One of the best things about this forum is being able to ask you questions about your work! I have a few questions about your time on the Champions ["of Los Angeles", if I recall their original title correctly...] - and a few of the questions are story related, which isn't fair, since it was written by Bill Mantlo, but I don't mean to read his mind, or get specific, rather I mean them as general questions about the characters - questions that you might have the answers to!
Anyroad -
1) You've said that on team books, you often have a favorite character - who was your fave on Champions?
2) Were there any characters that you hard a hard time getting a handle on? I notice that your Hercules has a longer face than your later versions of the same character - were you still trying to "get" him? Or was it just a natural artistic evolution?
3) By the third issue, you were getting "Co-plotter" credits - how much did Mantlo give you to work with? Full-scripts? Marvel-Style? Etc.
4) What did you think of the book, as a whole, and using your logic behind the name "Vindicator", what, exactly, were they "Champions" of?
5) Any fun memories from working on the book?
6) Was Swarm your first Marvel creation? Iceman gets a new look durring your run; was it your design? Any other JB creations I missed in that run?
7) How do you feel about Layton's inks? (Side note - didn't Layton come from the Charlton gang that you came from? Had you known him socially?)
8) How did you end up inking the last issue (over George Tuska's pencils) and how do you like that inking job?
9) In an early issue, the Stilt Man gets away from the heroes, and they gripe about it, but I couldn't help but wonder why Iceman didn't either freeze up the Stilt Man's suit, or shoot some ice to stop him - do I misunderstand IceMan's powers?
10) Likewise, in another issue, Hercules is climing Molten Lava, and even comments on it - the heat doesn't bother him, he's a god, etc, but how do his sash and sandles and skirt hold up to the heat? I know there aren't Unstable molocules where Hercules is from!
11) How much, if you know this, was the Swarm story influenced by the 2 killer bees films that were out around time time Champions were being published? Did you see, enjoy either of them? (Bonus Quesion! Which one had Henry Fonda?)
2) I wasn't aware at the time that I was drawing Hercules any differently than I did later. I think all my characters had thinner faces then.
3) Marvel-Style
4) It probably could have been at least as popular a book as THE DEFENDERS, but the whole thing never seemed to gel. ("Champions" in this case is used simply to mean "good guys".)
5) Not a one!
6) Swarm was my design, not my creation. And there were a couple of IRON FIST characters that predated him, anyway. Bobby's costume was my design, such as it was.
7) Roger Stern, Bob Layton and a couple of others pretty much were the CPL Gang. I didn't really know any of them socially, tho over the years Roger and I became good buddies. I never did care for Layton's inks.
8) How did you end up inking the last issue (over George Tuska's pencils) and how do you like that inking job?
9) That's called "bad writing". But I was just the art robot at that time.
10) What are you smoking, Mike?
11) Much influence for Mantlo by the Killer Bee scare. I didn't see any of the movies.
The Black Widow and Ms Marvel were responsible for me discovering that I liked "girls". I had (and still have) a copy of the Fireside edition of The Superhero Women. John Romita and John Buscema are surely to blame. Heheh.
... the lineup reminds me of those threads you see on the Avengers, X-Men and JLA boards all the time: What off-beat roster would you like to see in this book.\
You know the one, where people post things like "Moon-Knight, Tigra, Gilgamesh, Firebird, Silverclaw and D-Man"
But it was a cool book. You gotta feel sorry for Bobby Drake though. His lovelife seems to me to be the cliched fanboy's: Falls for every girl he meets, and she always hooks up with one of his mates. Poor guy. At least Northstar's actually interested in HIM...
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You are a god among insects. Never let anyone tell you different.
John Byrne, you designed Swarm? First the brown Wolverine costume and now this...I learn something new everyday. You designed almost everything cool in the Marvel Universe.
I've never read a comic with Swarm in it. I just used to watch that Spiderman and His Amazing Friends TV show as a kid. "SwaaaAAAAAaarm! SWAAARM!"
That villain was extra scary to me in third grade because every little kid could relate to a bee sting. And I remember the media "Kiler Bee" menace stories.
As a kid I was always hearing about 1)mutual nuclear annihilation and 2) killer bees.
This message has been edited by SteveMerritt on Mar 25, 2004 4:19 AM
As a kid I was always hearing about 1)mutual nuclear annihilation and 2) killer bees.
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When she was about 13, and the whole world was deep into the Age of Detente, my stepdaughter once tried to excuse her low grades by telling me about the "fear of nuclear war" that hung over all kids. I think they must have touched on the Cold War in a class that day.
I explained to her that I had spent my entire childhood, all of my teens and a big chunk of my adult life with the Doomsday Clock at about 1 second to midnight, and no one had ever thought to offer that as an excuse for my own poor grades.
I liked Swarm -- the way John designed him -- emphasizing that he worked as one ferocious organism composed of tiny weightless little nothings.
Later artists seemed not to recognize that the swarm was the malevolent organism, made up of everyday wee lil ole bees. Later artists seemed more determined to draw individual ferocious honey bees, missing the whole and only interesting point of the character... I mean, how ferocious can you make a honey bee?
Yes, I liked Swarm. That guy was a god among insects. Never let anyone tell you different.
I have long believed that the relentless media repetition of the dull threat of nuclear annihilation is what made my generation such a cynical, anxious, neurotic bunch. I see a definite line between the so-called "Generation X" people who remember the world between the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Berlin Wall coming down, and the "Generation Y" kids who only know a world where we "beat the Russians."
I expect that the fallout from the terrorist attacks on 9/11 will have a similar effect. Once again, we are a society defined by fear.
>>In an early issue, the Stilt Man gets away from the heroes, and they gripe about it, but I couldn't help but wonder why Iceman didn't either freeze up the Stilt Man's suit, or shoot some ice to stop him - do I misunderstand IceMan's powers?<<
This reminds me of the end of X2. I finally got around to seeing the movie a few weeks back, and the only thing I could think of at the end was, "That's water rushing towards them... they have Iceman sitting in the jet... why does JEAN have to be the one to stop it (and why can't she stay in the jet to do so??)"
"That's water rushing towards them... they have Iceman sitting in the jet... why does JEAN have to be the one to stop it (and why can't she stay in the jet to do so??)"
I absolutely remember being a teenager and living with the real and powerful aniexty of living in a world of mutal assured destruction. When the wall came down (1989-90 was a big (school) year for global events) there was palpable sense of relief, that a new era wsa born.
I even remember one night before Berlin, staring out at a cloudy evening sky and seeing a red glow rising above the horizon, my overactive imagination wondering if it was an ICBM. Of course it was just the moon.
This reminds me of the end of X2. I finally got around to seeing the movie a few weeks back, and the only thing I could think of at the end was, "That's water rushing towards them... they have Iceman sitting in the jet... why does JEAN have to be the one to stop it (and why can't she stay in the jet to do so??)"
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That echos my own thoughts. You have Iceman AND Storm on board and Jean's the one to stop the water????!!!!
Mike
"Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official, save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to support him insofar as he efficiently serves the country. It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the exact extent that by inefficiency or otherwise he fails in his duty to stand by the country. In either event, it is unpatriotic not to tell the truth, whether about the president or anyone else."- Teddy Roosevelt
I wondered why, if Jean was powerful enough to telekinetically stop an onrushing torrent of water, why wasn't she strong enough to levitate the X Jet out of the way of the water? Theoretically, if the water pressure was strong enough to take out the jet, that would mean that the jet weighed less than the flood...
That ending WAS crappy, no doubt. But that part notwithstanding, I was still entertained by the movie as a whole.
Come on guys...
in the next movie (if there is one) we will get the dark Pheonix- and it will die, and then hopfully, in the next movie they will find the original Jean Grey in a cacoon under the water at the damn.
Right?
"she" wanted to be dead/lost.
http://www.whatashock.com "There is no wisdom or virtue in seeking unnecessary martydom or deliberately courting persecution..."
C.S. Lewis
I wondered why, if Jean was powerful enough to telekinetically stop an onrushing torrent of water, why wasn't she strong enough to levitate the X Jet out of the way of the water? Theoretically, if the water pressure was strong enough to take out the jet, that would mean that the jet weighed less than the flood...
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Get a body of water moving and you have one of the most destructive forces nature can unleash. Water is *heavy*, as you know if you've ever had to haul a bucket full of it.
If Jean had the ability even to simply divert the mass of water seen in the movie, she would have had more than enough to lift the X-Jet to safety.
Like I said, the ending of X2 happened as it did because that was what it said in the script.
