It can't really happen today the way it did back then and part of that is because I think there's a bit of a competitive scare over at Marvel and DC so they lock guys up with exclusive contracts.

I was never a DC kid - I went through a phase from, like, 11 to 17 where I would try to buy as many Marvel titles as possible. And '2000 AD' was kind of the sort of sci-fi/punk of British comics.

When I look back at what I had to go through in black baseball, I can only marvel at the many black players who stuck it out for years in the Jim Crow leagues because they had nowhere else to go.

I had joined Marvel in 1967, after a year in Vietnam and three years as a student at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan. Stan Lee, then the editor-in-chief, hired me as a production assistant.

Deadpool exploded for the youth around 2010 with 'Marvel vs. Capcom.' He was the most popular character. He does kicks, then mocks you as he hits you and dances around you when you hit the ground.

As we've often said, to the world at large, Marvel looks like a giant octopus that's out to swallow the galaxy - which, by the way, we are. But we are, in fact, a rather small and intimate company.

As anyone who reads Marvel comics will tell you, it's actually more important that you understand the people that are inside the mask, as opposed to the mask and the cowl or anything else like that.

The Marvel catalogue of 9,000 characters really is that rich. It isn't just a bunch of guys running around with capes and cowls who have secret identities and fight across the street from each other.

I have a list of people to work with, but Marvel is really at the top of that list because I've been working out really hard and just waiting for that day they tell me I can slide into a spandex suit!

Marvel does a fantastic job about bringing human stories - because you're telling big stories with a heart at the centre of it - and that's what connects all of the characters to our audience members.

I do marvel at what life puts in your path. It's always the unexpected. But I am lucky to be surrounded by very positive people and during my rehabilitation from the haemorrhage that helped very much.

If you do approach a comics publisher, make sure it's one that publishes the kind of book you want to make. Don't take your literary fiction to Marvel or DC; don't pitch your Spider-Man epic to Image.

When I hear so-called professional journalists ask why we have celebrities speak for us and for the animals, the environment or social causes, I marvel at their denial of the rules of their own trade.

I've been astounded to discover how good to their teams and crew that Marvel are. They're so collaborative, so smart with their stories. They have rich, dynamic characters which are so much fun to play.

I do like to work on a Marvel method, so if I've got the opportunity, and the writer is happy to do it, I like to have a writer detail what happens on a page, but not saying what happens in every scene.

I'd begun reading Crumb shortly before that, and other underground stuff, so that was an influence to some degree. Of course the Marvel and DC comics, they had been my main interests in my teenage years.

Every significant book at Marvel had its key antagonist. 'The Fantastic Four' had Doctor Doom; 'Spider-Man' had Doc Ock, among others; Thor had Loki, if not Surtur. Without Magneto, the X-Men had nobody.

When I was at Marvel, they were in bankruptcy, which is hard to believe now with 'Avengers 2' out, but it was during the 1990s. It was a troubled place. Comic book sales were dropping. Work was scattered.

I don't sound disloyal, but I've never had a pair of Marvel pyjamas or underwear. I do have a lot of Marvel figurines at home in a cabinet. Every time they make a new Marvel figure I put it in my cabinet.

I have six brothers, so I definitely was aware of Marvel more than I was of princesses, but once you're cast in a Joss Whedon Marvel show, you go and become even more of a bigger fan. You do your homework.

For Marvel, we've never looked at any of our characters in terms of gender, race, or religion. It truly is about, who is the best character for the story? If that character happens to be a woman, fantastic.

I wrote and drew my own books on notebook paper, and I'd staple 'em together. I had my own fictional company, and we had our own thinly veiled offshoots of whatever was popular at Marvel and DC at the time.

The weather doesn't respect political or geographic boundaries: we're all living under the same sky. And so weather prediction has been a marvel not only of technology but also of international cooeperation.

The 'Ms. Marvel' mantle has passed to 'Kamala Khan,' a high school student from Jersey City who struggles to reconcile being an American teenager with the conservative customs of her Pakistani Muslim family.

When I was writing 'Black Panther,' on one level, I was angry because DC would never let me write 'Batman,' so I was doing Marvel's 'Batman,' and Reverend Achebe became sort of the Joker to Panther's Batman.

Overall, I'm happy how 'Original Sin' has come together. It's an amalgam of all I've done at Marvel, mixing the gritty, violent 'Punisher Max' stuff with the zany, light-hearted 'Wolverine & The X-Men' work.

My favorite thing to do with my iPod was to shuffle my entire music collection and marvel at what songs came next. Sometimes the segues would be so perfect that it seemed a genius deejay was behind the wheel.

I don't know if you'd do a Marvel story on Ferguson, because it trivializes what the real flesh-and-blood people on the ground are doing there. But you can make an allegory and deal with the bigger questions.

I love the Marvel movies, but I always feel like we should be a step ahead of the movies. One of the reasons those movies have been so good and so successful is that they've been very good at mining the comics.

Putting any show on television is a challenge. I've been very lucky to work with incredible showrunners on 'Smallville' and 'Lost' and 'Heroes.' I hope to bring a lot of those lessons to Marvel live television.

From what I hear, everyone who does a Marvel movie gets a three-picture deal. I'll be Sam Jackson's stand-in. I'll do eight pictures for Marvel, and then I'll just do indies. Marvel can pay for my indie career.

I had been in talks with Marvel prior to 'Iron Fist,' and I had researched all the prominent female roles that I was interested in. Colleen Wing came up really early in the process, and I had a strange feeling.

I love the comics so much, and I grew up reading Marvel Comics. And Doctor Strange is my favorite comic book character - probably, I think honestly, the only comic book I would feel personally suited to work on.

Black Panther is a great film'. It has the most compelling villain of any Marvel movie, and it deals admirably with the issue of diminishing jeopardy in a million superhero films where the world is going to end.

I personally have not spoken to Marvel and have no plans to do a movie in the immediate future because, number one, I'm tied up with 'Somnia,' which is a fantastic place to be. It's exactly where I wanted to be.

Superman is pretty much the way he was - you know - what he's always been. A lot of the Marvel characters are products of their time. I think Batman, as a character, has been able to adapt; he's pretty malleable.

I never thought I would work in mainstream superhero comics or Valiant or Marvel. I just set out to make the kinds of stories I wanted to make, which at the beginning was small personal stuff like 'Essex County.'

Did I collect baseball cards? I've got 10 books full of plastic in my mother's house. All the Upper Decks, the Fleers, the Fleer Ultras. My grandfather brought me to the trade shows. I collected Marvel cards, too.

I just remember how cool and exciting and crazy it seemed when Marvel was giving this new 'Ultimate Spider-Man' title to this crime writer Brian Michael Bendis who had never really done any superhero stuff before.

I love the new Marvel films, but I am not crazy about them. It is no longer a sub-genre or a fanboy genre. It has become so mainstream. You cannot say, 'I love superhero movies.' Everyone loves superhero movies now.

I always liked 'Johnny Blaze,' but we announced it on TV, and it was under copyright by Marvel. Then I had 'Johnny Spade,' and that name sucked, then I had 'Johnny Nitro.' Johnny Nitro was one of my favourite names.

We basically got a call from our agent that said we were on the list of directors that Marvel was interested in talking to about 'Captain America 2.' First of all, that was thrilling, having not lobbied for the job.

I was a poor kid. I came from nothing. We didn't have any money; a lot of times we didn't have any food, and now, all of a sudden, I'm a superhero in a Marvel movie? Talk about the American dream, man - I'm living it.

I started working as a movie writer and a movie producer... all the way back to 'Teen Wolf' and 'Commando.' All of those experiences, plus working both at DC and at Marvel - each of those things are bricks in the wall.

Marvel has put out good product. DC has put out good product. Even Image has put out good product, as far as I'm concerned... although it's few and far between. But it's not getting recognized, no matter who's doing it.

I was embarrassingly well-versed in Marvel lore, so it was pretty easy to slip into that world. But really, already, by the time I'd started writing superhero comics, my dream was really to be writing my own characters.

I grew up reading comics - mostly Marvel - Doctor Strange was my favourite comic book and has remained my favourite as an adult. It's the only comic book movie property I've ever gone after. I felt uniquely suited to it.

I really do see everybody at Marvel Television as storytellers. They might have different titles, but whether they're actors or they're showrunners or they're somebody that answers the phone, all of them are storytellers.

When you leave WWE, like, when I left, I was thinking, 'Maybe I'll take, like, a year off, and in that year, I'll probably do a Marvel movie, maybe a couple of movies. I don't know.' And, obviously, completely unrealistic.

Marvel, I think, on purpose, they don't tell me certain things. Because they know I'll be like, 'So here's what's gonna happen.' But I do know I will be in 'Thor 3' and that Sif will have a very pivotal part in that movie.

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