Joe Casey Interview: Weapon X-Men

[00:00:00] Your ears do not deceive you. You've just entered the Cryptid Creator Corner brought to you by your friends at Comic Book Yeti. So without further ado, let's get on to the interview. Hey everyone, this is... Hi Byron. Who is this? I'm your fairy godmother. I have a fairy godmother? Of course you do. I'm 50 years old, why haven't you shown up before? I appear when I'm needed. And I didn't need you in all these years? Do you want my help or not?

[00:00:28] Um, sure. Exactly. I was just about to pitch our Patreon. Why would I need help with that? Because you're an idiot sometimes. That's hurtful. What were you going to put on there? We do comic stuff? So something along those lines? And this is why I'm here. You do know what people put on Patreon most of the time, right? Honestly, no.

[00:00:54] People need something a little bit spicy to entice them to support you. Nobody wants to see me shirtless. I doubt that's true. You are in pretty good shape considering your age. Thank you. Let's see. A little spicy. I've been bugging Jimmy to figure out what he's going to do. I know lately he's been playing around with his **** all the time. He loves to take it out and show it off. There's even a specific TikTok channel now. How's that sound? Not a bad start.

[00:01:22] People like Jimmy. What else you got? I told a story recently about being in a strip club with some of the four horsemen when I was working for WCW back in the day. I picked up an infection on my- WOOOOO! From the experience? I hate strip clubs. Is that better? Getting there? But maybe spicy shouldn't include infections you get in strip clubs. That's not sexy. We'll workshop it. Like I need more meat.

[00:01:47] At least tell them where to find it while we figure this out. Mother goddess, help this poor man. You can find us on Patreon at Cryptid Creator Corner Pod. I'll put it in the show notes. Anything else you'd like to remind me that I'm bad at? How much time do you have? Why do you look like Rosario Dawson anyway? I appear the way you want me to look. Okay, that's disturbing. Wait, have you been showing up in my dreams? I'll never tell. And we're done here.

[00:02:17] Y'all, Jimmy the Chaos Goblin strikes again. I should have known better than to mention I was working on my DC Universe meets Ravenloft hybrid D&D campaign on social media. My bad. He goes and tags a bunch of comics creators we know, and now I have to get it in gear and whip this campaign into shape so we can start playing. Another friend chimes in, are you going to make maps? It's fair to say it's been a while since I put something together, so I guess? Question mark? It was then that I discovered Arkenforge.

[00:02:45] If you don't know who Arkenforge is, they have everything you need to make your TTRPG more fun and immersive. Allowing you to build, play, and export animated maps, including in-person fog of war capability that lets your players interact with maps as the adventure unfolds while you, the DM, get the full picture. Now I'm set to easily build high-res animated maps, saving myself precious time and significantly adding nuance to our campaign. That's a win every day in my book.

[00:03:14] Check them out at Arkenforge.com and use the discount code YETI5 to get $5 off. I'll drop a link in the show notes for you. And big thanks to Arkenforge for partnering with our show. I think I'm going to make Jimmy play a goblin warlock just to get even. Hello, everybody, and welcome to today's episode of the Cryptic Creator Corner. I'm Byron O'Neill, your host for our comics creator chat. I'm excited because I have none other than comics legend Joe Casey in the house, hanging out with me to talk about his new series dropping soon for Marvel Comics.

[00:03:44] Weapon X-Men, where he's putting the new sauce slogan into selling Logan and channeling the wise ass into Wade. Joe, it's been a minute since we talked last. How you doing? How are you, Byron? I'm doing all right. I'm doing all right. I'm hanging in there. Hopefully that got everybody excited about this book. I'm excited about this book. I got a chance to check out the little sneak peek you sent over. I love it. I think it's great. I've been catching up on your sub stack. Oh, yeah.

[00:04:12] Which I encourage everyone to check the sub stack out and sub up. If nothing else, to see your suspect drawing skills. I'll put a link in the show notes. But you're back now to writing for the big two and doing a bit of reflection on your days with the X office, writing various X-Men properties that you've cleverly titled Recollections with the X. So has that been a cathartic process for you to kind of dive back into those days?

[00:04:39] Well, I don't know about cathartic. It's been interesting and it's been, I mean, 20 plus years. So there's definitely some perspective that I didn't have before. Sure. And that's been interesting to kind of explore and put out there. And like you say, I'm, I'm along with my insights, putting out a lot of behind the scenes stuff that no one's ever seen. And no one ever probably wanted to see, but it's there.

[00:05:07] Character sketches and layout sketches and different things that it's, I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm a process junkie. And, and, uh, I love seeing other people's process. I'm not quite so thrilled with my own, which is probably why it took me a long time to kind of put this stuff out in the world. But I, I, I, I, I manned up last late last year and started it up and it's, it's been fun. It's been fun.

[00:05:31] And it's, I think that the people that see it seem to dig it and it's free. So I promise you get your money's worth. You know, I'm enjoying the sausage making process that you're sharing. I think it's a lot of fun. I mean, those, those Claremont days, especially, you know, leading into sort of the, the new wave of, of all the things that happened with the X books back when you were writing it is, is so formative for me.

[00:05:55] So it's just really cool to see some of how that was synthesized and generated from your head and, um, kind of gets me reliving some of those days myself. So I think it's, it's great, but it's, it's got me also thinking about career evolutions for creators who work on these massive superhero properties.

[00:06:14] You spend a lot of time heavily invested in getting to know these iconic characters in an intimate way. But unless you're Chris Claremont, it feels normal to kind of pursue other projects for a while, which you've done, you know, creator and stuff or TV writing till you're inevitably sort of drawn back into their orbit. So 2024 was a bit of a comics Renaissance for you. So what's it like seeing those DC and Marvel universes with a fresh set of eyes now? Are you excited?

[00:06:40] I'm excited. I, you know, it's, I come into it with more open eye than I was when I was a kid and breaking in. I kind of know what, what, what's, what's at the party. I know what food they serve and what drinks they serve. So there's no more surprises. It's just as, um, invigorating and infuriating as it ever was.

[00:07:03] But, um, I've, I've, I've got the perspective of, you know, decades doing it. So it's, it's different in that respect. The other thing about it is you, you realize that, you know, if you came up in this business writing for Marvel and DC, and then before that being a fan of those characters in those universes, it's really in your, kind of in your DNA.

[00:07:27] Sure. Um, it's a little like, it's a little like coming home, uh, to a, maybe a dysfunctional family, but coming home nonetheless. And, um, it's just, it's something I know how to do. I know how to write for these universes. I know how to write these kinds of superhero comics and to not do it.

[00:07:50] But when I have the opportunity to do it, it seems like a waste and I, and I love doing it. I love writing for these universes. So, you know, it's, it's certainly not for the money that, uh, I do these gigs, but it's definitely for the love of the game, you know? Yeah. Yeah. I recently actually read, uh, Chris Claremont's Madripoor Nights where he's going back and revisiting Logan's time there. And for me, didn't hit. And before anybody, you know, jumps on me for, for, it's not bad. It wasn't bad at all, you know?

[00:08:19] And I hate fandom ripping into things that they say they love, but sometimes things just aren't for you. And that was the case. It's a beautiful book. You know, Edgar Salador did a great job visually with it. I just felt like it was a song I'd heard before. And, you know, when I crack open a book these days, I want the excitement of hearing the song for the first time, you know, and falling in love with it. Even if you're familiar with the band, you want, you want the new album.

[00:08:42] So Weapon X hit all those right notes for me, but returning home can be scary sometimes. Can't, you know, can it not? It is. I mean, the most, uh, for Weapon X-Men, the most, um, formidable challenge, I guess, was if I could write Cable again. Okay. In a way that felt, that felt like it was me writing the character. Uh, cause that was my, Cable was my first monthly gig at Marvel Comics when I first got into the business.

[00:09:12] And I, you know, working with artist, uh, Jose Ladron, visionary artist, even, even back then. And being a new guy on the block, I put everything I had to, so did, so did Ladron. We both put everything that we had into that comic. Every ounce of enthusiasm and craft and skill that we had at that point. Right. And, um, you know, really invested in that character for that period of time that I was writing him.

[00:09:41] To come back to a character like that after 25 years is very strange. You know, Wolverine's a different story. Wolverine's kind of has, has a voice that everybody's sort of keyed into from reading him growing up. And I've written him before in the past here and there. But Cable, I was very personal book for me at the time because it was all I had. Uh, so to, to come back to write that character again has been, um, it's been interesting.

[00:10:10] And, and, you know, the thing about a team book is that you're looking to find the chemistry between the characters. Sure. And, uh, the one thing that I can say that I'm pretty confident about, and it's starting from issue one, is that that chemistry of the characters is kind of there. Even as unlikely as the team is with Chamber and Thunderbird and stuff like that. Uh, they, they kind of gelled for me as a writer, they gelled fairly quickly and how they related to each other, how they interacted.

[00:10:40] And to me, that's the, that's the essence of any good team book is how do those team members interact? So hopefully I, you know, hopefully it's as good as I think it is and that people will, um, will grok to it like I have. I, I, I really dug it. I mean, this is typical Joe Casey style. It's just very much, let's fucking go, you know, with arguably two of the biggest characters in the Marvel universe at this moment in time.

[00:11:03] You have, well, at least as far as, you know, modern pop culture goes as a whole with Deadpool and Wolverine, which are the headliners for Weapon X-Men. You know, Wolverine debuted in 74 and Deadpool was 1990. So they've been around for some time and it gets, it just gets me thinking about these generational perceptions. My son has a very different filter than I do for him. Logan is Hugh Jackman and Wade is Ryan Reynolds.

[00:11:29] So are they sort of, I guess the question is, are they one note, right? Like there, you can do so many things with Batman and people continue to do, do that, which is really amazing. But when characters have so much identity and mythos, do they have, have to operate within certain boundaries as characters? You talked about writing cable, cable, there's Josh Brolin, but it's, it's just not the same loaded amount of information, right?

[00:11:58] He just doesn't have as much knowledge to him. So how did, how did you approach making, you know, Logan and Wade feel fresh? Well, with Wolverine, I think he's one of those characters that sort of deepens and ripens with age, you know, uh, his history informs him. Uh, he went so long with being the mysterious, where did he come from, you know, character.

[00:12:22] And then they, back when I was writing Uncanny X-Men, they kind of turned that around, gave him an origin and kind of filled in some backstory and started to kind of go deeper in who he was. Um, so now we're, you know, 50 years on with that character. And I look at his history as in the same way that, in the same way that, like you said, Batman deepens as a character, the more he goes on. Because he, he, he adapts to the times.

[00:12:51] He reflects the times in various eras. And I think Wolverine, to a lesser extent, can do that. Um, he's kind of the scene-it-all guy. And that's, that's a valuable character to have in the dynamic of a, of a team book. Now, Deadpool is a whole different story. I've never written Deadpool before. And I looked at Deadpool as the meta character. It's, it's, he almost knows he's in a comic book.

[00:13:19] He almost knows what the, what, what's going on, on the fourth wall, you know. And he's, he's almost like a reader's point of view. There's a bit, uh, which is not, I mean, it's not a spoiler, but there's a bit in Weapon X-Men 1 where he, you know, uh, comments on the name of the team. And how no one ever thought of this before.

[00:13:45] And he kind of lists, lists people who maybe should have, but didn't. That kind of stuff is, is a lot of fun. Um, that's, that's been, to me, the revelation of, of writing that character is that it's not my voice, but I get to put a, a certain fan perspective.

[00:14:05] I can push it through the Deadpool filter and say things about the scenario and about the comic itself and about, you know, the Marvel universe and, uh, Marvel as a brand. And I get to comment on all of that stuff, uh, and get away with it. So that's, I mean, that's been a ton of fun. Free pass. Which I didn't expect.

[00:14:26] And well, I knew Deadpool was kind of a fourth wall breaker, but once I got in and started putting words in his mouth, I realized that I had a lot to say through him. And, uh, that's the, he's kind of served that function. So that's, that's been really cool. So you can vent out a Marvel career in one character. There you go. That's right. I've had to be clever about it with other books in the past, but now I can just lay it all out there through him. Well, I want to congratulate you first on that, the Weapon X title.

[00:14:56] It's, it's an epiphany someone should have had a long time ago. Uh, having read issue one, you certainly patted yourself on the back. I'll leave it there with the title, but you should be proud. And I'm, I'm flabbergasted. Nobody's thought of this. It's before. And you spelled out sort of the evolution on Stubstack, but for those who haven't read about it yet, could you kind of walk us through the genesis of how this came about?

[00:15:18] Well, I mean, to be perfectly honest, when I was talking to the previous X-Men editor, um, about work, doing some work there, I tried to think of the most commercial idea that I could. I mean, what's, what I've done in the past when I've done really high profile IPs like Superman and even the X-Men 20 years ago. And, uh, I tend to come at it.

[00:15:45] I always had the best intentions, but it's, you know, which is interesting as a writer. And so hopefully interesting for a reader. It's not the most commercial approach because it's, you know, when you take big swings like that with characters that people really have embraced over time and really love, you take a chance of alienating people. And I certainly did on, on both of those IPs, uh, in my time writing them.

[00:16:16] But so here I was saying, you know, if I'm going to, I'm going to, if I am going to come back to Marvel in any capacity, I'm going to really swing for the fences commercially. So, uh, the fact that, um, no one had ever come up with that title before. No one ever used that title or thought of it. I had no choice. I had no choice. I thought that if I don't do this now, somebody is going to come along and do it before me.

[00:16:41] And as it turns out, you know, there was a little bit of a behind the scenes, uh, nonsense where it kind of seemed that way. But I, but I have to tell you, hand to God, I was there first. And, uh, I was the one who came up with that title and brought it to Marvel and, you know, whatever happened after that was, um, you know, aggravating at the time. But, you know, we're here now.

[00:17:06] And I think the book, uh, the book is, is always what it was meant to be, which was big commercial swing, big blockbuster comic. And, uh, you know, hopefully people will get into it on that basis. Well, you talked about the team members, Wolverine, Deadpool, Cable, Chamber, and Thunderbird. And you had a theory on Substack about the perfect X-Men team formula being five. I think Avengers was maybe seven. Yeah. Um, but. Seven. Elaborate on that. Yeah.

[00:17:35] Well, I mean, the best, most memorable runs on the X-Men have been five member teams. Sure. I mean, there's the original X-Men, of course. The, there's the, um, the, the, the classic, um, Claremont Byrne era, even though there was other characters and other members. Once it got really cooking, the Dark Phoenix saga was basically Cyclops, Nightcrawler, Wolverine, Colossus, Storm. That was the five.

[00:18:05] That was the, that was the heyday of that, of that, uh, of that title or that, or that, that run. Uh, Grant Morrison, when he came on, Cyclops, Jean Grey, Beast, uh, Emma Frost and, uh, Wolverine. Right? Uh, yeah. Five, five members. Um, and it, it worked right off the bat. So it's, you know, I mean, look, it's a half-baked theory, but I have, but the evidence backs it up on some level.

[00:18:34] Because when the X-Men in particular have had this sort of sprawling roster, it's, it's, it's fun on one level because there's a lot of characters to touch upon. But on the other hand, it's very, um, scattered narratively. Um, and it's, it becomes more of a soap opera than a, than an ensemble book. Um, and, you know, writers like to impose these kind of weird rules on themselves because it, it helps us sleep at night.

[00:19:02] We're, we're, uh, obsessing about things that are completely meaningless, like, you know, roster numbers and things like that. But, um, you know, like I said, I had the evidence to back it up. So, you know, I, I felt, uh, pretty good putting that out there. And, and I stand by it and I stand by the Avengers being seven members. Um, it's just, you know, just, it just seems like the way it goes, you know, defenders for OSU before defenders.

[00:19:31] Um, justice league is kind of. Um, sort of, sort of between seven to 10, you know, kind of, it's kind of, kind of the, kind of the sweet spot for justice league. So, I mean, you can apply this wacky theory to anything and come up with some answer that, that feels right. And has, it has evidence to back it up. So, that's, that's kind of where that came from. Well, you articulated it well, I think.

[00:19:55] And that maybe, I had the light bulb moment there of why Krakoa and that whole arc didn't connect with me in the same way. You know, being a Claremont kid and, I guess, used to that nucleus of five. Yeah. And Krakoa just seemed so sprawling that, I don't know, I just never could quite connect with it in the same way.

[00:20:16] I think fans, I mean, you know, you know, readers are generally older now, but I think especially when we were kids, you wanted the security of knowing who your quote unquote family was. You didn't want this kind of open-ended, uh, amorphous blob of a, of a cast. You wanted a tight knit group of, of found family. You know, that's, that's, I think that's what, uh, you know, readers of our generation probably responded to.

[00:20:44] Um, and, uh, you know, it's just, it just, it just makes, makes sense to me on some level, you know? Yeah. So, for different generations, like thinking about my son and his introduction to Marvel, and I was a Marvel kid. It's funny because my co-host Jimmy is very much a DC kid. And it just seems to be about whatever you were exposed to in that sweet spot when you were a kid, one or the other. And that's the one that stuck. Yeah. And for me, I'm a Marvel kid.

[00:21:12] And so him watching the movies, watching the movies and seeing him excited about it, have the movies done a disservice to, to that generation? Or, or is that the only end we've got on, on bringing different and a younger generation into reading the big two? And then just like we all did, you, you get into those.

[00:21:38] And then at that time, then you start reading Hellblazer and Sandman or the demon and, you know, broadening the scope of what you're interested in in comics. Well, that's the hope. I mean, it's funny. I think that, I mean, I, when I was a kid and just really started to glom on the comics as my thing, I was a Marvel kid too. And I was reading, my book was The Avengers. That was my book. That was, that was the book I loved. And it was, it was prime time for that book.

[00:22:05] It was that Jim Shooter, David Michelinie, George Perez, John Byrne runs that were just fantastic. Now, back then you'd dream about why maybe one day there'd be an Avengers movie, but in a way you thought this is never going to happen. Never going to happen. You know, even when you got, when you got a little older and started maybe, maybe be a little savvy about how movie, movies are made and how these things work.

[00:22:31] And then even, you even get more cynical about it because you know more about what a long shot it is. You know, that's never going to happen. Well, it happened. And not only did it happen, it happened in the biggest way possible. The Avengers, you know, highest grossing movie ever. Avengers Endgame anyway. The other side of that coin is that in pop culture, things that have this sort of rise, they go from, you know, in this case, comic books to toys to maybe a cartoon.

[00:23:01] To maybe a TV show and then maybe to movies and then blockbuster movies and then top of the box office movies. There's, there's really nowhere to go after that. You know, everything becomes, unfortunately, a diminishing return. There's always, there's always a peak for something in pop culture. And it's, it's interesting.

[00:23:21] I've, I've sort of reconciled my own career in such a way that I, you know, I, I've, I've been what I consider a cult writer for 25 years. I've stayed sort of just below the, the, the harsh spotlight of, you know, kind of big time A-list writers and creators and kind of been quietly doing my thing.

[00:23:45] And, um, I've, I've tried to, in a way, sort of avoid that peak, you know, I never wanted to be number one because no one's number one forever. And the drop-off seems very precipitous.

[00:24:00] So with these things like the Avengers, it's, it's very, um, it's a bit sobering to think that Avengers Endgame, you know, 2019 might have been the peak of something that I loved as a kid and had, you know, dreamed about that kind of thing. And it, it happened. Now they're going to take a big swing with, uh, you know, uh, Doomsday and, and, um, uh, Secret Wars and all that stuff.

[00:24:29] And I'm sure people will come out for them, but it's, it's hard to imagine that they'll top, uh, Endgame. So it's, so, and that's true for a lot of pop culture IP. You know, it, it, it rises through the ranks of awareness. It peaks and then it's gone sometimes just for a while and comes back.

[00:24:48] But, um, I wish that the movies filtered more a wider audience back to the comic book stores, back to the source material, but it hasn't really seemed to happen. Um, mainly because, and this is a, this is a wild theory that I haven't put on Substack is that with the way that comics are distributed with the direct market, the way it is, and the way it's become in the last, you know, 10 years.

[00:25:16] And the way the comic book media sphere has shrunken and splintered and become very, uh, fractured. It's not a system that's set up to, to welcome, uh, walk-ins and curiosity from movies and stuff. It's just, you know, some stores do it well. My local store here does it really well. They're front counter. There's, you know, shelves of trade paperbacks that relate to the things that are sort of out at the moment, whether it's Disney Playhouse.

[00:25:46] Plus shows or Marvel movies in the theater or DC movies in the theater. So they do, they do a good job, but, but you got to get in those stores first. You have to, you have to know where they are and walk into them. And we just, the, the awareness factor is a problem. You know, it's, it's not like it was even 20 years ago when, when there were a few comic book websites that everybody went to.

[00:26:11] Uh, there was wizard magazine that everybody at least was aware of if they didn't read it religiously. Uh, wizard magazine at one point sold more copies than any single comic book that was being put out. So there was a center to our universe that we don't have anymore. And I think that, uh, the market and suffers for it, you know?

[00:26:35] Um, so I mean, not to be, I mean, it's not doom and gloom, but it's, it's definitely something that needs to be contended with. You know? So, yeah, I mean, it just makes me wonder how we can recreate such a thing. I mean, I'm in the comics journalism sphere. I'm now the editor in chief of comic book, Eddie. So it's something that I think about a lot, how to engage those, those people who are on the periphery on the outside.

[00:27:00] So my son played Fortnite a lot for a while and you would have all these skins. You'd have a Deadpool skin or, or something like that. And it seems like a, a very easy and natural transition to then say, well, you really like this characters. You've seen the movie. You, you, you'll buy the skin. So why won't you read the book? You know? And it's, I can't figure it out. It's, I mean, it's a tough hill to climb.

[00:27:27] I mean, you know, I, I feel like comic books as a medium are something that you get or you don't get. I mean, well, you know, I'm sure, you know, adults that are perfectly literate and perfectly intelligent. You give them a comic book and they still don't know how to read it. They don't know where to look at first and what comes first. Do I look at the art? Do I look at the writing? What order do I, do I, I mean, it's, to them, it's a math problem that they can't solve, which,

[00:27:56] you know, for me, having connected with them at an early age, it's like a second language to me, but I know not everybody feels that way. So it's not, we have to be honest with ourselves, it's sometimes, it's not the most accessible medium. You know? I mean, to take it back to Weapon X-Men, Weapon X-Men is meant to be a very accessible book. If you, if you saw, you know, Wolverine, Deadpool, if you saw Deadpool 2 with Cable in it,

[00:28:27] you could kind of pick up this book and there's not a lot to catch up on. The characters are right there. Their interactions are recognizable. I don't bring in a lot of, I mean, I know that Wolverine and Deadpool and Cable, they all have like siblings and children and, you know, different iterations of them running around and different multiverses. Forget all that. This is just the basic characters in their prime essence. So, you know, that's, it's meant to be accessible.

[00:28:58] And hopefully that, that makes a difference. But, you know, and again, in this market, who knows? Who knows? My fingers are crossed though. Well, that makes a good lead in, I think, for Thunderbird. And which was why I was curious about that. Thanks for the inclusion of a native representation lens here. It's something near and dear to my own heart. And you went through several iterations who could have been Sabertooth, Quicksilver, Namor, to name a few. So what was compelling about John?

[00:29:25] Well, I hadn't, I didn't know he was, had been resurrected. Okay. That was the thing. I was talking to a friend of mine, Steve Orlando, another comic book writer. I've known since he was a fetus. And he, he taught, he had written this one shot that had brought Thunderbird back. And he told me, Hey, what about Thunderbird? He's back and no one's doing anything with him as far as he knew. And I was like, really? Because I always had that fascination with Thunderbird.

[00:29:51] I thought the Cochram, original Cochram costume was awesome, even though they just changed the costume. But I, the story demanded, and it'll, people will see as the story plays out, the first story. There's a reason he's back in his original costume. One is that it's a, it's a story driven reason. And two, I just, I just dig that Cochram design, man. I mean, I just, I love it so much.

[00:30:17] But the interesting about Thunderbird is that he has no history to contend with, really. He appeared in two issues of X-Men and then was gone for, you know, 50 years of publishing history, basically. And however many years you want to count that Marvel time where he missed everything that was significant about X-Men narrative.

[00:30:43] From the Dark Phoenix saga to Days of Future Past to Age of Apocalypse to Grant's Run. I mean, he missed all of it. So he's, in a way, he's a blank slate. I had to read, you know, reread three comics to catch up on who he was and what he was about. And, you know, he didn't get along with Wolverine back then.

[00:31:07] So to put him on a team with a Wolverine that is, that has had that much time and experienced all those stories and experienced all those events where Thunderbird is playing catch up. It was so rich with story potential that it kind of dominates the first five issues of like Thunderbird's arc of reconciling the fact that he's missed so much.

[00:31:35] It starts off as sort of the undercurrent, but then as we get into the first five, it really blows up into like the main thing to contend with. Okay. And so I feel very lucky that a character like that was available that hadn't been, you know, to be perfectly frank, worn out by, you know, 50 years of stories, you know.

[00:32:01] And yet he's so primal and so intrusive to the original, you know, all new, all different X-Men that it was just, I mean, I just felt great about getting him in there. And I was, oh, Steve Orlando, you know, big, big, big, big props for suggesting him. Yeah. I mean, he, he really, down to the costume is so iconic. I mean, there's a few people that they won't recognize him busting out of his, you know, first appearance there.

[00:32:28] And it, it is one of those things that's instantly memorable. And I think that that is what I love about this book so much is you're able to make an immediate emotional connection. And that dialogue is created and you're engaging with the characters and you, you're working with artist Chris Cross on the project. And this look has a modern anime aesthetic with lots of like establishing headshots.

[00:32:58] Counterpoint is this rapidly reintroduction of characters where you have kinetic movement sequences with these distinctly manga reminiscent motion blur repetitions. So, so it, it simultaneously pays due to the past with these characters, but brings it very much front and center to what kids are reading now.

[00:33:24] You know, and because that's what I hear with younger readers is like, are you reading comics? Well, I'm reading manga, you know, so that something that bridges those two worlds is, is a really smart play. And I think Chris just killed it with this. Yeah, he's great. He's great. And he definitely brings, he's kind of that one. He's, you know, he's, he's my age and he's predates me by a few years in the business, but we have the same influences, the same grounding.

[00:33:53] And when we came up in comics and what we were reading, we were kids, that was really important. But in addition to that, you know, Cross really, like you say, brings a modern sensibility to what he does. That hopefully, you know, to your point, bridges that gap to some, to some extent. Okay.

[00:34:11] You know, I'm sort of, I, I sort of bring the iconography and Cross brings the kineticism, you know, and the stuff that, that it's kind of, you know, manga aesthetic, which I, which I think is cool. And I, and I, I'm glad it worked for you. Yeah. I spent time with the, with lots of TV and movie production as a grip and a cameraman. So I noticed camera angles probably more than your average comics reader does. Sure.

[00:34:39] And is that tight perspective that it's got kind of a lower vantage point that's looking up at something? Is that something that Chris brought to the, to the table or is that part of your script? Cause it's very, very cinematic. I think it's, it's a mix. I mean, Chris and I have worked together before on other projects. So we kind of know where the other's at in terms of sensibility. And, but, you know, so there are times where I will, you know, suggest an angle that I think will work best.

[00:35:06] And there's sometimes where I don't and he comes up with something great. I mean, that, that's the, that's the kind of the magic of collaboration. You know, it's what, why I love making comics is it's really in the sense of a writer and an artist. It's the sum greater than its parts, you know? And, uh, I think that's the case here. And it's, I mean, and each issue gets better and better. And, you know, I just, I can't wait for people to check it out. Yeah.

[00:35:33] There's a, there's one really nice moment between Cable and Chamber. That's a, I'll put it as a reflective moment and I'll, I'll leave it there. I can't, I can't wait for people to see that in the book. Cause that looks so good. Great. Yeah. I, you know, the thing about Chamber is I'm, again, I wanted this to be a book of, of iconic characters. Like you said about Thunderbird, he's iconic for a weird, strange reason.

[00:35:59] You know, like he was featured on one of those covers of X-Men that he appeared in as a main sort of character. It seemed like, and people that's that imagery stuck in people's head. Chamber to me is, is sort of an icon of, of the nineties X-Men. Right. You know, he's the most, um, you know, put upon mutant in that his powers really, he can't hide who he is. He can't hide what he is.

[00:36:26] And in the nineties, that was a kind of a cool thing. That was, that was just coming into its own of like, you know, we're out and we're proud, you know? So, uh, I've always loved that character. I've always loved the visual. But so, and I, and that's why I put him in uncanny X-Men, you know, cause I, I, I just gravitated to, to his look and his, his dilemma and his character.

[00:36:48] Um, so I was, he, he might, to some people seem like a left field choice, but, um, but he really works within the team dynamic. I think. Well, I think he's perfect for this age too. The, the one we're actually living in and the one that the Marvel universe is living in where, where Orcus is hunting all the mutants and you can't hide who you are. And that, I don't know if anything is more topical right now than, than that. So.

[00:37:17] Unfortunately, that's right. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we all know from solicits for issue two that Baron Strucker will play a significant antagonist role early on. Logan has an established history with him, but like, who doesn't Logan have an established history with? So it sounds like you had a fair bit of creative freedom with it. Nazis seem to be making a strong resurgence in Marvel right now as villains, but they do.

[00:37:42] Like I read Jed McKay's Avengers blood hunt and that was cat punching Nazi vampires. So, you know, Strucker is classically more of an enemy for Cap or Nick Fury. So what was appealing about him? Because he really is in many ways a bygone era, not, not unlike Thunderbird. I guess it gives you a lot of range to develop. Well, it's, I mean, it's funny. Again, I wanted, this is the crass way of putting it. I wanted to put as many movie stars in this book as I could.

[00:38:13] And Baron Strucker was in, was in Avengers Age of Ultron, you know? And he had that history with Wolverine, even if it's, I mean, I think the one that people most remember is that classic Jim Lee drawn issue with the flashback to World War II with Captain America and Logan. That's, we touch on that in issue two. That's, I mean, that's where Baron Strucker knows him from. Is that, is that encounter? At least where he first met him.

[00:38:45] And, you know, with this story, I don't lean too much into the Nazi thing. I mean, at Marvel, luckily you have Hydra or you had Hydra, which is this, you know, nowadays the Nazi stand in. But I see Baron Strucker even apart from that. He's more of a opportunist, would-be conqueror. He'll align with anybody that will help further his end. And in this case, he, what he needs to further his end is Wolverine.

[00:39:14] And, I mean, it's in the solicitations. He comes up with, he's going to create a new army of not LMDs, but WMDs. Called Wolverines of Mass Destruction. At least that's the joke in the case. But, you know, he finds a way to, to utilize Wolverine's, you know, adamantium skeleton, how that's built.

[00:39:39] And his berserker rage, which is kind of a powerful tool if you can harness it right. And so that's, that's part of his scheme, which leads to, in issue three, we're going to evolve Baron Strucker into the next level of supervillain. So, he's kind of a little old in the tooth. You know, he's been around for a while. So, he's, I think he's, he's due for a physical upgrade.

[00:40:06] So, we came up with something that, that I'm really pretty, pretty psyched about. It's another, it's another kind of obvious name that we've given him that, again, no one thought of before. So, you know, I feel like I'm on a roll with these things. So, I just, I just went with it. So, issue three is the, is the sort of reveal of that new version of, of, of, of Baron Strucker as a new character.

[00:40:32] Well, last time you were on the, the press tour trail promoting the first issue of Johnny Quest when we talked with Dynamite. And now there's a forthcoming Space Ghost and Johnny Quest crossover event you were writing. We know the Quest crew is being brought in to investigate a mysterious spacecraft that's found by the government that is in Area 51, which is kind of a bridge for our galactic crime-fighting friend to join the party. So, you're working with fellow Johnny Quest co-creator Sebastian Perez again.

[00:40:59] So, it sounds like a Wind Stars Collide event on multiple fronts. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of, there's a lot of, I guess, they're obvious to me anyway. There's a lot of similarities between the Johnny Quest concept and the Space Ghost concept in terms of cast. You know, both, both, both concepts have a father figure. In Johnny Quest's case, there's a father figure and an action hero that are kind of split.

[00:41:28] Space Ghost is they're both in the same character. But then beyond that, there's, you know, two young people and one weird pet. And so, once I saw those obvious similarities, I thought, well, there's, then there's only one. I mean, we have to do the story to play out some of these ideas that I have for something that, again, is so obvious, but that we, it's never been done before.

[00:41:55] So, there's a, there's a merging and swapping of cast in the story that, when you see it, you just, you know, you go, oh my God, you know, again, how has this never been done before? But it hasn't and, you know, we're the first. And I always say this about Sebastian's art. I mean, he killed it on, on the Johnny Quest story that we did. But his rendition of Space Ghost is so right on.

[00:42:21] It's up there to me, the, to me, the, the, the, the, the triumvirate of best Space Ghost artists in comics. Alex Tove, Steve Rude, and Alex Ross. They, to me, those are the best depictions of Space Ghosts I've ever seen. And Sebastian's is right up there with those three, which is pretty high praise, but I'm, I'm dead serious. When people see his Space Ghost, they're going to freak out because it is fantastic.

[00:42:51] I mean, I really love what David is, is throwing down in the Space Ghost series. So, I'm definitely looking forward to this. All these dynamite relaunches and maybe, okay, I'll admit my own bias here with the nostalgia, maybe a bit, but, and I chatted with Tom recently about Herculoids. You know, I haven't gotten a chance to look at Silverhawks yet, Dynamite sent over, but, everything has been, honestly, more solid than I anticipated. You know, with, with something like that.

[00:43:21] I'm serious. You know, you don't have, okay, you're going back to the Hanna-Barbera stuff in, you know, the 60s era. And, and it is in a lot of ways a blank slate, but we've seen these launches stall and fail, you know, very quickly over the years. So, when I saw it, I'm like, okay. And then I see who they're bringing in and to, to helm these different projects. And they're really good in my opinion.

[00:43:47] You know, it's interesting because there's, I see the, the, the IP that they've gathered and licensed and it's, on the one hand, it's easy to kind of put them under the same umbrella. They're cartoon properties, animated properties. But, to me, there's a big difference generationally between something like Johnny Quest and, say, Thundercat and Silverhawks. I mean, those, those are 80s properties. Johnny Quest and SportsCelluts are 60s properties.

[00:44:15] You know, so, but it's, it's funny. They all seem to fit together. I mean, they're doing, again, doing the Herculoids. They're doing, I think they're doing like a Wacky Races comic, which, you know, good Lord. So, it's, it's kind of, the, the dynamite evolution as a publisher has been interesting to watch. You know, and I'm sure that, you know, you could, they, 10 years ago, if you just said to them, they'd be this, IP regeneration publisher.

[00:44:46] They would say, I don't think so. But here they are. It's kind of what they have morphed into at the moment. Yeah. I mean, you have so many people doing it. Skybound doing all the G.I. Joe stuff. And not that G.I. Joe really ever fell off, but it's really fresh what they're doing with the Energon universe now. So. Yeah. Just got to show you. If an IP is strong and you've got a strong creative vision, they tend to work. They tend to always work.

[00:45:12] You know, it's, it's rare that, rare that you have those two elements that you have a, that you, it's a stiff, you know, it's usually pretty, pretty good and usually does pretty well. So. I'm personally hoping that they will do a grape ape kind of playing off of the Kaiju theme. That is, I will go nuts over that book. That would be amazing. Because he's my favorite of all that stuff. Yeah. I have no idea why. I remember grape ape.

[00:45:38] It's, you know, again, it goes back to some, some things, these things are iconography. They, you know, they, they, the iconography sticks for some reason. You don't know why. It just, it's there and you, and you tap into, especially when you're a kid, you know, your fascination with something is, is very on the surface, but that surface has a depth as well. Because it's just, it's something in your brain. It's instinctual. It's not very thought out because.

[00:46:03] Listen, if we, if we dove into grape apes, you know, continuity or history, there's probably not a lot there to hang on to. And yet something about the name, something about the iconography, it just, it works. You know, I agree. It does work. Well, that's the thing about the Herculoids. When, when Tom and I were talking about it there, it is so formulaic, you know, okay. Somebody's invading the planet. Nobody knows why.

[00:46:28] And nobody really cares at that time, you know, but it's just a revolving, revolving door of different invaders. And you have people in loincloths with these weird beasts that are just, you know, staving off the invasion. And that's the blueprint. That's all you got. So. Right. Yeah. Well. But that's a lot. I mean, that's, that's, that's, that's good bones though. You can hang a lot of, a lot of meat on those. Yeah. Yeah. I really like, I got a sneak peek of Tom sent me it and I really like it.

[00:46:57] Um, you know, it's a great establishing shot for a lot of the things that were missing, um, with just the original concept. And then, as you say, there was a lot, there were a lot of holes there to fill. So he, uh, he's doing a good job getting that kicked off. But I know you have two, two big yet to be announced projects, which I'm sure you can't talk about, uh, coming up in 2025, but it feels like a big year for you. I guess. Welcome back is in order, I suppose. Well, thanks.

[00:47:27] I mean, I should be, I should forewarn everybody. I don't know if even, I mean, these things are so big and so there's a lot of moving parts and a lot of, um, I don't even know if they're going to be out in 2025. I mean, we may be able to start talking about them in 2025, but, uh, it's looking, it's looking like, um, it might be even next year before they actually see print, which is fine. I mean, you know, things take how long they take.

[00:47:51] And in, in both cases, it will be so worth it that I mean, I can't tell you it's, it's amazing what, what, what, what we got cooking. Awesome. Well, I'll hit you up whenever that happens. So we'll, we'll talk again about it. Awesome. Joe, it's always a pleasure to have you on the show. I love hanging out with you. So appreciate it so much. Thanks, Byron. Appreciate it, man. Absolutely. Well, weapon X-Men hits shelves on February 19th, at least as far as we know right now.

[00:48:19] So you know what to do, call your shops, let them know that you want it. I, I loved it. So if my recommendation is worth anything, then there you go. Pick it up. Uh, this is Byron O'Neill and on behalf of all of us at Comic Book Yeti, thanks for tuning in and we will see you next time. Take care, everybody. This is Byron O'Neill, one of your hosts of the Cryptid Creator Corner brought to you by Comic Book Yeti. We hope you've enjoyed this episode of our podcast. Please rate, review, subscribe, all that good stuff.

[00:48:48] It lets us know how we're doing and more importantly, how we can improve. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode of the Cryptid Creator Corner, maybe you would enjoy our sister podcast, Into the Comics Cave. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.