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PART WEB, PART RESURRECTION

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 13:05:56 -0800

GUGGENHEIM "RESURRECTS" THE BLACK HOOD
1 by Kiel Phegley, News Editor
In superhero comics, reinvention comes about as often as the Sunday paper. New costumes, new alter egos and new series constantly work their way onto the stands for even the biggest characters in the business, but making a reinvention stick over the long haul can be tricky. For DC Comics, the latest in a long line of heroic reinventions and revivals is the publishing of the "Red Circle" heroes – a group of classic superpowered characters that originated at Archie Comics over the course of the '40s through the '60s. Wave Two of those characters' introduction into the DC Universe starts this week with "The Web" #5 from writer Marc Guggenheim, introducing the lstest version of the vigilante hero the Black Hood.
"I actually do have some affection for these old characters. My exposure to them was through a copy of Archie’s Super Hero Comic Digest No. 2, which I still own a copy of," Guggenheim (who works with guest artist Talent Caldwell on the issue) told CBR. Though the writer explained that his first pitch for the billionaire hero who franchises his suit and powers out to would-be crime fighters online didn't automatically float towards expanding DC's new franchise.
"Well, my original idea was that the Joker contacts the Web for 'help.' That’s really all I had to start, but it’s also all I ended up needing since I found out that the Joker was, perhaps unsurprisingly, unavailable to me for this story. But it got me thinking about a criminal being the one to ask the Web for help. That was the initial impetus, the springboard, behind the story."
What Guggenheim's springboard led to was the recreation of Black Hood, an outlaw hero whose previous iterations included takes as wildly different as a spy-smashing hero, a rogue cop, motorcycle pilot, the rider of a robot horse and in the '90s, a totemic hero mask passed around between characters. With all those disparate ideas as possible starting points (not to mention the initial Red Circle bible written by J. Michael Straczynski), Guggenheim had a lot to mull over in bringing what he hoped would be a lasting interpretation to the page. "[DC] gave me all of JMS’ original material as well as some of the mythology worked up by the other Red Circle writers, but I don’t remember there being anything in there about the Black Hood and, if there was, I don’t think I ended up using it, at least consciously," he explained. "That’s not to take anything away from what JMS or the other writers did, however. All of them have done a brilliant job of reinventing these characters and building a place for them in the DCU. I just think that in the case of the Black Hood, there was pretty much a blank slate to work with. Thus, it became more of an exercise in integrating the character into the world – particularly the Web character – that the other writers had developed."
That integration of the Web's internet-driven heroing and the core Black Hood conceit led to an all-new hero with a complicated past all his own. "This iteration of the character is a guy named Mateo Burland. He’s Latino, and he’s arguably the most grounded version of the character we’ve seen to date. At least, I hope so. My goal here was to take the now-familiar model of the street vigilante – the Punisher and the Adrian Chase Vigilante – and turn it on its head. In both instances, the character is an establishment man – a veteran in the Punisher’s case and a D.A. in Adrian’s – someone whose background means he stands for law and order. I wanted to go the opposite way; I wanted to start with a character who was, basically, the kind of 'street scum' these vigilante-type characters typically go after. And that, I realized, dovetailed nicely into my original idea for a criminal asking the Web for help. See? It all comes full circle...or, um, Red Circle."
And while his stay in the Red Circle line will be brief (writer Matthew Sturges picks up with February's "The Web" #6 before a new wave of heroes takes over the series co-features), Guggenheim will continue on the monthly beat both with his upcoming work on "Action Comics" and his ongoing series of humanity's survival in the wake of an alien attack – Oni Press' "Resurrection."
In recent issues, that series has thrown its own re-inventive wrinkle into the mix as the main cast of survivors stumbled upon President Bill Clinton (who in the comics timeline was still in office at the time of the attack), and began a trip with him to Washington D.C. to see if the country could be put back together. "It’s been a lot of fun adding Clinton to the cast," the writer said. "The idea came about as I was working out the details of what I call 'Volume 2' of the series – i.e., when we started renumbering with colored, monthly issues. It actually worked quite organically into a storyline I was plotting out about the presidential line of succession. Basicallly, I wanted to reveal that one of the more familiar characters of the book – Ben Dellacroix – was part of the presidential line of succession and then, just as you think Ben’s going to be president, put Clinton on the stage.
The president's involvement hasn't made for political commentary so much as it has for interesting drama as members of the group have begun to suspect that the man might not be all he seems or that the Secret Service guards who have protected him all these years may not have the most feasible plan for reestablishing a government in a world still savaged by alien forces and at the mercy of wild road agents. "Initially, I was worried about having Clinton say or do certain things because he is, after all, a real person and someone who looms very large in my esteem, but I quickly realized – though I often have to remind myself – that the best thing for me to do is write him as a would any other character. In this case, President Clinton is just a 'character' I’m more familiar with than most."
As for who would play the "hero" of "Resurrection" with Clinton's own motives and power in doubt, Guggenheim explained that part of the draw for the series was that it remained the story of a large cast, and in some way, all of humanity. In fact, he plans on playing with those elements more in the coming months. "I don’t consider any one character the 'main' character. To the extent there is one, it’s [the recently pregnant survivor] Sara Lisco, but she doesn’t appear in every issue...at least, she won’t in the future.
"The next arc – or 'book' as we call them in Resurrection-land – has our characters encountering the one city in America that hasn’t been decimated by the alien invasion," Guggenheim teased. "And its inhabitants believe they were spared because they worship the aliens like gods. I have the book worked out to, roughly, issue fifty – though things may expand (or contract, I’m mercurial) as my ideas change and grow. I have answers for all the big mythology questions of the series, but I’ve given myself permission to go left where I’d initially planned on going right when the inspiration strikes me."
"The Web" #5 is in stores today from DC Comics. "Resurrection" #7 from Guggenheim and artist Justin Greenwood hits next month.

CAUGHT IN THE WEB

Tue, 26 Jan 2010 14:13:07 -0800

Marc Guggenheim Gets Caught in the DC Universe "Web"

By Vaneta Rogers

Before Marc Guggenheim starts his run on Action Comics, he's making a stop at The Web this week, bringing his version of the Black Hood to the DCU by incorporating the Detroit era of the JLA.

And according to Guggenheim, this one issue of The Web is among the writer's favorite work he's ever done in comics.

The Web – part of the Red Circle group of characters being integrated into the DCU – is a superhero with a modern twist. The Web uses his success and abilities to fight crime, but does so through requests he receives via the Internet.

In this week's issue, Guggenheim explores the fact that the Web allows other people around the world to be part of his "franchise." He outsources his superheroics via the Internet, allowing others to function as "Web Hosts." It was an idea that Guggenheim found fascinating.

Plus, fans of Archie Comics characters will be happy to hear that Guggenheim has a new take on the Black Hood that is introduced in this issue to the Red Circle world, and the DCU.

Guggenheim, who recently ended a run on Amazing Spider-Man and co-wrote the Green Lantern movie, is writing just one issue of The Web before new writer Matt Sturgis takes over the series. The Web #5 will fit right into continuity, but will function as a "done-in-one" story -- something the writer said he really enjoys creating.

And according to Guggenheim, he's become an enthusiastic fan of The Red Circle characters and what a group of innovative writers are doing with them in these comics.

Newsarama talked to the writer about the issue to find out more about why this issue was a welcome challenge for him.

Newsarama: Marc, since you just came into this world for one issue, what do you think about what's being done with the Red Circle characters?

Guggenheim: I think it's all very high quality stuff. It's really impressive. It's super exciting.

Nrama: It doesn't seem like a lot of people know about it, though.

Guggenheim: I think it's hard to make noise in this marketplace in the midst of all the other events. It's so difficult to actually get people to spend their limited dollars on stuff that doesn't tie into those big things.

Nrama: How did this one-issue job come about for you?

Guggenheim: It's something DC asked me to do. They were going to be in between two runs of writers and needed a fill-in issue. Honestly, it was one of those situations where they came to me and asked me to do something, and I had the time and the inclination and an idea, so I said yes.

One of the reasons I want to talk about this comic is that, I realized in doing this issue of The Web that some of my favorite work I've done in comics, including this issue, are these one-offs. Working on a character who's not a Spider-Man or a Superman, but something like my Hyperion vs. Nighthawk issues, which was only a four-issue series. That's some of the most rewarding writing that I've done in comic books.

And I was really pleased with the way this issue of The Web turned out. It's about 20 pages, so it was like, what can you get done in 20 pages? But it turned out being very ambitious for the amount of space that I had. I really had fun with it. And Talent Caldwell really knocked it out of the park. I think it's worthy of some attention.

Nrama: Talent's got such a great style.

Guggenheim: I've always wanted to work with him. And he just rocked this issue.

Nrama: So if DC came to you about writing this, did you have to get up to speed on the character? Or were you at least familiar with the old version from the Archie comics?

Guggenheim: You know, it's funny... I have the original Archie superhero digest, where all of the Red Circle characters, or most of them, made their appearances. So I was familiar with the characters from when I was a kid. But when the editor called me about this, I did have to claim ignorance of what Straczynski was doing, although I'm a huge fan of Joe's writing. And a huge fan of the way his mind works. So the editor sent me the bible of materials Joe had put together, and the initial issues and scripts he had written. And I just sort of devoured it all.

Of course, I really enjoyed what Joe had come up with. He's really very original and very smart. And I thought what he came up with in terms of the Web was really interesting. I think it says a lot that, when I read his treatment of the character, I immediately had a dozen ideas. I think that shows the strength of the concept that Joe had come up with.

Nrama: What can you tell us about the story?

Guggenheim: There's no spoiler alert on this one. It's not exactly a top-secret project. But what I was really enamored with, when I read Joe's idea, was this notion of the various different people who are franchisees of the Web's superhero identity.

It's this idea that a superhero would outsource his heroism to these various different volunteers. I just thought, wow, I've never seen that before, and that's very intriguing to me. What were the unintended consequences of the Web doing something like that?

And the other idea that intrigued me was.... well, I should explain that one of the initial ideas that I pitched was that the Joker goes on the Web's website and asks him for help. That's really all I had at first, because I was intrigued by the idea of a bad guy coming to the Web for help.

Unfortunately, because of what's going on in the Batman books, the Joker was unavailable, but I still couldn't get the idea of a bad guy asking a superhero for help out of my head.

Then the third thing that happened was that [editor] Rachel [Gluckstern] made the Black Hood available. And she asked if I'd be interested in introducing my version of the Black Hood into the book.

So I ended up putting those three ideas together: The concept of the web host, the idea of a bad guy asking for help, and finally, this new idea of the Black Hood.

Nrama: What can you tell us about your take on the Black Hood?

The story I ended up with is that there's a drug dealer in Detroit who wants to get out. He asks the Web for help, and the Web sends one of his Web Hosts, and chaos ensues. And out of that chaos, the Black Hood is born.

One of the things I was able to do – and quite frankly, when I pitched it, I didn't think I'd get the green light to do this – was to draw from some JLA history. The Detroit years of the JLA. And that history, that legacy, plays a role in the origin of the Black Hood.

It's one of those stories that has a lot of different ideas and a lot of different elements going into it. But they all really go together. I think they coalesce really well together. It's a fairly tight story.

Nrama: So you found a way to integrate the past into these characters' introduction?

Guggenheim: I think one of the advantages of the DCU is its long history. I think you see that in these legacy characters like Red Robin and Impulse and Superboy and Wonder Girl. For me, there's a difference between accessing history and accessing continuity. I think if you access continuity, it's so specific that it can keep new readers at arm's length. But if you're accessing history, there's this sense that, OK, stuff happened in the past, but I don't need to go back and read all those issue to understand what happens, or what's happening the present story. So I don't like writing stories that depend upon continuity, but I do like acknowledging history.

Plus, I think a lot of people don't realize the Red Circle is part of the DCU. I have to admit, I was surprised to learn it was, before I knew about it. I think these are great characters, and they were in need of what Joe did. He dusted them off and infused them with a great deal of imagination.

Nrama: Were you privy to the game plan for these characters?

Guggenheim: Somewhat. I know they have a very cool game plan in place. There's so much mythology planned out. It reminds me of the early day of the Ultimate Universe where there was this implied connection between the characters, but you didn't know what the big mythology was. And I think there's something similar going on in the Red Circle. And I think that's very interesting.

N. (AGAIN)

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 10:11:08 -0800

Press release...

Marvel Announces Graphic Fiction Adaptation of Stephen King’s " N."

Marvel is proud to announce Stephen King’s “N.” #1 (of 4), a new graphic fiction adaptation of the bestselling author’s chilling short story in his recently-released collection, Just After Sunset. The blockbuster creative team of Marc Guggenheim and Alex Maleev, also responsible for the red-hot Stephen King’s “N” Motion Comic, tell the story of something terrifying hidden in Ackerman’s Field. A bizarre arrangement of eight stones keeps a nightmare contained, but when--in the eye of an unfortunate beholder--the eight stones become seven, the fabric of what we think is real begins to shred, and an unbearable doom seizes the mind.

"It's absolutely thrilling for Marvel to be working on 'N.' again and having the honor to publish it as a comic book miniseries," said said Ruwan Jayatilleke, Marvel Senior Vice President, Development & Planning, Print, Animation and Digital Media. "Both as a fan of the story and a producer on the 'N.' motion comic, I am absolutely psyched for the terrifying ride that Marc, Alex, and the editors have planned for readers!"

It’s the graphic fiction adaptation demanded by fans all over the world-- Stephen King’s “N.” begins in March and no horror fan can afford to miss this alarming tale!

STEPHEN KING'S "N." #1 (of 4)
Written by MARC GUGGENHEIM
Art & Cover by ALEX MALEEV
Cardstock Cover/Parental Advisory...$3.99
© 2010 Stephen King. All rights reserved.
ON SALE MARCH 2010

To find a comic shop near you, call 1-888-comicbook or visit www.comicshoplocator.com

Marvel Entertainment, Inc. is one of the world's most prominent character-based entertainment companies, built on a proven library of over 5,000 characters featured in a variety of media over seventy years. Marvel utilizes its character franchises in licensing, entertainment (via Marvel Studios and Marvel Animation) and publishing (via Marvel Comics). Marvel's strategy is to leverage its franchises in a growing array of opportunities around the world, including feature films, consumer products, toys, video games, animated television, direct-to-DVD and online. For more information visit www.marvel.com.

YET ANOTHER...

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 11:16:40 -0800

Writer MARC GUGGENHEIM Springs Into ACTION (COMICS)

By Vaneta Rogers

Action Comics is getting a new writer in June, just in time for DC's big summer event, War of the Supermen.

The series' new writer is Marc Guggenheim, who's been on Amazing Spider-Man most recently, although most DC readers probably know him for his run on The Flash. Guggenheim is also part of the writing team that scripted the upcoming Green Lantern film and has written for television on series like FlashForward and Eli Stone.

Beginning in June, the writer will begin his run on Action Comics with a five-issue story that ties into War of Supermen, which will be its own mini-series event book. After those five months, Clark Kent's new status quo will be established, and Guggenheim will continue as the ongoing writer for Action..

We talked to Guggenheim about taking over the title and got to talk to him about how the challenge of writing Superman relates to the difficulties in writing Captain America. And along the way, we found out the writer hopes to not only introduce some new villains into Superman's world – but maybe re-introduce some of the old, lesser-known villains with a new take.

Newsarama: Marc, in your comic book career, you've already written both Spider-Man and Superman. That's got to feel pretty good.

Marc Guggenheim: Yeah, it's weird. I've been doing this for, I guess, about five years now, writing comics. I've written a little over 100 comics. But it all still feels incredibly new to me. And I still feel very inexperienced, and the notion that, with my level of experience, I could actually get to write two of the big boys is humbling.

Nrama: You're getting to join the Superman team during the War of the Supermen?

Guggenheim: Yes, that's correct. And it's very exciting because I'll be coming into Action in June, which will be the first month of War of the Supermen. So I'll be doing a five-part tie-in to start. And then War of Supermen will be over, and I'll be left to my own devices.

Nrama: Since you're coming on board with War of the Supermen, are you coordinating already with the Superman team?

Guggenheim: Oh yeah. My first act, once I took the gig, was I flew to New York for the Super-Summit, where we broke out the broad strokes of the event itself. So I got to be involved in the breaking of War of the Supermen. And I've been involved in the weekly conference calls that the weekly Super-writers do. So I'm already neck deep in it.

It's really nice to have this much lead-in, actually. I accepted the offer about a month-and-a-half ago, going on two months now, but my first issue won't hit the stands until June. So I even have a little chunk of time before I have to write my first script. It's nice to have the time to think about the book in just abstract terms before having to sit down and immediately turn around the script. Usually, you take on a book and it's like, OK, script due in two weeks. Whereas here, I've got a nice chunk of time to really think about the character and research and catch up on old Superman comics and immerse myself in the character. That's a luxury you don't usually get with a monthly gig, but that I'm really happy to have.

Nrama: When you take over Superman, he's in a little different place, isn't he?

Guggenheim: Yeah, and one of the fun things for me to do is to explore the ramifications of the whole World of Krypton/War of the Supermen storyline. That's the thing. It's been a very epic storyline in terms of its scope and its length and its ambitions by the time I get onto the book. So I get to play around with that.

My goal is to approach the book with a new-reader-friendly philosophy, because that's how I believe all books should be approached. So you won't have had to have read all the different issues of Action or the other Superman titles leading up to my run. And I know we've taken pains to craft War of the Supermen to also be new-reader-friendly. It's starting off with a Free Comic Book Day issue. It would be foolhardy to expect that every reader coming to it would be familiar with New Krypton and everything. I'm trying to approach things from a ground zero/square one level. All you need to know is that he's a visitor from another planet with powers far beyond those of mortal men, and take it from there.

Nrama: After the five issues that tie into War of the Supermen, you'll have a chance to establish Superman and what your take on the character is going to be. Can you tell us anything about what type of stories you're hoping to write at that point, post-War of the Supermen?

Guggenheim: You know, I've realized there's almost no way to answer that question without spoiling the end of War of the Supermen.

The one thing I can say is that I really do want to take a back-to-the-basics approach to the character and tell really good, solid Superman stories. I don't want to just come in and upset the apple cart and put a different Superman in the costume or something. For me, it's all about trying to tell stories that really get at the essence of who Superman is, and what makes that character fun.

Nrama: Which of Superman's villains are you hoping to get your hands on?

Guggenheim: In the case of Superman, I find his rogue’s gallery a little anemic. Lex Luthor is a great character. He's terrific. But he's almost been such a regular presence in the Superman universe that he's practically a supporting character. In TV terms, he's a series regular.

Brainiac, I'll just say that by the time my Action run starts, it will be time to take Brainiac off the table for a while. He'll have done so much.

Then there's Metallo, and he falls into the same category, because we will also have seen plenty of him.

You start to go down the list, and you realize a lot of the villains are in the category of, OK, we've really seen a lot of them in the last year, so it's time to put them into the box for a bit. Or they fall into the category of, like, Mxyzptlk, who is a great character and a really interesting concept, but just isn't where I want to go with the book, at least initially.

So sort of by process of elimination, I've been thinking of creating some new villains. Not exclusively, but playing around with introducing some new people into his rogues gallery, and sort of re-introducing some of his old villains and give a new take on them.

Nrama: We've seen a lot of development lately of the supporting cast in the Superman world. Are there any characters you'll be paying particular attention to during your run? Or any new characters you're looking to add to the supporting cast?

Guggenheim: I'm not planning on adding anyone, at least initially. Superman's already got a pretty well-rounded supporting cast. I really appreciate with James Robinson, Geoff Johns, Greg Rucka and Sterling Gates and Eric Trautmann have done, particularly at the Daily Planet, with the characters. They've assembled a nice dream team of characters from various different eras of the Daily Planet and Superman.

Again, I'm trying to come into the Superman books as a very polite guest. I'm not saying a guest who isn't staying long. But certainly someone who isn't going to jump right in and start kicking things over. So I just want to play with the pieces that are in place.

Nrama: Were you a Superman fan growing up?

Guggenheim: Oh yeah. There were a lot of different runs that stick out in my mind. I was a huge fan of the work Marv Wolfman did in the pages of Action Comics. I have a great, enormous affection for John Byrne's run. I love the depiction of Superman in the second Superman/Spider-Man crossover.

Nrama: Why that story?

Guggenheim: I think the reason I enjoyed it was more the depiction of Clark Kent than it was Superman. Clark Kent gave a little bit back to Steve Lombard. I enjoyed him showing a little bit of a spine there. I think in many ways it was the precursor to how Clark Kent became depicted in the era of John Byrne and beyond. He wasn't as slap-sticky. Just a little bit more of someone who could stand up for himself.

And I've always really enjoyed the Superman just going back to before I could read. One of my earliest memories was flipping through a copy of, I believe, it was Action Comics. It was at least a Superman comic. It was on the floor of my room before I could read, just flipping through, looking at the pictures.

So I'm a very long-time Superman fan.

Nrama: You mention Superman seeming less slap-sticky. One of the things fans cite a lot, particularly Marvel fans, is that they can't identify with Superman because he's this hero who's looked up to as a perfect icon. You hear even creators saying the Marvel heroes are so much more down-to-earth, citing Superman as an example. How do you approach that challenge of making Clark Kent and Superman a character that people can identify with?

Guggenheim: In all honesty, that's the challenge. That's the question. But I don't think it's a Marvel/DC divide. I always viewed the challenge of writing Superman the same as writing Captain America. It's not so much that DC's characters are less ground level than Marvel's. I mean, you don't get more ground-level than Batman. But the nature of Superman is that he's the guy that everyone looks up to, the same way as, in the Marvel universe, everyone looks up to Cap.

When you have a character that even the heroes worship, it's kind of tricky to show that character as flawed and fragile and having qualities that make them vulnerable. I think the challenge is to get into Superman's head and make him a character who you feel for, and you see things through his eyes, without making it some kind of psychological or post-modern analysis and examination of the character.

I think one of the things Ed Brubaker did so well with Cap, before he killed him [laughs], was he allowed the reader to get into Steve Rogers' head a bit. And this icon became more accessible. And I think that was, in large part, a good chunk of the initial success of the book.

Nrama: When you say that you want to get back to classic Superman stories, do you also have a goal of getting into his head similar to what we saw in Cap?

Guggenheim: Uh... cue up the Internet. [laughs] "Guggenheim's going to try to out-Brubaker Brubaker on Captain America?!!" Ah! Like I don't have enough problems.

No, my goal is to approach Superman as any other character. You know? Obviously, I'm treating the character with respect. I've been given the keys to the car. I don't want to put dents in it. But my goal is to try to, as I write him, take him down off the pedestal so I can write him like a regular character, so you can relate to him like a regular character.

One of the things I would love to do is write some scenes between Clark and Lois as a married couple. I don't think we've seen enough of that in all the years they've been married. And just explore that relationship. That's one of the great love affairs of comics. And I really want to play around with that.

Nrama: So the marriage is safe?

Guggenheim: [laughs] There's this rumor spreading that my first Action arc is that Superman makes a deal with the devil and undoes the marriage. That's not true.

Nrama: And for the record, you didn't do that to Spider-Man either.

Guggenheim: And in all honesty, there's a huge difference between Superman and Spider-Man, especially in this regard. I've said a lot of times that I started out really agnostic on the whole Spider-Man marriage issue. But when I was writing him, he was just a much better character when he was single. Peter Parker is different from Clark Kent, though. And I'll probably get into trouble for saying this, but I like an unmarried Spider-Man. But my instinct with Superman is the opposite.

When my run is done on the book, if people said, wow, he really injected a lot of life into that relationship with Lois Lane and spent a lot of time with the ins and outs of that marriage and what it was like, I'd consider my job very well done.

ANOTHER SUPER-INTERVIEW

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 17:19:39 -0800

The second of several, I’m sure. This one from Comicbookresources.com...

MARC GUGGENHEIM: READY FOR "ACTION"
1 by Jeffrey Renaud, Staff Writer
While the Bible and Ozzy Osbourne both tell us that there is no rest for the wicked, there also isn't much downtime for Marc Guggenheim, and he's actually quite lovely.
The co-writer of the upcoming "Green Lantern" movie starring Ryan Reynolds, Guggenheim has recently left two high-profile assignments as both the showrunner of ABC's "FlashForward" and a member of the braintrust that is bringing "Amazing Spider-Man" to Marvel fans three times a month.
But faster than a speeding bullet, Guggenheim has landed himself yet another writing gig, this time as the new writer of "Action Comics," taking over from current co-writers Greg Rucka and Eric Trautmann. Announced Thursday as part of DC Comics' week long, "DCU in 2010" marketing campaign, Guggenheim's run will take flight the same month as DC's "War of the Supermen" event series begins, most likely in June.
"Action Comics" is Guggenheim's first ongoing assignment for DC Comics since he wrote the death of Bart Allen in "Flash: The Fastest Man Alive" in 2006 and 2007, an arc that tied into Geoff Johns' and Brad Meltzer's "Lightning Saga" crossover in the pages of "Justice Society of America" and "Justice League of America."
But if you can't wait until next summer for Guggenheim's return to DC Comics, he also serves as the guest writer on "The Web" #5 in January, an important issue that bridges Angela Robinson's opening arc on the title with Matt Sturges' upcoming run.
The co-creator of ABC's "Eli Stone" and "Resurrection" for Oni Press, Guggenheim told CBR News that his run on "Action Comics" will begin with a five-issue arc that ties directly into "War of the Supermen," but he has big plans beyond the Super-centric event for the Man of Steel, including the creation of a number of new villains.
CBR News: You're by no means a newcomer to professional writing. In fact, you've had plenty of success in comics, TV and film, but still, it must pretty cool to be the incoming writer of the granddaddy of them all, "Action Comics."
Marc Guggenheim: Oh yeah, completely. It's weird. It's very, very, very strange. I'm still a little like, "Did they make a mistake? When are they going to come to their senses?" But it's very, very flattering, and the only way to approach this project is just with humility and hard work. You just go in and do your best.
What's your affinity for Superman? Did you grow up watching "Super Friends" and the Christopher Reeve movies?
Oh god. Yes, I watched "Super Friends." Yes, I watched Christopher Reeve. I remember very vividly - one of my earliest memories - sitting on the floor in my bedroom flipping through a Superman comic. This was even before I knew how to read. One of my other earliest memories was buying a Mego Superman action figure. Or I guess it was a doll back in those days. I remember, vividly, the store I bought it in and everything. It's funny. It's very weird to write a character that basically, your association with the character, your familiarity with the character, goes back to your earliest, earliest, earliest days of your childhood.
What about Superman as subject material? Is he more difficult to write than other superheroes, because, theoretically, he should be able to get his way out of just about any situation?
It's funny. I've actually given a lot of thought precisely to that problem. In part, one of the things I want to do is introduce some villains that Superman could be defeated by. The truth is, his powers are not infinite - he has weaknesses and he has limitations to his powers. Truth be told, I could come up with a cosmic character that could just squash him like a bug. But the bigger challenge is, if I were to tell that kind of story, convincing the reader that there is some legitimate danger. Just because it's Superman, it means I'm not going to squash him like a bug. Even if I did a whole arc where Superman lost his powers, I think people would be kind of hip to the idea that Superman is probably going to come out of this OK. They're not going to let me destroy a multi-million dollar property.
When writing characters like Superman or any of the icons: Spider-Man, Batman, Wonder Woman, you name it, you're going to deal with that problem. The trick is to tell stories that emotionally engage you. That don't all just hinge on some false jeopardy.
You mentioned writing the major comic book icons, and you're just coming off a run on "Amazing Spider-Man." Are there any similarities between those two characters, Superman and Spider-Man?
I think probably the biggest similarity between the two guys is that both heroes have chosen secret identities that are much more, no pun intended, "mild-mannered." They're heroic identities. And both had childhoods that were taken away from them. It's an interesting angle that, as writers, we don't always have the opportunity to explore, that psychology of both Superman and Spider-Man not really having a real childhood.
For me, I probably won't be delving into very dark, psychological territory. I don't see "Action Comics" as that type of book or that type of project. Truth be told, I'm very much coming to the project with a much less grand design. I feel like I have to make my way up to shifting stuff around and delving into big stuff.
One of things that I admire about John Byrne's run on "Fantastic Four" was that he started with a very back-to-the-basics approach. His first issue was called, "Back to the Basics," and it wasn't until he was on the book for three years that he started throwing curveballs in, like changing the costumes or getting Sue Storm pregnant, or having her have a miscarriage, or writing She-Hulk into the team. His first couple of years on the book was just good, solid "Fantastic Four" stories, and my goal with "Action" is to pretty much follow the same game plan. Just come in and tell really classic Superman stories and see where that takes me.
Earlier this week, DC announced "War of the Supermen," a major event featuring the Man of Steel. Will you be knee-deep in that story, and will "Action Comics" be crossing over with it?
I will be knee-deep in it. In fact, I came out last month to New York to help break the event, and my first issue of "Action" will coincide with the same month as the first issue of "War of the Supermen." So yes, my first five issues on "Action" will be linked to the event, which is a weird way to come into a book. But yes, I'll be knee-deep. I'll be nostril-deep.
It's well off, but do you have plans already in place for what's to come with Superman in "Action Comics" once "War of the Supermen" is complete?
I do. I definitely do. I have a plan, which I haven't even had a chance yet to write up and share with the folks at DC, for my first arc post-"War of the Supermen." I still feel like I'm a guest in the house. James Robinson has been writing "Superman" for several years now. I don't feel like I've earned yet the chance to come in and upset the apple cart. So that's why I'm really trying to focus on what's a good, sort of self-contained Superman story that I can tell coming out of this event - just a tried and true Superman story. And sort of along those lines, one of the reasons to do that is the fact that the Superman books have been doing something really new and different for the last year, taking Superman off Earth and putting him on New Krypton and essentially changing up the cast of all of the Superman books, including "Action Comics." And so for me, coming out of the event, in addition to not wanting to come in and upset the apple cart too much, my first post-event issue will be the first non-"New Krypton" related story in "Action Comics" in over a year, so I feel a strong compulsion to come in and return to the book to its roots. Return the book its normal status quo. And that's what I'm aiming to do with this run.
You mentioned that you were planning to give the Superman mythos some new villains. Why is that necessary, as opposed to tackling some of his classic rogues?
Superman's rogues gallery is a little thin. There's a not a lot of villains that will stand the test of time. A lot of them have been overused. People will have had their full of Brainiac by the time the event is over. Lex Luthor is always going to be in the mix. You want to play around with that a little bit. As I think of Superman stories, I find that I'm wanting to stretch and find some new villains.
Can you tease us about your supporting cast, at all? Obviously, we'll see Lois and Jimmy Olsen and Perry White?
I'm a big fan of the whole Daily Planet environment. I feel like James and Geoff Johns and Greg have done a really nice job over the past couple of years of crystallizing exactly who is in that bullpen. It's sort of a dream team of all the most memorable Daily Planet staffers, from all the runs, going back decades, and I really am looking forward to getting in there and playing around with those characters in that environment. I like the high-octane, old feel of a newspaper. And as a locale to play with, that will be fun. It was always fun to write Daily Bugle scenes [in "Amazing Spider-Man].
Have you ever worked at a newspaper?
A little bit. I did a little bit of writing for my college paper. Believe it or not, I used to illustrate a comic, too. I used to be a very, very bad illustrator. That was my original artistic outlet, in fact. Believe me, if people hate my comic book writing, they would really hate my comic book illustrations.
So you're not drawing "Action Comics," we can safely assume.
Thank God, no. That would take forever. And it wouldn't look very good.
The artist hasn't been announced yet for your run. Any teases?
That is a secret. It is hush-hush, and so it will remain.
You've written the "Green Lantern" movie, and just recently you left the TV show "FlashForward." Do you have other film or TV projects in the works?
I'm actually working on a TV project now that I can't say anything about yet. Ever since, I left "FlashForward," my phone has been ringing constantly with various different film and TV projects, and I'm basically in the very early stages on a lot of them. But nothing that is ready to be announced. I'm actually having a lot of fun exploring all the different options. It's nice to be able to take a step back and say, "OK, here's the landscape and here are the projects that I would like to do."
For me, right now, it's just about working with people I like. And working with people I know. And having fun.

DAH-DUH-DUH-DA-DAH...

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 10:24:54 -0800

...buh-ba-ba!!! I’m gonna start writing Superman, specifically Action Comics, starting in June. MTV.com has the deets...

EXCLUSIVE: Marc Guggenheim Jumps From Green Lantern To Superman As New 'Action Comics' Writer
Posted 3 hrs ago by Rick Marshall in DC Comics, Hot Stuff, News

"Green Lantern" and "Deadpool" star Ryan Reynolds isn't the only guy pulling double duty with some of comics most popular characters these days. Next year, "Green Lantern" movie (and former "FlashForward" television series) co-writer Marc Guggenheim will jump into the driver's seat on DC's "Action Comics" series and script the adventures of the Man of Steel himself, Superman.
With DC already announcing that its next big event will kick off in 2010 with the title "War of the Supermen," it looks to be a big year for Kal-El. I caught up with Guggenheim to get more details on his upcoming debut as the regular writer on one of the industry's longest-running series, and what he has planned for one of the world's most popular superheroes.
MTV: With "War of the Supermen" kicking off next year, it seems like there's going to be a lot going on with the Man of Steel in 2010. Where are you jumping into everything with "Action Comics"?
MARC GUGGENHEIM: Basically, my starting ground is kind of a finish line. ... I'll come in right in the throes of the "War of the Supermen" event, which is this massive crossover that the super titles have been building up to for over a year now.
What this means is, my first issue will coincide with the first month of that event. So, my jumping-off point is like jumping out of an airplane — and hopefully I'll have a parachute.
MTV: With everything going on in "War of the Supermen," is the plan for "Action Comics" to offer an alternative to the main "event" book — something a little "quieter" or simpler, maybe? Will "Action Comics" provide the venue for making sense of how the over-arching event specifically affects its main character's universe, like many regular series tend to do during crossovers?
GUGGENHEIM: I wouldn't say quieter, but the phrase I keep using is "back to the basics." I really want "Action" to be pure, classic Superman. For the last year, Superman has been off on New Krypton and it's been a major change to his status quo. I'm hoping that by the end of the "War of Supermen" event I'll be able to tell some true and classic Superman stories.
MTV: You say you want to bring Superman "back to basics" — so does that mean we won't end up with a Man of Steel with new powers or a new costume when all the dust settles?
GUGGENHEIM: I can't promise the lack of things that may or may not end up at the end of the event, but what I can say is that ... even if he got a new costume or superpowers, there's still an opportunity to tell very quintessential Superman stories. To me, a quintessential Superman story doesn't rely upon him only having the powers he currently has or the costume he's currently wearing.
MTV: Looking beyond "War of the Supermen," what has you most excited about taking the reins of "Action Comics"?
GUGGENHEIM: My main focus is going to be to try to introduce some new villains to Superman's rogues gallery, because it's been a while since he's had some new characters that stuck. I'd like my contribution, at least in the early goings of the book, to be presenting some new villains for him to fight.
MTV: You've written for a variety of other popular characters, like The Flash and Green Lantern, but this is Superman... How do you approach Superman differently from other characters?
GUGGENHEIM: The trick is to not treat him differently from the other characters. Superman comes with so much baggage. You're not writing a character, you're writing an icon.
But the trick to telling an effective Superman story is to tell a story about him as a character and not have him be some sort of impenetrable icon. If he's an impenetrable icon, then I don't think he's someone the readers can wrap their arms around. The trick is to approach the character the same way you would The Flash or Aquaman or other characters. Once you put Superman on a pedestal, you run the risk of losing your readership.
MTV: You mentioned wanting to tell quintessential Superman stories. With so many different versions of Superman over the years, how do you envision the quintessential Superman? What's the version of Superman that's informing your stories?
GUGGENHEIM: There's three iterations of Superman that I'm the fondest of. I don't know if that affection will filter down into my writing or not, but the three depictions I'm most fond of are the Richard Donner "Superman" movies, the John Byrne relaunch, and just to pick a potentially random iteration, I love the way Superman was depicted in the second "Superman vs. Spider-Man" crossover book.
That's sort of random, but i really enjoyed the way he was portrayed there.
MTV: So, with so many other DC characters under your belt — any cameos we can look forward to?
GUGGENHEIM: I would love to do that. I would love to bring in The Flash, I would love to bring in Batman or Green Lantern. I can't say I have plans in place right now to do that. My inclination is to be as Superman-centric as possible right now, because the nature of the event is so much bigger than Superman with so many supporting characters. So my inclination is to focus on Superman and his supporting cast.
If the stories coming out of the event call for it, I won't shy away from it, but I want that to come out organically.

ANOTHER JACKPOT INTERVIEW

Mon, 7 Dec 2009 23:34:52 -0800

Spider-Man: Jackpot Hits Back
Marc Guggenheim discusses the new identity and driving forces behind Jackpot

By Tim Stevens
Guilt can be a powerful motivating factor. Spider-Man has known this for some time and on January 6 Sarah Ehret, the once and future Jackpot shows she has learned the lesson too in AMAZING SPIDER-MAN PRESENTS: JACKPOT #1, thanks to writer Marc Guggenheim and artist Adriana Melo.
"At the end of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN ANNUAL #35-in a moment re-enacted in the opening pages of [this series]-Spidey laid the mother of all guilt trips on Sarah," reminds the writer. "Being motivated by guilt himself, you can imagine that Spidey would be pretty effective at it."
The moment comes easily to Guggenheim as he wrote it himself. In fact, he has had plenty of occasions to follow Jackpot's adventures, a role he has grown to appreciate.
"If I'm being truly honest, it was really the luck of the draw at first," he admits. "It sort of fell to me to introduce her to the pages of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN after her first appearance in the [Free Comic Book Day] issue and then when it came time to write the Annual that focused on her, I was the Spidey writer with free time in his schedule. So, in many ways, it wasan arranged marriage, but it's evolved into a-to beat this analogy into submission-loving one. I've really taken to the character, even in her various incarnations."
As the writer alludes to, two different women have occupied the role of Jackpot. The first fans met, Alana Jobson, turned out to be the second to take on the mantel. The first, Sarah Ehret, got sick of it and sold her identity to Jobson, which eventually led to Jobson's demise. Finally came Spider-Man's speech to Ehret mentioned above and the original making the choice to return to her role.
Despite the shared identity, Guggenheim stresses that fans should not think of Jobson and Ehret as interchangeable.
"The two women are really polar opposites of each other," he explains. "Alana had no powers but loved being a super hero. Sarah, in contrast, has powers, but is doing the whole hero thing very reluctantly. She's not so comfortable being in costume and fighting crime. In the first issue, we'll learn a little bit about why that is. I don't want to spoil things, but it has to do with what her non-hero life looks like."
That aspect of both Jackpots remains something fans have had little to no information about, something AMAZING SPIDER-MAN PRESENTS: JACKPOT #1 looks to change.
"[Sarah's is] a life we haven't seen anything of except for one room in her apartment at the end of the Annual," Guggenheim acknowledges. "One of the things I wanted to do with this [series] was explore the rooms, literally and figuratively, that lay beyond the one we saw."
JACKPOT serves those personal explorations with a big side of action, of course, so fans of punching and kicking need not fret. Sarah rapidly finds herself face-to-face with two Spider-Man villains not seen prominently in some time.
"In the first issue, Jackpot's attempts at crime-fighting put her on the trail of Boomerang and the Rose," Guggenheim reveals. "She begins investigating a very unusual smuggling operation they've got going. But the tables get turned on Sarah very quickly because she's so inexperienced."
As far as who can claim responsibility for this dastardly duo's return, the writer can only take some of the credit-or blame, depending on your perspective.
"As for the Rose, that one was all mine," he confesses. "I just had an affinity for the character going back to his introduction in AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #253 and I wanted to bring him back."
The suggestion of Boomerang, on the other hand, came from on high.
"It was all Steve Wacker's fault, as most things are," Guggenheim divulges. "I'd originally wanted a gang of C-list villains to be working for the Rose, but Steve convinced me that taking one C-list villain and giving him an A-list makeover was the better way to go. Steve had a real vision for what Boomerang could be and pushed me in that direction. So if you like it, it's because I pulled it off. If you don't, blame Steve."

A Jackpot Interview

Thu, 5 Nov 2009 09:31:56 -0800

This one comes from Westfield Comics...

Marc Guggenheim has written for TV, including co-creating Eli Stone, as well as for comics including Super Zombies (Dynamite Entertainment), and at Marvel he’s written Young X-Men and is one of the writers for Amazing Spider Man. This month, he’s writing the new mini-series Amazing Spider-Man Presents: Jackpot. Westfield’s Roger Ash caught up with Guggenheim recently to learn more about this book.
Westfield: For people who may be unfamiliar with the original Jackpot, what should they know about her coming into Amazing Spider-Man Presents: Jackpot?
Marc Guggenheim: Well, they should know that Jackpot is a unique character in the Marvel Universe. She’s really two people – Sara Ehret, who was the original Jackpot, who sold her super-hero license and identity to Alana Jobson, a super-hero wannabe. Sara was the one with powers who didn’t want the responsibility and Alana wanted the responsibility – wanted to be a hero – but didn’t have any powers. So she compensated – overcompensated, really – with drugs, including Mutant Growth Hormone and steroids. Unfortunately, the drugs ultimately killed her and Spider-Man returned the Jackpot identity to Sara Ehret, basically reminding her that with great power comes great opportunities for super-hero stories. Oh, and responsibility.
Westfield: There is a new Jackpot in this mini-series. Is there anything you can tell us about her?
Guggenheim: I think I just did. ;^) The “new” Jackpot is really the old Jackpot. Basically, the tagline for this series is “meet Jackpot again for the first time.” This Jackpot has a legacy that she’s trying to live up to.
Westfield: What can you tell us about the story in Amazing Spider-Man Presents: Jackpot?
Guggenheim: It’s basically Jackpot’s attempt to be a super-hero, to pick up the gauntlet of responsibility that Spider-Man throws down at her feet. (Hint: The “gauntlet” actually looks like a costume.) In the process, she’ll learn about the black market sale of body parts belonging to a super-villain and that investigation will lead her to cross paths with all-new versions of classic villains the Rose and Boomerang. But what happens during that confrontation should be very surprising to readers used to standard super-hero fare.
Westfield: Are you enjoying your collaboration with artist Adriana Melo on the book?
Guggenheim: I’m loving it. Adriana draws babes, action, and babes in action like nobody’s business. Her page compositions are dynamic yet clean and her action sequences are incredibly visceral. She’s a major talent.
Westfield: How much does this story tie into Amazing Spider-Man?
Guggenheim: It’s pretty free-standing, though there’s a reference to the “flagship” book in issue #2. However, I really wanted this book to stand on its own two feet. It’s designed to be 100% new reader friendly.
Westfield: Are there other projects you’re working on that you’d like to mention?
Guggenheim: Well, I’m also writing Iron Man vs. Whiplash with Brannon Braga, and that’s proving to be a total blast. I’m also writing my creator-owned series for Oni Press called Resurrection which is about the world after an alien invasion. Bill Clinton just joined the cast as a series regular. Fun stuff.
Westfield: Any closing comments?
Guggenheim: Jackpot’s a fun character to write because she’s such a blank slate. It’s not often you get to write a character in the Marvel Universe who has virtually no continuity baggage. That freedom has allowed me to do some things you simply can’t do with a more established character. It’s a total blast.

FlashForward/FlashBack

Thu, 1 Oct 2009 15:11:03 -0700

From Newsarama.com...

By Vaneta Rogers 
If there's one thing that's obvious about FlashForward, the new series on ABC that just debuted last week, it's that mysteries abound.  Although the show has an ensemble cast, the first episode centered around Mark Benford, played by Joseph Fiennes ("The Escapist"), an FBI agent who blacked out during a high-speed car chase, only to wake up seeing the world in a state of chaos. Apparently, everyone on the planet went unconscious at the same time, for 2 minutes and 17 seconds, and nobody knows why.  But the real mystery of the blackouts is that everyone experienced a glimpse of the future while they were unconscious. Each person on earth had some sort of "flash forward" to what they will be doing six months in the future on April 29, 2010.   Viewers learned that Mark saw a billboard filled with clues about the mystery of the flash forwards, while his wife Olivia saw herself having an affair with a man she didn't even recognize. His daughter, Charlie, awoke to state she saw "no more good days."   Perhaps the creepiest of all the flash forwards was experienced by Mark's partner, Demetri, played by actor John Cho ("Star Trek"). During his 2 minutes and 17 seconds unconscious, Demetri saw nothing – making him wonder if he is going to die in the next six months.   And adding to the eeriness of it all was surveillance footage of a Tigers baseball game that was found by one of the show's characters. Although the crowd was all unconscious during the worldwide blackouts, one person in a trenchcoat was clearly awake, walking mysteriously around the masses of passed out fans.  There are plenty of mysteries to ponder, including why the flash forwards happened and whether it can all be prevented. The show's co-creator David Goyer ("The Dark Knight") promises that the answers will start coming fast.  Beginning a new series of interviews on Newsarama with the writing staff of the FlashForward television show, Newsarama begins with producer/writer Marc Guggenheim, who Newsarama readers also know as the writer of comics like Resurrection and The Flash. In fact, his final arc on Amazing Spider-Man, "Who is Ben Reilly?," begins next week.  While we spoke in detail to Guggenheim before the first episode was aired, this time we talk about what happened last week as viewers watched the set-up for what's to come in FlashForward.  Newsarama: Marc, to start, how was the premiere for you? Did you watch it with other people?   Marc Guggenheim: You know, it's really, really exciting. We watched the pilot with the cast and crew. We had a little get-together the night of the premiere. We all watched it live. I have to say it's been a really exciting ride thus far. The feedback and the response to the show has been really overwhelming. A lot of people have been drawing comparisons, internally, saying, "Oh, this is what it was like when Lost started, in terms of you feeling like you're at the forefront of a phenomenon. I can only hope! My fingers are crossed. But so far, it's been really exciting to get the show out into the world and see people's responses, which has been really, really positive.  Nrama: As we've confirmed with you before, and as your preview for upcoming episodes also indicated, the 2 minutes and 17 second has a meaning, right?  Guggenheim: Yes, it absolutely has a significance. And we start to explore that significance in Episode 3.  Nrama: And April 29, 2010. Is there a reason that date was picked?  Guggenheim: Yeah, that was also a very deliberate selection, and you'll get an explanation for that in future seasons, not necessarily future episodes. Future seasons.  Nrama: We've been told the show will reach April 29th on April 29th next year, but there a plan for what comes after April 29th, right? That's not the end of the show?  Guggenheim: There is more story. April 29th isn't even the season finale.   Nrama: There are tons of questions we could ask about all the little hints on the bulletin board in Mark's flash forward, particularly that nod to Watchmen artist Dave Gibbons. But instead of asking for spoilers related to that board, how difficult was it to come up with clues that don't give mystery away, and will there continue to be little clues like that?  Guggenheim: I wasn't involved with the development of the pilot, and those Easter eggs are really the brainchild of David Goyer, who co-created the show and directed the pilot. But it's a tradition we endeavored to continue on in Episodes 2 and beyond. So don't stop looking for Easter eggs. There are more to follow.  Nrama: That was a nice Easter egg in there with the Oceanic Airlines billboard.  Guggenheim: We're friends with Damon and Carlton, and they've been incredibly supportive of us and the show. We had to cover up that billboard with something, and it seemed logical to offer a tip of the cap to Lost. We hope to do more of that in the future.  Nrama: But how does Penny from Lost change her identity to Olivia? Did Ben get her papers? And how did Charlie come back to life?  Guggenheim: [laughs] The one thing I will say is that this show does not take place in the same universe as Lost. Not at all. Just like when an Oceanic billboard shows up in a Marvel comic it doesn't mean that the Marvel Universe and the Lost universe are the same. There are some concepts that transcend parallel worlds.  Nrama: One thing that was odd about the first episode was Mark seeing a kangaroo in the middle of the street in L.A. Was that something significant, or just a random joke you guys threw in?  Guggenheim: I'm not sure I would use the word "significant," but I will promise that A) You'll see the kangaroo again; and B) You will find out what the kangaroo as doing on the streets that day.  Nrama: Are there clues in other people's flash forwards that give hints about the mystery Mark and his colleagues are trying to figure out? We saw a meeting in England, for example, that had some names attached to it. So outside that bulletin board, are there other hints we should be looking for in other flash forwards to solve the mystery of this event?  Guggenheim: The short answer is yes. Other people's flash forwards will have significance, beyond Mark's.  Nrama: How much will all the internet tie-ins help viewers unravel the mystery?  Guggenheim: The rule that David and I set for ourselves with the online stuff is two-fold. First of all, we consider the online stuff canon, in the sense that it does take place in the universe of our show. The characters that appear online are characters that exist in the FlashForward universe. That having been said, we're not going to solve a major mystery online. The online component is really for additional depth, another layer of the story if you're interested. If you're not interested, that's OK.   It's sort of like a tie-in to a crossover event, to use comic books terms. You know, the tie-in is great to add flavor to the crossover, but if you just want to pick up the crossover event, you're fine following the story.  Nrama: Another thing that was noticeable in the first episode was that a lot of people mentioned things that happen in the future with politicians and sports figures, things they saw on the news or in the headlines of newspapers. Is that just thrown in there for reality, or is it something we should pay attention to?  Guggenheim: My hope is that people pay attention to everything in the show. I would say nothing is chosen at random. Nearly everything has significance. We have a lot of story to tell. A lot of times, we've already laid in seeds for things we're not sure yet if we're going to have the opportunity to get to in the first season, but one of the fun aspects of the show is watching how the future as we foresaw it comes to pass.  Nrama: Will we see more about why Charlie – and I don't mean Charlie from Lost this time, but the Mark and Olivia's little girl Charlie – will we see more about why she said "there are no more good days" about her flash forward?  Guggenheim: Yes, you'll definitely want to tune in to Episode 2.  Nrama: What can we look forward to tonight on the second episode?  Guggenheim: We'll certainly see more of Charlie. And what she saw in her flash forward really figures front and center in the episode. The other things you can expect are more signs the future is happening.   And because this is Newsarama, I'll say the episode starts off with a really kick-ass visual effect. It's not in any of the trailers. It's a very cool, ambitious visual effect that we haven't teased at all because we're literally working on it right up until deadline. But I think the opening of the episode is really cool and compelling, and it centers around Charlie. So I think it's worth tuning in for that.  There's a lot of fun stuff. You can look for a cameo by Alan Ruck, who is Cameron from Ferris Bueller and Capt. Harriman from Star Trek: Generations.   I would encourage people to check out jointhemosaic.com, because you'll see that website – that's the website that Janis talked about setting up back in the pilot. That website is featured prominently in Episode 2. So you can go online, check out jointhemosaic.com, play around with the website, and then see it in the series.   Nrama: Anything else you want to tell us about the series and what's coming later?  Guggenheim: We're scripted through Episode 12 right now. We've got the whole season planned out. I've seen cuts of the first six episodes. I can tell you that we really have the goods here. It's a really fun, exciting ride. Every episode is a little different. It's a very exciting show with a lot of cool twists and turns. In Episode 2, we go to Hong Kong; in Episode 3, we go to Germany; in Episode 4, we sink a bus. The first four episodes are about laying the groundwork for the rest of the season, so I would pay close attention to each of those episodes. There are a lot of little hints and Easter eggs thrown in. There's even an Eli Stone Easter egg in Episode 3 – I couldn't quite help myself. So there are a lot of cool things coming up.  Newsarama will bring you future discussions with the writing team behind "FlashForward" in weeks to come. After viewing tonight's episode, which airs at 8 p.m. tonight on ABC, come back to this thread to post any questions you'd like asked in future interviews.

CLINTON RESURRECTED

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 17:10:29 -0700

PRESIDENT CLINTON JOINS GUGGENHEIM'S “RESURRECTION”
1 by Shaun Manning, Staff Writer

"Resurrection" #4 on sale this month
Last week, readers of Oni Press's post-apocalyptic series “Resurrection” listened in on a rumor that a very powerful figure has survived the ten-year invasion and occupation of Earth. In issue #3, there is talk that William Jefferson Clinton, the 42nd President of the United States -- and the last person to hold that office before an alien race ravished the planet -- somehow still lives. Now, just over a month after the aliens (which humans call Bugs) have mysteriously departed, society is in tatters and there is no clear path to rebuilding.
Oni has revealed that President Clinton will join the series as a regular cast member in the next issue, injecting an intriguing new element into the struggle for power in this brave new world. CBR News spoke with writer Marc Guggenheim about what the President's appearance will mean for the “Resurrection” cast.
Clinton first appeared in the first issue of “Resurrection” volume 2, but at that point things weren't going well for him. While addressing the besieged nation from Air Force One, the presidential aircraft was attacked by the Bugs. What he's been up to in between will make up a central mystery of the current arc. “I don't want to spoil too much, obviously, but he does survive the crash landing of Air Force One. But there's a very real question of whether he's in charge of the country after that point,” Guggenheim told CBR.
“Resurrection” has already shown several groups and potential leaders jostling for power and the right to rebuild society, and the fact that America's last Commander-in-Chief is still alive may upset their plans. Except, of course, that Clinton's term of office has expired. Then again, it's possible that everyday folks might be eager to have a familiar authority figure leading the country. “It's those questions and more that I'm looking forward to exploring with Clinton's introduction -- reintroduction? -- into the narrative of the book,” Guggenheim said. “We see in volume 2, issue #3 that the Constitution itself suffers a rather dire fate, and one of the questions I want the characters to ponder is whether the Constitution is a document that can survive its physical destruction. Are laws something that are written down, or are they part of something more enduring? Interesting questions that I hope will make for an interesting story.”

Bill Clinton first appeared in "Resurrection" #1
As to how the forty-second president came to be in the town of Red Lion, Guggenheim would only say, “Two of the characters we've met thus far have a prior, pre-invasion connection to Mr. Clinton.” Guggenheim did reveal, though, that appearances by the Clinton's famous family are unlikely at this point. “Clinton was separated from Hillary and Chelsea and he presumes they're dead. You never know, particularly with this series, but I'm very interested in exploring Clinton's reaction to the deaths of his wife and daughter in a very real, human way. That's really my goal with writing Clinton in the book -- to write him as a fully fleshed out and developed 'character' rather than some two-dimensional 'icon.' In other words, I'm writing him as a man and not merely a former (current?) president.”
Presidents including JFK, Nixon, Carter, and Bush I and Bush II have appeared in comic books, and of course this year Barack Obama has had nearly as many guest appearances as Wolverine. But Guggenheim believes Clinton's role in “Resurrection” will be the first time a president has joined the regular cast of a comic book series. “I believe we're charting new territory here,” the writer said. “Should be interesting.”

Bill Clinton was referenced again in "Resurrection" #3
There are, of course, challenges to writing a well-known, real-life person. “For me, the challenge is remembering to write him the same way I would write any of the other characters in the book and not shy away from moments that make him seem real, human and/or vulnerable,” Guggenheim said. “The whole point in bringing Clinton into the book as a regular cast member is to treat him like a regular cast member. It's tempting to put him on some kind of presidential pedestal, but even the 'real life' Clinton is, after all, just a man. I'm not making it a story point or anything, but he puts his pants on one leg at a time, y'know?”
Beyond President Clinton's appearance, other major events are upcoming in “Resurrection.” “We're revealing two big things about Sara and Ben -- who are the closest to 'core characters' as the book comes,” Guggenheim told CBR. “Fans of volume 1 can also look for the return of characters from that arc, including Paul Dolan and a certain Bug. In volume 3, we introduce the 'Church of the Cosmos' -- a new religion that actually worships the Bugs as gods. Plus, Clinton spends an entire issue talking about the pros and cons of having a line item veto.
“Kidding.”

FROM COMICBOOKRESOURCES.COM

Tue, 1 Sep 2009 14:47:14 -0700

FAN EXPO: GUGGENHEIM HITS THE "JACKPOT"
1 by Dave Richards, Staff Writer
In 2007, fans of Marvel Comics' "Amazing Spider-Man" were introduced to Jackpot - a new and mysterious heroine who became a supporting player during the "Brand New Day" era. In 2008, writer Marc Guggenheim cleared up some of the mystery surrounding Jackpot in "Amazing Spider-Man Annual" #35
Guggenheim's story revealed that the Jackpot readers had come to know was actually the second person to assume the identity. The first was a super-powered woman named Sara Ehret, who, after receiving superhero training from the U.S. Government's Initiative program, decided that the life of a costumed heroine wasn't for her. She arranged for a woman named Alana Jobson to take over the Jackpot identity for her, but Alana was ill-prepared and had no real super powers, instead relying on the Marvel Universe's powers-granting narcotic, MGH. As a result, she perished at the end of the Annual, the final scene of which finds Spider-Man lecturing the guilt-ridden Ehret on not living up to the responsibilities of her super powers.
Since the Annual, readers haven't seen much of Sara Ehret or the Jackpot identity. That changes this coming January with the release of "Amazing Spider-Man Presents: Jackpot," a three issue mini-series by Marc Guggenheim and artist Adriana Melo. CBR News spoke with Guggenheim about the series, which was announced today at the Mondo Marvel panel at Fan Expo Canada in Toronto.
CBR: You've written more Jackpot stories than any other Spider-Man creator, and you wrote the Annual, which was one of the most important chapters in the character's history. Now you're back to expand on her story even more. What is it about Jackpot that makes her such a compelling character for you?
Marc Guggenheim: I actually didn't intend to become the character's sponsor or "scribe." Jackpot was created by Dan Slott and Phil Jimenez for their 2007 Free Comic Book Day story, 'Swing Shift,' and then it fell upon me to introduce her in the pages of "Amazing Spider-Man." After that, we started casting about for who was going to write the Annual where we dealt with the mystery of Jackpot's identity.
That was actually a story that was developed by what was, at that time, the "Amazing Spider-Man" brain trust: me, Dan Slott, Zeb Wells, and Bob Gale. I happened to be the one with the hole in his schedule, which allowed me to write the Annual. But it seemed that once I wrote the Annual, I kind of became tied to the character. So when the topic of a Jackpot mini-series came up, it seemed to me like I was the logical choice to write it. So this sort of happened by default, not by design.
In the Annual, the revelation about Jackpot and Alana Jobson's death were met by vocal reactions from some fans that disliked the outcome of the story. What were your feelings on people's reactions to the Annual?
I think some stories don't work because they're the result of bad writing and some appear not to work because they're the result of the wrong expectations. I think there were expectations for "Amazing Spider-Man Annual" #35 that we never really intended to pay off. Rather, we did what we intended: Meet Jackpot and then surprise you by suddenly killing her off, leaving the "original" to pick up the reigns. That was always our plan. In fact, it came out of our very first Spider-Man Summit. It was something that the entire brain trust came up with collectively. I thought it made for a great Spidey story because it spoke directly to the themes of power and responsibility that are at the core of the character. And not to crash your message board, but I think if you go back and re-read the Annual, leaving your expectations as to what you thought it would be about at the door, you'll see it's actually a rather out-of-the-box, original story with an unconventional twist. Unfortunately you can't always -- or ever, really -- control readers' expectations and my hope is that readers will come to this new series and enjoy it on its own terms.
Annual #35 ended with Sarah Ehret guilt-ridden over the death of Alana Jobson. When you pick up her story in "Amazing Spider-Man Presents: Jackpot" #1 how is she dealing with that guilt?
We pick up directly after that last scene in the Annual. We "reenact" that final scene, and as Spider-Man swings off, we stay with Sara and follow in her P.O.V. for the remainder of the series. So how she deals with that guilt is a big part of what this series is all about.
She's not dealing with it by moping about. She's being very active and, in the Spider-Man tradition, atoning by accepting her responsibilities.
That sounds like a good description of what the series is about thematically. Can you reveal anything about the plot?
Basically, she uncovers a criminal conspiracy involving the black market organ sales of a supervillain. A supervillain is behind the sales, and the actual organs belong to another supervillain. The story germinated from trying to come up with an interesting McGuffin. From there I thought, 'What if somebody is selling off the body parts of a supervillain?'
I understand that Jackpot's investigation into the sale of those body parts brings her face to face with two classic Spider-Man villains: Boomerang and the Rose?
Yes. The story required a Bullseye-type character and my editor, Steve Wacker, suggested Boomerang. He felt that he was due for a type of supervillain makeover. It's still the same Boomerang, Fred Meyers. He's just gotten a new lease on life, as it were.
And I've been a fan of the Rose ever since his introduction in the '80s. I've been trying to bring the character back since I came on board the Spider-Man series, and this struck me as the right opportunity.
Richard Fisk, son of Wilson Fisk the Kingpin of Crime, was the original Rose. He was killed though several years ago in an issue of "Daredevil." So, is it safe to assume that this is someone new behind the Rose's mask?
Richard Fisk is indeed dead. So the person behind the mask couldn't be him, but I certainly want readers to be wondering who it may be.
You've got the Rose and Boomerang playing the roles of antagonists in this story, but what about the rest of the supporting players in "Amazing Spider-Man Presents: Jackpot?" Is there anything you can tell me about them?
I don't want to spoil who Sara's supporting characters are, but this being a series that spun off from Spider-Man, I've made sure to involve him throughout. He's not a major supporting character, but he makes several appearances throughout the series.
When Spidey runs afoul of superpowered street crime the tone of the stories can vary from humorous to very dark. What type of tone do you strike in the series?
I'm trying to go dark. When I first pitched this story to Steve, the idea was that I'd go for a Marvel Knights style take on the character of Jackpot. It's street level crime, and I think the events of the second issue are particularly dark. The fallout created by those events in issue #3 is also very dark.
One of the advantages of writing a new character like Jackpot is that there isn't a status quo to maintain. So all bets are off. You can craft a story where anything is possible. She could end up a paraplegic at the end of the series, for all you know. So I'm having a lot of fun pushing the boundaries of the tone.
Adriana Melo is assisting you in bringing to life Jackpot's adventures. What does she bring to the book as an artist?
She's amazing. First of all, she draws women phenomenally well. She also draws action in a really compelling way. Her work features a clean line, kinetic action scenes, and really compelling storytelling. She's a real find.
You mentioned earlier that Jackpot's adventures in this series could take her almost anywhere. If people respond to "Amazing Spider-Man Presents: Jackpot" would you like to revisit the character in another series, or again in the pages of "Amazing Spider-Man?"
I would certainly love for the character to continue to have life. If this series had a tag line it would be, "See Jackpot again for the first time!" Even though the character of Jackpot has been around for a few years, this will be the first time readers see Sara Ehret in the costume. So in many ways, this is a new introduction to the character.
The person behind the mask is always more important than the mask itself. So we'll have to see how successful this first mini is. I, of course hope it is, and there are more Jackpot adventures to come.

FROM MARVEL.COM

Tue, 1 Sep 2009 14:42:36 -0700

Fan Expo Canada '09: Jackpot Returns

Marc Guggenheim revisits the enigmatic redhead

By Kevin Mahadeo

Face it Spidey fans, you just hit the jackpot with the three-issue limited series AMAZING SPIDER-MAN PRESENTS JACKPOT, launching in January from Web Head writer Marc Guggenheim and artist Adriana Melo and following the titular heroine as the latest addition to the Wall Crawler's wide web of allies.
The Jackpot that first appeared in the Free Comic Book Day one-shot SPIDER-MAN: SWING SHIFT, Alana Jacobson, perished in the pages of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN ANNUAL #35, in the process handing the mantle back to the costume's original bearer, Sarah Ehret, who found herself confronted by Spider-Man and chastised her for not only shirking her responsibility as a super-powered hero but also for giving up her role to her non-powered friend.
"This limited series picks up directly after that last scene in the annual, with Sarah Ehret, the original Jackpot, and what happens in her life after Spider-Man leaves," says Guggenheim. "One of the things that is cool about this limited series is that you finally get to learn not only what her powers are but how she got them."
Although fellow his Web Head writer Dan Slott initially created the character of Jackpot along with artist Phil Jimenez, Guggenheim admits that he's "sort of become her adoptive parent," writing the character in most of her appearances since her SWING SHIFT debut. Guggenheim says that Jackpot's reluctance toward venturing into the super hero life draws him to the character as well as her back-story, which parallels that of Spider-Man.

"What I like about that is that it was a very organic story that places her in a very similar position to where Spider-Man was at the beginning of his career," notes the writer. "He has these powers, shies away from being a hero, and then an innocent person dies as a result. He's sort of guilted into becoming Spider-Man, and I like the idea that she's sort of guilted into becoming Jackpot."
Besides serving as the impetus behind Sara putting on the tights once again, the Amazing Arachnid also serves a physical presence in the limited series in the present day as well as in flashbacks. However, Guggenheim stresses that while Spider-Man plays a part, the story very much centers on Jackpot and looks to establish her as a star in her own right.
As part of establishing Sara's individual identity, Guggenheim and Melo also designed a new costume for the hero. Artist Jimenez created the original Jackpot outfit to fit the tongue-in-cheek tone of the character, who served as a misdirect to fans thinking Spider-Man's former flame Mary Jane lay under the mask. Guggenheim wanted to new costume to fit the new tone.
"One of the things that I took to [Editor] Steve [Wacker] was that I really want to do a Marvel Knights take on Jackpot," explains Guggenheim. "I wanted it to be really gritty and street level and with real danger. In keeping with that tone, I wanted a costume that was consistent with it. So, it's something that looks a little tougher and a little less ostentatious."
In order to add that element of danger to the limited series, Guggenheim brought out two old school Spidey villains that should get many longtime fans' Spidey sense a tingling: Boomerang and the Rose. With Boomerang, Guggenheim plans to give the character a Bullseye-like makeover by making his shtick genuinely dangerous. Meanwhile, although Guggenheim admits Wacker initially encouraged the return of Boomerang, the writer reveals his longstanding desire to bring back into the bloom the mysterious Rose:
"I've just been a longtime fan of that character ever since [his] introduction back in the 80's. I always thought he was a really cool visual and a cool, mysterious character. It was actually one of the 'To Do List' items I had back when I first got the Spider-Man assignment to be part of the Brain Trust; I really wanted to bring the Rose back and I managed to find a way to do it in the pages of JACKPOT."
In keeping with the history of the character, the mysterious new identity of the Rose plays into the story. As for the future of Jackpot beyond the limited series, Guggenheim says it all depends on whether others find the character as much of a prize as her name suggests.
"As her adopted parent, my hope is that Jackpot will live on not just in the pages of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, but the Marvel Universe as a whole," he gushes. "But it's always up to other writers to pick up the baton and run with it. My hope is that this new take will energize people and people will want to read about her and writers will want to write about her."

NEWSARAMA FLASHFORWARDS

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 15:50:15 -0700

Newsarama.com has a new interview about FlashForward up...

By Vaneta Rogers

FBI agent Mark Benford is in the middle of a high speed car chase when all of the sudden, he blacks out and sees eerie and unfamiliar visions of himself in the future.

When he awakens on the street in a scene of mass confusion, he finds out the whole world went unconscious at the same time for two minutes and 17 seconds, and they all saw a glimpse of their own life six months from now.

What the visions mean and what people do with the knowledge of their own future becomes the driving force behind the new ABC show FlashForward, which premiers September 24, 2009.

"The premise of the show, I thought when I first heard it, was incredibly thought-provoking and imaginative," said Marc Guggenheim, executive producer for FlashForward along with David Goyer and Brannan Braga.

Starring Joseph Fiennes (The Escapist) as Mark Benford and John Cho (Star Trek) as his partner Demetri, FlashForward also has two alumni of the ABC show Lost in lead roles, with Dominic Monaghan as Simon and Sonya Walger as Mark's wife, Olivia.

Besides borrowing from Lost's cast, FlashForward's mystery-filled style is so similar to ABC's other serialized ensemble thriller that creators recognize it will invariably be compared to Lost. But that's not necessarily a bad thing, Guggenheim said.

"We’ve learned that we have to write the show in what we keep calling a 'post-Lost world,'” Guggenheim said. "We recognize that shows that come after Lost have to basically write for an audience that is really familiar with the clues and the conventions and mythologies that Lost perfected. So it’s kind of like learning to play basketball or joining the NBA once Michael Jordan has been in the game. He changed the game. Lost changed the game. So we’ve just come into the show knowing that the game is changed and we’ve written and produced the show accordingly."

However, the show's producers also emphasize that they do know where this series is going and how it will end – something that Lost viewers were beginning to question when that show's story seemed to be stretched out to fill more seasons.

"This show is different from LOST in that respect," Guggenheim said. "We plant a very firm and deep flag in the pilot that by the end of the season our characters will catch up to their futures. They’ll catch up to April 29, 2010. In fact, they’ll catch up to April 29, 2010, on April 29, 2010. So as a result, there’s no treading water. You’re not gonna see the six months of story be stretched out into six years of story.

"We ask a lot of questions, but you’ll start getting answers very, very, soon and very, very, quickly. So there’s this constant feeling as you go through the first season of payoff and a constant feeling of the plot is actually developing," he said. "You’ll get that huge payoff by the end of the first season."

Yet there is the potential for the series to stretch its finite story into an extra season or two. While Goyer has stated that it will take a minimum of three seasons to tell the complete story of FlashForward, he also left the door open for more seasons because there are potentially seven million people who experienced flashes of their future -- all with unique stories to tell.

"We don’t mean that there are billions of years of FlashForward. Neither David nor I want to overstay our welcome," Guggenheim said with a laugh. "It just means that unlike Lost, where there are a limited number of people on that island, and unlike Grey’s Anatomy, where there’s a limited number of people working at the hospital, every person on the planet had a flash forward, and all of those people have potential stories to tell."

One way that FlashForward is similar to Lost is that even small details from the pilot are clues to the bigger mystery – something that should attract fans who like paying attention to details.

"There’s meaning behind everything," Guggenheim said. "Nothing is put in the show randomly. There are 'Easter eggs' throughout the pilot and in pretty much all the episodes since the pilot. Everything has some sort of significance and everything has some sort of payoff. In some cases, you’ll get the payoff within the first 10 episodes. In other cases, you won’t get the payoff until the very last episode of the series. But everything that has been selected in the show is intentional and has had thought put behind it."

For example, Guggenheim confirmed there is an answer for why the world blacks out for exactly two minutes and 17 seconds. There's also meaning behind why April 29, 2010 is the date people see.

"There are answers to questions that you don’t even know are questions," he said. "[There are] things that are being laid in that you won’t even recognize the significance of until deeper into the seasons and deeper into the series."

Guggenheim credits this clue-weaving technique to the "comic geek cred" of the show's creators -- Goyer as a former comic book writer and co-creator of The Dark Knight, and Guggenheim as a current writer for Amazing Spider-Man and co-writer of the script for the upcoming Green Lantern film.

"Here’s the thing. David and I are both geeks. I mean, in all honesty, we both – we love comic books," said Guggenheim. "We love it when other people give that kind of attention to things. So one of the very first things David and I bonded about was our love of geek culture and those sorts of elements, whether it be a comic book, TV series, a movie, whatever. So we certainly brought that to the show. And that’s one of the many, many fun aspects of working on it."

Another similarity to Lost is the big-budget quality of the pilot's special effects and production.

"The effort honestly, is to make cinema-quality everything, from visual effects to the way it's shot, to the way it’s written, to the way it’s acted," Guggenheim said. "I think that this show really raises the bar in terms of how good a TV show can look.

"We’re constantly pushing the envelope and we’re constantly spending every dime that ABC gives us," the producer said. "And in some cases, a little bit more. But the goal really is to provide as close to cinema-like experience as possible."

But even with the big cinematic effects and strange underlying mysteries, the show is really about the struggle of average people to understand the visions they've been given of what will happen in their futures.

"It’s 100 percent a character-based show," Guggenheim said. "I mean, it’s basically a character drama. It’s set against this big scope. And yes, it has mystery elements to it, but at the end of the day, all the mystery elements are all about illuminating our characters and their specific problems.

"I think the TV shows nowadays, especially on broadcast television where you’re not going after such a niche audience as you are on cable, you have to be able to have a canvas big enough to tell that kind of size story that can go in all those different directions and can hit all those different types of notes," he said. "It’s just too competitive for viewers to do it otherwise."

PROBABLY THE LAST ELI ARTICLE...

Sun, 16 Aug 2009 12:23:52 -0700

...though you never know. E! Online cornered me at this years TCA’s and asked me what would’ve happened on Eli had the show continued. Here’s what I told them:

Eli Stone: The Future Revealed
Today 9:00 AM PDT by NATALIE ABRAMS

Just over a month ago, the dearly departed Eli Stone aired its series finale after months of being on hiatus. Fans got to say goodbye to the show, while learning that Eli (Jonny Lee Miller) and Maggie (Julie Gonzalo) got their happy ending and Wethersby Stone was safe from foreclosure.
We've since learned that this fairy-tale ending is not the case. We caught up with executive producer and creator Marc Guggenheim, who spilled the complete future for Eli and the gang, which was especially easy since they had scripted four episodes past the series finale. Since those episodes are not airing, we thought Eli fans might want to know what would've happened.
For true fans, some of the following will shock you. Some of your favorite couples don't end up getting their happily ever after, while one new couple—that will leave your jaw on the floor—does. You also may be surprised by who might've played Taylor's (Natasha Henstridge) mother.
Be prepared...
Eli and Maggie: "The idea was going to be that Eli starts dating Maggie, and then just as things are going really great, there's a knock on the door. He opens the door to his apartment and there's Grace [Katie Holmes], who is back in town."
Eli Ends Up With Grace? "We didn't know whether or not he would end up with Grace. Obviously had we gone to series, it would've been difficult for him to end up with Grace because we didn't have Katie Holmes on a weekly basis. But we thought it would be nice to bring her back for an episode, and she was game. We wanted to end the season with her."
Maggie and…Nate?! "Maggie and Eli don't end up together. Maggie and Nate [Matt Letscher] end up together. In episode 11 of season one, when you saw Eli 40 years in the future in Times Square, the baby that Maggie is holding is her baby, but it's with Nate. We were going to revisit that flash-forward and return to Times Square. You would see that Nate arrived late, and as Eli took the stage, he was going to push his way through the throng of people to meet up with Maggie."
Dr. Chen and Nate: "They were going to go into practice together. We had Nate lose his job at the hospital and eventually Nate and Chen [James Saito] were going to open up an Eastern and Western medicine practice. It was going to be like The Odd Couple."
Matt and Taylor: "They were going to get married. Taylor would eventually have their baby. Matt [Sam Jaeger] was going to be the surprisingly good father. Taylor would find it difficult to balance work and motherhood, but Matt would show a surprising ability for being a dad."

Jordan, Taylor's Mama and the Firm: "Jordan [Victor Garber] was going to reconnect with Taylor's mother. We were hoping to get Goldie Hawn. That was the plan and hope. [Also], Wethersby Stone was going to continue to grow and prosper. Maggie would eventually come back to the firm."
Happy Eli Ending? "Eli gets a very happy ending. Basically the overall plan for the show was that with each season, Eli's profile would get bigger and bigger, until by the end of the series, he would be talking to crowds of thousands of people. His profile would grow until he actually found it difficult to practice law because he had so much notoriety. Then the show was going to shift from Eli being a lawyer to being more of an active prophet. One of the things we always said on the show was Abraham Lincoln was a prophet, Martin Luther King Jr. was a prophet, Gandhi was a prophet. All three people met premature ends. As Eli's profile grew, the danger grew to him as well."

THIS IS COOL

Sun, 16 Aug 2009 10:14:19 -0700

Today, a very unique tie-in sight to the upcoming FlashForward went live. I don’t want to go into too much detail about it here, but it’s worth checking out: jointhemosaic.com

COMING SOON

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 13:33:47 -0700

BACK TO THE FUTURE

Tue, 14 Jul 2009 17:18:04 -0700

Guggenheim Goes for "Galactica 1980"
by Kiel Phegley
Posted: Tue, July 14th, 2009 at 10:28AM PST

"Galactica 1980" launches in September
Before the internet made mobilizing fanboy campaigns as easy as scroll-type-click, the ABC network yielded to fan outcry in the form of a late 1970s letter-writing campaign and revived the just-canceled sci-fi series "Battlestar Galactica" for another go round as the appropriately titled 1980 spinoff "Galactica 1980." Of course, the devotees who tuned in for that fateful continuation found there was one thing their letters couldn't prepare them for: the show sucking.
But traveling a road less taken, writer Marc Guggenheim and artist Cezar Razek will attempt to turn legendary TV crap into comic book gold with a reimagined "Galactica 1980" series hitting shops this September from Dynamite Entertainment.
"What I love about 'Galactica 1980' is that it’s the finest example I can think of how wide the chasm can be between concept and execution," Marc Guggenheim told CBR. "The concept is amazing. The Galactica discovers Earth! What’s not cool about that? But the execution… I have two words: Super. Scouts. I mean, the Galactica finally discovers Earth. There are a million stories to tell there and you decide to do the one about super-powered kids who play baseball? Wow."
While Dynamite has staked its claim to the franchise over the past several years – including in-continuity explorations of both the original "Battlestar Galactica" and Ronald D. Moore's recently wrapped, award-winning reboot – Guggenheim's "1980" series marks the first departure from canon in an attempt to reinvigorate one of the franchise's more lackluster chapters.
"The basic concept here is that my series is the official comic book adaptation of the 'Galactica 1980' series: from the parallel universe where the series wasn’t done badly," said Guggenheim, who added, “Warning to trolls: don’t swing at the easy ones!”
Of the task ahead of him, Guggenheim explained, " I’m sticking with the original 'cast' – Old Adama, Colonel Boomer, Troy, Dillon and, of course, Dr. Zee. But to give you an idea of how things are different, Dr. Zee is a ninety-year old scientist who is so sociopathic and brilliant that he transferred his consciousness into the body of a ten-year old boy once his original body gave out. Adama is contemplating suicide in the first issue. Troy is a drunk. Colonel Boomer is a hot Asian chick. Actually, that last part’s not true."
What is true is that Guggenheim followed the exploits of the original "1980" cast from its inception as an adolescent follower of the original series. "I was a huge fan of the original series. Huge,” he said. “I was eight-years old when the show premiered and it completely rocked my prepubescent world. For me, it was like 'Star Wars the TV Show' (as the eventual lawsuit demonstrates). I was just blown away on a weekly basis. That first – and only – season seemed to run for years, not months, to my young eyes.
"Being only eight, I didn’t know that the show had been cancelled. There was no Internet in the old days and I was only eight, so I wasn’t reading magazines like 'Starlog' at the time for news. Everything I knew, I got from the old boob tube and, as far as I knew, 'Battlestar Galactica' wasn’t cancelled; it was just going to continue as 'Galactica 1980,' and even better, Galactica was gonna find Earth! This was the coolest thing I could ever possibly imagine. 'Galactica 1980' felt like wish fulfillment in its purest form."
Ultimately, the original show proved an early example of "be careful what you wish for" for Guggenheim, but the writer explained that in reimagining "Galactica 1980" for a new audience, he opted to keep close to the pieces on the board introduced with that show's launch. "I didn’t want to stray too far from the original 'Galactica 1980' cast," he said. "In fact, Dr. Mortinson – played by Robert Reed in the original series – is even in the series and plays a fairly prominent role. However, one character from the original series makes an appearance, but you’ll have to read issue #2 to learn who that’s going to be."
One thing that will remain unchanged is the prevalence of Captain Troy and Lieutenant Dillon, the main characters for the run of the 1980 series, although Guggenheim noted that the silly baggage that went with their original adventures will be checked at the door. "Troy and Dillon start out as the main characters in this iteration as well. However, protecting the colonial children would be one of those elements that is not available to me because of my self-imposed rule to avoid anything that’s lame."
Overall, Guggenheim plans on drawing inspiration for his miniseries from the original "Battlestar Galactica" – a program which helped shape his ideas of how TV writing works years before he was a successful television writer himself. "The construction of that original 'BSG' season was really remarkable. The way they put various pieces on the board – the Borellians, the Alliance, etc. – then started playing them off each other made a deep impression on me, even then,” Guggenheim recalled. “I really love the way everything starts to fit together by the latter third of the season. Episode 21 – 'Baltar’s Escape' – is one of my favorites because it relies on the combination of all these different ingredients that the writers had been subtly weaving into the show. I know that the original 'BSG' isn’t exactly held up as the pinnacle of TV writing – and it wasn’t, exactly – but they did a lot of things that I thought were very smart and sophisticated, particularly in 1978 and 1979."
Helping carry the storytelling weight will be Cezar Razek, who's had experience in adventure comics by way of Dynamite's "Zorro" series. "Cezar’s storytelling skill is, I think, his greatest strength and that translates across genre, time and place," Guggenheim said. "That having been said, once you see his sci-fi work, you’ll really be amazed at how much range he has."
And for the skeptics who were burned by the original "Galactica 1980" television series and may want the past to stay just that, Marc Guggenheim offered an olive branch of fandom to help bring them on board for the new comic book. "I’d say that I’m writing the series for them. This series is wish fulfillment for people – including myself – who thought that 'Galactica 1980' was a terrific idea, executed terrifically poorly,” the writer said. “Proving once and for all that I have no commercial instincts whatsoever, this is really a book for all the people who think it’s going to suck. It’s for the people who don’t remember the original series fondly and felt burned by it, as I did. It takes you back to the time – which, for me, was the first commercial for 'Galactica 1980' – when you thought that this might be the greatest series ever. That’s my hope and ambition, at any rate."

LOTS OF STUFF

Wed, 1 Jul 2009 17:33:35 -0700

Thinkmcflythink.com -- no, that’s a real site -- pinned me down on a whole mess of stuff...

Movie writer. TV producer. Comic book creator. Video game writer.
While this list may seem like a collection of dream jobs for many of us, it actually is the resume of former lawyer Marc Guggenheim.
Since Guggenheim left the world of Boston law and turned to Hollywood, his biggest problem seemingly has been finding the time for all of the work sent his way.
 FLASH FORWARD
One of the items currently on Guggenheim's plate is his role as executive producer of the television series "Flash Forward," which is scheduled to debut this fall on ABC.
The concept behind "Flash Forward" is that everyone on Earth blacks out for 2 minutes and 17 seconds. During the blackout, people experience visions of April 29, 2010, which is six months into the future at that point. When the "flash forward" is over, many people have died in accidents involving vehicles, aircraft or other devices that require human control.
The plot is adapted from the 1999 book "Flashforward" by Robert J. Sawyer.
"I like to use the phrase 'inspired by.' [The show's writers] took the storyline in a different direction than the novel," said Guggenheim. "If you read the book and find the concept intriguing, you will really enjoy what David (Goyer) and Brannon (Braga) did with it."
One major change from the book to the television show involves how far into the future people see when they black out.
"We've obviously changed it from 21 years to six months," said Guggenheim. "The real appeal when you are doing a television series is getting to see the payoff of when the future becomes the present. David and Brannon made the decision to have that payoff come in the first season."
One aspect of the show that has people talking is the high caliber of its cast. "Flash Forward" features Joseph Fiennes, John Cho, Jack Davenport and Courtney B. Vance. That cast was one of the factors that intrigued Guggenheim.
"I wish I could take credit for the cast," he said, "but I got involved after the cast was put together."
According to Guggenheim, the show has the ability to sustain a high level of quality over a number of seasons.
"We figure it can go seven years pretty comfortably," he said. "At a minimum, we figure we would need three seasons [to tell the story]."
Guggenheim said he believes "Flash Forward" can achieve success on the level of "Lost."
"I have a feeling people will start talking about 'Flash Foward' once they see it," he said. "I think that show will inspire that much interest."
 ELI STONE
For Guggenheim, the beginning of "Flash Forward" arrives just as "Eli Stone" is ending.
After 26 episodes over a two-year period, "Eli Stone" has been canceled by ABC. The final episodes of the show have begun airing in the U.S. at 10 p.m. on Saturday nights (the episodes previously aired in the U.K.).
"We had an initial 13-episode order for Season Two," Guggenheim said. "We hoped for a back-nine order (to get up to 22 episodes), but we had written 13 without knowing whether we would get the other nine."
However, he said, by the time the 13th episode of Season Two was actually filmed, the writing was on the wall.
"Everyone went into production on Episode 13 knowing it was the end," he stated.
Guggenheim said fans of the show will feel a sense of closure.
"Do you get a sense that we brought the show in for a landing? Yeah, you do," he said.
However, Guggenheim noted, there is a chance "Eli Stone" may live on in another format.
"I've gotten super close on a couple of occasions to doing it as a comic book series," he said. "But it's something I'm taking a beat on, because I'm so busy with 'Flash Forward.'"
And if it is possible to do it as a comic book series, Guggenheim said he already is off to an excellent start.
"I have four more scripts that were written by 'Eli Stone' writers," he said. "Episodes 14 through 17 have been written. And I want to do something with them."
But Guggenheim also noted he won't do it "just to do it."
"I'm only going to do it if I can do it right," he said. "My ego could not tolerate 'Eli' failing in two different mediums."
Guggenheim then laughed and clarified that he meant the show was a "failure" on television only in terms of the ratings.
"I have absolutely no regrets. I'm really proud of the series. I am as proud of it as I am anything I have ever done," he said. "And I know there is a rabid fan base for the show. I would rather have the fans who are passionate than a kajillion people who watch the show, but don't really care."
Shows such as "Flash Forward" and "Eli Stone" feature twists, an element toward which Guggenheim said he finds himself attracted.
"I favor shows that are outside the box. I'm very excited about 'Flash Forward'," he said. "But it always comes down to, 'Is this a quality show?' And, 'Does it tell a good story?"
 VIDEO GAMES
Another field through which Guggenheim has discovered he can tell a good story is the world of video games.
"I love writing video games," he said. "I enjoy working with video game developers."
The games for which Guggenheim has written or co-written the stories for include "Call of Duty 3," "Perfect Dark Zero" and, most recently, "X-Men Origins: Wolverine."
"It's an exciting technology to be working on," he said. "The technology is at the place where you can tell big, cinematic stories. The potential is just so huge."
Guggenheim said he would love to do more games, but added that they are "very time consuming."
"When I can, I work them into my schedule," he said. "When I've done it, it's usually during a hiatus."
 COMIC BOOKS
Guggenheim also continues to write comic books, something he enjoys doing.
His upcoming work includes the "Who Is Ben Reilly?" arc in Amazing Spider-Man. In the past, he has created stories for characters such as The Flash, Aquaman, The Punisher and Wolverine.
And, oddly enough, Guggenheim was slated to work with Wolverine himself, Hugh Jackman, on a comic book series called "Nowhere Man."
"Unfortunately, Virgin Comics went under and we just don't have a home for it," Guggenheim said. "I've talked to Hugh Jackman's people and we're looking at things to do down the road. But, unless things get resolved, I don't think it will be 'Nowhere Man.'"
Conversely, Guggenheim noted, things are looking very good for another comic book series of his called "'Resurrection."
"I'm doing a comic for Oni Press that's been optioned for a movie at Universal [Studios]," he said.  Guggenheim called the comic book's concept "really cool."
"In 'Independence Day' and 'War of the Worlds' and basically every alien invasion movie you've ever seen, people win and the aliens get kicked off the planet. You don't see what happens next," he said. "With 'Resurrection,' the aliens leave, then our story begins."
 GREEN LANTERN
Speaking of movies, Guggenheim knows that no matter how many shows, video games, comic books or other movies he does, the topic of the "Green Lantern" movie he co-wrote with Greg Berlanti and Michael Green is the topic most likely to come up. Yet, it also is the topic he is most hesitant to talk about.
"'Green Lantern' continues to move forward," he said. "But I can't say any more about it. I've signed a blood oath of secrecy."
Guggenheim said he is aware fans are concerned that the lead role has yet to be cast, but he said they have nothing to worry about.
"I understand where the fans are coming from," he said. "I understand that people are passionate, but everything will work out."
Guggenheim said he doesn't go on Internet message boards to see what people are writing about "Green Lantern," but he does get an e-mail notice when new stories are written about the movie.
"I haven't gone on the boards, but I do have a Google alert," he said. "So if something gets written (about "Green Lantern") and Google captures it, I see it."
And through reading the stories, Guggenheim said he has noticed a common thread.
"I can say don't believe all the rumors," he said. "In fact, I haven't read a single thing that is accurate."
However, Guggenheim also tried to downplay his role in the process by saying he is "just the writer."
"In fact," he said. "I have the Google alert so I can find out who is cast along with all of you."

NOWHERE MAN IS... NOWHERE, MAN

Wed, 1 Jul 2009 17:31:52 -0700

Nowhere Man? This again? Well, kinda. MTV.com got the “scoop”:

Hugh Jackman’s ‘Nowhere Man’ Comic Is In A Holding Pattern, Says Writer Marc Guggenheim
Published by Brian Warmoth on Friday, June 26, 2009 at 2:25 pm.

Last year, Hugh Jackman announced that he had created a series called “Nowhere Man” for Virgin Comics. In what sounded like a logical investment in the comet tails of “X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” the story about a future world without privacy was being primed to become at least one movie, and possibly a video game.
When Virgin Comics disbanded, however, half of the property’s ownership fell into uncertainty, and even the comic’s scribe, “Resurrection” writer and “Green Lantern” co-writer Marc Guggenheim, doesn’t know if “Nowhere Man” has a clear destination for the time being.
“Well, that’s kind of in a limbo right now because Virgin Comics went away,” Guggenheim told MTV News. “That’s because the property is sort of co-owned by Virgin and Hugh Jackman.”
That dual ownership may keep any use of Jackman’s potential franchise in the comic book world and Hollywood’s closet for the time being.
“With Virgin as half of it, it’s kind of in one of those holding patterns,” Guggenheim explained. But the “Eli Stone” co-creator isn’t without a seed of optimism.
“One of those things I happen to love about the nature of my job is you wake up one day and you get an unexpected phone call out the blue and it resurrects a project that you thought was dead,” he said.
“Nowhere Man” may not be the end of Guggenheim’s collaboration, though, and even if the book never sees publication, it could prove to have been the first step toward something else entirely.
“I’ve been talking to Hugh’s people and ‘Nowhere Man’ has created a really nice relationship between us,” Guggenheim said. “I actually have an idea that I keep meaning to pitch them specifically for Hugh, but I’ve just been so busy that I haven’t had the chance to do it, but you never know.”

SPIDER-MAN #3

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 11:27:37 -0700

More Spidey news from this weekend’s comic conventions... this one’s from Comicbookresources.com:

HEROESCON: PUTTING SPIDEY THROUGH "THE GAUNTLET"
1 by Dave Richards, Staff Writer
When the Brand New Day era of Marvel's “Amazing Spider-Man” began, the titular Wall-crawler suddenly found himself adrift in a sea of strange new villains like Mister Negative, Menace, and Freak. Surely, at some point Spidey must have wished for the familiarity and comfort of his classic batch of rogues. But over the past several months, some foes like Venom, Norman Osborn and the Shocker have returned to the pages of “Amazing Spider-Man,” and the months ahead will see the return of even more characters well known characters like Doctor Octopus and the Chameleon.
At yesterday's Pint o' C.B panel at the Heroes Con convention, Marvel announced “The Gauntlet,” an overarching story in “Amazing Spider-Man” that details how Peter Parker deals with the sudden onslaught of his classic enemies. CBR News spoke with series editor Steve Wacker and writers Mark Waid & Marc Guggenheim about “The Gauntlet,” which begins in November's “Amazing Spider-Man” #611.
“The Gauntlet” isn't one giant story arc, but actually several smaller ones that connect together to tell one enormous tale. “We're taking our cue from the way Marvel has done things like Dark Reign or The Initiative storyline, which spun out of 'Civil War,' where you give a sort of an über-arc name to all the stories that come out,” Steve Wacker told CBR News. “From Peter's point of view, all these villains are coming back, one after the other. Is there a connection and where does that question takes Spider-Man is what 'The Gauntlet' is all about.”
In “The Gauntlet,” Spider-Man's foes will wage war on him, but readers won't see straight up battles with all of Spidey's foes attacking at once. In this storyline, Spider-Man's rogues are fighting a war of attrition. “The emphasis is on reintroducing the 'classic' Spidey villains at a constant pace that will wear Peter down to a nub,” Mark Waid told CBR News. “Spidey's enemies, when they work in concert, have a bad tendency to rush him all at once, forgetting how hard it is for a human rhino to not accidentally trip over metal octopus limbs (or whatever). Not that I'm confirming they're working in concert, but if they were, hmm, who'd be arranging that...?”
Spider-Man's inability to quit in the face of overwhelming odds would normally serve him well in the sort of scenario Waid describes, but the Webslinger is not ready for the physical and emotional trauma that awaits him in “The Gauntlet.” “It's going to be very difficult on him. That's why we chose the title 'The Gauntlet.' It's very specific,” Marc Guggenheim told CBR. “We really want to put him through the ringer and knock him down to the point where he's almost dead. So it's unrelenting in terms of what's facing Spider-Man. I'm not going to pretend that this is something you've never seen in the pages of Spider-Man, but I don't think it's ever been done on this scale and with this level of mercilessness on the part of the villains and ambition on the part of the creative team.”
Mark Waid kicks off “The Gauntlet” in November with a story that brings back a foe who first crossed Spidey's path in 1964's “Amazing Spider-Man” #9. “It's the return of Electro, amped up -- 'amped up'! I slay me! -- in a way we've never really seen before,” Waid said. “And before Spidey can shut him down -- if Spidey can shut him down -- Electro's liable to destroy one of the most familiar things/people/places (no hints!) in the Marvel Universe.”
Marc Guggenheim follows Waid's story with a tale that brings back one of Spider-Man's stronger but not necessarily most intimidating enemies. “My story features the return and revamping of a villain with a horn and a really dorky costume, but that's going to change,” Guggenheim said. “My goal here was to take the Rhino – a great character who has become one of the lamest villains in Spider-Man's rogues gallery -- and make him as serious and deadly as possible. I want to give this character the same kind of love that Joe Kelly gave Hammerhead last year.”
In Guggenheim's story, Spider-Man's confrontation with the Rhino will have him seeing double - literally. “I can tell you this story will feature a brand new version of the character as well as the original version,” Guggenheim explained. “So basically it's a battle between old and new and Spidey is caught in the middle.”
Guggenheim's tale will also examine the initial threat “The Gauntlet” poses to the supporting cast of “Amazing Spider-Man.” “The 'Who is Ben Reilly?' arc I'm doing in October focuses on a villain going after Peter Parker and that includes his loved ones. After [‘Amazing Spider-Man Annual’ #36, which hits stores in July] we may find out that the number of people we consider as Spider-Man's loved ones is actually a much larger group than it currently is. So if anyone goes after them in “The Gauntlet,” there's quite a few targets to choose from.”
The tone of Guggenheim's tale will certainly be brutal but there's an extra dimension to it as well. “My hope is that this story will be more emotional then what is typically the norm,” the writer said. “I'm going for more of a tear-jerker with this arc. I need to see if I can make people cry without resorting to amputating a member of the supporting cast.”
“The Gauntlet” will feature artwork by both veteran Spider-man pencillers and new blood, including Marcos Martin, Paolo Rivera, Mike McKone, Barry Kitson, Paul Azaceta (who pencils Mark Waid's story), and John Romita, Jr. “It's going to look beautiful,” Steve Wacker said.
“The Gauntlet” is scheduled to run well into 2010, and will encompass shorter arcs as well as the larger “tent-pole” Spidey stories in the vein of “Character Assassination” and “American Son.” “It will probably go into the early spring,” Wacker said. “Individual events will start coalescing and the walls of Peter Parker's life will start to close in on him.”
“What connects all these stories, apart from the toll they take on Peter and Spider-Man, is the fact that we're building up to the next big arc,” added Guggenheim. “I have to be vague out fear of spoiling the other writers' work, but you'll see that all of this is laying the foundation for an even bigger more ambitious arc to come. Speaking as someone who's been in the meetings, knows where we're headed, and knows what the arc is after 'The Gauntlet', I think people are going to be very excited.”

BLONDE PHANTOM

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 11:24:43 -0700

Some news about a new comic book project from Marvel.com...

All Select: Legally Blonde
Writer Marc Guggenheim dishes on one of Marvel’s greatest Golden Age heroines in ALL SELECT COMICS 70TH ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL

By Jim Beard

Who's the Blonde Phantom? Only the loveliest gun-toting, two-fisted Marvel heroine of them all, that's who!

Dancing out of the Golden Age and into the present, the Blonde Phantom receives her very own limelight on July 15 in the ALL SELECT COMICS 70th ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL. She's also pampered with some special attention from writer Marc Guggenheim, who's crafted a story that not only looks back on the Phantom's past, but allows her another chance to knock 'em dead in the present.

"She's nostalgic for [her past career]," Guggenheim notes of the story. "She got to put on a costume and kick ass. Who wouldn't miss it? The Blonde Phantom identity represents her youth and vitality, things she associates with better days and simpler times. She's a tough woman, something that was incredibly rare in the 40's and, sadly, not all that less rare in modern times."

The ALL SELECT COMICS 70th ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL marks the first of Marvel's celebratory one-shots to present a modern day tale of a former Golden Age crimebuster. With a nod to other creators who've utilized the Blonde Phantom since her 1940's heyday, this set-up appeals to Guggenheim's vision of the character.

"We went back and forth on which time period to set the story in, actually," explains the writer. "Ultimately, I wanted the story to include an element of someone who's, for all intents and purposes, 'retired' being pressed back into service one more time. That's an old noir trope and I wanted it to be part of the story.

"I wanted the story to have a noir feel from the outset. That infuses [everything from] the writing to the art to the coloring and even down to the lettering. I don't think it's necessarily integral to the character, per se, but it's integral to honoring the character's
origins and heritage."

The Blonde Phantom debuted in 1946's ALL SELECT COMICS #11 as Louise Grant, a secretary who donned a fire engine red evening gown and domino mask to take an extra-special bite out of crime. And she really got around: the Blonde Phantom took her bows in eight different titles throughout her 1940's career.

With a cover by the legendary Russ Heath and interior art by Javier Pulido, the Blonde Phantom's never looked better. Guggenheim stresses the importance of Pulido's contributions to the book.

"Javier's the guy who has to stick the landing," he says. "It's one thing for me to say, 'Let's tell this story in a noir style,' and it's another thing for me to write it with noir-style narration, but at the end of the day, it's up to Javier to sell it visually. He not only embraced this approach whole-heartedly, he came up with—all on his own—a really cool layout style that evokes the feel of crime comics of the 40s. He knocked it out of the park."

SPIDER-MAN #2

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 17:34:02 -0700

Continuing this weekend’s comic book news. This one’s from Comicbookresources.com...

WWPHILLY: WEBHEADS TALK SPIDER-MAN!
1 by Dave Richards, Staff Writer
The personal and costumed lives of Peter Parker/Spider-Man collided very early on in his career, with the murder of his beloved Uncle Ben. Since then, Spidey has worked to keep his superhero and civilian identities separate, but fans of the character know he's rarely successful at that endeavor. In fact, part of the enduring appeal of Spider-Man as a character is watching Peter Parker trying to balance his human and superheroic priorities.
This fall sees the release of three stories from Marvel's“Webheads” -- the collective name for the writing staff of “Amazing Spider-Man” -- that intertwine Peter Parker and Spider-Man's lives in dangerous and complicated ways. CBR News spoke with writers Mark Waid, Fred Van Lente, Joe Kelly, and Marc Guggenheim as well as their editor Steve Wacker about these stories, which were announced today at Marvel's “Amazing Spider-Man” panel at the Wizard World Philly convention.
With the “American Son” arc ready to climax and “Amazing Spider-Man” #600 hitting stores in less than a month, things are happening fast and furious in Peter Parker's life. Readers shouldn't expect things to relax any time soon. “Over the last year or so everybody has been figuring out the best way to work together and the best way for these stories to lead right into each other and better serve the soap opera aspects of 'Amazing Spider-Man,'” Steve Wacker told CBR News. “So the actual 'starting gun' of when things took off will be different for every reader but coming out of #600 things aren't slowing down at all.”
Spidey's fall adventures actually kick-off in August, in a five-part arc titled “Red-Headed Stranger” that runs through the pages of “Amazing Spider-Man” #601-605. The arc is written by Mark Waid, who penned issue #601, and Fred Van Lente, who tackled the remainder of the story. “Issue #601 is the night after the wedding in 'Amazing' #600,” Wacker explained. “We're doing an experiment with passing the baton. Issues #601 and #602-605 all felt like the pieces to one story, so we decided to call the whole thing 'Red-Headed Stranger.'”
Of course, the “Red-Headed Stranger” arc marks the return of someone who Peter Parker shares a long history with, flame-haired Mary Jane Watson. 2006's controversial “One More Day” story altered history so that Peter and Mary Jane were never married, but she remains a key figure in his life. “They lived together and were a couple for a long time,” Wacker explained. “She was the woman he loved, so she's definitely one of the most important people in Pete's life.”
Mark Waid thinks that history together makes MJ's re-entrance into Peter's life a great dramatic element, especially since it's bound to make Peter Parker feel significantly awkward. The writer couldn't reveal much about how and why MJ comes back though for fear of spoiling things. “ We can tell you that she's back in NYC for a purpose that has nothing to do with Peter--or so she tells him--and tells herself,” Waid said. “Issue #601 is sort of a prologue to Fred's story - it's a standalone that positions Peter for the next part of his life, in which he has to learn all over again how to be around MJ with ease, if such a thing is possible.”
Ever since the events of “One More Day,” readers have wondered just how much Mary Jane remembers of the original timeline where her and Peter Parker were married, and whether or not she remembers the circumstances that created the current timeline, where they lived together and eventually broke up. Waid hinted that issue #601 will offer answers to some of these questions and more.
Bringing to life issue #601 is Mario Alberti, the artist behind the recent “X-Men/Spider-Man” miniseries. Waid was very pleased with the Italian artist's work on the issue, especially the ways in which he depicted movement and expression. “Mario's stuff is great. He gets the comedy and the drama both, and he captures both Peter and Spidey equally well,” the writer remarked. “He's a find, this boy!”
Steve Wacker agreed. “Mario’s published thousands of pages in Europe and I was lucky enough to come across his work at DC where he was doing some covers. Ex-X editor Andy Schmidt showed me a volume of his work and I just fell in love with his style. Any work we can get from him raises everything up a notch.”
Mary Jane Watson continues to play an important role in the “Red-Headed Stranger” arc after Fred Van Lente takes over the story with “Amazing” #602. The writer thinks bringing Mary Jane back is particularly compelling because of the unique dynamic it creates between her and Peter Parker. “She's interesting to have in the mix of Peter's life and in a superhero series in general in that she's the ex,” Van Lente explained. “She's someone who had a very serious and long term relationship with Peter for many years and it fell apart for reasons that remain mysterious. She still cares about him but she's also acutely aware of his flaws in a way that exes are. So they've got a terrific dynamic that's lots of fun to play with. It's something that wouldn't have occurred to me to be as cool as it ended up being.”
Van Lente's portion of “Red-Headed Stranger” also marks the the return of another character into Spider-Man's life, his foe the Chameleon, who's come to New York as a terrorist-for-hire. “We're kind of going back to basics with the Chameleon,” Van Lente said. “One of the things I never liked about what they did to the character was that they gave him superpowers, which to me makes him no different than other shapeshifters in the Marvel Universe like Mystique or the Skrulls. So if he has powers, he's not using them in this arc. That's sort of my point with the Chameleon. He's very mysterious. He's told us multiple versions of his background, many of which contradict each other, and as we tried to suggest in the last series I did that featured him, 'Supervillain Team-Up', that's all on purpose. The Chameleon doesn't want you to know who he is and what he's all about. It's possible that guy with superpowers, who is crazy, is not the guy. I'm not saying it is or it isn't, but that's a potential theory.”
Chameleon's actions in “Red-Headed Stranger” have consequences not just for Spider-Man but also for New York City's new Mayor J. Jonah Jameson and his administration. “We definitely flesh out Jonah's administration and his staff. We did quite a bit of research on how the New York City Mayor's office works in order to do that,” Van Lente said. “There's a character we've affectionately dubbed 'Eddie Haskell' [who made his debut in the recent '24/7' arc] who is actually the Deputy Mayor of Operations."
Wacker noted that Fred Van Lente is young enough that he didn’t get the Eddie Haskell reference at first. "I just want to add that I was too young to get it too. Old people suck!"
"The Mayor has a number of Deputies and the Haskell character is particularly important because the New York Police Department falls under his jurisdiction," Van Lente continued. "He's also got the Office of Emergency Management and the Counter Terrorism activities of New York City under his wing. That plays a huge role in this arc because of who the Chameleon is working for. These are not nice people.”
The supporting cast of “Red-Headed Stranger” is rounded out by a number of characters including Flash Thompson, Glory Grant, Peter Parker's roommate Michele Gonzales, Harry Osborn, some new characters (who will be introduced in “Amazing Spider-Man Annual” #36) and J. Jonah Jameson's Anti-Spider-Man Squad. “They'll be getting a brand new look and brand new gear,” Van Lente said. “The gear makes them less of an Anti-Spider-Man Squad and more shall we say a Spider-Slayer Squad?”
Van Lente designed his portion of “Red-Headed Stranger” as an intense espionage thriller and is happy to have Barry Kitson bringing the arc to life. “Barry has got such a wonderful clean storytelling style and his acting is terrific. This story arc is very character oriented and involves a good 60-70 percent of the book's supporting cast, if not more. So he's kicking butt there,” Van Lente stated. “I've seen some of the action sequences coming in as well and they're great too. Chameleon has been completely redesigned by Barry Kitson and he looks awesome and scary.”
While “Red Headed Stranger” unfolds in August, readers can find out more about the events leading to the arc this September in “Spider-Man: Extra” #4, which also features a story by Van Lente. “It's a prequel that explains what Mary Jane has been up to this whole time and why she decides to return to New York,” the writer explained. “It also features the White Rabbit," a female villain who recently appeared in the pages of Van Lente's “Dark Reign: Mister Negative” miniseries.
Once “Red-Headed Stranger” wraps, Van Lente fans will have a little wait for the writer's next Spider-Man story, which is tentatively scheduled for December. “It involves another classic villain,” the writer hinted. “But this character won't have as quite a radical makeover as the Chameleon.”
September also sees the beginning of a new two-part arc which runs through “Amazing Spider-Man” #606-607 and marks the return of another one of Spider-Man's old flames, Felicia Hardy -- the Black Cat. “I like having fun with the Black Cat. She's a great character,” Steve Wacker said. “She was the character that loved Spider-Man. That was such a great angle on the ever present love triangles in Spider-Man; to have a character that just dug Spider-Man was terrific.”
Joe Kelly is the man tasked with bringing the Black Cat back into Spider-Man's life, and the writer was happy to have the chance to do so. “There's a lot of stuff that makes the Black Cat a compelling character to write,” Kelly told CBR. “After Spidey #600 there are a lot of ladies floating around his life and Black Cat especially just messes up that whole dynamic. And I just love that she's a wild card. There are a lot of ways in which Peter Parker is reserved and traditionally she's pulled this wilder side out of him. So in the land where Mary Jane is back I think it's good to have the Black Cat really messing him up and playing with his emotions.”
The Black Cat has such a profound effect on Peter Parker because people are often attracted to the things they don't have. “He's all power and responsibility and she's kind of throwing responsibility out the window. I think that pulls at him and I think that's what his wild side wishes he could be,” the writer explained. “He totally has that wild side. We've seen it, and the very fact that he dresses up as Spider-Man is proof positive that he has a wild side. He's spent so much time keeping it in check though and balancing it against other responsibilities that somebody who is just crazy and lives life uninhibited is something that's very attractive to him. And as a writer that makes her a really fun character to write.”
The Black Cat began her career as a costumed criminal, but she's since reformed. Nevertheless, an impulsive, hotheaded streak sometimes puts the character in situations that aren't entirely heroic. “I really like Felicia as somebody in the middle, but I think she's a good person at heart,” Kelly said. “She writes her own rules that are allowed to change without notice but overall she's a good person.”
When Spider-Man encounters Black Cat, he'll be curious as to what personal rules are currently guiding the former thief. “Black Cat drops in and that knocks him totally off balance. Basically, he's he's got to not only wonder about his feelings and how his heart races when he sees her, but he's also not sure what her motives are when he catches her in the middle of a breaking and entering scenario,” Kelly explained. “So there's a lot of self doubt and self checking by Spider-Man as to what his and her motivations are. He wonders a lot, 'What am I doing with myself?'”
If Kelly's Black Cat ac sounds like a heavy story of emotional soul searching, it's not. Spider-Man's encounter with the Black Cat depicts the pair in what Kelly describes as a fun, bouncy heist story, which pits them against an old Fantastic Four villain. “'American Son' is so heavy and there's certainly a lot of stuff in 'Red-headed Stranger' that's kind of on the dark side, so I really wanted to do a bouncy, sexy, fun couple of issues. That's the goal for this story," Kelly said.
Helping Joe Kelly achieve that goal is artist Mike McKone. “He draws himself some pretty ladies,” Kelly laughed. “He's great with action and Black Cat is going to be gorgeous. So it's just going to be a fun arc and Mike and I have talked about working together with each other for a long time. So it's great that we finally have the chance.”
Joe Kelly wasn't able to give the date for his next Spider-Man story, but it does involve the web-slinger running into another crimson clad wisecracker, one that Kelly is known for writing. “I've got a one-off story with Deadpool,” Kelly confirmed. “Then it all leads into another major Spider-Man storyline which culminates in my next story.”
Following Joe Kelly's Black Cat arc is "Who Is Ben Reilly?", a two-part story that runs through “Amazing Spider-Man” #608-609. Written by Marc Guggenheim, the story explores one of the most controversial chapters in Spider-Man's publishing history, “The Clone Saga.” “I've gone back and reread a decent chunk of it and there's stuff in there that's interesting but not always executed as well as I would have liked, but that's true of every comic,” Steve Wacker said. “There's a lot to be fond of in that era. I think a lot of readers really came into Spider-Man at that time, and I can understand that. For all its strengths and weaknesses, it was certainly a time when things were happening in the Spider-Man books. Every month it felt like things were going to be turned upside down.”
Marc Guggenheim agreed. “For the longest time, I think feelings on the 'Clone Saga' were like, 'Let's keep it over there in the corner and ignore it.' But I think a funny thing has happened over the years, because whenever I do a Spidey panel at a convention, there's always at least one Ben Reilly or 'Clone Saga'-related question. I think that stems from the fact that there are lot of people who were first exposed to Spider-Man when Ben Reilly was the guy wearing the webs. So there's a lot of love for that character and that part of Spider-Man's history. I'm not saying the Clone Saga doesn't have its detractors, but it does have it share of fans.”
Guggenheim's original idea for the story that would become “Who is Ben Reilly?” didn't involve Ben or the “Clone Saga” at all. “I often get ideas by asking myself questions and one question I asked was, 'Has there ever been a villain who didn't know Peter Parker was Spider-Man and was just after Peter Parker?'” Guggenheim recalled. “That sounded really intriguing to me because I had seen villains go after Peter, but they're basically going after him in the context of how he relates to Spider-Man. So I thought, wouldn't it be interesting to have a villain who's purely angry at Peter Parker for some reason? It was off that question that I started toying around with the notion of Ben Reilly and that past chapter of continuity.”
“Who is Ben Reilly?” spins out of July's “Amazing Spider-Man Annual” #36, also written by Guggenheim. The Annual introduces the aforementioned villain with a personal grudge against Peter Parker. “It's a new villain whose motivation comes out of 'The Lost Years' of the 'Clone Saga,'” Guggenheim revealed. “Over the course of the arc, we'll be revisiting the days of the 'Clone Saga' through flashbacks. What's exciting is that this is the first time in many years that Ben Reilly has graced the pages of 'Amazing Spider-Man.'
“I'm going to do something that I did when I worked on 'Blade', which was tell the story in two time periods. The present-day story is intercut with a separate storyline set in the past. It's something that's pretty atypical for my Spidey work and something that's pretty atypical for 'Amazing Spider-Man' in general. The series doesn’t typically play with time that way.”
Guggenheim's story arc will also involve the new supporting cast members he introduces in “Amazing Spider-Man Annual” #36. “Those characters will play a big role in the series going forward,” the writer confirmed. “I have to speak obliquely because I don't want to spoil the Annual or reveal who those characters are, but it made a lot of sense to raise the issue of Ben Reilly in the context of these characters.”
“Who is Ben Reilly?” features art by Marco Checchetto, whose work can be seen in the current “American Son” arc, and promises to be a little darker than Guggenheim's previous Spider-Man stories. However, the writer cautions fans against having any preconceived notions about the story. “There's already a lot of speculation about this arc, which is awesome. But if you think you know where this arc is going you're probably wrong.”
Steve Wacker and his Webheads plans to keep the express train of “Amazing Spider-Man” going after the Ben Reilly arc concludes. Check back with CBR News tomorrow for an interview with Wacker, Mark Waid and Marc Guggenheim about “The Gauntlet,” another new Spider-Man storyline that begins this winter and runs well into 2010!

SPIDER-MAN #1

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 17:30:10 -0700

News starting to flood in from this week’s comic conventions. This one is from Newsarama.com...

Heroes Con '09: Waid & Guggenheim Run 'The Gauntlet'

By Vaneta Rogers 
Beginning in November, Spider-Man will be running into his deadliest foes as Amazing Spider-Man enters a series of story arcs called "The Gauntlet."

"What is unifying the stories in The Gauntlet is that these threats are building in Spider-Man's life and in Peter Parker's life, and it's going to ultimately end in a sort of personal Gauntlet for Pete," Marvel editor Steve Wacker told Newsarama.

From the Rhino to Electro to the Lizard, the more familiar rogues who dominated his title before its status quo change in January 2008 will return to plague Spider-Man. While the issues in The Gauntlet aren't all one story, the subplots running through all the issues wearing the banner will have "hints of a mystery that's going to grow and grow until it comes to a head" in spring 2010, Wacker said, implying that the Sinister 666 is involved.

Electro

Mark Waid will kick off The Gauntlet with Issue #611, which will see the return of Electro, a character who was first introduced in 1964. Maxwell Dillon experienced an accident that turned him into a living electrical capacitor, able to shoot massive bolts of electricity and control electrical objects.

As Waid re-introduces the villain after his absence, he begins by establishing the villain's reason for disappearing for awhile. It turns out even supervillains set aside a little bit for retirement.

"He basically had a retirement fund. He's been putting money away -- stolen money obviously -- and over the years, he's been one of the smart criminals who was saving what he's been stealing from banks and savings and loans," Waid explained.

While the idea of a retired villain isn't necessarily new, but Waid said what motivates Electro to return to villainy is something that gives the character a new twist that is tied directly into current events.

"Unfortunately, in the economic collapse, he's lost it all," Waid said. "And now he's on a rampage against all the fat-cats and Wall Street types and banks and corporations that are getting federal bailout money."

Waid said that while Electro is still the same Max Dillon that Spider-Man readers have always known and loved, the villain's personal life and motivations become more defined and evolved in this story. And when the economic situation encourages him to return to a life of crime, his target becomes those he believes are getting away with a different type of crime.

"Electro is sort of the anti-bailout guy because he figures, how dare you call me a criminal, and you're taking money from the feds in bailout dough!" Waid said.

Rhino

After Waid's re-introduction of Electro, Marc Guggenheim will follow up with his own revamped villain, The Rhino, a character the writer has been wanting to tackle since he received a challenge from a fan at a comic book convention.

"he Rhino actually goes way, way, way back two or three years to San Diego Comic Con, where we had the panel that announced the Spidey braintrust," the writer explained. "At that panel, some fan raised their hand, and I forget how we got on the topic, but he basically said the Rhino was a lame character."

Guggenheim said he took the fan's comment as a personal challenge. "This gives double meaning to why we're calling it The Gauntlet, I think, because it was like he threw down the Gauntlet and was like, can you make the Rhino cool? And more than anybody, I was really, really intrigued with that idea," he said. "I'm very interested in characters who have a big lameness-to-potential ratio. Probably the best example we've seen recently is Joe Kelly's revamp of Hammerhead, which I thought was phenomenally successful, and it proved that Hammerhead had a big lameness-to-potential ratio. And I feel like the Rhino has the same potential.

"The more I thought about it, the more I realized that there were elements to this character that we could work with," Guggenheim said. "You know, at his coolest, he has the potential to be one of Spidey's deadliest, most threatening villains. So I just worked away on it and it was a fun challenge to try to meet."

The writer's two-issue Rhino story will begin with the appearance of a new Rhino in town. "But rather than the tried-and-true 'wipe away the old character and replace him with some new guy we've never met and aren't invested in,' the old guy has a really good reason to come forward and fight to reclaim his mantle," the writer said. "And the reason isn't just comic book plottiness. There's actually a character-driven story behind it. So of course, these two Rhinos are fighting, and Spider-Man is in the middle of it, as happens in comic books. And you'll have to read the arc to see which Rhino is left standing."

While it may seem obvious that the one left standing will be the "revamped, cool" one, Guggenheim said it won't be easy to figure out which one that is. "The goal is to make both of them cool," he said.

The Rhino is another character who has been around a long time, having first debuted in 1966 as Aleksei Sytsevich, who underwent an experiment that gave him super speed and strength.

But with this latest appearance, Guggenheim went so far as to sketch out a new costume for the Rhino. "I always felt like one of the biggest problems with the Rhino was the lame-ass costume. And I'm not much of an artist, as Steve Wacker can attest," he laughed. "I felt like I had to figure out some way to communicate what I was seeing in my head, as far as a way of making a guy in a rhino suit look cool."

But Guggenheim said it takes more than just a new costume to make a supervillain meaningful. In fact, he said it comes down to two basic elements. "I don't want to over simplify this, but if you look at the successful supervillain makeovers over the years, and I'm speaking in the broadest of terms, the two elements you need to address is what makes them interesting emotionally? When Geoff Johns tackled the Flash rogues gallery a few years back, what I think made that whole arc successful was that he really went in and re-examined the psychological motivations of these characters. So that's one element," Guggenheim said. "But another element is to give them a little bit of a makeover from a design standpoint."

The whole Spider-Man team is hoping to succeed at those makeovers as they work on the villains returning for The Gauntlet. As Wacker pointed out in our last interview, "we wanted to sit down and think through each of these villains and find out what their aspirations and goals were beyond just beating up Spider-Man and appearing in a two-part story in a comic book. We wanted to give them a motivation and a life."

"And the goal is always to be as original as possible while serving the story," Guggenheim said. "I think it's going to be a really fun arc because when you're writing these kinds of arcs, the trick is to not just stick the landing on upgrading the villain, but do it in service of a good, original story."

THE LAST ELI STONE INTERVIEW

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 12:12:43 -0700

Scifiwire.com handled the last rites...

The final 4 Eli Stone episodes begin Saturday; here's an exclusive sneak peek
When co-creator and executive producer Marc Guggenheim's ABC show Eli Stone was canceled, he went into mourning. "It was tough," he told SCI FI Wire exclusively. "It was a tough few months there as I came to terms with the fact that the show wasn't coming back. You invest three years of life in something, and it's tricky."
The series, about a lawyer who has visions and begins to believe he just might be a prophet, was canceled after its ninth episode aired at the end of 2008, with four completed episodes that were never shown. That travesty is about to be rectified: ABC will air the final four episodes of Eli Stone's second season beginning this Saturday at 10 p.m. ET/PT.

"I have to say these four are among my favorite of the whole series run, quite frankly," Guggenheim said. "I just feel like, ironically, we ended up getting canceled right around the time we were really hitting on all cylinders." (Guggenheim co-created the series with Greg Berlanti.)
First up is "Sonoma," a road-trip episode in which the characters travel to wine country in northern California. "It's our comedy episode," Guggenheim said. "Chaos ensues. It's really, really funny. There is a Saturday Night Live actress, Michaela Watkins, who plays an ex-lover of Matt's, and it's a fun episode. We have a big musical number set to the tune of 'Red, Red Wine' that we shot on location in a vineyard. And there's a major development in the Maggie/Eli relationship. Major! ... It was funny. When people were always asking me, 'Well, what's going to happen with Maggie and Eli?' I would always say, 'Check out episode 10.' And, of course, episode 10 never aired. But now it will."
"It was designed to be a lighthearted episode, but it also resolves the cliffhanger from episode nine that was the last episode to air with Eli's nose bleeding. So we get to pay that cliffhanger off several months later," Guggenheim added with a laugh.
Then Jamey Sheridan guest-stars in "Mortal Combat," an episode that Guggenheim co-wrote. "In Eli's visions he ends up in ancient Rome, and hence the title 'Mortal Combat,' because gladiators figure prominently in the episode," he said. "It is all about the news media. It's a really interesting exploration of what's happened to the nightly news in our society."
The third episode to air is "Tailspin," which Guggenheim feels is "ridiculously timely." It was written around the time of the economic collapse, "and I was very, very angry that all the CEOs were getting paid bonuses," he said. "So what happens is a CEO gets fired, he along with 150 of his employees. The 150 employees get pink slips; the CEO gets a gold parachute. And I always thought, 'Why can't they sue the CEO to get his gold parachute—to get his money?' Part of Eli is wish fulfillment, so that's what happens. Eli sues to get some payback for the people who lost their jobs. So it is super, super timely. It was very prescient when we wrote, and it's very current now."
The series finale, "Flight Path," involves a plane crash. "For those people familiar with the pilot and fans of the show, we return to the Himalayas," Guggenheim said. "That was in the very first episode. So there's a sense of closure with that last episode. We returned to the scene of the crime, as it were."
Will this very last episode of Eli Stone add up to a satisfying finale for viewers? "Yes, it will," promised Guggenheim. "We wrote it knowing that we were on the bubble, so we wrote it to work like it could be a mid-season finale or it could be a series finale. It has a real satisfying sense of closure."
While Guggenheim has moved on to his new ABC series FlashForward, he's thrilled these four episodes of Eli Stone will finally find an audience. "I have to say the worst part about being canceled was the possibility that these episodes wouldn't get aired. Because, first and foremost, a lot of very talented, hardworking people gave their all to write, produce and film these episodes," said Guggenheim. "Especially episode 13, 'Flight Path,' because that was produced when we knew we were canceled. We had written it beforehand, but it was actually filmed around the time we learned of our cancellation, and yet no one phoned anything in. You see the episode, and you see the level of ambition from the plane crash to the Himalayas to everything in between, and you go, 'Wow! That was everyone trying to leave on the best note possible.' I'm just really glad that everyone's hard work is going to get a chance to shine."
And there's one other thing. Something he'd like to say to the viewers who followed Eli Stone through two seasons. "Just thank you for all your support," he said. "Thanks for watching. Thank you for posting. Thank you for creating Web sites. I've always said that I would rather have the number of viewers that we had—even though it wasn't enough to keep us on the air—I would rather have the number of viewers that we had with all of them loving the show as they did, than three times the number of viewers—while that number might have kept us on the air—that didn't care about the show as much as all the people who watched."
Eli Stone: The Complete Second Season DVD set will be released on Aug.18.

ONE MORE GREEN INTERVIEW

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:37:26 -0700

A second Green Lantern interview from MTV.com...

EXCLUSIVE: ‘Green Lantern’ Movie To Introduce One New Green Lantern, Says Screenwriter
Published by Rick Marshall on Thursday, June 18, 2009 at 11:41 am.

Writer Marc Guggenheim is hard at work managing a monthly comic book series and screenplay based on “Resurrection,” his story about life on Earth after an alien invasion, but when I spoke to him about both projects last week, I had to ask him about another film he’s working on, too — one that also involves aliens and humans, and has its roots in the comic book world.
Along with “Resurrection,” Guggenheim is co-writing the screenplay for the live-action “Green Lantern” movie based on the DC hero who uses a powerful ring to guard the Earth and surrounding areas of the universe against danger. He and fellow writers Michael Green and Greg Berlanti delivered yet another draft of the screenplay last week, and while he couldn’t share many details about the film’s plot, he did share some thoughts about the scripting process, the multitude of casting rumors and — possibly most intriguing — a new Green Lantern they created for the movie.
According to Guggenheim, the script has been in a constant state of revisions since “Casino Royale” director Martin Campbell was tagged to helm the project.
“It’s basically the exercise of changing the movie from being just a script that people are reading to being a script that people will actually shoot, perform and produce,” said the writer of the recent flurry of revisions.
As far as who will actually be performing that script, Guggenheim couldn’t share any details about what he did or didn’t know regarding casting — but he did warn fans not to dismiss the casting announcement when it does become official. Given the character’s iconic status among comic fans, he knows the initial word on who will play Hal Jordan is likely to generate a lot of debate, no matter who’s pegged to wear the ring.
Even so, Guggenheim said he’s as eager to find out who’ll play the Green Lantern of Sector 2814 (the section of the Green Lantern Corps universe that includes Earth) as anyone else.
“It’s always particularly funny when there’s a rumor that goes around and I’m like, ‘I know that can’t be true because that actor’s schedule doesn’t permit them to do the movie in our time frame,’ or any number of other things,” said the writer. “But I’m a very big believer that in acting, people can surprise you. People you didn’t necessarily think were the right choice on paper can be the absolute right choice.”
“When Heath Ledger was first announced as the Joker that wasn’t the obvious right choice, but now that everyone has seen ‘The Dark Knight,’ can any of us imagine someone else in that role?” he added.
Beyond the lead actor, however, a “Green Lantern” movie offers a unique chance at casting a wide range of roles — a massive, universe-spanning police force full of characters, in fact. While Guggenheim wouldn’t comment on whether we’ll see fan-favorite Green Lanterns like Kilowog or (my personal favorite) Ch’p, he did reveal that one new Green Lantern would be created specifically for the film.
“One of our rules has been: ‘Don’t create a new Lantern when a pre-existing one from the comic books would work just as well,’” he said. “There’s only one Lantern who we’ve decided to completely create from scratch, but there’s a very specific reason why we’ve made that decision.”

AGAIN WITH THE GREEN LANTERN

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 16:29:36 -0700

‘Green Lantern’ Co-Writer Marc Guggenheim Warns Fans Not To Believe Casting Rumors
Published by Josh Wigler on Monday, June 15, 2009 at 3:38 pm.

Over the past few weeks, we’ve been getting plenty of superhero casting scoops on the Marvel front (we’re looking at you, Thor and Loki), but the DC Comics side of the aisle has been fairly blank, specifically regarding one of our most hotly-awaited films, “Green Lantern.”
Sure, there are a whole slew of contenders for the coveted role of Hal Jordan, but not a one of them has been named officially as of yet — and that’s because no one has been selected yet, said screenwriter Marc Guggenheim.
“They’re all false,” he told Sci Fi Wire about the rumored casting scoops, which range from Chris Pine to Bradley Cooper. “I mean, they’re all false insofar as we haven’t chosen anyone yet. They’re still in the negotiations, you know? There’s a lot of names being talked about, and there’s a lot of people being met.”
It’s important to note that Guggenheim isn’t flat-out denying any of the scoops themselves — he’s merely starting that none of the scoops are official. In other words, if you’re still holding out hope that Anton Yelchin or Sam Worthington could don the power ring, they still have a shot at the role until official word comes down one way or the other. Nonetheless, Guggenheim does have bad news for a certain, hopefully small group of fans.
“[If] you read online [that] Pauly Shore’s been cast as Hal Jordan, I can guarantee you we have not cast anyone,” Guggenheim told the site.
Whoever ends up swearing the Green Lantern oath, Guggenheim guarantees that the core essentials of Hal Jordan will be honored by the film’s representation of the comic book hero.
“The goal here is to do the best cinematic representation of the Green Lantern character,” he said. “You know, there’s no desire on anyone’s part to completely change the character and just call this other character Green Lantern and try to … draft off the name recognition. This is all about ‘How do we bring the best version of this character to the silver screen?’”

MY FIRST FLASHFORWARD INTERVIEW

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 08:56:51 -0700

Scifiwire.com popped my cherry...

Producer: Why Flash Forward won't drive you crazy like Lost

FlashForward cast (From left): Jack Davenport, Peyton List, Sonya Walger, Zachary Knighton, Joseph Fiennes, John Cho, Courtney B. Vance, Brian O'Byrne, Christine Woods
Marc Guggenheim, executive producer of ABC's upcoming sci-fi series Flash Forward, said that the show will tell a complete story in its first season, and that the season finale will answer the question raised in the pilot: What did you see?
"We know exactly ... what season one is, with great specificity, because at ... the outset, we had to plan the entire season," Guggenheim said in an exclusive phone interview on Friday, adding: "The first season ends with our characters' catching up to their futures. So you can't do that on the fly. I mean, I suppose you could, but I don't think it would be a very satisfying viewing experience for anybody."

Based on the novel by Canadian SF author Robert J. Sawyer, Flash Forward begins when every person on Earth blacks out for 2 minutes and 17 seconds, during which time each has a vision of his or her future six months from now. The show comes from executive producers David S. Goyer and Brannon Braga (Threshold); Guggenheim (Eli Stone) will be the show runner along with Goyer (The Dark Knight), who also directed the pilot.
"We made the commitment at the outset [to] plan out the entire first season before we start breaking episode two," Guggenheim said. "So the very first thing we did, apart from ... figuring out character backstories and [all] that—when the time came ... to actually start breaking story, it was, 'OK, how are we going to move the characters from where they are in episode one to where they are at the end of the season?'"
Flash Forward stars Joseph Fiennes as Mark Benford, John Cho as Demetri Noh, Jack Davenport as Lloyd Simcoe, Sonya Walger as Olivia Benford, Courtney B. Vance as Stan Wedeck, Brian O'Byrne as Aaron Stark, Christine Woods as Janis Hawk, Zachary Knighton as Bryce Varley and Peyton List as Nicole.
Following is an edited version of our exclusive interview with Guggenheim. Flash Forward premieres Sept. 24 at 8 p.m. ET/PT and will air on Thursdays.
Tell me about the show and how it departs from the Robert Sawyer novel.
Guggenheim: What the show is about is really simple. Everyone in the world blacks out at the same time on the same day, and during their blackout they have a vision of their future for 2 minutes and 17 seconds, six months into the future. They all wake up and deal with the consequences. They deal with the consequences of the blackout. They deal with the consequences of the things that they learned during their flash-forwards.
So what the show does is it poses the question of, if you knew the future, what would you do? ... Would you try to fight it? Would you try to make it happen? Would your interpretation of the future be correct? ...
What this show does is it places every single character in the world in the position of learning their future and then trying to figure out, now that I know this information, what am I going to do next?

There are several things that are different from the book. The characters are different, the time frame is different—I think the book offers a glimpse 21 years into the future. Tell me what guided David and Brannon and you in making the changes you needed to make this viable as a TV show.
Guggenheim: Basically the book provided the concept, ... the notion of a worldwide blackout, people flash-forward into their future. ... Pretty much everything else is different. The characters are different. The circumstances are different, the nature of the stories that we're telling are different. ...
The novel is essentially a jumping-off point for us. ... I will say that in the series, what we're doing is we're taking the situations and characters set up in the pilot and running with them. ...
In the pilot, several characters in our cast really see their future, have their flash-forwards, and it's ... the mission statement of the first season of the show to go from ... the present day to six months out ... so by the end of the season we see how those futures have panned out or come to pass. And the journey that our characters take on the way to their future. ...
You have a really strong cast here, including some people that may be surprising to see in series television, such as Joseph Fiennes. How did they get involved, and what do they bring to a show like this?
Guggenheim: Well, I think first and foremost, in the entire cast, you get talent. I mean, it is a very, very deep bench talent-wise. ... It's made all the more remarkable by the fact that we have 10 series regulars, ... eight or 10, depending. ... It is remarkable that every single one of them have game. ... There's not a single weak link in the chain. ...
We have a Tony Award-winning actor, we have Joe [Fiennes], we have Courtney Vance. We have actors who have done more than television. Who have done theater, who have done film, who are not, as you said, ... people you expect to see on a TV show. That's because I think the whole viewing experience, people ... will really liken it more to a movie. ... When they see the first season, they'll liken it to a 24-hour-long movie. ...
Viewers will undoubtedly be happy to hear that you'll be answering questions in the first season, because one thing viewers have grown to hate—partly as a result of Lost—is the feeling that the writers are vamping to keep it going, with an indeterminate end in the future.
Guggenheim: Well, I am very sensitive to that, actually, as a fan and as a writer. I actually understand that feeling, and I'm very, very sensitive about it. And towards that end, I can actually tell you a couple of things to make those fans who are concerned feel better. The first is, we don't have a choice. We can't vamp. We say in the pilot that the characters are going to see ... a vision of their future [on] April 29, 2010. Which means we've got six months. There ain't no vamping to be done.
We plant a very specific flag, so even if we wanted to vamp, we no longer have the option. That's point number one. Point number two is, there are things laid into the pilot that don't pay off until the very end of the series. So David and Brannon, in writing and directing the pilot, have also planted flags right there in the pilot that ... you'll be able to look back on and go, "Oh, they really did know what they were doing." So my point always is, we are not only telling you that we have a plan, there are several reasons why you don't have to just take our word for it.

A GREEN UPDATE FROM SCIFIWIRE.COM

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 08:55:40 -0700

Writer reveals Green Lantern movie's progress and a few hints
Screenwriter Marc Guggenheim told SCI FI Wire exclusively that he has just completed a new draft of a proposed live-action Green Lantern movie, based on a script by him, Michael Green and Greg Berlanti.
"In fact, I'm ... delivering another draft today," Guggenheim (TV's Flash Forward) said in an exclusive interview on Friday. "So it continues to move forward."
The film is expected to be directed by Martin Campbell, who stepped in for Berlanti, and is slated to begin production at Australia's Fox Studios in Sydney this summer for a release on June 17, 2011.

Guggenheim confirmed that his script will focus on Hal Jordan, based on the Silver Age DC Comics incarnation of the superhero, and how he became a member of the Green Lantern Corps.
Beyond that, Guggenheim remained tight-lipped. "You know I really can't [say anything]," he said. "I've sworn a blood oath of secrecy in relation to the project. But, you know, the thing I can tell you is that it is a very loving and respectful approach."
Guggenheim added: "The goal here is to do the best cinematic representation of the Green Lantern character. You know, there's no desire on anyone's part to completely change the character and just call this other character Green Lantern and try to ... draft off the name recognition. This is all about 'How do we bring the best version of this character to the silver screen?'"
As for the movie's source material, Guggenheim said, "We've drawn heavily from ... a lot of different sources in terms of the comic books. ... The character ... is several decades old, so ... we've really had an incredible amount of source material to cherry-pick from."
As for casting of the iconic character, rumors have centered on such of-the-moment actors as The Hangover's Bradley Cooper and Star Trek's Chris Pine. None are true, Guggenheim said.
"They're all false," he said. "I mean, they're all false insofar as we haven't chosen anyone yet. They're still in the negotiations, you know? There's a lot of names being talked about, and there's a lot of people being met, and a lot of ... actors reading the script. But if you read online [that] Pauly Shore's been cast as Hal Jordan, I can guarantee you we have not cast anyone." That last rumor was a joke. We think.
As for the process, Guggenheim said, "It remains a lot of fun. It's such a great character, it's been a really great project so far."

MORE SPIDEY COMING

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 13:50:17 -0700

More Spider-Man’s coming at’cha next month. Marvel.com has the deets:

Amazing Spider-Man: Wedding Bells
The bells toll as writer Marc Guggenheim pushes Spidey up the aisle in AMAZING SPIDER-MAN ANNUAL #36

Posted: 2009-06-09 Updated: 2009-06-11 10:39:05
By Jim Beard

Everyone's nervous before a wedding; don't let anybody tell you otherwise.

Even super heroes like Spider-Man feel the weight of such events and the momentous minutes leading up to the nuptials that'll impact the entire Spidey-verse gain their own spotlight in July 8's AMAZING SPIDER-MAN ANNUAL #36. And check out Peter Parker's knocking knees!

"I'm a fan of Annuals that kick-start new storylines," says writer Marc Guggenheim. "Those are always fun. This Annual falls squarely in that category, even though it can stand on its own, too. We're introducing several very important characters who will play a significant role in the big wedding that happens in AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #600."

Well, then, what's the one big bombshell that provides the story with its powerful punch?

"Who says it's just one thing?" queries Guggenheim in return. "How about reintroducing a character whose last name is 'Reilly'? How about the introduction of a new villain who will play a pivotal role in the upcoming series arc, 'Who Is Ben Reilly?'"

But with all this "new" in AMAZING SPIDER-MAN ANNUAL #36, should fans be concerned that their put-upon protagonist may not be able to carry the tonnage after the events of "American Son"?

"Yeah, there's a lot of new here," Guggenheim admits. "But there's also a lot of old. Both are going to rock Peter's world for the entirety of the Annual and their repercussions are going to be felt in the regular series."

As Spider-Man followers well know, Peter Parker's past too often finds a way of kicking him from behind. This Annual's new villain reputedly connects into former adventures of Pete's and in brutal ways that can hit him where it counts the most.

"The original idea behind this Annual—and the arc that will spin-off from it—was that I wanted to come up with a villain who wanted to kill Peter Parker," explains Guggenheim. "In the past, Spidey villains only wanted to kill Spidey. Or back when, say, Norman Osborn knew Spidey's secret identity, they wanted to kill Peter because he was Spider-Man. The challenge I set for myself at the beginning was to see if I could come up with a villain who wanted to kill Peter Parker because he's Peter Parker. This villain doesn't even know that Peter is really Spider-Man. Which, of course, sucks for the villain. I mean, talk about bad luck..."

For Guggenheim, the fun of the fiction rests not only in devising the delicious danger for our Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, but in collaborations with artists such as Patrick Oliffe, who just happens to join the writer on AMAZING SPIDER-MAN ANNUAL #36.

"Patrick is a great artist because his style is so visceral," the writer notes. "His characters look like they have grace and flow to them, even when they're not fighting, swinging or doing super-hero type stuff. In other words, there's a grace to his art that you see even when the characters are just standing around, talking to each other—the 'quiet' moments.

"That having been said, there aren't that many quiet moments in this one. We begin with a nice, 'quiet' party with a fair amount of character drama, but we move pretty quickly into pure action. In terms of just action, this Annual is probably the closest I've come to a classic, Spidey-fighting-bad-guy story. It was a lot of fun to do, and I've been a fan of Patrick's since he did UNTOLD TALES OF SPIDER-MAN."

Will Spider-Man live long enough to witness a rather important wedding? The answers lie in an annual Marvel tradition, and this one's designated AMAZING SPIDER-MAN ANNUAL #36. We'll keep ringing those bells until you pick up your copy on July 8!

ANOTHER RESURRECTION INTERVIEW

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 12:51:50 -0700

This one from MTV.com...

The End Of The Alien Invasion Is The Beginning Of Marc Guggenheim’s ‘Resurrection’
Published by Rick Marshall on Thursday, June 11, 2009 at 1:03 pm.

We’ve seen bunches of comic books, movies and televisions series that tell you what happens when aliens target Earth for invasion — but what about when the war is over and everyone has to pick up the pieces and get back to their lives?
That’s the key theme of “Resurrection,” writer Marc Guggenheim’s comic book series from Oni Press, which he’s simultaneously scripting as a monthly comic and as a screenplay for a feature-length film. Originally published as a black-and-white, six-issue series, “Resurrection” was optioned by Universal last year and then relaunched as a new comic book series this week, following a different set of characters living through the same post-invasion period.
“It’s sort of like when you look at a sculpture and you’re only looking at it straight on,” Guggenheim told MTV News of writing the comic book and screenplay in parallel. “You’re going to miss things if you don’t look at it from the opposite angle. So, simultaneously working on the feature and the comic book forces you to examine the characters from all these different points of view.”
For the new, full relaunched comic book series, Guggenheim said he kept in mind that, for many readers, this would be their first introduction to the characters and landscape of his post-invasion Earth. So, while he plans to seed some of the characters from the previous series into the current story as it progresses, there’s no need to look backward before jumping into the current series.
However, that means an entirely new cast of characters will face the dilemmas of a world in which the explosions suddenly stopped one day, and the planet’s remaining survivors wander out into the light after years in hiding.
“One of the things that I always felt with ‘Resurrection’ was that I was creating a world more than anything else,” said Guggenheim. “The canvas I’m working on is so big because it’s a global story. It’s about the entire world. That’s what’s fun about approaching the comic and the movie at the same time: I get to work on as broad a canvas as possible, across two different mediums and two different industries.”
However, Guggenheim explained that one medium wasn’t exclusively feeding the other, as is often the case with comic book properties targeted for adaptation.

“I’m a very big believer that a feature version of something needs to be its own animal,” he said. “Just as the comic book version needs to be its own animal, all the ideas that are generated in the comic book become grist for the mill on the feature side. But there are also things I’ve thought of for the feature that have started to find their way into the comic book. So, the two projects talk to each other, but it’s more by a natural progression and a natural process than any sort of grand plan to link the two.”
On the movie side, though, Guggenheim said fans can expect the scale of the film to match the grand scope of the comic book series — and there’s reason to believe that will be the case, too. Producer Scott Stuber, who brought “Resurrection” to Universal, is currently serving as an executive producer on another Oni adaptation with a lot to live up to and a lot of imagination behind it: the live-action adaptation of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s “Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World.”
“We just want to make ‘Resurrection’ as big as humanly possible,” said Guggenheim.
“Resurrection” #1, featuring a story by Marc Guggenheim and art by Justin Greenwood, is on shelves now.
What do you think of “Resurrection”? Think there’s a story to be told after the invasion ends? Sound off in the comment section!

SIGNING!

Wed, 3 Jun 2009 22:02:15 -0700

Locals...

On June 13, I’m doing a signing at COLLECTOR’S PARADISE in Winetka, California. See below for deets or click here.

ANOTHER RESURRECTION INTERVIEW

Mon, 1 Jun 2009 16:45:40 -0700

This one comes from Comicbook Resources...

MARC GUGGENHEIM RESURRECTS “RESURRECTION”
1 by Shaun Manning
Civilization as we know it has ended -- so what now?
Marc Guggenheim's post-apocalyptic Oni Press series “Resurrection” explores a world in which an alien race has devastated Earth for ten straight years. Throughout their reign, the aliens, called “Bugs” by Earth's native population, have experimented on humans, conducted non-stop bombing campaigns, and torn down the structure of civilization. Then one sunny day, they just disappeared.
Following on the six-issue black-and-white series that introduced this post-invasion world and some of its major players, “Resurrection” returned in color with a #0 issue on Free Comic Book Day. Issue #1, illustrated by Justin Greenwood, ships next week from Oni, and CBR News caught up with Guggenheim to discuss the resurrection of “Resurrection” and some of the intrigues that will play out in the new series.
“Resurrection’s” move to color came about because “the economics changed such that color publishing became feasible and Oni wanted to try it out on the most amazing series they publish. That they've ever published,” Guggenheim told CBR. “Yeah. Yeah, something like that.”
Both Series One and the new season of “Resurrection” begin after the invasion of Earth ended, but scenes taking place before and during the occupation will be coming up. “We're parceling those moments out in strategically-deployed flashbacks,” Guggenheim confirmed. “Starting with Issue #2, we'll also be starting up a new feature called 'Resurrection Tales' which features short stories set at various points in time over our meta-narrative. Some of the stories will take place post-occupation -- but other stories will take place during it and even before it. The story that appears in Issue #2 is set during the beginning days of the occupation.”
Series 1 and 2 are also connected by their opening pages, as readers see the same group emerging from a bunker once the above-ground explosions have ceased. The stories diverge when this group splits up, with the first series following Sara Lisco on her adventure, while issue #1 of the new series begins with the tale of the other survivors.
“Well, I've [reprised those pages] twice thus far and I haven't yet made up my mind whether to do it a third time (though I do have an idea),” Guggenheim explained. “The reason I did it -- at the beginning of Book 2, Issue #1 -- was that I had a problem to solve: I wanted the first issue of the new book to be completely new-reader-friendly which meant, among other things, that I had to introduce the high concept of the book to those readers who hadn't read Book One. At the same time, however, I wanted readers who had read Book One -- both of them -- kidding -- to see some familiar faces. So at some point I hit upon the idea of revisiting the opening pages of Book One, then branching off in a different direction. It felt like an elegant solution to my problem.”
The two stories, of course, seem likely to converge before long.
Throughout the first series and also in the Free Comic Book Day #0, “Resurrection’s” survivors have an instinct to restart society, but have no way to know who else may be alive or whether the situation is the same everywhere. This leads to no small confusion as to societal structure and what form the newly emerging human civilization might take. “I guess you could say that the entire series is my take on humanity's next step -- that's why I chose 'Resurrection' as the title,” Guggenheim said. “It was actually inspired by something I heard on the news after Hurricane Katrina. One of the inhabitants of New Orleans had been talking on CNN about how they had to go about 'starting the resurrection of New Orleans.' As for how that resurrection takes place in our series, my general 'take' is that it's something that happens in fits and starts and a step backward for every two steps forward.
“In Book One we established pretty clearly that the world is in a state of chaos after ten years of alien occupation and that humanity's next step is going to be the descent into more chaos.”
On a national level, issue #1 begins with a flashback to 1998, where President Clinton addresses the crisis shortly before Air Force One is shot down. With the last elected president gone, readers have already seen some power shuffling for the presidential line of succession, raising the question of who exactly is in charge at this point. “That is an excellent question,” the writer said. “Believe me, our characters are asking it a lot and it's that mystery that forms the substance of much of the first year's worth of stories. That's a long way of saying that I can't tell you without spoiling a lot of stuff.”
The end of the previous series and the #0 issue, both of which feature powerful humans operating to conceal major secrets, suggest that there is more to the bugs' invasion than the public knows. As to how the conspiracy might unfold, Guggenheim said, “There's a big story to be told in Europe. Not everyone dealt with the occupation the same way. I won't say that nothing is as it seems, but I will say that what it seems may not be the whole story.”
Given that the Bugs ruled Earth for ten years, it should not be surprising that they performed ghastly experiments upon humans, resulting in mutant creatures called Burns. Though briefly appearing in the first series, Burns were not as central to that story, but Guggenheim suggested they will crop up in Book Two. “We saw one in Book One named Victor -- who will be showing up in Book Two, albeit not for a little while,” the writer said. “A Burn also makes an appearance in Book Two, Issue #1 as part of a suicide attempt by one of our characters. How's that for a tease?”
With “Resurrection” #0 representing Oni Press as the publisher's Free Comic Book Day offering for 2009, introducing readers not only to the series but potentially to the wider line of Oni books, CBR asked Guggenheim what other Oni titles fans of his book might enjoy. “I think 'Wasteland' is the obvious companion,” he said of the long-running post-apocalyptic title by Antony Johnston and Chris Mitten. “There are also elements and mysteries that will be familiar to readers of 'Queen & Country.' Then again, I might just be mentioning my favorite Oni titles. You never know...”
"Resurrection" #1 goes on sale June 10 from Oni Press.

ELI POSTMORTEM - PART 3

Fri, 22 May 2009 11:42:46 -0700

The third and final entry in Newsarama’s series...

Green & Guggenheim: DVD, DVRs and Murky Ratings

By Vaneta Rogers posted: 19 May 2009 06:08 am ET

Of all the technological advances of the information age, one of the biggest changes to how Americans enjoy entertainment has come in television.

"Network television is in the throes of a major evolution, or devolution, or whatever you want to call it. But it's a crisis, really," said Marc Guggenheim, co-creator of the recently canceled ABC show Eli Stone and showrunner on next year's Flash Forward, also from ABC. "And the crisis rises from the fact that people have choices in how they consume their product."

Not only have channel choices increased exponentially with cable, but new technologies have ushered in new ways to watch. From iTunes and Amazon to DVRs and DVDs, the world of television has changed from one where most people in America tuned in to I Love Lucy every Monday night to one where more than 30 percent of TV viewers watch their shows later on DVR.

As we continue our talk with Guggenheim and Michael Green (who also just had his show, Kings, canceled by NBC), we look at how the television industry is adjusting to new technologies, questioning whether the changes have put quality, scripted programming at an unfair disadvantage. [See part one and part two of our discussion here.]

Green and Guggenheim were working on the script for the Green Lantern movie with co-writer Greg Berlanti, and the two of them noticed they had a lot in common. Not only are both comic book writers – Green on Superman/Batman for DC Comics; Guggenheim on Resurrection for Oni Press and Amazing Spider-Man for Marvel Comics – but they will see both of their canceled TV shows finish this summer on Saturday nights.

As the two spoke to Newsarama about how reality television seems to be growing in popularity while fictional shows like Pushing Daisies and Life on Mars struggle to make it on network TV, the discussion turned toward how the current rating system doesn't favor serial television. For example, the DVD life for reality television is almost non-existent while shows like Lost or 24 have done well on DVD.

"With serialized shows, there are a lot of people who are waiting for the DVD box set to come out," Guggenheim said. "Imagine if comic book companies didn't pay attention to how many trades they were publishing, but rather only paid attention to month-to-month sales," Guggenheim said. "In fact, I'll go you one better. Not even month-to-month sales. They're only paying attention to how Amazing Spider-Man sold on the Wednesday it came out as opposed to the following Thursday, Friday or Saturday, right? So that's the problem. You have a lot of people who are either 'waiting for the trade' or picking up their comic book on Thursday, Friday or Saturday."

What Guggenheim means is that television shows are judged for renewal long before it's time for them to be released on DVD. While DVR and internet numbers eventually roll in, the potential for DVD and iTunes sales is rarely a part of the equation.

"The networks are starting to pay attention to that kind of data, but they're sort of in between two models of thinking," Green explained. "Here's an example of that. Literally the day Kings was sent off to die on Saturday nights, we were No. 1 on iTunes. We had achieved No. 1 status on iTunes. So we were all happy, thinking this was quite an achievement, and then we get a call that says, 'sorry, we're scuttling you.' And I asked, does that iTunes number matter? And they said, 'no.'

"It's still on the margins for them. It's an indicator," Green said. "So if [the show is] something they quite like and it's doing well [in ratings], then they'll recognize added success. But it won't turn around what they already perceive as a failure. It's also a numbers thing because iTunes doesn't represent the millions that they feel they need at this point."

The information that networks receive about all this new technology is also new. Nielsen didn't start including DVR numbers in its data until late 2005. Now, its ratings information comes in three versions: live, which is the traditional way of tuning in to TV; live plus 24 hours, counting how many people watch shows on DVR within a day of recording them; and live plus seven days, which includes those households who watch within one week of recording the show.

"But there's another factor here, which is perception," Guggenheim pointed out. "Nielsen is the company that has the monopoly, and I use that in the most pejorative sense, has a monopoly on reporting ratings. Nielsen comes out with preliminary ratings the very next morning. They're called overnights for that reason. That's the first data point that you get. And that is purely live viewing on the first night – no DVRs, no iTunes, no internet. Then over the course of the new two to three weeks, additional data comes in, and it includes internet and it includes DVRs. But here's the problem. Those overnights have set the tone. Those overnights have created the perception."

"It's already been reported on every news outlet by that point," Green added.

"I always analogize it to, it's like if you open the sports page to see how your baseball team did and only saw how they did up until the third inning, and you made a judgment about their success or failure in that case, based on three innings instead of nine innings," Guggenheim said.

"The illustration I saw of how they're learning to think in new terms but haven't quite achieved it yet is, I had a series of emails from NBC before Kings aired saying, whatever happens on premier night, don't worry about it. We're only worried about what happens once we get the DVR numbers and internet numbers. Do not freak out the next morning," Green said.

"And I thought that was very encouraging, because they were very realistic about it. But then, when the next morning numbers came and they were disappointing, everyone freaked out. It was exactly what we were told not to do. And it could be that they were more disappointing than they wanted, but it was almost as if to say, don't worry about it... as long as it's good news," Green said. "And it may have been a disappointment on the fault of the show or of their own creation or both, but the effect was the same. The next morning, it was an avalanche of disappointment and retreats and bad news based on those overnights."

It may seem like an antiquated system, but fans of serial television who cry foul because of DVR numbers should keep in mind that broadcast television is driven, for the most part, by advertising. The sponsors of television shows don't know if DVR viewers even see their advertising, and even if they do, the target date has been lost after certain amount of time. For example, if a retailer wants to promote that weekend's big sale, or a movie studio wants to advertise their new film, a DVR viewer who sees their advertising two weeks later does them no good.

Viewers are more likely to tune in live to reality shows like American Idol or Dancing with the Stars, meaning advertisers can reach a targeted audience on a targeted date. Character-based, serial television, on the other hand, can be watched at a later date, or even watched many months later on DVD.

Yet fans of serial, fictional television can also find hope in the official news today that Dollhouse, the Fox show by Joss Whedon, another TV/comic book writer, has been renewed despite dismal ratings. Although the show had been assumed canceled by media followers who only consider ratings, the network took into consideration the huge bump the show got from DVR and internet numbers. And it's said that Fox also considered the fact that Dollhouse is a sci-fi show, a genre that tends to bring in strong DVD and iTunes sales.

This news is encouraging to writers like Guggenheim and Green who prefer working on serial shows, although their 2009 efforts didn't seem to benefit from that kind of thinking. For Green, his disappointment over having Kings dropped by the network is tempered by the enjoyment he got from making it.

"I take a lot of comfort in talking to people who really enjoyed and appreciated the show," Green said of his canceled show. "And I take a lot of comfort in how fun it was to do it. The more I work, the more I realize the process of doing something and seeing writers/actors/directors take an idea you had and turn it into something sparkly and wonderful, is what I like. So I focus on that, and the rest gets easy."

After Green's comment, Guggenheim joked that he had his own way of dealing with cancelation: "I self-medicate with drink."

But after the laughter, the writer said that while new technology may be confusing the ratings system right now, it actually offers solace to people like him and Green.

"It's the one advantage that writer/creators like me and Michael have doing television now than in days of yore," he said. "Kings will come out on DVD, Eli comes out on DVD, so those shows will exist for perpetuity. People can find them and check them out and they'll have a life beyond their broadcast."

The DVD set of Kings is available for pre-order on Amazon, while the four episodes that have already aired can be viewed on Amazon, iTunes or NBC.com. The remainder of season will air Saturdays at 8 p.m. on June 13 through July 25. The first season of Eli Stone is available on DVD, and the second season's DVD is expected to be announced soon. The first nine episodes of Season 2 are available on iTunes. Eli Stone will air its four remaining episodes from Season 2 on Saturdays at 10 p.m. on June 20 through July 11.

ELI POSTMORTEM - PART 2

Fri, 22 May 2009 11:40:35 -0700

The second in Newsarama’s series...

God Complexity: 'ELI', KINGS, the Almighty & Network TV

By Vaneta Rogers posted: 15 May 2009 04:05 pm ET

In a broadcast television landscape filled with successful cop shows and popular reality TV, marketing something new and different to the viewing audience isn't easy. Shows with out-of-the-box concepts like Fringe or Pushing Daisies aren't easy to explain in a short promo clip.
"They were very confused with how to market our show," said Michael Green, the creator of Kings, which was replaced by NBC this season after airing only the first four episodes. "And I think, ultimately, I think it's one of the reasons they lost the desire to make a success out of it. It's very easy to say, 'we have a nice cop show we executed really well for you.' It's harder to say, 'we have a character-based soap that's got some bizarre elements to it.'"
"With both of our shows, I think what made them special is you don't see them on TV that often," said Marc Guggenheim, who co-created with Greg Berlanti the recently canceled show Eli Stone. "They were original. So how do you market that to a broadcast audience? The broadcast audience has become exactly what it says – the 'broadest' audience possible. And I'm not sure they're interested in checking out a show they don't understand."
For both shows, the challenge of explaining their concepts was complicated by another element: God. Eli Stone told the story of a reluctant prophet whose aneurism gave him messages from above. Kings was a modern retelling of the story of King David of the Bible.
Green said that while the network was extremely supportive of how Kings approached the story of King David, there was discomfort with advertising it.
"I talked extensively with them about this," Green said. "It was a very bizarre divide. I found that in the development of the show, on the creative level of what the episodes and their content would be, I got nothing but support and interest in the religious or magical or somehow belief-inspired storytelling.
"When the time came for the marketing, there was a very deliberate, outspoken, loud desire articulated by them that, 'We are not going to say King David.' They were scared to say King David. They just felt that that would be detrimental to the show," Green explained. "I thought it was the clearest way to express what the show was about, and I thought it might actually generate interest. But there was a fear of either backlash or marginalizing or pigeonholing. There were a lot of reasons they had. They wouldn't go near it in the marketing, but they never had a problem with it on the creative level, which is why I was so baffled."
Green said there was also a strange rumor that got started about his show relating to one of their sponsors, Liberty Mutual, controlling or censoring the show. "It was reported like they were calling the shots on the show and telling me what to do, which is something I found extremely distasteful," Green said. "It was completely untrue. I had invented a world that had no commercial products and no pop culture reference to our own so that I couldn't advertise products on the show."
Guggenheim said he didn't run into as much backlash for Eli Stone's spiritual nature – early network promos actually showed one character comparing a sunset to God – but he thinks the problem with marketing Kings and Eli were related to how different they were from previous spirituality-related shows.
"There are plenty of shows in the history of television that have dealt with God and have been successful: Little House on the Prairie, Highway to Heaven, Joan of Arcadia, Seventh Heaven," Guggenheim said. "Where Kings and Eli differ from all those shows is that Kings and Eli are very, very outside the box."
Guggenheim said he considered reaching out to what he called the "Passion of the Christ" audience to tell them about Eli Stone, but he wasn't sure it was a good marketing strategy, since the show wasn't as much "religious" as it was "positive and hopeful."
"Our sense, particularly in the latter days in the show, we found ourselves wishing we could visit the parallel universe where Eli premiered after Obama got elected," Guggenheim said. "I'm not meaning that to be political at all, but it just seemed like messages of hope were tough to sell to America in the final days of the last administration."
Green said he was actually hoping religious America might take an interest in the show because he thought it was a show they would enjoy.
"But my experience was that they didn't know about it," Green said. "The marketing stayed away from it. To their detriment, they spent their money on a campaign that tried to sell the sci-fi aspects of a monarchy. And that utterly failed to generate any interest in the show. So nobody knew what it was."
The writers said both shows were designed to be watched and discussed by families. "Maybe you don't bring the 6-year-old kids in," Green said. "But we both had that as a goal. And where people found the shows, that happened."
Guggenheim said he believes the family-aimed nature of Eli Stone was one reason the show failed -- not because of the concept, but because it was on too late at night.
"Because of the writer's strike, Eli got stuck at 10 o'clock because that was the only option the network had. It wasn't really their fault, but as a result, it stayed at 10 o'clock. That killed the show right there," Guggenheim said. "It was never conceived of as a 10 o'clock show. Kids are asleep by 10 o'clock. We ended up in the wrong time slot, and once you're there, it's very hard to move. And that's just what happened."
Because both writers are also comic book writers – Green on Superman/Batman and Guggenheim on Resurrection and Amazing Spider-Man – they know there is audience out there who are fans of serialized, out-of-the-box fiction. But the challenge comes in trying to attract a broader audience to those types of television shows – enough to justify broadcast networks putting money into innovative, serialized television.
"I do think there's an audience out there for this stuff," Green said. "The audiences for Lost come at it with an incredible amount of intelligence. I think it's the job of the network to generate an interest in these products."

ELI POSTMORTEM - PART 1

Fri, 22 May 2009 11:38:35 -0700

Newsarama did a series of interviews with me and Michael Green regarding the demise of Eli Stone and Kings. The first of three...

Unfashionable Fiction? 'ELI', KINGS Creators on TV Future

By Vaneta Rogers posted: 14 May 2009 04:17 pm ET

As "reality" television continues to dominate much of television, fans of creative, fictional programming have been crying foul, particularly this season when so many critical darlings went down hard. From Pushing Daisies and Life on Mars, to Swingtown and Life, this year's busy chopping block seems to indicate that fiction is struggling to stay alive on broadcast television.
"In network television, it's just becoming harder and harder to tell quality stories, particularly ones that are serialized. Cable is becoming more and more the home for that kind of writing," said screenwriter Marc Guggenheim, who co-created with Greg Berlanti the recently canceled ABC show Eli Stone.
Guggenheim and Berlanti have company while they recover from their show's cancelation. The two are co-writing the script for Warner Bros.' upcoming Green Lantern movie with Michael Green, who also had his show, Kings, canceled by NBC this year. Guggenheim and Green started noticing similarities in their circumstances and talked to Newsarama about the current landscape of network television.
"I said to him, both of our shows are doing the Saturday death march," Guggenheim said, referring to the fact that both Kings and Eli Stone will finish out their season this summer on Saturday nights, otherwise known as where Network TV shows go to die. "It's in vogue right now to blame the networks, but at some point, you have to start blaming the audience. For whatever reason, the broadcast audience is clearly not responding to this kind of material."
"I think it's a negative feedback loop," Green added. "I think audiences sampled some of the better reality shows or some of the worst reality shows and checked them out. And networks, which are all too quick to try to replicate success with repetition, went ahead and started making more of the same. The audiences started checking those out too. And eventually it started becoming not only a viable alternative, but a less expensive alternative for networks to make."
Guggenheim also pointed out that just talking about "scripted vs. unscripted" doesn't really describe what's happening. "In addition to that, I draw a distinction between good scripted and bad scripted," Guggenheim said. "There's always going to be some scripted television on network. The problem is – and I'm not going to name names – but are they shows that are kind of mindless, cookie-cutter shows that sort of appeal to the lowest common denominator, or are they smart, quality drama?"
Another distinction made in television is the difference between "procedural" shows, such as Law and Order or CSI, as opposed to "character-based serial shows," like Lost or Desperate Housewives. And right now, procedural shows are experiencing a surge of popularity, Green said.
"If there's a tone in our voice when we talk about the distinction, it's because Marc and I happen to enjoy writing character-based, serialized shows more than procedural. But that's just us. That's not to say one is better or worse than the other," Green said. "There just seems to be this never-ending appetite for procedural crime drama on television. I guess there is an upper limit to that, but CBS hasn't found it yet. And good for them – they do make good versions of that product."
"I used to make my living doing procedural. My TV career started with doing procedural, self-contained, one-hour crime dramas like Law and Order," Guggenheim said. "I actually think those done well are totally valid and viable and very entertaining. If I'm disturbed by anything, it's the trend toward procedurals that are not done well, but are kind of mindless. It's not so much the form I dislike as the bad execution of the form."
Green and Guggenheim have more in common than just their similarly canceled shows. Not only are the two working together on Green Lantern, but both are current comic book writers – Green on Superman/Batman for DC Comics and Guggenheim on Resurrection for Oni Comics and Amazing Spider-Man for Marvel. And because of this shared experience, they both recognize the unique characteristics of audiences who also read comic books.
"Comic book readers are the best audiences. They're audiences who love with their whole heart, who pay attention with both sides of their brain, and when they get into a show, they give it their all," Green said. "They almost rely on the idea of ongoing storytelling. It's what they're there for. They want ongoing narrative and ongoing character stories. Kings was on a network that is very deliberately moving away from serial storytelling. But the comic audiences hear about a show that will have serial storytelling with genre elements, and that's what they get excited for."
Guggenheim said comic book audiences also tend to care more about quality. "Look at the top 10 comic books that sell in any given month," Guggenheim said. "You may not agree that it's your cup of tea, but I defy you to point to them and go, 'Wow that is an utter piece of crap and appeals to the lowest common denominator.' Whereas if you look at the top TV shows, you're going to find a good chunk of shows that will make you say that."
That love of comics not only brought the two writers together on Green Lantern, but it's coming into play again for Guggenheim on his next project. Although Eli Stone may be done, the writer's already working with someone from the comics world on another TV show.
"It's probably too soon for me to announce my involvement with it just yet," Guggenheim said. "But I will say I'm working on a new TV show co-created with someone with incredibly good comic book cred. It's a pilot, and we haven't been ordered yet, so that's the reason I can't really say who or what it is."
And even with the landscape looking dim for serialized fiction on broadcast TV, both Guggenheim and Green believe their favorite type of character-based storytelling could make a come-back soon.
"What goes in and out of fashion is how much character-based, serialized television there is," Green said. "For awhile, when I started in television, it was verboten for writers to get anything serialized. It would be a fight to get 10 percent of an episode to be about ongoing character relationships from episode to episode. Then with the success of Lost, Desperate Housewives, and HBO shows really teaching audiences how to watch serialized television in a sophisticated way, there then became fights with your network and studio who wanted things more serialized. And now it just seems to be bouncing back the other way."
"Television is very cyclical. The pendulum is always in motion," Guggenheim said. "We can talk about the way the landscape looks today, but a year from now, it will change. All it takes is one smash hit or two smash hits to radically alter the landscape and change the pendulum motion."

GREEN LANTERN UPDATE

Fri, 22 May 2009 11:36:16 -0700

From Newsarama...

Gang Green - Writers Talk the Latest Green Lantern News

By Vaneta Rogers posted: 11 May 2009 02:01 pm ET

As the Green Lantern movie gets closer this fall's filming date, the internet is rampant with rumors about who might be cast in the lead role of Hal Jordan.
Screenwriter Marc Guggenheim, who penned the Green Lantern script with co-writers Greg Berlanti and Michael Green, told Newsarama that while he can't comment on casting, he personally is hoping to see someone young enough to carry the role into future films.
"I would like to see someone who is, while not being baby-faced by any stretch of the imagination, I would personally like someone who's young enough to carry a franchise going forward," Guggenheim said.
Green said the hopes are to build a Green Lantern film franchise that can be carried into future films. "You always write a script with success in mind. And in film, success means future films," he said.
The Green Lantern movie, which is being directed by Casino Royale's Martin Campbell, will begin filming in Australia in September for a release date of June 17, 2011. The reported budget for the movie is $150 million. (Although the original targeted date was Dec. 17, 2010, Warner Bros. just last week pushed back Green Lantern's release to 2011, where it's now set to compete with the currently scheduled May 6, 2011, release of Spider-Man 4.)
While no actor has been confirmed in the role of Hal Jordan, everyone from Star Trek's Chris Pine to The Notebook's Ryan Gosling have been rumored as being up for the role. And just last week, HitFix cited a source as confirming Bradley Cooper was "most likely" to be cast as Hal Jordan. Cooper, 34, is best known by TV audiences for his roles in Alias and Nip/Tuck, and he appears in this summer's upcoming comedy, The Hangover.
And just yesterday, Terminator Salvation actor Sam Worthington's name once again became attached to the movie after he confirmed to Moviehole that he has spoken to director Martin Campbell about the role.
"It's one of those things where they're still doing the script," said the 32-year-old actor. "I said, 'Give me a script. Let me have a look at it.' I like Martin a lot. I met him on the Bond stuff, and I like his work, but the second step is, 'Is it a movie that I'd go and see?"
That "still doing the script" line shouldn't worry fans too much. Green and Guggenheim told Newsarama that their script has been finished for some time, but it's being refined to make shooting more realistic and to line up with the locations being scouted in Australia.
"We're doing, basically, the production pass," Green said. "It's a really fun process because you're taking the things that were still abstract and making it practical and real. We're thinking about it in terms of, 'how will we actually affect this?' as opposed to making it something we were trying to convince the studio to do. It's a nice part of the process because it's no longer a sales document; it's a production script."
Guggenheim said the three writers are meeting with Campbell and producer Donald De Line regularly. "We're constantly working on the script and making revisions per our collective discussions and things that are reflected by the other departments in the movie," he said. "It's actually going to be filmed. So that's what's fun and challenging. So we're just working away on it."
Besides their work in TV and film, both Guggenheim and Green are also current comic book writers. Guggenheim works on Amazing Spider-Man for Marvel Comics and Resurrection for Oni Press, while Green co-writes Superman/Batman for DC Comics. Green told Newsarama that because the writers are involved in comics, the script is a "fan's take. We're all huge fans of the character." And Guggenheim told Newsarama last year the script is "not only a respectful approach to the character, but it's a loving approach to the entire mythos."
That comic book connection gives Green Lantern fans hope for a movie that highlights the space-traveling, multi-hero aspect of the character. In comic books, Hal Jordan is not the only Green Lantern, but is part of an interstellar corps of heroes from throughout the universe who enforce justice with their green energy-emitting rings.
The movie seems to be following that universe-wide idea of the Green Lantern mythos, as the writers have confirmed the Green Lantern home planet of Oa is being designed for the film. And as Guggenheim and Green spoke with Newsarama about finding someone young enough to play Hal Jordan in multiple films, the Green Lantern character names Sinestro and Killowog also came up.
"The one thing I fear," Guggenheim said, "is that you don't want to end up – and no offense to Roger Moore – but you don't want to end up in the second movie with, like, Roger Moore in A View to a Kill. Where it's like, oh my God, don't strain yourself."
"So you're not liking my Peter O'Toole idea?" Green joked.
"Not liking your Peter O'Toole idea," Guggenheim said with a laugh. "But then, I tell ya, Peter O'Toole as Sinestro? Hmmm..."
"I have an old joke where anytime anyone asks me who I see in any character, I just say Seth Green," Green said. "And I don't think he's a good Hal Jordan. I don't really want him for this movie. But I'm going to stick with that because it always works for me. Then again, Seth Green Kilowog? What do you think?"

WHAT’S NEXT?

Fri, 8 May 2009 19:54:19 -0700

From Hollywood Reporter...

ABC picks up 'Flash Forward'
Network gives drama 13-episode order
By Nellie Andreeva
May 8, 2009, 10:02 PM ET

"Flash Forward"
ABC has officially picked up drama "Flash Forward."

The project, which is already being promoted on ABC, received a 13-episode order Friday night.

Based on Robert J. Sawyer's novel, "Flash Forward," the series starring Joseph Fiennes chronicles the aftermath of a global event in which everyone in the world blacks out for 2 minutes, 17 seconds and has mysterious visions of six months into the future.

David Goyer and Brannon Braga co-wrote "Flash," with Goyer directing the pilot.

Both will exec produce the series, but because of his commitment to Fox's "24," where he is an exec producer, Braga won't be involved full time on "Flash."

"Eli Stone" co-creator/exec producer Marc Guggenheim has come on board as exec producer and will run the series with Goyer.

Also exec producing are Jessika Goyer, Vince Gerardis and Ralph Vicinanza.

The pickup for "Flash" follows ABC's Thursday order of new comedy "Modern Family."

FREE RESURRECTION INTERVIEW

Fri, 1 May 2009 09:20:03 -0700

Well, of course it’s free, you’re reading it on the Internet. The title of this post refers to the free issue of Resurrection that’s being given out on Saturday as part of Free Comic Book Day.

Thanks to Newsarama for talking to me....

Marc Guggenheim: Restarting Resurrection

By Matt Brady

Tuesday, we spoke with Marc Guggenheim about Resurrection, his series at Oni which chronicles life after the alien invasion of earth. No, not Alien Nation, but rather, after Independence Day - what’s next?

As Guggenheim discussed, Book One followed a small clutch of survivors as they sought answers in the post-invasion world, and starting with this week’s Free Comic Book Day issue (available Saturday at many fine comic shops), he gets to the job of Book Two’s story – a completely new point of view on the world, open and accessible to all readers.

We spoke with Guggenheim about this fresh (re)start.

Newsarama: Okay Marc – we covered how the series started and where the idea originally came from for Resurrection, so let’s get up to date. This is a big week for the property, as the trade hit comic shops yesterday, this Saturday, Oni’s Free Comic Book Day issue is a Resurrection story, and a new series – in color – starts in June. How did things get here, and whose idea was the start, the pause, and the restart?

Marc Guggenheim: It was Oni’s. Oni, from the get-go has been ridiculously supportive of the book. Basically...with Book One, we didn’t come anywhere close to a regular schedule. I don’t think we hit one deadline. So we knew that we had to do something to address that basic problem, because there was no predictability with the publishing schedule.

That problem that we were trying to solve coincided with some economic changes that basically made printing in color economically viable for the first time. It’s really to my benefit, and I’m very grateful for the fact that when Oni decided to publish a book in color for the first time, they chose Resurrection. From there, we decided that if we were going to do this, and do this in color, we had to do it in a way that allows us to hit a monthly schedule.

So when you combine the idea of monthly schedule and color printing, along with the great idea that Oni came up with of publishing Book One as a six dollar trade, we felt it deserved a relaunch, complete with a new issue #1. I’m writing a text piece that goes with Book Two issue #1 right now that touches on this part, but I’m not a fan of new #1s. As a reader, as a long-time comic book fan, they kind of leave a bad taste in my mouth. I only like them if they only really – radically – relaunch a series. Nowadays, it’s really done to goose sales, and it always leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I always swore that I would never do it on any of the books I was involved with.

NRAMA: (laughs) But in this case...

MG: (laughs) Right – in the case of Resurrection, I felt it was justified because we’re re-approaching this from ground zero. You can pick up Book Two issue #1 without having read any of the previous series. It is written entirely as if Book One has never happened. I’m not saying that we’re ignoring Book One, but just that the reading experience for new readers – everything will be introduced to them slowly. That does require a little bit of artfulness in the writing, but I feel that time and effort are well worth it.

So, the notion of restarting with a new #1 is very appropriate in this instance. Also, if you look at the title page of Book Two #1, it says “Book Two.” We’re not ignoring the first series or the history here, which can sometimes happen with a new #1 launch. And as I proceed through the book and I work out the long-term plans for the book, I have to wrestle with the idea of when Book Two ends, do I start Book Three up with a new #1?

But my goal; has always been to make sure that if we’re going to relaunch the book with a new #1, it has to be worthwhile and theres a real reason to it, so it’s not just some marketing gimmick.

NRAMA: Tell us about the Free Comic Book Day issue – is that a kickoff of Book Two, or a separate story?

MG: For Free Comic Book Day, I created an issue #0, basically. It’s sort of funny - I feel like I’ve had to do two new issues that are new-reader friendly. When I wrote the Free Comic Book day issue, I didn’t want people to have to know the previous characters – the issue has to stand on its own feet. At the same time, I didn’t want to be locked in to the narrative that I’d already started writing for Book Two. So what I decided to do for that issue – it’s a 16 page story, so I didn’t have a lot of room, but room enough to tell a story – I chose to create a new character who will ultimately have great importance to the overall mythology.

So, as before, I’m trying to serve two masters, both the old readers and the new. For long-time readers, you’ll get a glimpse for the first time at the truth behind the alien invasion.

NRAMA: So tease away a little – what gets the ball rolling in the FCBD issue?

MG: Well, we focus on a character named Dwight, and Dwight has the unusual distinction of being in a mental hospital at the time the aliens invade. The reason why he’s in a mental hospital is that he claims that – years before – he was abducted by aliens, and everyone thought he was crazy. Well now, people don’t think he’s so crazy. His story begins with leaving the hospital after he aliens have blown it to bits. And merriment ensues.

NRAMA: And he’s not in Book Two issue #1?

MG: Well, I’ll say that the consequences of the Free Comic Book Day issue we’ll revisit in probably, Book Three. Book Two is about resetting the world and putting all the key character sback on the playing field, so I won’t get a chance to pay of the consequences of the Free Comic Book Day issue until Book Three.

NRAMA: In your mind, is this something that’s headed towards an endpoint, or is it just an ongoing exploration of the brave, new world following an alien invasion?

MG: It’s definitely going towards an endpoint. I have the overall mythology figured out, and the big mysteries answered. One of the things that I decided to do is that once we realunch the book, we’ll see what the audience is like. I’m going to have to be really, really practical, and let sales dictate on whether I’m writing an ongoing series with no end in sight, or a shorter series. I don’t want the book to ever end prematurely without getting the answers out to readers. But I believe in a flexible writing approach in that I like to have very specific tentpoles, but I like to give myself flexibility in terms of when those tentpoles will be revealed.

NRAMA: And given the type of story that it is, I’m guessing it’s safe to say that the characters are far from revealing all they know?

MG: Yeah – there’s a lot more going on. The master plan calls for our characters to start rebuilding the world. The title, “Resurrection” is very deliberate. We’re working up to a point where the characters that survive will ultimately start about the business of rebuilding the world, and facing the questions of are they going to rebuild it as it was, or will they change things? Who’s in charge? All those big, human questions.

My grand plan for the book is to start off at a very ground-level, human, everyman place, and then, slowly and organically, the characters will grow – well, those who survive will grow, and the stories will get bigger and bigger and bigger. And the consequences of the stories will get bigger and bigger and bigger, so the characters will constantly be moving forward while things get more and more complicated.

NRAMA: Finally, Resurrection is set up at as a feature at Universal. How’s it moving along?

MG: I’ve been working with the guys over there to develop it, and I have to say that I’m a very big believer that you can’t just do a literal translation of the comic book in movie form. I like to adapt it for the different artform. So we’ve been doing that and having a blast, and my hope is that you’ll get to see it at a theater near you sooner rather than later.

But in the meantime – with Free Comic Book Day, and even the six dollar trade, there’s no reason not to pick up this book.

Click here for a 7 page preview of Resurrection's FCBD issue

VIDEO ODYSSEY

Fri, 1 May 2009 09:15:41 -0700

Comicbookresources.com has posted their third (or fourth, depending how you count) and final video in their seemingly-endless series of videos with me. If you watch ‘em all, you’ll see more of me than my wife and kids get to...

SUPER ZOMBIES INTERVIEW (W/ VINCE GONZALES) -- CLICK HERE.

CBR INTERVIEW PART 1 -- CLICK HERE.

CBR INTERVIEW PART 2 -- CLICK HERE.

CBR INTERVIEW PART 3 -- CLICK HERE.

RESURRECTION 101

Tue, 28 Apr 2009 14:31:33 -0700

The folks at newsarama.com were kind enough to do this interview with me that tells you everything you need to know about Resurrection...

Marc Guggenheim: Resurrection 101

By Matt Brady

And one day, the explosions stopped.

That, in a nutshell, is how Marc Guggenheim began Resurrection at Oni Press. Through the six-issue series and its one Annual, Guggenheim, with artists David Dumeer and Douglas Dabbs told the story of what happens after the alien invasion. No, not the fighting the flying alien ships and infecting their computer systems with a virus part, after that. After the aliens have left and the survivors are left to pick up the pieces of their lives and their world.

In this introductory look at Resurrection, we talk to Guggenheim about the world, the aliens, and the characters that make up his story. Check back with us on Thursday for a look at what’s to come, both in the Free Comic Book Day issue of Resurrection (available this Saturday, May 2nd) and the new full color series, launching in June from Oni Press.

Newsarama: Marc, let’s set the stage here – where did Resurrection come from for you? At the surface, it looks to be one of those rare, rare ideas that writers get where they say, “No one’s thought of this before? Sweet!”

Marc Guggenheim: (laughs) That’s right. What’s funny actually, is that I hjad this idea years and years ago, before I broke in, back when I was in Boston and practicing law and writing on the side. It really started off as just wish fulfillment – I was asking myself the kind of questions you have after you see something or read a story. For this, specifically, it was after I had seen Independence Day. That was got be asking questions, and that led to me concluding that I hoped one day, someone would do this kind of story, but no one did!

Years kept going by, and I kept being surprised that no one was doing it, and then, in about the fifth year of my professional career after I had broken in...

NRAMA: And still no one had done it?

MG: Right! Still no one had done it. I ended up talking to the Oni guys, and we started talking about doing something together, and this was the first thing I pitched. They loved it, and immediately saw the promise of the series, and have always been really supportive of it. And we took our time with it – we did a year’s worth of development on the visuals with me doing the backstory. If anything, it was anything but rushed into existence. It took years for me to break in, it took me years to be ready to tell this story, and then it took me a year to get it ready and written. It’s kind of insane that no one jumped on it – and our good fortune, I guess.

NRAMA: Let’s talk about the world of Resurrection - it’s our world, and your story literally starts on the day the explosions stop. That is, the alien invasion ends, for all intents and purposes – your first scene is the cast realizing that there are no explosions going on...

MG: Yes – it literally starts on that day, which, in the parlance of the series is called “Evacuation Day,” meaning that’s the day that the explosions stopped, and the aliens, known in Resurrection’s world as “bugs” leave the planet. The surviving humans are left wondering why they left, if we actually kicked them off, and if we did kick them off, how did we manage to do that? After all, “Evacuation Day” happens after ten years of occupation.

So the series starts chronologically in 1998, when the bugs first arrived. Bill Clinton is the President, and it was exactly the world outside your window. One of the things I’ve really labored to do is to make sure that on May 19, 1998 – the day the aliens arrived – we were starting off the narrative with exactly the world as it existed. There are no superheroes, there’s no magic – no preexisting alien contact. It’s as realistic as I could make it – while still being a comic book. And then – well, chaos ensues.

So the series picks up on the day the explosions stop, and will periodically flash back to the events before the invasion and during the invasion.

NRAMA: Probably the closest book to this on the stands today is Robert Kirkman’s Walking Dead. When asked about it, Robert has always maintained that he doesn’t want to go back into it to show how the plague happened, or dig into specifically what happened. You’ve said that there will be flashbacks, and there have been a few in the opening series, but do you feel the same way about the world’s “origin story,” for lack of a better term?

MG: What’s really interesting, first, with the comparisons to Walking Dead - it’s been a very interesting experience doing this book. We did volume one, which was six issues, plus an annual. All of those were written and published without me ever having read a panel of Walking Dead. During the publishing and then when the book went on sale, through reading a lot of reviews, there were a lot of comparisons to Walking Dead> I was kind of fascinated by that, and found myself wondering what kind of similarities there were.

So after we finished volume one, I picked up the first Walking Dead trade – and as a sidenote, I’ve become completely hooked. I own all the trades, and loan them out to friends. In fact, Resurrection volume 2 #1 which relaunches the series in June is my homage to Walking Dead. I try to do a year’s worth of Walking Dead in 30 pages. That having been said – while I understand the similarities people are making between the two, Resurrection is actually a very different animal from Walking Dead, and as a result, certainly our narrative scope and POV is very, very different from Walking Dead. Walking Dead is really focused on Rick and his world, and they very rarely break POV. Robert never really flashes back into the past, and like you said, he’s said he doesn’t really want to go there. This is one of the ways in which Resurrection is different from Walking Dead.

I always felt that a big part of the Resurrection series would be the mythology of what happened during the alien invasion, and what happened to stop it. Resurrection was conceived in a very different way from Walking Dead - while it is character-centric like Walking Dead, we have an added mythology element. We get periodic glimpses to what I like to call “the alien invasion movie” that preceded Resurrection. Also, unlike Walking Dead, where he’s focusing on one group of characters, the scope of Resurrection will take us to other survivors, other groups of people, and other countries. So it’s a similar kind of story told completely differently. People who like The Walking Dead will like this book for reasons similar to why they like The Walking Dead, but they’re going to be getting a completely different reading experience. Resurrection is telling a story with similar themes, but we’re telling it in a completely different way.

NRAMA: About the characters that you chose to follow from the start – Sara and Ben, specifically – you could have gone in any direction with your point of view characters. Why start the story with their experiences?

MG: I wanted to begin the story with average people. They’re not the military or the President – it’s average people, and that was very intentional. I wanted to start the book off in a very human way. What we see in volume 1, issue #1 is that one of those average people, Sara, goes out and meets up with Ben, and they begin journey. They’re the average everyman – and woman.

Coming up in volume 2, issue #1, we’re changing things a little, and making it more new-reader friendly. At the same time, I didn’t want to just jump to a different locale and focus on an entirely new group of characters, because I felt that would be...well, great for new readers, it wouldn’t be fair to the readers who read volume 1 and had an investment in Sara and Ben. So I found myself in a little bit of a catch-22 – and the solution I came up with is that book 2, issue #1 goes back to the group that Sara was with at the start of volume and follows what happened after she left.

So if you read book one, and are familiar with the characters, you’ll see that I haven’t abandoned them entirely. If you haven’t read any of Resurrection and volume 2 #1 is your first exposure, then you’re meeting new characters that you don’t have to have any prior knowledge of. So I think it works out pretty well. And for the readers of volume one who are curious about the fate of Ben Dellacroix, Paul Dolan and the other characters from that series, we haven’t seen the last of them. I’m just going to be introducing them slowly throughout the new series, so readers of the original series will see the characters that they were familiar with, and new readers will get a full understanding of the story we’re telling.

NRAMA: Something else to help people become familiar with the world of Resurrection - there has been continuity of government, and as it stands, Paul Dolan sees himself as being in charge. Now...Paul – he’s quite...familiar...

MG: Right – Paul looks a lot like Karl Rove. Then again, I think Karl Rove looks like any fat white guy. So certainly, I think Paul Dolan’s look was inspired by Karl Rove, but as I said, this is the world outside your window when we began, so Karl Rove was alive when the aliens invaded.

NRAMA: So what has the government been like during the occupation? As you’ve shown, the government’s seat of power was moved to Mount Weather in West Virginia, but besides an all-out resistance, has there been any effective or recognizable government for the past six years?

MG: (laughs) God, there’s such an easy joke there. But basically, no. The aliens have been carpet-bombing the earth for about ten years straight, so all that continuity of government – all the government can really do is stay put and stay alive. That having been said, in volume 1, we did establish that there was a plan to drive the aliens off the earth, referred to – mysteriously – as “Operation Longbow” – and that’s part of the mythology of the series: what was Operation Longbow, and how did it succeed in driving the aliens off? That’s something that we will revisit in volume 2.

Part of the exercise here for me as a writer is being very mindful of new readers coming on to the book. A Free Comic Book Day issue, a $6.00 trade, and a new series launching in color – I think we’ll be seeing a lot of readers who are unfamiliar with the world of Resurrection, and I’m really writing with them in mind. As such, I’m taking care to slowly reintroduce concepts that were introduced in those first six issues that people may have missed. One of those, eventually will be Operation Longbow and how that shadow government was working with other nations to drive the aliens away.

NRAMA: Before we wrap up this part of talking about Resurrection, let’s touch on the other two groups of characters – aside from the humans and the bugs: the Burns and the Road Agents...can you shed some light on them?

MG: The Burns are humans who were captured during the occupation and operated on, tortured and experimented on. The experience has left these people shells of their former selves, mentally ill and disfigured. They’re roaming the countryside – they’re not zombies, but they have zero quality of life. Our characters naturally are fearful of them as they don’t quite understand them, and can’t predict their behavior.

As for the Road Agents, they were only referred to in book one – the characters just mention them. If you’re an old reader of Resurrection and always wanted to see what the Road Agents are, pick up book two, because we get to meet them in the series for the first time.

Resurrection volume 1, a trade paperback collecting issues #1-#6 of the series, as well as the Annual, is due in comic book shops tomorrow, and carries a $6.00 cover price. Read a 26-page preview of the trade here.

MANY, MANY RESURRECTION PREVIEWS

Tue, 28 Apr 2009 14:24:37 -0700

Man, it seems like every other day, you can read a preview of Resurrection online for free. How are we gonna sell any books? Jeez...

Well, to keep track of ‘em all (okay, both of them, but it feels like a lot), here’s a simple guide (with links, of course):

RESURRECTION #0 -- You can preview the Free Comic Book Day special story by clicking here.

RESURRECTION VOL. 1 (THE INSURGENT EDITION) -- You can preview the first chapter (formerly, the first issue of Resurrection) by clicking here.

RESURRECTION #1 -- Finally, you can preview the relaunch of the series -- in full color with a new “number one” issue -- by clicking here.

I guess now the question is, will you buy the issues if they’re already available online for free...

PREVIEW RESURRECTION'S RESURRECTION

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 10:06:39 -0700

As part of our big relaunch of Resurrection, we’re bringing the series back with a new Number One issue. You can check out the first 10 pages online for free by clicking here.

RESURRECTION... AND MORE

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 10:05:11 -0700

Here’s something a little different. A video interview. You can view by clicking here.

FREE PREVIEW

Fri, 17 Apr 2009 18:49:56 -0700

Resurrection #0 -- which hits on May 2 and costs exactly $0 -- can be previewed -- also for free ‘cause it wouldn’t make sense otherwise -- by clicking here.

I LIED...

Fri, 27 Mar 2009 16:56:26 -0700

Did I say that the last Spider-Man interview was the last Spider-Man interview? I was wrong. Comicbookresources.com had one more up their sleeve...

SINS OF THE FATHER FIGURES: GUGGENHEIM ON AMAZING SPIDER-MAN
1 by Dave Richards
SPOILER WARNING: The following contains spoilers for "Amazing Spider-Man" #588 and "Amazing Spider-Man Extra" #3.
Spider-Man is just one of many superheroes operating in New York City, but despite the town’s enormous size, the wall-crawler’s adventures certainly have a way of making a lasting impact on the Big Apple. “Character Assassination” came to close in Marvel's “Amazing Spider-Man” #588 (and a special 16-page coda in “Spider-Man: Extra” #3), and the aftermath shook the city to its core. CBR News spoke with writer Marc Guggenheim about the arc and some of its fallout.
In the earlier chapters of “Character Assassination,” the truth about the two big mysteries that had confounded Spider-Man since his Brand New Day status quo began last year finally came out. It was revealed that the villain Menace was actually Harry Osborn's girlfriend Lily Hollister, and that she was using her alter ego to secretly advance her father's campaign for Mayor of New York City. It was also revealed that the Spider-Tracer Killings, a rash of serial killings where Spider-Man's signature tracking devices were found on the bodies, weren't killings after all, but attempts by rogue members of the NYPD to frame Spidey by leaving Spider-Tracers on the bodies of already-deceased individuals.
The Spider-Tracer Killings and Menace became entwined in “Amazing” #588, when two NYPD officers tried to arrest Peter Parker's friend Carlie Cooper and keep her from exposing the truth about the “killings.” Carlie's arrest angered Lily Hollister, who turned into Menace and attacked the cops for trying to imprison her friend. Spider-Man arrived on the scene and tried to stop Menace's rampage, but she had the upper hand over the exhausted wallcrawler. Fortunately for Spider-Man, Harry Osborn had decided to do something about his financé's villainous alter ego. Operating under his former guise as the Green Goblin, Harry showed up in the nick of time and subdued Menace. Then he did something unexpected: the Green Goblin helped Spider-Man, who he claims to hate, escape the cops who were waiting to arrest him.
Marc Guggenheim told CBR News there’s a very good reason for this surprising turn of events. “There's a certain amount of personal responsibility [Harry] feels insofar as Spidey is in this predicament with the cops because of his fight with Menace, and Harry feels that the Osborn family is responsible for Menace and her actions,” the writer said. “So I think more than anything, Harry saving Spider-Man was an attempt to balance things and not leave him in a worse position than the one he finds him in.”
Harry’s subduing of Menace happened on Election Day and had the unintended result of outing the villain’s identity to the world. When Menace's father, Bill Hollister, learned of his daughter's secret identity, he refused the office of the Mayor, which he had won thanks during the day's electoral results. “Bill is basically devastated,” Guggenheim said. “We have a huge supporting cast and people have a way of retreating into the background and then coming into the fore. We haven’t seen the last of him, however. That having been said, we won’t be seeing him so much that we’ll have to change the title of the book to ‘The Amazing Spider-Man & Bill Hollister.’ But that’s not for lack of wanting on [editor] Steve Wacker’s part.”
Hollister refusing the office of the Mayor means the position is currently vacant, but it won't stay that way for long. “It's funny, just this morning, my editor Steve Wacker emailed all of us the page of art where you find out who becomes the Mayor,” Guggenheim said. “So it's definitely in the pipeline. There is a grand plan here and it's all going according to what we worked out a year ago.”
At the end of “Amazing” #588, Peter Parker's roommate, police officer Vin Gonzales, takes responsibility for his part in the Spider-Tracer Killings conspiracy by arresting the head of the cabal, Detective Sergeant Palone. This clears Spidey for the killings, but doesn't solve all his problems with law enforcement. “Spider-Man is still an unregistered hero and still enjoys a lack of popularity among the NYPD. One of the things I think would be fun would be to try and rebuild Spidey’s relationship with the NYPD, but that’s a long, difficult road given everything that we’ve done to him and everything that’s happened to him since Civil War,” Guggenheim explained. “The other thing to remember is that even though the Tracer Killings have been ‘solved,’ the negative feelings on the part of the NYPD that lead to the whole conspiracy are still present. The whole Tracer cabal came about because the NYPD was really sick and tired of Spider-Man basically screwing things up for them and those feelings haven’t gone away.”
“Amazing” #588 also saw Peter Parker and Harry Osborn discussing the nature of their friendship. “That was a scene that Steve Wacker really pushed for and encouraged me to write,” Guggenheim said. “In my first draft, I had a version of that scene which ended a lot sooner and Steve said, ‘No, take some more time with that scene and let it continue to play out.' So Steve got me some extra pages, and it’s to his credit because I’m reasonably proud of that scene. It’s because we haven’t seen Peter and Harry’s relationship elaborated on or illuminated in that way in quite some time. So it was fun to take that opportunity.”
In that final exchange between Peter and Harry, Peter made the observation that they – and the majority of their friends -- had some type of issue with father figures; whether an absent father or an abusive one. “I'm not big on outlines or pitching. I really like to discover things at the scriptwriting stage and the realization that all these characters have father issues was one of those happy discoveries,” Guggenheim revealed. “I think it's to the good of the overall issue and the arc, since it comes at the end of it. This is the capstone on the arc and it's the fact that all these characters have something in common. When you start to see all these connections, that's when things become really enjoyable.”
In the final scene of “Amazing” #588, Lily Hollister thinks she's getting a chance to resolve her father issues by gaining a new one that accepts her. His name: Norman Osborn. “That's going to be one of those be careful what you wish for scenarios,” Guggenheim remarked. “So it's going to be a very fun situation.”
Despite the extra pages he got in “Amazing” #588, Guggenheim still didn't get a chance to check in with all the supporting characters he wanted to. So the writer jumped at the chance to tell a 16-page coda to “Character Assassination” in “Spider-Man: Extra” #3. Guggenheim explained, “What happened was the last chapter of ‘Character Assassination' could have easily been 22 pages of epilogue. And I had written a two-page scene where Vin was plea bargaining and you find out the legal disposition of the whole Spider-Tracer Cabal. I wrote those two pages as an addendum to my script with a note saying, 'I don't think these belong in #588, but perhaps we can stick them in a subsequent issue of Spider-Man? Like #589 or #590? Contemporaneous with that, Steve came to me and said ‘we want to bring Flash Thompson back from Iraq. Would you like to write that story in 'Spider-Man: Extra?' Steve and I got to talking and we thought, what if there was a way to combine this bit of business with Vin and Flash's return?
“So it's sort of like the father figure epilogue in 'Amazing' #588. You start to see these connections between characters like Flash and Vin and where we left Harry. So it occurred to me that perhaps there was a short story to be done about Peter Parker's friends; how their lives have been affected by Spider-Man, how that's not always to the good, and how that affects Spidey. It was an opportunity to provide a little bit more of an ending to 'Character Assassination.'”
The coda of “Spider-Man Extra” #3 finds Vin Gonzales receiving his punishment for his part in the Spider-Tracer Killings conspiracy. Even though he put an end to the conspiracy by arresting Detective Palone, Vin still has to serve six months jail time, testify against his fellow officers, and give up his badge. “What is fun about Vin is that he's a character that's like all of us in that he knows what the right thing to do is but is constantly questioning whether or not he has the fortitude or will power to go through with it,” Guggenheim said. “There's something that makes you look at that character and say, 'I wonder what's going to happen. That's the sign of an interesting character in my book. If people are asking questions like that, then I think we're on the right track.
“He's also a good character in Spider-Man's world because he definitely has a strong point of view when it comes to Spider-Man. If you look at all the different characters in Spider-Man's supporting cast over the years, I think the ones you remember are the ones that have something to say about or have a motivation related to Spider-Man. Something about the ththeir character relates back to Spidey and I think that's what makes them feel like an integral part of the cast.”
Flash Thompson's point of view on Spider-Man is that the webslinger is a hero, plain and simple. In “Spider-Man Extra” #3, Flash explained to Peter Parker that he lost his legs in Iraq as a consequence of rescuing a fellow soldier, an incredible act inspired by Spider-Man. Guggenheim and artist Patrick Olliffe depicted Peter Parker's reaction the news with two panels showing him completely shocked. “Steve wasn't sure if that moment would play, but I trusted Pat to sell the moment with just a look, and if I needed it there was always Spider-Man's internal monologue to use,” Guggenheim said. “In the script, it says the look on Peter's face is the realization that if it wasn't for Spider-Man, Flash would have his legs. And that's a terrible realization for someone to have, especially someone like Peter Parker, who has guilt as the central star in his universe.”
Obviously, Peter took what Flash said in completely the wrong way. Flash was inspired by Spider-Man and accepted the fact that he lost his legs while saving a life, a truly heroic thing to do. “I think that's part of the tragedy and dramatic irony of the scene, watching Peter have such a completely different take on things then Flash,” Guggenheim remarked. “I think both takes are valid, both men are justified in what they're thinking at that moment.”
The Coda ends in a scene drawn by the story's other artist, Fabrizo Fiorentino, which sees Spider-Man walking away, haunted by what happened to Flash as well as Vin's legal problems, which he feels came about because of him as well. “The Coda is pretty dark and somber, but it's not something we pick up and play with down the road,” Guggenheim confirmed. “Spider-Man isn't going to be in a funk for the next several months. I figure it was a normal thing in Spider-Man comics to have a story end with Spidey hanging his head and pick up next issue with him cracking jokes while punching muggers.”
While that thread might not be picked up in upcoming issues, Guggenheim did seed a number of plot points in “Character Assassination” that will be developed further in upcoming “Amazing Spider-Man” storylines like “24/7” and “American Son.” “In 'Character Assassination,’ we promised to bring all the major storylines from the beginning of Brand New Day to a close and I think we did that,” the writer said. “We even told you who won the Mayoral Election, but hopefully we surprised you with the discovery that even though the election had a victor, it didn't mean New York had a Mayor. In the story, we also threw a whole bunch of new balls up in the air. We are deepening and developing the Harry and Peter relationship and complicating things vis-a-vis things like Lily and Menace. So the goal here is to keep providing momentum. My hope is that you read all these 'tent pole' arcs like 'New Ways to Die,' 'Character Assassination', '24/7', and 'American Son' as well as all the issues in between and see that we're telling one large epic story, not just individualized arcs.”
Now that he's finished his first tentpole story for “Amazing Spider-Man,” Marc Guggenheim feels very relieved. “This story was tough. It was incredibly ambitious and we had all sorts of scheduling challenges on top of that,” the writer said. “I had a lot of raindrops to dance between and I'm very, very happy that it's over. That said, I hope the arc lives up to people's expectations. Every part of it was challenging. Probably the biggest challenge was to tell six to seven issues worth of story in four to five issues. I had a lot more story than I had pages for. The most rewarding part was working with artist John Romita, Jr. Seeing his pages come in would always recharge my batteries and inspire me to keep trucking along.”
Guggenheim's next “Amazing Spider-Man” project will be this year's Annual, which hits stores in July. In the months ahead, readers will see work from Guggenheim's fellow “Amazing Spider-Man” writers like Dan Slott, Mark Waid, and Joe Kelly, who collectively plot out Spider-Man's adventures as a group known as the Web-Heads. Guggenheim thinks readers will enjoy their work, as well as the work of the “Web-Head Lieutenants” like Zeb Wells and Fred Van Lente, whose first “Amazing Spider-Man” work, issue #589, is in stores this week. “Zeb is a returning writer and Fred Van Lente is new blood. They're both incredibly great guys and really talented writers,” Guggenheim said. “It's fantastic to have a full roster of creators working on Spider-Man.”

A CHANGE OF PACE

Fri, 27 Mar 2009 16:52:06 -0700

For Super Zombies, something a little different: A video interview.

If you’re reading this in your web browser, you can view below. If you’re reading the RSS feed, click here.

THE FINAL SPIDER-MAN INTERVIEW

Fri, 20 Mar 2009 11:16:47 -0700

...for now, at least. The original is up on Newsarama:

Weekly Webbing with... Marc Guggenheim

By Matt Brady

This week saw the conclusion of the “Character Assassination” arc in Amazing Spider-Man #588, bringing storylines that have been running since the start of the “Brand New Day” era of Spider-Man, starting with issue #546. In no particular order, the storyline written by Marc Guggenheim with art by John Romita Jr. cleared up the identity of Menace, resolved the New York City Mayoral election, showed who has been behind the Spider-Tracer killings, saw a resolution to the relationship between Harry Osborn and Lily Hollister...and a whole lot more, most of it centering around how Spider-Man can take a beating and still get up and fight.   While we’re working to get into a weekly rhythm with Amazing Spider-Man editor Steve Wacker for a Q&A, all parties agreed that this week, rather than talking to Wacker, time would be better spent chatting about “Character Assassination” with Guggenheim to get the inside scoop on how he pulled together all the threads of the last year and a few odd months, and his view of where this stand now for Spider-Man.   Newsarama: Marc, Character Assassination pulled together a lot of strings that reach back to the very start of Brand New Day. Before we get into it any further, we have to ask, how did you manage to end up the guy who, well, pulled it all together?  Marc Guggenheim: I drew the short straw. Isn't it obvious? Seriously though, I think it was a combination of two things. About three Spidey-summits ago, I came in with a full head of steam about bringing a lot of our plotlines in for a landing. I just felt that we shouldn't have subplots running for significantly more than a year. Everyone agreed and someone -- I forget who -- suggested that we wrap everything up in a single arc. And just prior to that, Steve Wacker had tapped me on the shoulder as the next guy to write the next "tentpole arc" which, as luck would have it, turned out to be this "tie up loose ends" arc. But the short version is that I drew the short straw.
NRAMA: Sorry to hear that (laughs). Looking at it all - the different components of the arc that played out here - Menace, the election, Harry, the Spider-killer plot - when it came down to you writing “Character Assassination,” was it a case where you had to get the "pieces" from the other members of the Web Heads, or were these larger story beats not "owned" by any particular writer, and you all knew them inside and out?  MG: All of the components were things that were worked out by all the "Web Heads" over the course of our various summits and hundreds of emails. A lot of it went back to our very first Brand New Day summit. I don't think that any one of us had "ownership" over one particular component or another. We all knew everything equally. Though I have to say that Dan Slott in particular was very helpful to me whenever I would get things mixed up. Over the course of writing "Character Assassination," Dan fielded a lot of panicked, confused calls from me and he was very patient, listening to crazy ideas and setting me straight when necessary.  All of this is, of course, to throw the entire braintrust under the bus if you didn't like "Character Assassination." But if you liked it, it was all me.  NRAMA: We've all heard stories of twists and turns in stories between the planning and execution, but given the old pros you guys have become at planning, were there any with the elements that “Character Assassination” resolved?   MG: Hmm. Not really. I mean, the outcome of the election changed from our original plan that we came up with, like, two years ago at the first Spidey summit, but we've known what the outcome we ended up with would be for about a year now. In other words, even where we deviated from our original plan, we've had a new plan in place for quite some time.
NRAMA: So Lily always meant to be Menace?   MG: Yes. She's named after my oldest, Lily, who I can swear is a menace. There's even a picture of Spider-Man chasing her in New York...  NRAMA: Was Hollister always going to win (and turn down) the mayor's office?   MG: Not always, but that's been the plan for quite some time. I can't elaborate further without spoiling who will eventually become mayor, but I can say that Hollister's win as a result of the so-called "Spider-Bump" was something that's been in place for a long time.  NRAMA: Bigger picture-wise, we’ve talked about the “tying up loose ends” aspect of the arc, but what was the larger "mission" behind “Character Assassination” for Spider-Man?   MG: Well, there were two missions, really. One that was stated and another that was more "covert." The stated mission of “Character Assassination” was that we would tie up all of the long-running subplots that started with the beginning of Brand New Day. The whole time, however, we were also setting up new plots -- throwing new balls in the air -- but we didn't publicize our intent to do that. We'd much rather see everyone surprised by the fact that, for example, Norman reaches out to Lily at the end and takes her into the Osborn fold.  NRAMA: Where did the arc put Spider-Man, in your eyes? What's changed for him?   MG: That's a tough question, honestly. All Spidey stories -- and this holds true for any of the "icons," Marvel or DC -- offer, as I believe Stan Lee put it, "the illusion of change." Did C.A. change Spidey as a character fundamentally? No. I'd be lying if I said it did. But I think it changed the people around him quite a bit. The biggest illustration of this, perhaps, is Harry. Harry has seen Spidey beaten to a pulp and then, the very next day, sees Peter Parker very badly beaten. Does he buy Pete's story about getting into a bar fight? It's left ambiguous for a reason.
And while I'm on the Peter/Harry of it all, not only might Harry suspect Peter of being Spider-Man, but Peter is left to wonder if the guy in the Goblin mask was Harry. We're adding a lot of suspicion to both sides of this friendship.  Peter is also left to contemplate -- and this gets elaborated on more fully in the coda in Amazing Spider-Man Extra #3 -- how Vin's actions have been impacted by Spider-Man. In Peter's mind, Spidey is responsible for Vin -- and Harry and Lily -- making some very bad decisions. This is a bit of a sea change to the character if you want to see it: Since Uncle Ben's death, Spidey/Peter has associated inaction with guilt -- but the events of C.A. have shown him that his actions as Spider-Man can cause just as much harm. The poor guy, he can't win for losing. (I have no comment on whether that's similar to being a Spidey writer reading the message boards...)  NRAMA: That said, in some ways, “Character Assassination” didn't feel like Spider-Man's story at all, in that he literally started the arc on the run and was reacting to everyone else's actions the whole time. Thoughts?   MG: I guess if that's true, I'd say that the arc was a failure. (Those of you who would like to quote me out of context should stop reading here.) Any Spider-Man story has to be, at its core, about Spider-Man. However, I question the premise that just because Spidey spends much of the narrative on the run and reacting that it stops being a Spider-Man story. You're right that the nature of this story meant that Spidey wasn't as proactive as he is in other stories -- or even as proactive as you'd typically like to see a protagonist -- but that doesn't mean it's not a story about Spider-Man. I think the fact that Spidey is hunted, shot, beaten, etc. and still keeps getting up and moving forward makes for a powerful Spidey story.  NRAMA: True. I’ll give you that. In Part Four of the arc, we saw Harry's tragic fall as he put the suit back on and climbed back on the glider. As Peter later reminded readers, Harry's an addict with at least one substance...is being the Goblin an addiction for him as well?  MG: Absolutely. Truth be told, I don't think I was being subtle about that.  NRAMA: Was putting Harry back in the suit anyone's idea or plan in particular, or was it just something that was going to happen anyway with him being back in the picture, and the pressures he was under?
MG: We have so many email exchanges, it's hard for me to remember who suggested what ideas, but I remember a separate, non-“Character Assassination”-related discussion about putting Harry on a Goblin glider and I guess it suck in my head because it felt right to me to do it here in “Character Assassination.” Once Harry discovers that Lily is Menace and that she became Menace because of her "exposure" to the Osborn family, I got excited about the idea of Harry feeling responsible to stop her. And once I did, that old "Harry on a Goblin glider" idea came back to me.  NRAMA: Bringing in Lily and her effect in “spoiling” the mayoral election...that doesn’t mean that Crowne's automatically mayor does it?   MG: No. We researched this. If the winning candidate refuses to be sworn in, the losing candidate doesn't automatically get the job.  NRAMA: At the end of the arc, as you said, we saw Norman approaching Lily and bringing her into the “family.” While Norman's an 11 on the crazy scale, where does Lily come in, in comparison?  MG: 10.5.  NRAMA: As you've shown throughout, and really highlighted in these last five issues, she's pretty strong - perhaps even stronger than the original Goblin...  MG: I think she is. She doesn't have Norman's brilliance, or even his ruthlessness, but she was exposed to the latest "generation," of the Goblin serum and, one assumes, it's more effective and gives the person greater strength, etc.
NRAMA: Speaking of Menace's strength, during the fight, Spider-Man compared her strength to Morlun's. Now, no words in comics are wasted...  MG: You haven't read a lot of my work, have you?  NRAMA: (laughs) Well then - why have Spidey use that comparison in particular?  MG: Because -- and reasonable minds will disagree on this -- I think the text of what Spidey "says" is accurate: He hasn't been beaten like this since Morlun. Plus which, that JMS issue, "All Fall Down" (#474) is my favorite non-OMD/non-BND single Spidey issue in recent memory.  NRAMA: So where do things go from here for Spider-Man?   MG: Issue #589? I'm just guessing. (check back today for an exclusive preview of Amazing Spider-Man #589 here at Newsarama!)
NRAMA: Right - The epilogue is in the Extra, right?   MG: Yup. On sale now. Buy it!  NRAMA: What needs to be...epilogued?
MG: Oh God, what doesn't? Truth is, I felt I could get 22 more pages of epilogue out of C.A. easily. There are so many character reactions and other tiny loose ends to tie up. First and foremost, I really wanted to resolve what happens with Vin vis a vis the cops. In fact, in my first draft of #588, I wrote a two-page scene where Vin plea bargains. I wrote it as a separate scene to be published in a subsequent issue. I didn't feel it worked within the body of #588 because, chronologically speaking, it would be the last scene and it's not a very dramatic ending, though it's a necessary story point. Around the same time, Steve Wacker approached me about doing an Extra story where Flash comes back from Iraq. Then Steve suggested combining Vin's story with Flash's somehow. I thought on it and came up with a way to tie up Vin's story and another loose end vis a vis Harry in the Extra story.  NRAMA: Okay – that is a lot. So when are you back on writing the series again?   MG: Annual #2. On sale in July. Reserve your copy now.  NRAMA: With all the threads pretty well tied up, speaking for either you or for the Brain Trust, are there   NRAMA: Looking ahead, are there any plans for a storyline that runs this long again, or have you all learned your lesson?   MG: That depends on whether they expect me to write the arc that brings it to a conclusion. Seriously though, Amazing Spider-Man will continue to have continuing subplots. Knowing us, they'll probably vary in length and I wouldn't be surprised if one or two run this long again. But I won't be the one to write the concluding arc, dammit.

SPIDER-PREVIEW

Mon, 16 Mar 2009 16:06:47 -0700

Amazing Spider-Man #588 -- the conclusion of my Character Assassination arc -- drops Wednesday. You can read a preview by clicking here.

IS THERE ANYBODY ALIVE OUT THERE?

Sun, 15 Mar 2009 21:30:14 -0700

At least that what Bruce sings. But I’m asking. I know people visit the site -- I can see the number on the home page’s counter -- but does anyone read this news blog? I’m looking for a show of hands, so if you’re reading this, please either shoot me an email -- mguggenheim@mac.com -- or post a comment below.

Many thanks!

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I LIED...

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