PAUL TOBIN ON MARVEL ADVENTURES: SUPER-HEROES

[MattBrady]

by Zack Smith

The all-ages Marvel Adventures line has brought forth some of Marvel’s most fun and acclaimed books, and Paul Tobin is one of the line’s up-and-coming stars. Tobin, who did the Oni Press miniseries Banana Sunday with his wife, X-Men: First Class backup artist Colleen Coover, has just been picked to launch the latest MA book, Marvel Adventures: Super Heroes.

In a Newsarama exclusive, Tobin discussed the inside scoop on MA: Super Heroes (we could also call it MASH, but that makes it sound like it stars Hawkeye), giving a peak at some very offbeat stories…and even a hint at an upcoming project that hits close to home.

Newsarama: Paul, what's MA: Super Heroes about?

Paul Tobin: The title is set up to revolve in four issue arcs, with not only the creative teams but also the featured characters themselves changing out. It’ll give us a chance to showcase characters that don’t have their own book, or team-ups of characters that do. Beyond that, Super Heroes largely holds to the same "rules" as the rest of the line, so we're looking at one-issue storylines with an emphasis on fun and action.

If there is a difference between this title and the rest of the line, it's that we'll be able to cut loose, just really cut loose. There's not one of us (writers and readers alike) who hasn't sat around with friends laughing about "what if the Hulk did this?" or "wouldn't it be great if Thor and the Absorbing man did that?," and in MA: Super Heroes, we'll be able to really draw on those wellsprings of pure fun.

NRAMA: When will the book be coming out?

PT: First issue is slated for a June release. Not a long wait at all.

NRAMA: What characters are you working with in your initial run of issues, and what are some of the stories you'll be telling?

PT: I'm working with Iron Man, Spider-Man, and the Hulk. From a writerly aspect, they're really a great trio to work with, because they have such a wide range of abilities and personalities to build storylines from, and then their own differences help evolve the storyline.

That said, bottom line, all three of these guys are heroes, big time. Spider-Man is theman in comic's heroism – his sense of responsibility even overwhelms him at times. And Tony Stark, of course, is there as a philanthropist – letting his wealth do heroic things, and also out there on a personal level as Iron Man. And then there's the Hulk, who's always been my favorite guy. He's both monster and hero both, but while it's outside forces that make him a monster, his heroism is internal, an actual part of his nature.

As far as an issue-by-issue breakdown, here’s what we’re looking at:

BEST OF SHOW: It’s probably a bad sign when Hercules comes asking for a favor. It’s juuuuuust a little job that needs doing, but this is Hercules; isn’t he supposed to be REALLY good at doing labors himself? Before they know it, Iron Man, Spider-Man and the Hulk are stuck looking after Orthus and Cerberus, the two legendary hounds of the underworld! Luckily, the dogs learn to behave after chewing up only a few cars, a statue, and Iron Man, and finally they’re obedient enough for the Metro Dog Show! Only problem, Hercules wants the dogs back. No way, Herc, not before the Hulk gets his ribbon! It’s two dogs with five heads between them, and all the action you can handle.

BAD SPORTS: Iron Man, Hulk and Spidey rocket into space to stop a potentially devastating meteor shower from reaching Earth, but are surprised to find the meteors are actually Meteor Men, a group of frat boys engaging in their most awesomely favorite extreme sport: planet-bombing. After negotiations (IE: Could the Hulk quit hitting us, please) the Meteor Men agree not to bombard Earth IF the heroes show them an equally good time on a variety of other planets, and other extreme sports. Will our guys survive Albernathean Rhino Riding? How about Kree Karaoke? Or the galaxy’s most dangerous extreme sport, Black Hole Bungee Jumping?

YOU CAN’T EAT JUST ONcE: The Iron Man of the future comes back in time to help our heroes fight Kang the Conqueror, who rules the future via a vast fortune acquired though his potato chip company. Yeah – potato chips. But these aren’t just run of the mill potato chips, these are nano-temporal-potato chips…engineered so that if you ever eat one, the timestream forces you to eat them for every single meal, forever.

KLAW’S GOOD OL’ COUNTRY REVIVAL: When Klaw, the master of sound, starts up a country and western band, our guys think it’s odd enough to investigate. Odder still, it seems Klaw has actually gone straight, but an unforeseen problem arises: the Hulk gets hooked on Klaw’s mournful country and western sound, and, wanting to solve the cliché-ridden problems Klaw so beauuutifully sings about, starts returning every lost (and not so lost) dog to its owner, insists on driving a pickup truck, and goes in for some very extreme “Hulk-style” relationship counseling. While this draws a lot of media attention to Klaw’s band, the Hulk (dang it!) gets all the press, making an irritated Klaw very jealous. The fight is on!

NRAMA: I think you might have taken “Everybody Becomes MODOK” to a new level with those. How are these stories different from what you might see in the Marvel Adventures heroes' own titles?

PT: I suppose they’re a little more on the borderline of the theater of the absurd. Possibly a little more action-oriented as well. That said, I’m still piling in a good amount of characterization into these storylines, as what I’m most pleased about is to see how characters interact with each other. The first issue, for instance, begins with Tony / Iron Man just plain being fascinated by Spidey’s ability to walk along the wall. It really is neat.

NRAMA: When you're talking about characters that aren't typically spotlighted, who are some of the ones that will be showing up in the book?

PT: The powers-that-be haven’t quite decided that yet, at least from an announcement standpoint, so I’ll have to somewhat dodge this question by pointing to something interesting (Look, over there! Oscar Wilde is fighting Fin Fang Foom!!) and then running off.

Here, though, are some crumbs I’m throwing out in order to avoid pursuit – there’s at least talk of a guy with a hammer, another fellow who carries a shield, a man of the formicidae family, and a guy who could quite rightfully be called strange.

NRAMA: Hmm, no idea who those could be…now, what role does MA Super Heroes play in the overall Marvel Adventures line?

It serves as the whip cream topping on both the dessert and the meal itself. If you’re enjoying the other books (which you should be, because they’re 83% Goodness and 17% Calcium to build and maintain strong bones) then this book will extend your feast.

NRAMA: Mmm, tasty. So, what can you tell us about your collaboration with artist Alvin Lee?

PT: Alvin is flat-out awesome. Creatively we "met" while working on the FCBD comic, which incidentally makes an awesome lead-in for this series, since Alvin and I are working with the same characters of Spidey, Iron Man, and the Hulk.

Alvin really draws one of the great Spider-Mans in the industry – I can really feel that there's just a wiry kid beneath the costume, all tendons n' the like. And when I write, I'm always picturing the coolest angles in my head, and then I get Alvin's art and he's thought of a cooler angle, a better way of expressing something.

Alvin first sends thumbnail sketches to me, Nate Cosby, Mark Paniccia (the Adventure Ultra Editors) and those are soon followed by loose pencils, so we can play with the set-up if we want, but largely we all just write back to Alvin and talk about how nice things look, and then Alvin goes to town. After Alvin gets back from town, the pages get passed on to Terry Pallot, who inks them up in his beautiful way, and then we all ride off into the sunset.

NRAMA: Any chance you might get to do some stories with Colleen in the future?

PT: Work with my wife? Hmm, I suppose that might be interesting. But only if we could have Spider-Man in the story. And a lot of girls. Like, oh, Hellcat, and Mary Jane, and She-Hulk, and Clea, and the Enchantress, and Marvel Girl, and the Scarlet Witch. Also, I wouldn’t budge if we couldn’t use Millie the Model. Yep, we’d need Millie.

Yeah, all that would be great, but what’s the chance of that happening? By the way, here’s some teaser art from an upcoming full-length story that Colleen Coover and I are working on.



NRAMA: All right! Are you going to be working on some of the other MA titles in the near future, or other books at Marvel?

PT: There’s a good chance, yeah. I just finished the scripts for a run on MA: Fantastic Four, with three issues of art by my amazing pal David Hahn, and one issue by the equally amazing David Nakayama. That’s worked out well, since I can always start my e-mails with “Hey, David – ”

Then there are these first four issues of MA: Super Heroes, and it looks like I’ll be helming another arc of this title as well, with a character I’ve long wanted to work with. Beyond that, I’m looking for a Marvel Adventures run on both Hulk and Spider-man. But wherever I end up is great – the pure fun of the line extends all the way across the board.

And, yes, soon I’d like to work outside the MA line as well. I’m gearing up for that, but nothing has reached the announcement stage. Ed Brubaker and my fellow Portland-ite Brian Bendis are two of my favorite writers, and I’d like to play with some of the themes and lengthier characterization aspects that they get to play with.

NRAMA: What's fun about working on the MA line?

PT: Everything’s fun about it. Believe me, it's a kick to be typing away on a script, putting in dialogue, and there's that moment when I'm trying to think of what Spider-man's going to say, and then it hits me that I'm really deciding what Spider-Man's going to say. Spidey is an icon, recognizable to nearly everyone on Earth. Heck — whenever aliens first land on Earth, there's like a 53.7% chance that one of them will be wearing a Spider-Man shirt.

Beyond that simple "cool" factor, working on the MA line allows we creators a lot of leeway. If we see a fun tangent, we can jump all over it. If we want to have a laugh, we have it. So many comics are so relentlessly grim that I see the Glorious Assembled (aka: Marvel Adventure creative teams) as antidotes for readers with cases of over-grimmage. That said, don’t peg me as a guy who doesn’t like a little “grim” now and then. It all depends on my mood, the story itself, etc.

NRAMA: You know Jeff Parker already, obviously, but given that the different MA writers tend to rotate from book to book, what's the creative environment like – are you guys bouncing ideas off each other or coordinating different stories?

PT: Jeff and I sometimes talk about stories in progress, bounce things off each other, but for the most part, we writers are a surly, solitary lot, prone to secrecy and conspiracy stories.

Honestly, though – while I love to “talk shop” with other writers, it can be sometimes hard to share story ideas, because once talk of a story starts between two writers, lines blur, and I don’t want my Keenest Idea Ever to end up in somebody else’s book, so “storyline” talk is generally done in broad terms, such as “I’m going to have the Abomination shrink to ant-size, and be subject to Ant-Man’s control!” rather than “There’s going to be a scene where---” etc. etc.

NRAMA: What's going on with your other projects? Are you going to be doing any new Banana Sunday stories in the near future?

PT: Banana Sunday will be next seen in the form of a series of “middle reader” novels I’m working on. I thought I was done with the first one, but have recently gone back and completely re-done it, and am now sweeping through the 2nd and 3rd volumes in order to link the changes made in the first. Soon I’ll be grabbing an agent for them. Colleen, in her (hah!) free time is doing the final tones for our graphic novel, Freckled Face, Bony Knees. I’m really looking forward to its release---it’s a different kind of work than either of us has ever worked on before.

NRAMA: What are some of your favorite all-ages books of the moment, and why do you feel it's important to have these books in the comics marketplace?

PT: All the Marvel Adventures books are great. Editors Mark Paniccia and Nate Cosby do a bang-up job of keeping the books uniformly fun and adventurous, but each with their own distinct feel lent by the creative teams. And, seriously, these books are all-ages. These are books I’d love if I were 5 years old, or 15 years old, or 25 years old, and they’re books I love right now, when I’m…um…25+ years old.

Other all-ages books I’ve enjoyed are works by Hope Larson or Lark Pien, and the Courtney Crumrin books by Ted Naifeh, Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim, and a wealth of manga titles. One Piece comes to immediate mind.

What’s important about all-ages books in the marketplace is that, without them, there isn’t a marketplace. Comics are a medium, not just a genre, and if we focus too much on one specific type of book/audience, then the whole industry falters. Comics, for way too long, has had too specific a focus--- imagine the music industry deciding they would only market to one audience, or if the movie industry announcing “From now on we will only make action movies geared towards a specific age group.” That would be ludicrous, and yet, that’s what our industry did for years. Silly ol’ us.

NRAMA: Any last words about MA: Super Heroes for the fans?

PT: Sure. I, Paul Tobin, hereby swear to make these books as fun and interesting as possible, and I will not overly complicate the plots in order to pad out issues, excepting only in the case of my 438 issue multi-company crossover comic/film/televison/8-track extravaganza, tentatively titled, “The Store Where the Hulk Buys Those Pants.”

Marvel Adventures: Super Heroes premieres in June.

[Ace]

The mind boggles.

Can this come out tomorrow instead?

[alaska1125]

YOU CAN’T EAT JUST ONcE: The Iron Man of the future comes back in time to help our heroes fight Kang the Conqueror, who rules the future via a vast fortune acquired though his potato chip company. Yeah – potato chips. But these aren’t just run of the mill potato chips, these are nano-temporal-potato chips…engineered so that if you ever eat one, the timestream forces you to eat them for every single meal, forever.

KLAW’S GOOD OL’ COUNTRY REVIVAL: When Klaw, the master of sound, starts up a country and western band, our guys think it’s odd enough to investigate. Odder still, it seems Klaw has actually gone straight, but an unforeseen problem arises: the Hulk gets hooked on Klaw’s mournful country and western sound, and, wanting to solve the cliché-ridden problems Klaw so beauuutifully sings about, starts returning every lost (and not so lost) dog to its owner, insists on driving a pickup truck, and goes in for some very extreme “Hulk-style” relationship counseling. While this draws a lot of media attention to Klaw’s band, the Hulk (dang it!) gets all the press, making an irritated Klaw very jealous. The fight is on!

Errr...if this a joke?

[Bevbos]

Will I go to hell if I buy the one with all the girls (plus Millie the Model)?

[rwe1138]

Originally Posted by MattBrady

...No way, Herc, not before the Hulk gets his ribbon!...

BAD SPORTS: Iron Man, Hulk and Spidey rocket into space to stop a potentially devastating meteor shower from reaching Earth, but are surprised to find the meteors are actually Meteor Men, a group of frat boys engaging in their most awesomely favorite extreme sport: planet-bombing. After negotiations (IE: Could the Hulk quit hitting us, please)...

...(Look, over there! Oscar Wilde is fighting Fin Fang Foom!!)...

I've never heard of Paul Tobin before now. After this interview, he's got a new fan.

[GLX]

Giving this comic at least 1 issue. Looking foward to it.

[Alexlucard]

I want a subscription to this! It sounds JLI style awesome!

[cleazer]

Wow, this series sounds awesome!
I absolutely love the description of the first 4 issues.

[grphxkindaguy]

On the strength of the awesome X-Men First Class backup stories that were done by Tobin and his wife, I am SO there...

[KillerShrike]

Sounds great.

[Sluggo]

Originally Posted by alaska1125

YOU CAN’T EAT JUST ONcE: The Iron Man of the future comes back in time to help our heroes fight Kang the Conqueror, who rules the future via a vast fortune acquired though his potato chip company. Yeah – potato chips. But these aren’t just run of the mill potato chips, these are nano-temporal-potato chips…engineered so that if you ever eat one, the timestream forces you to eat them for every single meal, forever.

KLAW’S GOOD OL’ COUNTRY REVIVAL: When Klaw, the master of sound, starts up a country and western band, our guys think it’s odd enough to investigate. Odder still, it seems Klaw has actually gone straight, but an unforeseen problem arises: the Hulk gets hooked on Klaw’s mournful country and western sound, and, wanting to solve the cliché-ridden problems Klaw so beauuutifully sings about, starts returning every lost (and not so lost) dog to its owner, insists on driving a pickup truck, and goes in for some very extreme “Hulk-style” relationship counseling. While this draws a lot of media attention to Klaw’s band, the Hulk (dang it!) gets all the press, making an irritated Klaw very jealous. The fight is on!

Errr...if this a joke?

I sure as hell hope not. It's about damn time the Marvel Universe had an ongoing comedy title again. These concepts sound hilarious!

[caanan]

Bit of a marketing victim though, isn't it?

Hulk, Spidey, Iron Man. Don't they all have movies out? (And don't they already have multitudes of their own titles out??)

Why not team up one big hero with other lesser knowns to share the spotlight?

[Matt Silady]

Paul Tobin is a great writer and a great guy. I hope MA: Super Heroes is a huge hit. I know I'll be putting it on my subscriptions list.

Matt

[ghost_writer]

I think all the Marvel Adventures books are solid and fun reads. I dig Paul Tobin's writing and I too hope this book gets a lot of looks. I will definitely try it out.

[Scarlet Mage]

Originally Posted by caanan

Bit of a marketing victim though, isn't it?

Hulk, Spidey, Iron Man. Don't they all have movies out? (And don't they already have multitudes of their own titles out??)

Why not team up one big hero with other lesser knowns to share the spotlight?

No, the glass is half full. Allow yourself to enjoy the cloud for a little while before worrying about the rain...

[CitC]

we could also call it MASH, but that makes it sound like it stars Hawkeye

Line of the day.

[PeregrineReviews]

This sounds absolutely insane.
And thusly, absolutely awesome.

[ChastMastr]

Originally Posted by caanan

Bit of a marketing victim though, isn't it?

Hulk, Spidey, Iron Man. Don't they all have movies out? (And don't they already have multitudes of their own titles out??)

Why not team up one big hero with other lesser knowns to share the spotlight?

Well, on the one hand, they're also arguably the three characters who have been having fans up in arms about how they've been portrayed in the mainstream MU -- on the other hand, they each have their own MA title already. But I'm very happy regardless with all this. All we need now is an ongoing MA: X-Men series (though I also love X-Men First Class and am excited about Wolverine: First Class)...

And I would buy an Oscar Wilde battles Fin Fang Foom comic, absolutely!

I think the only thing I'd change about MA is try to set the books in their own continuity together. They could be seen as mostly fitting together -- one would have to assume that all issues of MA: Hulk (and possibly MA: Spider-Man) all take place before either hero joins MA: Avengers -- but it's not a total fit. (Ditto the Power Pack books and the MA books.) Since the stories are all being kept in print via digests, then even with "done in one" stories there could be a reference to a prior story ("Hey, Iron Man, didn't you put this guy in prison a while back?"* * See MA Iron Man: Testing His Metal!) in the same continuity without disrupting the done-in-oneness of it all.

But whatever they do, I'll be buying this book. I'm a convert to the All Ages books (and Spider-Girl) and buy them all...

David
why, it could even be like the accessible-to-all-ages continuity of decades ago

[Somebody]

I wonder about the initial lineup - mostly because they're all already in Marvel Adventures Avengers and these seem like stories that could be told there.

Nonetheless, sounds fun

[Kenofthedead]

Sounds great to me.

MA: Avengers has been more enjoyable then standard Avengers to me.
First Class got me back into X-Men
Potato chips are evil.

I look forward to this fun and light hearted reading.

[Speedball93]

Sounds like a great book, but I think there should be more of a focus on characters that DONT have their own book instead of the big 3 that just happen to have movies either out or on the way.

[s*p rules]

I love the Marvel Adventures line, and it is consistently some of the best Marvel books out (and often much better than the characters' "regular" book, with the exception of Ultimate Spiderman). I completely understand having the movie stars kick off the series and pull the readers in, and then I'm sure they'll move on to highlight much more of the Marvel character arsenal. How do some of you not understand this??? I think most of the people who have already posted on this article needn't worry about ever having marketing, sales, or management jobs.

I really wish that the ptb would rethink the exclusive one and done storylines, though, and throw in one or two two-parters per year. I think they are totally underestimating the target age of these books, as most kids ages 5+ can handle waiting a month for the second part of a story. Hell, most of us were reading comics at that age, and that frustrating wait for the next part of a cool storyline, while dealing with all the questions and anxieties a well-written cliffhanger left us with, was all part of the fun.

[drizpiece]

Quick, fun, and action packed... can't this be like the regular MU?

[Jason Seaver]

I'm in. I support this kind of complete insanity.

[Snowspinner]

This sounds fun, but I admit, I'm puzzled - books like this and Tiny Titans do nothing on the sales charts. How are they a sufficient market that both Marvel and DC are clearly seeking to expand these lines?