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11-30-2007, 02:54 PM
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#1 |
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INSIDE THE ADVENTURES V: PAUL BENJAMIN
 by Benjamin Ong Pang KeanHe’s green, mean and wears purple pants. Who is he? If you guessed Paul Benjamin, you’re one degree off. In reality, the writer is re-imagining everyone favorite jade giant in Marvel Adventures Hulk, an all ages imprint that also includes such funny books as Marvel Adventures Spider-Man, Marvel Adventures Fantastic Four, Marvel Adventures The Avengers and Marvel Adventures Iron Man. So, what’s new? Hulk is on the run from General Ross and the army’s elite Hulkbusters. Sounds familiar? Bruce Banner is searching for a cure to rid himself of the curse of the Hulk. Seems like something out of the old Stan Lee/Jack Kirby comics? Wait for it… The Hulk has two companions: Rick Jones (what’s new, you ask?) and Rick’s pet monkey, Monkey. Welcome to Earth-20051, puny readers. And beware of Paul Benjamin. He’s bringing along the Defenders with him. Read on… Newsarama: What was your response to Marvel's Digital Comics Unlimited in regards to Marvel’s all-ages titles finding a wider audience? Paul Benjamin: I was very excited to read a little of Marvel Adventures Hulk #1 online as one of the free previews. Marvel’s digital comics service is a fantastic step towards exploring a new way to provide comics to readers. A lot of people like to collect individual comics every month. Others like to wait for the trade paperback so they can read an entire story all at once. Some like to read new books, others like classic Marvel tales. As other forms of media go digital, it’s fantastic to see Marvel trying something new for those fans of yesterday, today and tomorrow. I’ll be interested to see how well it does and who embraces this new way to get access to Marvel’s rich characters. I think the focus on Marvel Adventures/all ages titles is especially interesting, given that younger readers are more accustomed to getting their entertainment online and may be (with their parents’ footing the bill, of course) very excited to have access to a wide-variety of Marvel’s library once they get interested in the characters through the all ages line. NRAMA: What’re some of the comics that you still remember fondly from your early childhood days? PB: I know this is a story about my Marvel work, but the truth is that I used to love watching the Super Friends cartoon as a kid. My older brother told me about how in the comics the Justice League also included Martian Manhunter, a guy with all the powers of Superman plus telepathy, shape-changing, phasing and invisibility. That got me reading Justice League and I was hooked for life! I remember picking up the X-Men and having my mind blown by a team of outcasts who were protecting even the society that feared and hated them. The heroic spirit of the characters was a true inspiration. I didn’t have super powers, but maybe I could be like them and treat others the way I’d like to be treated myself. I especially loved the reprints of the first year or so of the X-Men. Even though Toad was a bad guy (and a somewhat lame one at that) I loved thinking about how even a wimpy super power like his could totally change my life. I was a long jumper on my track team, so the idea of mutant leaping powers was very exciting (though if given the choice I’d have taken Marvel Girl’s telekinesis for sure). NRAMA: What was it about the stories that appealed to you then?  PB: When I was a kid, comics were my escape. No matter how boring or difficult the real world might get, I could always lose myself in the world of comics. I loved reading their adventures and every time I picked up a new title, I got to see a brand new set of characters come to life, from Superman to the Fantastic Four, the Legion of Super Heroes, the X-Men, and, of course, the Hulk. Also, the world of comics had no limits. I remember watching the Incredible Hulk television show at the age of 8 and being pissed that wimpy Lou Ferrigno could barely lift a car’s back tires off the ground when the Hulk in comics could juggle tanks like they were tennis balls. Not that Hulk was big on juggling, but you get my point. Even the Hulk in the Hostess Fruit Pie ads in the back of the comics was stronger than the one on TV. NRAMA: In 2004, Pulitzer Prize winning novelist and comic book writer Michael Chabon gave a keynote address at the Eisner Awards ceremony in which he stated that "children have not abandoned comic books - comic books have abandoned children." As a writer of all ages comics, do you agree with his statement? PB: I think publishers are making concerted efforts to bring kids into the medium. Right now there are comics in every genre available from just about every major book publisher as well as the direct market comics publishers. DC just started a new line of books for young readers and Marvel Adventures is being hailed as a great read for kids and adults alike. On the other side of the bookshelf, manga is being embraced by kids like never before. Librarians tell me that they can’t keep manga and Marvel Adventures books on the shelves. While DC and Marvel’s primary continuity is difficult for a young kid to penetrate, there are books designed to bring kids into the universes. There’s also a wide variety of choices once they’re interested, between Marvel Adventures Spider-Man, Ultimate Spider-Man, the 616 [Amazing] Spider-Man and Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane, there’s something for everyone. While I’d love to see even more, it’s certainly a step in the right direction. NRAMA: So, the comics industry is not a lost cause from your perspective then? PB: I have a very different perspective on the changing landscape in US comics because I edited graphic novels for the European publisher Humanoids and I write manga for TokyoPop as well. I think the US comics market is just moving closer to international publishers. French, Italian and Japanese comic book readers aren’t just a tiny percentage of those countries’ populations, they’re everywhere. Men and women, boys and girls, grandmothers and grandsons all read comics in other countries. Comics are simply another medium for telling stories. Now that more US comics are covering real world issues and politics, they are gaining greater legitimacy in the eyes of the general public. The more comics parallel the truly mainstream prose book market in the US, the larger the audience will be for our medium. We can have comics full of doom and gloom. We can also have comics full of lightness and humor. Even on a super hero front, the co-existence of Civil War and the Marvel Adventures line is a beautiful thing that gives readers a choice every time they walk into a comics shop or bookstore. NRAMA: Narrowing things down to the Marvel Adventures titles, it is apparent that the imprint has grabbed the attention of not only kids, but also adult super-hero fans as well. What makes the line so engaging?  PB: At the risk of sounding like a sycophant, I’m going to say the leadership of editors like Mark Paniccia, Nate Cosby and Jordan White with direction from their bosses and their bosses’ bosses. At some point the editorial staff at Marvel got together and decided to put together a line of books that went against everything that had been tried with all ages books prior to the MA line. These books tell new stories instead of retelling old ones. The writers and artists work unfettered by the constraints of continuity. Most importantly, the books are never dumbed down. An all ages label may mean that Hulk fights soldiers with electric ray guns instead of bullets, but Bruce Banner still uses vocabulary words that will send any 8 year old looking for a thesaurus (or maybe a dictionary so they can look up the word “thesaurus”). The writers and artists who create the MA books have made a line that kids and adults can love equally, but that’s because we have the support of editors who give us the freedom to be creative in a way that we could never be in the 616 continuity. Just try turning the entire team of Avengers into world conquering MODOKs in New Avengers. On top of that, the books capture the feeling of early Marvel books, so they appeal to the nostalgia of old readers while hooking new readers with the iconic characters who got us all addicted in the first place. NRAMA: What got you interested in telling stories contained within the Marvel Adventures pocket universe in the first place? PB: I’d love to tell a story here about how my nephew wanted to read a comic and lo and behold my local comics shop recommended the MA line, but then I’d be making stuff up - and no one wants a writer to do that. The truth is, Mark Paniccia asked me to send him a pitch for one of the Marvel Adventures books. I started reading the digests and discovered that in many cases I was enjoying the MA versions of heroes more than the 616 versions. These were stories with no convoluted continuity to follow that truly got to core of the characters. When I’m dead and in my grave, Bruce Banner will still be cursed to turn into a living engine of destruction whenever he gets angry. That’s the core of the character. In the 616 universe Hulk may become a gladiator or start beating up the heroes whose actions led to the death of his wife, but in the Marvel Adventures world, every story gets to the core of character – the thing that put him on the road towards whatever he may be today. NRAMA: What're some of your personal favorites from the imprint? PB: There are so many good ones, it’s tough to pick a favorite. Two of Jeff Parker’s MA Avengers stories are at the top of my list for their sheer genius. The Avengers story, “A Not So Beautiful Mind” where AIM turns all the Avengers into MODOCs is one of the most hilarious tales ever seen in a Marvel comic. It really opened my mind to how much freedom we have in writing MA stories. “Ego, the Loving Planet” blew the doors off of the possibilities for reinterpreting the Marvel universe to tell a great story. Only Jeff could have turned a silly pun into a cosmic tale of intergalactic love that makes a Barry White soundtrack play in your head as you read it. Zeb Wells’ MA Fantastic Four story “The Spy I Couldn’t See” is another great one. Invisible Woman becoming a SHIELD agent isn’t such a huge high concept, but it’s a perfect example of a Marvel Adventures story. Wells establishes the FF, Nick Fury and SHIELD, sets up a wonderfully believable situation and puts us right into Sue’s shoes as she struggles to choose between being in the background with the FF or becoming SHIELD’s #1 secret agent. There’s no better motivator to come up with fun ideas and to tell good stories than to read another writer’s work and hope desperately that they don’t blow you out of the water every time. NRAMA: How do you compare the MA line to the Stan Lee/Jack Kirby/Steve Ditko comics from the 1960s? PB: I like to think the MA line combines the best of the early Marvel comics with the strengths of today’s Marvel universe. In those early tales, most issues were standalone stories that set up a situation and resolved it quickly. Every issue had a new scenario and perhaps a character you had never seen before or an established character as a fascinating guest star. But the MA line has the advantage of a more advanced style of storytelling that is much more fluid than its predecessors. Today’s writers get to apply all the lessons we’ve learned from the work of the great creators like Stan and Jack as well as all those others who have told the stories we’ve loved during the intervening 40+ years. And the artists on the Marvel Adventures books are incredible. Whether it’s Kano & Alvaro Lopez, Juan Santacruz, David Nakayama or any of the other awesome artists who have worked on the line, they combine old school dynamism with modern day storytelling techniques to hook readers and keep them turning pages. Plus I think readers today are more sophisticated. Whether they’ve been reading comics for years or just started, between today’s TV, movies and video games, audiences are used to complex storylines, sci-fi concepts and other tropes that create a shorthand for understanding a Marvel Adventures tale whether you already know the characters or not. NRAMA: Apart from re-imagining Hulk and co. in the monthly Marvel Adventures Hulk, you’ve also created an Original English Language (OEL) or global manga for TokyoPop. Who or what, do you see as the MA competition in reaching their particular age group? The 616 titles themselves? Manga? Others? PB: I’m definitely going to say video games. I’m producing a Hulk video game right now and I’m heavily immersed in that world. If kids are spending their free time playing Halo, then they aren’t cracking open any of the books you mentioned above. Every minute spent questing on World of Warcraft is a lost chance to discover the realms between the pages of comics (or any book for that matter). We can only hope that some percentage of kids playing the games and watching the TV shows and movies based on comics properties will dig the characters enough to start reading their comics adventures as well.  NRAMA: Looking ahead, we touched briefly on The Defenders making their debut in MA Hulk. Would you like to tell readers elaborate more about this “Defenders arc” even though each MA issue is supposed to be standalone? PB: Marvel Adventures Hulk #6 is a courtroom drama featuring Namor the Sub-Mariner at his most arrogant. Rick Jones becomes Bruce's defense attorney when Bruce's gamma radiation creates dangerous, Hulked-out marine life that threatens Atlantis. Let’s just say that when Hulk has a “you can’t handle the truth!!!” moment, he’s a lot more dangerous than Jack Nicholson. That issue has pencils by Ant's Mario Gully. One of my favorite things about Mario's style is the way he handles Bruce's transformations. His Hulk out scenes are truly explosive. Marvel Adventures Hulk #7 is all about surfing with the alien. Hulk, Rick and Monkey gain cosmic powers when they help Silver Surfer fight Galactus' latest herald, Terrax. The herald is after Silver Surfer's famous surfboard – oh, and he wants to destroy the Earth... David Nakayama just finished pencils on the issue and I've gotta say, Silver Hulk, Silver Rick and Silver Monkey look awesome. Yes, Monkey with the power cosmic – it’s a beautiful thing. Then Marvel Adventures Hulk #8 ties all those characters together with the first ever Marvel Adventures appearance of the Defenders! When a villain who shall remain nameless (hint, hint) threatens the world, it's going to take the combined power of Hulk, Dr. Strange, Silver Surfer and the Sub-Mariner to stop him (with a little help from Rick and Monkey). I can only hope fans will have as much fun reading this issue as I had writing it. I've always been a big Defenders fan and it was great to get the band back together for this issue. NRAMA: And what’s coming after that? PB: After issue #8 there'll be an action-packed series of issues with Hulk going mano-a-mano with some of the strongest characters in the Marvel Universe. I don’t want to give too much away, but the fun will be unstoppable and I can only hope fans won’t shrink from this opportunity to rock out and see Hulk prove that he's the strongest one there is!  NRAMA: Some of the writers like Fred Van Lente, Jeff Parker and Marc Sumerak have rotated on various MA titles and had had their own takes on the characters. Other than MA Hulk, which of the existing titles from MA Spider-Man to [b]MA Fantastic Four[b] to MA Iron Man to MA The Avengers would you like to see your own spin on next, and what do you have in mind for them? PB: I’d jump at the chance to write any of the MA characters, but I’d love to write some stories featuring the Fantastic Four. One of the things that makes the FF great is their family relationship. I’d like to throw a monkey wrench into that mix with some tales of the Fantastic Four – plus one. For example, what happens when the Human Torch gets injured and the FF needs a little help from Johnny’s most hated rival: Spider-Man? Or maybe Mr. Fantastic has to step aside as leader on an underwater mission guided by his girlfriend’s other heart-throb, the Sub-Mariner. Most of all, I’d like to see a tale of Fantastic Four tryouts featuring some Marvel strongmen (and women) after Reed finally finds a cure for the Thing. Of course, that might just be an excuse to write more of the Hulk... and maybe his cousin as well? NRAMA: Which other character could potentially receive the Marvel Adventures treatment next, and why? How would you write him/her/them? PB: Anyone who’s read my manga series Pantheon High (about a present day high school for demigods) knows that I am a huge fan of mythology so it shouldn’t come as any surprise that I’ll be lobbying for Marvel Adventures Thor! I’d love to see the thunder god in his very own Marvel Adventures book.  NRAMA: Marc Sumerak’s revealed that he’d like to do a “high-fantasy” MA Thor…PB: My Thor would definitely hearken back to his earliest Marvel incarnation. Serving time on Earth to learn humility, Thor is merged with medical student Donald Blake. As he struggles to maintain a human identity and prove himself worthy of the mantle of Thor, the thunder god battles foes from mythology as well as the villains of the Marvel universe. Of course, he’ll need a supporting cast, which starts with his love interest: fellow med student Jane Foster. Then there’s the Warriors Three, who are always dropping in and causing trouble for their old friend. If Thor is a guy trying to turn over a new leaf, they’re his buddies who just want to keep partying with him. The Warriors Three want to continue their adventures with their old pal, but they just keep getting him in hot water with Odin, Jane and villains alike. NRAMA: Before we call it a day, do you have any parting thoughts that you’d like to leave with our readers? PB: Marvel Adventures Hulk #1-#4 will be out in digest form at the beginning of December, which will be a great jumping on point for the book. Readers can see how Hulk hooked up with Rick Jones and Monkey (Rick's aptly named pet, for those not yet in the know). There's also the story where a hundred Hulks overrun Manhattan after a lab accident involving X-Factor's Madrox the Multiple Man turns Hulk into a Multiple Monster. That's a really fun story that shows the fantastic potential of the Marvel Adventures books to highlight current elements from the Marvel Universe as well as classic ones. From issue #3, Bruce, Rick and Monkey go on a road trip with Bruce Banner's new pal, the super-villain Radioactive Man – much to Rick's chagrin. And there's smashing galore with General "Thunderbolt" Ross and his Hulkbusters. Each of those stories stands on its own, but they tie in nicely in the fourth story when General Ross hires Madrox and Radioactive Man to help him take down Hulk no matter the dire consequences for a mountain town. Marvel Adventures Hulk #5 is the most recent issue to hit the stands and it's one of my faves so far. When Bruce, Rick and Monkey go to Dr. Strange in search of a mystical cure for Bruce, they go up against the dreaded lord of the Dark Dimension: Dormammu. The flame-headed demon ends up possessing Monkey and turning him into a fifty-foot tall, flame-headed monstrosity I call Dorma-Monkey! Yes, you read right: Dormammu possessing a monkey. David Nakayama's panel layouts on this issue are a thing of beauty. He really creates a unique feel for the environments from the Ancient One’s mountain monastery to Dr. Strange's Sanctum to the weirdness of the Dark Dimension. Previously: Inside the Adventures I: Mark Paniccia Inside the Adventures II: Marc Sumerak Inside the Adventures III: Fred Van Lente Inside the Adventures IV: Paul Tobin |
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11-30-2007, 03:08 PM
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#2 |
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Who can argue with a monkey?
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11-30-2007, 03:11 PM
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#3 |
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My six year old son is very excited to see The Defenders showing up in this book...good work, Paul!!
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11-30-2007, 04:23 PM
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#4 |
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Yesterday, I picked up my first MA digest, the Avengers one with the MODOC and Ego stories. I think that the first Hulk one is going to be my second.
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11-30-2007, 05:21 PM
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#5 | |
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David |
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11-30-2007, 07:37 PM
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#6 |
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I haven't read or even looked at the MA HULK series, but if it's as good as the other MA books, I'll have to try the first digest. My daughter loves the SPIDER-MAN, AVENGERS and FANTASTIC FOUR digests.
Anybody read this series? How does it stack up? |
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11-30-2007, 07:38 PM
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#7 |
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Wait... isn't Earth-20051 just the MAdvF4verse, with every MAdv comic taking place in it's own universe? MAdvAv & MAdvHulk (& MAdvSpidey) certainly aren't fitting entirely readily.
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11-30-2007, 08:07 PM
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#8 |
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Lord, I hope they're all in one world. I'd heard they were. (Mistakenly heard that the Power Pack books were set here too, but I've been corrected on that.) We need a new Marvel Universe and I'll be happy to take this one over 616.
David |
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12-01-2007, 02:16 AM
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#9 | |
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12-01-2007, 02:40 AM
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#10 |
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It matters to me a bit -- I've given up on the "mainstream" Marvel Universe almost altogether for now, so having an alternative with its own continuity, or at least its own consistency, is so pleasing I want to ring bells and shoot off fireworks to celebrate. I'd really thought that the only place to get non-depressing stories about truly heroic Marvel good guys was in back issues, till I found out about MC2 (Spider-Girl) and the Adventures line, which I'd mistakenly written off as exclusively for small children.
Now I've signed up for every one of 'em, and am busily hunting down back issues. I'm a very happy camper about the MA line. (And MC2.) Classic Marvel lives after all. (Don't get me wrong, I loved Grant Morrison's X-Men and Greg Rucka's Wolverine (as well as Busiek's and Johns' Avengers, and Mark Waid's FF) and neither of those could be considered "sunny," much less "chipper." But the heroic ideal was still there, as it has been all the way back to Stan and Jack and Steve, and I have personally found it lacking the last few years in the mainstream "616" MU. And to me that's a real essential element, which, complex or simple, light or dark, I need to have in order to really enjoy super-hero comics. They're called "heroes" for a reason...) So, yes, I do hope it is one cohesive universe. We could bring back the classic "No-Prize" -- not just spotting apparent errors, which is what I think most people think it means now, but the old "find an apparent error and explain why it only looks like an error, but really isn't, and you win a nothing-plated, non-engraved, 100% nada No-Prize"... David bring back the M.M.M.S., too, and/or F.O.O.M. |
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12-02-2007, 02:39 PM
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#11 | |
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12-03-2007, 07:19 PM
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#12 | |
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12-03-2007, 07:30 PM
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#13 | |
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Hmmm. Well, that is also possible of course. I wish they'd tell us for certain... Certainly, if they are aiming the books at kids, too, then I would think some would be confused by that... David |
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