie about the characters' pasts in order to support what he thinks should happen -- but overall, I'm glad so many people were engaged in discussion; it means they care.
11-Do you think you did everything you wanted to do with Simon & Wanda as a couple?
No, not really -- but I'd rather not drain a concept
dry before moving on. We didn't do everything we could with the T-Bolts' secret before we revealed it, either, but that's the way it goes. Had it been a solo book, we'd have had more time to concentrate on them, but a team book doesn't offer as much room.
12-Do you think Wonder Man could be paired on
a long standing relationship with another heroine like Reed and Sue, if so which one?
Sure he could. No immediate thoughts on who, though.
13-Steve Englehart said on an interview for this site that at one point he proposed a series about Wonder Man and Hellcat as a couple of struggling Hollywood actors, were you fond of this idea?
I wasn't aware of it. But it could have been fun.
14-I can say I can't remember a single scene were Wonder Man and Warbird have crossed words thru your
tenure as writer. Why was that, you seemed to be aware there was a chemistry going between them during
the Shooter/Michelinie years, after all, that was a point you brought in message boards when explaining to
fans the origin of Vision's attraction to her during your tenure as writer.
Carol left the series in #7, before Simon was more than a ghost. And she came back in #27, right around the time he left, then became a pawn of Nefaria, then spent some time healing. And shortly thereafter, he left for the West Coast -- so there wasn't a whole lot of time that they were active together, and they were both involved in character plots that took up their on-panel time as it was. I didn't really see the need to do
a scene just to remind people of his one-time attraction to her, or to throw them together simply because of old history. If I wasn't going to do anything with it, I'm better off using the space for stuff I actually am doing something with. After all, the fact that he was interested in her years ago wasn't exactly a burning cliffhanger -- he'd gone on to other women, she'd had plenty of relationships of her own. If it made sense to bring
it up in a story, I wouldn't hesitate, but I wouldn't go out of my way to either, any more than I'd trot out the fact that Wanda once had a crush on Cap. Not unless it was going to matter.
17- The nature and strength of Scarlet Witch's powers have been altered many, many times over the years.
Why did you decide to redefine them again?
Because none of the explanations worked -- they didn't explain all the things we'd seen her doing. Plus, it gave her a new understanding, a new path to travel, new skills to learn. That opened up new possibilities-- both in how she used the powers and how she practiced and trained. And it merged the "mutant" and "witch" sides of the character into a single focus.
18- When you brought back Wonder Man, you also brought back the Grim Reaper, one of my all time favorite villains and had him team up with the recently revived Count Nefaria. Was it always in your plans to bring these two heavy weight Avengers villains back and team them up?
No, just coincidence. After bringing the Grim Reaper back to the world of the living, I wanted to have him kinda consolidate himself for a while, look after number one while he was figuring out what to do with his life now that his driving obsession -- revenge on the Avengers for the death of Wonder Man -- was gone. So I took a look at who he was before his obsession --he'd been a Maggia soldier. And since here he was at loose ends, and we ere using Count Nefaria, a Maggia family boss, it just made sense to bring the two of them together.
They wouldn't have stayed together -- the Reaper needed his own gig, his own focus, that would make him more than just a guy with a power-scythe -- but it made sense to do for the course of one story.
19-Who came up with the idea of Second Chances? Was your intention to keep Wonder Man as an actor or
slowly phase him back into engineering. I think going back into engineering would have been an interesting twist. I noticed whenever you had the opportunity to insert his engineering background you would do it.
I don't remember whether Roger came up with Second Chances solo, or whether I made some suggestions along those lines -- at the very least, Roger named it, and it might well have been all his. I would have kept him in the celebrity arena -- I like the fact that he's got engineering skills, but I also think he's avoiding that part of his life due to bad memories, and I also think there are a lot of engineers in comics already.
20-You say you and George wanted to bring the Beast in for some new dynamics between him and Simon, if you had been able to bring the Beast in would this have beefed up Simon's diminished role through the second half of your run? What were some of the situations you had in mind for Beast & Wonder Man?
I didn't have any situations in mind -- I knew from the start we couldn't use the Beast as an ongoing character, so I didn't think it out in any great detail. And I doubt Wonder Man would have remained in the forefront through my entire run under any circumstances -- AVENGERS is a team book, so the characters have to take turns. He'd been reasonably heavily featured for a while, so it was someone else's turn.
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