THE JOHN BYRNE AVENGERS INTERVIEW
--A WONDER MAN: COOLER THAN SUPERMAN EXCLUSIVE--
INTERVIEWER: MITCHEL
From the X-Men to the Fantastic Four, Hulk to Superman, and of course the Avengers, John Byrne, one of comics most prolific, multitalented creators has worked with every iconic character and has left his mark in the comic book business like not many others. This interview was conducted by e-mail in October 2001.
Let me start by saying how honored I am of you conceding me this interview for my Wonder Man website.
When I was a kid reading your version of Wonder Man in the original Nefaria Trilogy was what made me a fan for life of this character and later when I started to value comic books more because of the artwork and story than the characters a fan of John Byrne the creator.
Since this is a Wonder Man website and you've helped to define this character through the years, you were there almost since the first time the character was brought back to life, many of my questions will be Wonder Man/Avengers related.
1-I'd like to know how much input you had in the original Nefaria Trilogy with Jim Shooter (Avengers 164, 165, 166). I remember George Pérez had just

created a new costume for Wonder Man as recent as issue 161 because his original costume had been trashed in the previous issue by the Grim Reaper. Who decided to get this new costume trashed too and have Wonder Man go in civies afterwards? Was it Shooter? Why so many costume changes in such a short time for the ionic Avenger?
JB: I did not have much input on that story arc, other than the design of Nefaria's "Superman" costume. Everything you mention was, to the best of my knowledge, Shooter's.

2- I can say the two best looks WM has ever sported were drawn by you. He really looked more powerful and imposing than the rest of the heroes assembled around when you drew him. I liked the shirtless kind of Doc. Savage/wrestler look he had on the Nefaria Trilogy and then the black tanktop short hair look he had on Avengers West Coast. I always thought that the Arnold Schwarzenegger film Raw Deal inspired this look but you have said it was based on David Prowse in Clockwork Orange, right? If you were to take over the Avengers once more would you go back to one of those looks or would you stick with the current ionic look. To be honest I'm not too fond of the ionic look, I don't think it makes sense for a strongman physical character like WM to be covered by Kirby dots plus the inability to fly used to give him a much needed weakness for villains to exploit in battle and for the character to work around.

JB: I have no idea what Wonder Man looks like these days, as I have not looked at an issue of THE AVENGERS in several years. The main thing to keep in mind, of course, is that no change is ever permanent.

3-If you were offered the character of Wonder Man for a solo series would you be interested? If you had to turn down the art chores but would accept as a writer whom would you pick as your artist? Same questions but for the Avengers title?

JB: Books like THE AVENGERS are just too darn hard to write, if one plays fair. One must always keep up with what is happening in the various character's own titles and, while I do not subscribe to the rather odd current notion that all the books that come out in a particular month happen at the same time, I do think titles like JLA and AVENGERS should reflect what

is happening in the "home titles", rather than the other way 'round. As to Wonder Man in his own title‹while I have enjoyed working with the character (especially in AVENGERS WEST COAST) like the Vision (perhaps not coincidentally!) he works best in a group dynamic.
4-On several occasions WM has hold his own against Thor, in your book, which Avenger should be stronger Thor or Wonder Man?
JB: Thor. He's a god, after all!!
5-The Beast. His partnership with Wonder Man was one of the funniest and most entertaining friendships in the book. Kurt Busiek would have liked to include him in volume 3 but hasn't been able because he "belongs" in the X-books. Do you agree that the Beast should remain in the X-books?
JB: Yes, tho' that does not mean he could not be occasionally "loaned out".
6-The Scarlet Witch. What do you think of the gypsy costume that George Pérez gave her on volume 3?
JB: Hate it. Hate it hate it hate it. I know what George was going for, but it's just wrong for Wanda. She is a walking dichotomy; the voluptuous sex symbol who prefers to keep herself as much "under wraps" as possible. Look at the original Kirby design. This is not a woman who enjoys flaunting her assets and that's part of her charm.
7-The Chthon look that Wanda had in "The Yesterday Quest" story I thought was awesome. I love the poses and design you give to powerful female heroes in general, the Phoenix design and effect was incredibly beautiful, Frankie Raye as Nova another example. Jocasta, another one of my favorite obscure Avengers had some interesting panels while you were drawing her. One of my favorite Jocasta panels is the one you show were Jarvis is taking her trench coat off as she walks inside the mansion. Do you use any kind of reference for those poses/designs, maybe famous movies, fashion magazines, what is the creative process?
JB: This is very odd! I have no memory of ever having drawn Jocasta!! Which means, of course, that I can answer
your question only in a general way: I use photo reference for my poses only when I want to make a specific "point" or gag‹if I want people to spot the pose as, say, Boticelli's Birth of Venus, for instance.
8-What Avengers are you most fond off?

JB: Tough call. On average, I would probably say Iron Man.
9-As a reader what Avengers eras are your favorites?
JB: I enjoyed the original Lee/Kirby run, short as it was, of course. The Kree-Skrull War stands out, tho' mostly because of nostalgia (as I discovered when I perused the trade paperback). I also liked a lot of what Shooter did,
especially the Michael Saga (though he did beat that theme to death in later works).
10-From all your Avengers stories which one you remember having more fun drawing? writing?
JB: The Chthon storyline is probably the one I had the most fun drawing. The subplot of the Vision/Wonder Man/Witch "two sided triangle" was the one I most enjoyed writing.
11-Is there any one issue you feel turned out really excellent above all the rest?
JB: Of my own work? I'm terrible with issue numbers, but I do remember fondly the second(?) issue of the Chthon story, the one with the quinjets plunging toward the village on the splash page.
12-What are your feelings about your Avengers West Coast run, I know it is an incomplete run but you certainly left your mark as many current subplots in the book delve from it.
JB: I enjoyed working on WCA more than any of my other AVENGERS work, largely because most of those characters "belonged" only to that title, and therefore I was able to do more in the way of character development and subplot arcs.
13. How do you feel about Kurt Busiek exploring and expanding upon the events you started in your Avengers and Avengers West Coast run?
JB: I did my best to tidy up a lot of confusing and convoluted history. As far as I can tell, Kurt made it even MORE convoluted!
14-While your writing in Avengers was exciting you really took over the West Coast Avengers and redefined characters and moved them into different directions. People have described a feeling of being kept at the edge of their seats throughout your run in the Avengers West Coast, what motivated this energy in this one book?
JB: As with my answer to Q12, I would have to attribute this to the
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fact that I could actually DO things with the characters. That, for my tenure on the title, they "belonged" to me, and I did not have to worry about how they were being written/handled in their own books, since most of 'em didn't HAVE their own books!
15-There is also another group of fans that will criticize your work in WCA saying that you almost destroyed the character of the Vision. Fans of the Scarlet Witch and Vision as a couple still feel angry too. What is your feeling about this?
JB: Fans who feel I "destroyed" the Vision obviously have not actually read the stories I wrote. A common fan failing, alas!
16-This group of fans also criticize how some of the characters acted throughout your run. They criticize Wonder Man for not letting Hank Pym copy his brain patterns right away, the Wasp for advising Wonder Man to pursue his romantic interest in the Scarlet Witch, and the rest of the group for acting so unaffected by the Vision's loss and unsympathetic towards Wanda. Since I was never a fan of Wanda & Vizh as a couple these events never affected me and I really felt your story made the characters more interesting and really helped give the characters some much needed depth. Their reactions weren't predictable at all. After the changes you introduced they were able to grow and move in different directions. Wanda had been portrayed as a weak dependent character through the years, this breakup liberated her and made of her a much stronger interesting character than when she was Quicksilver's sister or Vision's wife. While the Vision who had in my opinion become a ridiculous version of Joe Brady turned totally robotic but through the years has been brought back to the way he used to be before his engrams were erased. A brooding android with feelings, which was the original
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concept. Was this your plan all along?
JB: Yup. As you may know, when I am handed any title or character, the first thing I do is look to the beginnings, the basics. My rule is (usually) "The guy(s) who created the character probably got it right!" I never understood the "developments" in the Vision that took him so far from what had made him so interesting in the first place!
17-There are some pretty strong images that stick in my mind from your WCA run, particularly the sadistic sexual scene between the dark Scarlet Witch and WM and the turning of Wanda's babies into demons, nothing we don't see everyday nowadays in popular TV series like Buffy or Angel or in movies but for a code approved comic those were strong scenes. How did the code approved them? And then you had some other emotional ones that speak volumes of who these characters are like the Agent talking to his parents picture in the privacy of his quarters or all the more human, less super heroic
reactions of all these characters throughout your run, like Wonder Man's hesitation to give his brain patterns and infatuation with Wanda.
JB: One of my "mutant powers" seems to be an ability to give readers lots of room for their own imaginations to work. Witness your own reference to the "sadistic sexual scene" between Wanda and Simon. There is nothing in the scene as written and drawn to indicate her attack is sexual‹or, indeed, precisely WHAT her attack is. I left that to the minds of the readers. And, largely because of this, there was nothing in that scene (or many of the others fans often refer to) for the Code to reject.
The human reactions are, of course, the most important to me. Anybody can do "stories" about big guys hitting each other with planets. The true interest, as Stan Lee taught us, lies in the "soap opera" of the character's daily lives.
18- Wonder Man, the Vision and the Scarlet Witch love triangle. Is there anything you wanted to do with the characters that you didn't get the chance to do before leaving the Avengers titles?
JB: I'm sure there was, but I do not remember it any more. I write my stories very specifically to and for the characters concerned. When my run on AWC got chopped off, there was nothing in what remained to be done that I could transfer to another title, to use there. So I just let the elements slip away. I do remember there was a big, cosmic storyline building, coming out of Wanda's warping of probabilities, but that's all.
19-I really regretted seeing you leave AWC and have always wanted to see you return to the Avengers, if things would change between you and Marvel would you consider a new Avengers run? What I really would like to see is a completion of the stories you had planned for West Coast Avengers and would really like to see a West Coast Avengers book picking up exactly were you left discarding everything that came after just to see in what direction were you taking this characters.
JB: Kind of like I did with SHE-HULK? Yeah, I suppose that would be fun, but I would not really want to do it. There has been too much
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of that, lately, at Marvel. What I call MAN OF STEEL Syndrome: each new writer thinks he has to scrap everything that has happened before, and start over. Which is, of course, NOT what I did in MoS!!
20-Alan Davis in his recent interview for this site said "The characters that have achieved icon status have done so because they were honed to near perfection by the very BEST writers and artists in comic history." He then goes on through a list of Avengers and their best creators and mentions you in relation to Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver. What do you think make people recognize your influence in the formation of these characters?
JB: As much as Wanda and Pietro had been used before I got to them, I always felt they had remained largely "blank". They seemed to exist as the pivot points of stories, but rarely as the actual center of the stories themselves. I looked inside their heads a little more deeply than most‹tho' certainly not all‹had before me. (And I did not know Alan had said that. Much appreciated!)
21. After the unnecessary cancellation of X-MEN: The Hidden Years, I read that you wouldn't return to Marvel again. Is this true? If yes, is there any project that would lure you back? Like if Marvel wanted you to do Ultimate Fantastic Four or a Max imprint of She-
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Hulk for example, or even a book of your own choosing, would you do it?
JB: The only thing that could get me back to Marvel, as with the last time I left, would be a change in the Powers That Be. Someone who actually knew what he was doing running the show would be a good step in the right direction.
22-. Out of all the many heroes and villains you have written or drawn, who are your favorites and why?
JB: Doctor Doom is my favorite villain, so far ahead of the pack it would be hard to pick the number 2 place holder. I like Doom because of the amazing complexity of his character, built largely by Lee and Kirby (often working against each other's personal dynamic!). There is no one to match him.
As for the heroes, assuming we are talking strictly Marvel, my favorite would be Captain America, with the FF and the orginal X-Men so close behind there is no daylight between 'em. And, again, it would be the complexity of their characterizations which I find so appealing.
23. Out of all your many projects, which one are you most proud of and why? Along the same lines, which project do you wish you could go back and do over again if you could?
JB: BATMAN & CAPTAIN AMERICA will always stand very high on my list of personal favorites, selected from my own work. Hey! My two favorite characters (and a couple of my favorite villains!)!! How could I go wrong? Taken as a block, my work on the FF is remembered fondly, here, along with my first run on SHE-HULK, and, of course, HIDDEN YEARS.
24. Marvel recently decided to abandon the Comics Code Authority and go by their own ratings system, much like the ones that the movie and video game industries use, and have now started an adult line of comics in their Max imprint. Do you feel this was a wise move on Marvel's part? If yes, do you think other companies like DC and Image should follow suit and use the same rating system?
JB: I never had a problem with the Code. It merely presented a challenge to be worked around. (See my comments in response to Q17.) What concerns me mostly about Marvel's latest moves is twofold: one, there are far, far, far too many "civilians" who do not understand that comics are NOT just for kids, and this is no way to "educate" them, and two, using established superheroes in "adult" storylines is just a masturbatory exericise‹actually identified as such by Bill Jemas, with his astonishing, incomprehensible reference to "date books" and his perception of the pathetic sex lives of most of the fans.
25-. Marvel decided to reveal Wolverine's origin after decades of keeping it shrouded in mystery. Chris Claremont and you are the men who helped define who the character is. How do you feel about his origin being revealed? Also are you disappointed that you aren't taking an active role in it?
JB: I am so far removed from Wolverine, now, that it is almost impossible to even care. Once again, tho, this would appear to be a stellar example of the current Powers at Marvel simply Not Getting It. I recall, years ago, that the Archie Comics Powers That Be, discovering that Jughead was particularly popular with female readers, decided to make the character popular with female characters‹thus completely Missing The Point. The same here. I think readers LIKE not knowing everything there is to know about Wolverine. As long as there is some mystery to the character, they can fill in the blanks to their own satisfaction. Nothing a writer‹any writer‹would do to this end would ever be "right" for the bulk of the fans.
26-Lately I've seen some of your 3D work using Strata 3D. I know Richard Corben uses 3D Studio Max. I have used 3D Studio Max and Curious Labs Poser. What made you select Strata as your 3D software? Is there any other graphics software you like to use, would like to learn to use? What are your goals in this medium and how does it ties to your professional comic book work?
JB: I started modeling about six years ago, perhaps a little more, and I picked StudioPro because the various Mac magazines at the time said it was the best program out there‹assuming one did not wish to pay $10k!! I have experimented with other programs, and I still find Strata serves me best, especially with my recent discovery of a dandy way of turning the models
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into "line drawings" that will allow for much more complicated (and consistent!) "sets" than I have been able to create by hand.
27. What comes easier to you or gives you the most satisfaction, drawing a comic or writing one?
JB: Drawing and writing are two very different "muscles" in my head. Both are directed toward the art of storytelling, of course, but they come at it from different (albeit, sometimes parallel) directions. In other words, I get as much pleasure from one as I do from the other‹just a different kind of pleasure.
28. Do you have any advice for struggling artists and writers trying to break into the field of comics?
JB: Don't. At least, not now. Wait to see if comics, as an industry and an art form, can survive this horrible depression into which we have flung ourselves.
29. What projects can fans look forward to see from you in the future?
JB: GENERATIONS 2 is coming out right now, from DC, and I have done ROBIN as part of the "Just Imagine" series with Stan Lee. Beyond that, I have one confirmed new creator-owned series coming through DC (ongoing, starting early in 2002), as well as several miniseries at different stages of development. Plus, I hope the sales on G2 will justify a GENERATIONS 3 in the not-too-distant future.
Again thank you so much for lending us your time and for all the wonderful comic book work you have given us through the years.