JENKINS TALK "MYTHOS"

[MattBrady]

The good folks over at Fanboy Radio hosted writer Paul Jenkins yesterday, who dropped a little more information on then about a project Marvel & Jenkins announced at last month’s Wizardworld LA convention, Mythos, with painted art by Marvel exclusive artist Paolo Rivera.

As announced in LA, Mythos is a series of Prestige specials painted by Rivera that will tell the origins of classic Marvel characters, blending the comic book versions in with their movie stories, with a little bit of Jenkins' own flavor mixed in as well.

Jenkins said they’d be written with great reverence to both mediums. They will later be collected into a one hardcover.

Here’s a transcript of Jenkin’s new comments, courtesy of a Fanboy Radio press release…

”Paul Jenkins: Paolo and I are working on a book for Marvel that's actually going to be a two or three year labor of love that's called Mythos. The idea was - Tom Brevoort, who is such a great editor, called me up and said that 'we'd like to do something along the lines of Origin - like Origin of Wolverine.' In Origin, we got to chance to make up the story but in this case the stories are already sitting out there - which is basically the origin of all of the major Marvel characters. Now, I'm not going to mess with them. Of course they've already been done and they're already been done perfectly because the perfect origin is the ones in the first appearance of the character.

Fanboy Radio: Mr. Lee. Yessir.

Paul Jenkins: Yeah, sure. And then they have this contradictory set of information which is the films. And that is really, whether we like it or not, that's really where most people's level of awareness of the characters is.

Fanboy Radio: Unfortunately.

Paul Jenkins: Well, more people have seen the movie than read the comic for any of those characters - the future films as well. So what I put on myself and Paolo was, we would take the origin that Stan had created and we would mesh that origin into a painted version. So we would do a painted version of the origin of the X-Men, a painted version of the origin of Spider-Man. And we'd stay very very true to what Stan had done, but we'd incorporate the better elements of the films and then we would throw in a piece of ourselves as well. It might be one of the hardest books I've ever written but we're pretty much finish with the first issue. Every time an issue is done they'd solicit it and come with it. We're going to do at least eight. If we get some success and people really like it, then we'll continue on with all the characters in the universe. “

”Many more details can be found about this groundbreaking ‘occasional series’ and other Jenkins projects by downloading to the commercial-free, archived episode (show #224) through the http://www.fanboyradio.com website for seventy-five cents,” continues Fanboy’s press release.

”To celebrate Paul's return to the show, Fanboy Radio is offering his first appearance (a Summer 2003 - Show #97) for download for one cent.”

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[Rawle Austin]

This sounds interesting. Does anyone know what else Paolo Rivera has done? I'd like to see his stuff.

Growler

[Punchy]

Paolo Rivera did an Issue of Spectacular Spider-man with Jenkins last year (#14?)

This looks interesting, this looks to be 'definitive' origins of the Marvel characters, i think that these will be good for new readers, as they link to the movies, and i have no problem with origin meddling, i mean how often is Spider-man's origin talked about in the comics?...........

[Chris1]

I'm assuming that when they say it will stay close to the origins of the movie characters they are referring more to the whole movie itself, not so much how they got their powers. Because in that respect, all the movies were pretty close. Yes, Spider-Man didn't have organic webshooters and I still wish we could've seen Bruce Banner get hit by gamma rays as he saves Rick but other than that, not substantial difference.

[onslaughtall]

They have a lot of re-done origins...so saturated...I don't think it's a good idea, unless they release more details about this...

[roach04]

Anybody remember DC's "Mythos" mini series from Vertigo? It was good reading.

And I always wonder about copyright law when I see stuff like this -- wouldn't DC own the comic book name "Mythos"? Mike Turner's Fathom has always bugged me for that reason -- I've got a mini-series called "Fathom" -- from Comico!

[Kolimar]

Originally posted by Rawle Austin
This sounds interesting. Does anyone know what else Paolo Rivera has done? I'd like to see his stuff.

Growler

art

[algertman]

Sounds interesting

but this sounds like another one of those "Noone knows when the hell it will come out" type of deals, which is getting to be to damn coomon at MARVEL

also, will these replace the current origins?

[Bakema NL]

Sounds fine and all, but now the tricky part...............how do you get those movie-viewers to read the comics?
A lot of times you hear comics are not popular anymore, but people are also very lazy. It's easier to watch a movie than to read a book or comic, that requires some more concentration, you have to actually read.......and reading is not really popular today.

[kingofcities]

Wasn't Rivera the artist on MADROX? It was really nice work.

[Kolimar]

So, movies...

Blade
X-Men
Spider-Man
Daredevil
Elektra
Hulk
Punisher
Fantastic Four

Jenkins said eight so I guess I'm not forgetting any.

[Kolimar]

Originally posted by kingofcities
Wasn't Rivera the artist on MADROX? It was really nice work.

That was the Argentininian Pablo Raimondi.

[ReaperFett]

Originally posted by Kolimar
So, movies...

Blade
X-Men
Spider-Man
Daredevil
Elektra
Hulk
Punisher
Fantastic Four

Jenkins said eight so I guess I'm not forgetting any.

Because of how this will be coming out, Iron Man, Namor, and Cap America are probably more likely than Elektra or Blade.

[Augie De Blieck Jr.]

Originally posted by roach04
And I always wonder about copyright law when I see stuff like this -- wouldn't DC own the comic book name "Mythos"? Mike Turner's Fathom has always bugged me for that reason -- I've got a mini-series called "Fathom" -- from Comico!

This falls under the purview of trademark law. A title has to be trademarked to be protected, for starters. Thus, Marvel has the trademark on CAPTAIN MARVEL, and DC titles its book POWER OF SHAZAM.

Now, I'm not sure what the law says about aggressively defending trademarks and how long it lasts before it's considered abandoned. There might be a chance that Comico's FATHOM trademark has run out or, more likely, that they never trademarked the title to begin with.

-Augie

[Kolimar]

Haiku Biography
by
Paolo Manuel Rivera



Born in Daytona
Beach'd in nineteen eighty-one
How he loves comics!

[kingofcities]

Originally posted by Kolimar
That was the Argentininian Pablo Raimondi.

OY! I had a feeling I might be messing that up.

[OM]

...There better be a Forbush Man edition, dammit!

[Steve J.]

Originally posted by MattBrady

Paul Jenkins: The idea was - Tom Brevoort, who is such a great editor, called me up and said that 'we'd like to do something along the lines of Origin - like Origin of Wolverine.' In Origin, we got to chance to make up the story but in this case the stories are already sitting out there - which is basically the origin of all of the major Marvel characters. Now, I'm not going to mess with them. Of course they've already been done and they're already been done perfectly because the perfect origin is the ones in the first appearance of the character.

That's just the first reason why these books won't be anywhere near as successful as Origin, which itself was an UNTOLD story featuring one of Marvel's most successful post-Silver Age characters, with more than twenty years of its own mythology built up around it. Origin was something X-Men fans had been clamoring for almost since the character was introduced. With Mythos it sounds like Marvel is expecting lightning to strike twice...and then again, again, and again, and...

[JLAJRC]

Originally posted by Augie De Blieck Jr.
This falls under the purview of trademark law. A title has to be trademarked to be protected, for starters. Thus, Marvel has the trademark on CAPTAIN MARVEL, and DC titles its book POWER OF SHAZAM.

Now, I'm not sure what the law says about aggressively defending trademarks and how long it lasts before it's considered abandoned. There might be a chance that Comico's FATHOM trademark has run out or, more likely, that they never trademarked the title to begin with.

-Augie

Could this have anything to do with Mythos and Fathom being pretty common words by themselves? They also have meanings outside of their comic counterparts (could this be why Marvel got away with having a comic called Alias while there is a show with the same title)

It would be like if I created a comic called "Villains" "Enemy" "Pizza" "Water" "Car" and every common word in the english language.

[UX-Gal]

Blending the movie stuff with the character origins??

Seriously, should time, effort and talent be devoted to crafting NEW stories for the ongoing series?

---UX
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/She-Hulk_Comics

[Rawle Austin]

Originally posted by Kolimar
art

Cheers for the link!

Growler

[KyleCowstar]

I've never understood the need for things like this. Well, I'm glad I don't have to spend any more money than what Marvel and DC already have me spending.

[Lobok]

So is this basically just for fun, then? The merged origins don't have any bearing on future stories?

[Alfonso]

Originally posted by MattBrady
the origins of classic Marvel characters, blending the comic book versions in with their movie stories

coughLAMEcough

Please, didn't they get over this movie-tie-in-retconning shit after the X-Men got leather jackets, and then (thankfully) got over them?

[LazarusMan]

Well since I already know the origins, there seems to be no real reason to pick this up. Granted, I've always enjoyed Jenkins' work, and Rivera is a pretty talented guy, but wouldn't their work be a little nicer in a monthly-ish book? Maybe tell the further adventures of Moon Knight or some such character that might be ready to come back?