Mark Waid Interview, November 2005

I conducted the following interview with Mark Waid for TalesOfWonder.com in the fall of 2005, to promote the release of the third and final hardcover volume of his FANTASTIC FOUR run with the late Mike Wieringo.

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Mark, in the first issue of your run (V3 #60, or V1 #489 for the purists among our readership), you focus on an interesting facet of Reed's personality: his deep-seated, almost Peter Parker-esque guilt over the radiation accident that transformed his friends into "something other than human". What was your intention in following this line of thought, and did it pay off as you'd hoped?

Yeah, it really did. My intention, honestly, was just to follow up on a comment made by Editor Tom Brevoort that was almost those exact words spoken by Reed, certainly the sentiment. I wish I could take credit for that observation about Reed's motives, but that was Tom. A good editor is not to be taken lightly. And that we were able to bring it around full-circle in our last issue just made it work that much more sweetly.

Your Dr. Doom arc, "Unthinkable", saw Doom's hellish shift from the ways of science and technology to the ways of magic as a means to his ends. We've seen this touched on before (most notably in Roger Stern's DR. STRANGE/DR. DOOM: TRIUMPH AND TORMENT GN), but tell us a little about your own impetus for Doom's transformation into sorcerer. And did you have to call upon your friend Grant Morrison (who claims to be a practitioner of Chaos Magic) for research during this arc?

Ha! No, actually, at the time, I was seeing someone well-versed in the theories of magic and witchcraft and mined her brain pretty extensively. Still, what made it challenging--and, hopefully, what made it work if it worked for you--was that I wasn't trying to "sell" anyone on sorcery over science. I came at it from Reed's perspective exactly and was really using his POV to work out my own internal conflicts and issues over faith versus fact and the power of belief. The impetus for the story was simple; Doom is many things, but he's not insane, and one definition of insanity is always using the same methods to achieve your goals but expecting different results. It just seemed natural to me that Doom would think to himself, "Hey, I've never made a run at Reed using JUST MAGIC."

"Authoritative Action" saw the FF invade Latveria in the wake of Doom's defeat. This story originally saw print as the United States was gearing up to invade Iraq to depose Saddam Hussein. Were you attempting to draw any parallels between this FF arc and what was really happening in our world at the time, or was this just one of those coincidences that occur when pop-culture lead-time and real-time collide?

A little of both. My recollection is that it was only after some of the story was written that America actually invaded Iraq, and I was certainly able to use that series of events to give my story a little more gravitas. The arguments for and against invasion between Reed and Nick Fury really were taken from the discourse of the time (thank you, Fahreed Zakaria). It amuses me to this day, however, that not only are there some readers who seemed angry that I was making a "political statement," but that those who were most vocally upset were those who drew all the wrong inferences regarding my own political leanings. If you think you know how I personally feel about the Iraq invasion based on the Latveria story, you may be surprised.

LONG set-up, and then a question (I promise): "Hereafter" related the tale of the FF storming the gates of Heaven to retrieve the soul of their fallen teammate The Thing. OK Mark, fess up: first you bring on the DCU Apocalypse in KINGDOM COME, then you show us (in KINGDOM, the KC follow-up) Superman worshipped as a Christ-figure. Later, in your creator-owned EMPIRE, you devise a horrific twist on the Eucharist (or Communion), and then, in SUPERMAN:BIRTHRIGHT, you return to the Superman mythos an Elliot S! Maggin conceit, with Clark being able to see the "life aura" of living creatures. In short, you very often touch on religious/spiritual themes in your work. Why the apparent fascination?

That's a very good question, particularly given that I myself am not an especially spiritual man. All I can tell you is that, at the end of the day, all I really want to write about is human dreams and human goals, and no matter what we may all disagree on, we all are striving towards some personal vision of heaven.

That was a fun Spidey/Torch story following up "Hereafter", which one could guess was a precursor to your acceptance of the original scripting assignment on the forthcoming FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD SPIDER-MAN series. You've since had to bow out of that project, but is Spidey a character you'd like a chance to revisit someday?

Maybe. To be honest, the only reason I took the gig to begin with was to work with Mike, not because I felt as if I had a million Spider-Man stories saved up inside me that were dying to get out. The challenge of Spider-Man is that he may be the best super-hero character ever, he's certainly had a huge number of spectacular stories told about him, and I don't know that I'm up to the task of matching them at this point in my career. It's one thing to take on the creative reins of a character or group that isn't super-popular--that's fun, because you can surprise readers into liking them--but, dude, NO ONE doesn't love Spider-Man already.

How was it playing in the "Avengers Disassembled" sandbox for the FF: DISASSEMBLED arc?

Kind of like watching a fireworks display on a TV screen. We were kinda present, but kinda not. The only impact it had on us was giving us a valid reason why the FF were the only guys who were around to save the day. Okay, one more thing--in retrospect, Avengers Disassembled gave us a very logical mechanism by which to "redeem" the FF in the eyes of the Marvel Universe. We'd actually planned to milk that thread a little longer, but when that opportunity arose, we ran with it.

You recently finished up your FF run with #524. I recall though, after you were fired/rehired part-way through your tenure, Marvel making mention of a project with which you were attached called FOURIGIN? Is this still a go, and if so when are we likely to see it materialize?

Sadly, I'm no longer attached to anything like that, as much as I'd love to be. Still, nothing's forever. Maybe Marvel will want something to tie into a Fantastic Four movie sequel. I do have notes and outlines and scenes written, but in the end, I just couldn't make time for it in the publishing window provided. Someday, maybe...!

You're still writing the monthly LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES for DC, but what's up next for you, now that you've got an open slot in your dance card?

Well, there's also HUNTER-KILLER from Top Cow, and one more issue of CITY OF HEROES from the Cow, as well, and I've just had another high-profile project approved at one of the Big Two, which we may announce in San Diego--stay tuned.