Marvel kept the
panels rolling on the first day of WizardWorld: Philadelphia, and
Newsarama was there live, bringing you the highlights, the lowlights,
and everything in-between.
The panel opened
with Tom Brevoort, CB Cebulski, and Dan Slott in attendance.
Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada ran a few minutes late. Brevoort handled
the introductions for those on the dais, and opened to the floor by
asking how many fans in attendance were reading the thrice monthly Amazing Spider-Man.
Following the applause to that query as well as the question if they
liked the book coming out three times a month, Brevoort let out a
relived sigh.
The editor then asked Slott to comment on the Mary Jane appearance on the last page of the most recent issue of Amazing..."Uh, Mary Jane is back?" Slott said.
Brevoort also
revealed that there will be a new, female Kraven, as pictured below,
debuting in the August issues by Marc Guggenheim and Phil Jimenez.
Moving on to "New
Ways to Die," the arc coming in July by Slott and John Romita Jr., the
writer said that the arc will see the return of some of the
"big-league" villains to Spider-Man's world.
"We wanted to take
the big name villains and put them on the shelf so when we decided to
spring them on you it'd be big," Slott said. Readers will also see
something - or someone - that may or may not be a symbiote Slott teased
as he spoke about the "new character, Anti-Venom."
Quesada then joined the panel to applause.
A fan then asked for
explanations behind the disappearance of Spider-Man's organic web
shooters, to which Slott replied, "There is a gap in time where OMD and
BND happens, its very much like LOST, there's a missing chapter where we'll show you things like that."
A fan then chimed in
with, "I'm loving it! Spider-Man hasn't been funny for 15 years, hasn't
had a supporting cast for 15 years, keep 'em coming"
Another fan asked
"One of the things we saw with the Clone Saga, no one wants to hear the
last 20 years of history happened, so has Spider-Man 'happened' before
OMD/BND?"
Slott said all the
past Spider-Man history happened, defending the mass forgetting of
Spider-Man's identity and marriage by referencing stories where Tony
Stark made everyone forget he was Iron Man via satellite and Dr.
Strange hypnotized everyone. Quesada added that there was a reason they
did 'One More Day' the way they did, but they cannot say that this
chunk of time did not happen, because so many people invested time into
the stories. "Certain choice elements were changed, and we will show
you how they changed and how that happened," Quesada said.
Quesada elaborated,
saying that they could not say that the stories did not happen, while
pointing out that the time period from Peter and MJ's last kiss and
Peter waking up in bed in the first 'Brand New Day' issue was left
undefined on purpose. Asked if there was a time frame in mind insofar
as how far apart those events occurred chronologically, Quesada said
that it was "about a year, year and a half," Quesada said. Brevoort
added that things from that period will start to unfold naturally.
In regards to
filling in the time and revealing the changes, Brevoort indicated that
there was a balance to be met between the "bookkeeping" aspects of
continuity that something like OMD/BND can bring on and keeping people
interested in the titles, but they will be explaining it all as the
book goes on. Pointing to the recent return of Mary Jane as an example,
Brevoort said that by the end of the next issue, readers will have a
few more answers about Mary Jane and her relationship with Peter.
"Hopefully, if we're
savvy enough, we'll keep you coming back three times a month as it
happens," Brevoort said, later acknowledging that it was disconcerting
to have the ground shift beneath your feet as a reader and a fan, but
assuring the audience that the ground hasn't shifted as much as people
may think.
Asked about J.
Michael Straczynski's totemic elements, Brevoort said that those
stories too are part of Spider-Man's history, and that, if plans play
out as expected, a character from the JMS era will return by the end of
the year.
"Joe did a five year
run on the series, he did a lot of great work on that, writing about
the totemic forces, so no one really wants to write about it, its not
like it's off the table, but it's all part of Spidey's long history"
Brevoort said.
"It would have been
so easy to hit a reboot button in Spider-Man's history," Quesada said.
"Considering it was one man writing the book after so long, JMS' work
was outstanding."
"Most of these things are planned in advance," a fan started. "[But] what was the reason behind doing Secret Invasion, which plays with continuity, and 'Brand New Day', which changes continuity?"
"It may seem like a change, but this is stability from this point on," Quesada said.
"In some ways, it
sort kind of worked out this way," Brevoort said. "They've been letting
the characters develop organically. When we were working on Secret Invasion, we didn't know how Civil War and Planet Hulk were going to pan out," he added, illustrating the flow of characters' growth from the changes in one storyline to another.
"It wasn't really a
specific publishing plan, just how these things time out," Brevoort
said, referring back to the placement of the two events.
"Right at this moment, when Marvel paranoia is at its highest, can we trust Spider-Man" Slott quipped.
Slott also told a
fan that they can expect to see the Spider-tracer killer in upcoming
issues in response to a question about the story in the earlier issues
of BND.
"We sort of have a
road map where the killer story was going to start, and here's where
it's going to go on the front burner, but this all happens throughout
months," Brevoort said. "It's definitely a thread we're going to see
what happens throughout the year, and spin out some time after."
Asked about the
payoff of Mr. Negative using Peter's blood to make a bomb, Slott told
the fan who asked that they'll have to wait a little while longer for
that as well.
Speaking of the schedule of Amazing Spider-Man,
Quesada said that when Axel Alonso was editing Spider-Man, the idea of
the series going weekly was something that Brevoort opposed. Brevoort
interrupted Quesada at that point, saying, "Everyone remember it as me,
but I remember liking the idea of Spider-Man going weekly. Given the
commitments by JMS, he could only turn out an issue a month, no one
wanted to interrupt his run, no one wanted to start the Spidey brain
trust like we have now. And then there was some personnel changes."
"I said I think we
want to try this three times a month thing,' Brevoort continued. "Some
of its my age, I'm an old guy, there was only really one Spidey book
that was the chronicles of Peter Parker's life. As the character became
more popular, the thing that got lost was, 'this is Peter's life."
That idea appealed to Brevoort, which helped lead to the thrice monthly Amazing.
"[Now] If you want Spider-Man, here's your book. There's going to be
one there virtually once a week. You don't have to worry about Marvel Team-Up until we do Marvel Team-Up" Brevoort concluded.
Speaking to the
organic webshooters and other changes, Brevoort went so far as to say
he remembered hearing complaints at cons and from editorials about
organic web shooters and the stingers, "But now we gave him back the
chemical web shooters, now all we hear is, 'why did you take away all
his cool powers?'"
"Any character runs
the risk of going stale," Brevoort said, continuing to talk about the
changes seen in BND. "When JMS came on, he really defined the
character. I don't know if anyone would do it as good as he did, but
I'm willing to look into other areas of Spidey when all the brain trust
guys who got attached to Spider-Man that have yet to be explored. Thats
one of the reasons we took all the classic villains and moved them to
the side.
"If we get 1 or 2
great [new] Spidey villains thats a big win" Brevoort continued. "Yes
we brought back Harry, but thats because Harry is a great character. We
also brought in three or four new characters."
"Every one of these characters are built upon an archetype," Quesada
said. "That makes them the character." Quesada then referenced Johnny
Storm getting married, and how he "lost" an inner quality that made him
who he was. "He's no longer the hot headed young stud."
"Now you throw Peter
into that soup (paparazzi) and you see the characters as they'd truly
act as the character" Quesada continued.
A fan asked, "I
remember a couple of years ago, you said in 'Cup 'O Joe,' that you
never liked Peter and MJ being married, and you said you wanted to put
the genie back in the bottle, with Secret Invasion are there any genies out there?"
Quesada referenced
three genies, the first, he remembered as weaning down the mutant
numbers, and the third being MJ and Peter no longer being married [the
second was seen as a result of Civil War, that the heroes were
not as chummy as they were previously]. Quesada explained that putting
the genies back in bottles were a way to bring back the air of
unfamiliarity, of unpredictability within the Marvel Universe and
characters. Quesada said that he didn't feel that there were any other
genies out there that had bottles waiting for them.
Back to questions - "For Anti-Venom, is that a character we're going to be familiar with or unfamiliar with?"
Slott responded cryptically by saying "I'm not even going to tell you if he's a symbiote or not."
"Was there any temptation to use OMD to do certain things outside of the characters?" a fan asked.
"There's always the
option to go wildly out of control, but we need to be very selective in
the things we do," Brevoort said. "We really didn't want to affect the
stories that had come before. There is a certain nip/tuck with the
stories, but 98-99 percent of the time it's still the same characters.
Yes, we brought Harry back, but he was a great character."
Brevoort said that
Marcos Martin would be returning to Spider-Man, but Brevoort couldn't
say which project, because he didn't know.
Asked if it was
difficult to come up with new villains who were "worthy" to be among
Spider-Man's iconic enemies, Brevoort said it is very tough with a
rogue's gallery such as Spidey's - but all it means is you try and take
your best shot, and if a villain doesn't work out, there's always next
month with another villain. "You can't be afraid of standing in that
shadow, or else we wouldn't be writing these stories," Brevoort said.
Quesada said that the idea of What If? One More Day was batted around, but it's too soon. It may appear years down the road, Quesada said.
Asked if the
"missing time" between OMD and BND will also address what was going on
with Spider-Man in other titles, Quesada said that the more detail that
you go into, the more complicated things can become. As a result, the
plan is to keep things as clean and as simple as they can.
Asked by the same
audience member why Aunt May would yell "Yes!" in the recent issue of
ASM when peter tells her he's moving out, Quesada joked that it was
because she wasn't getting laid with her nephew living under the same
roof.
Brevoort quickly
added that it was because she would never tell Peter that to his face,
so that was her own way of expressing herself.
In response to a question that implied no government forces had been going after Spider-Man since Civil War,
Slott pointed out that there have been, in fact, several instances
where other characters have gone after Spider-Man, naming Blue Shield,
Cape Killers and The Initiative (which has gone after him twice) as
examples.
Jackpot will be appearing next in Secret Invasion: Spider-Man: Brand New Day.
The panel wrapped with Slott adding that readers will learn something very important in about Jackpot in the upcoming month.
