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House of Ideas: Marvel Roundtable Heroes Con Panel Report by Bruce MacIntosh
On Saturday, June 16, 2007, at Heroes Con in Charlotte, NC, several of Marvel Comics’ creators met to discuss some of their upcoming projects. The creators included Matt Fraction (Iron Fist, The Order, Casanova, Five Fists of Science), Peter David (X-Factor and soon, She-Hulk), Christos Gage (Iron Man, Storm, World War Hulk: X-Men, House of M: Avengers), Jeff Parker (Agents of Atlas, X-Men: First Class), Daniel Way (Ghost Rider, Wolverine Origins).
In spite of the advertised name, the group set at a rectangular table, but that didn’t affect the entertaining and informative presentation. The group started by taking questions from the audience of about 50 people. The first was to Jeff Parker, as to whether there would be any more Agents of Atlas coming up, and he responded, “I may or may not have the pleasure of doing a mini-series,” which will apparently include a gorilla, sea woman and robot.
To Jeff Parker: Will the members of X-Men: First Class meet any other characters from the Silver Age of Marvel? Yes, soon including the Hulk, and others, “because no one ever said they didn’t meet.
Peter David mentioned an upcoming X-Factor story, called “Messiah Complex”, which deals with the effects of House of M, where mutants are an endangered species and what happens when Cerebra detects the birth of a new mutant baby. The Marauders find out about this at the same time as the X-Men, and they “are all trying to get their hands on the baby.” This storyline will be an “old school cross-over, with one special that goes into all the books in the series.” It will have 12 parts, running through four books over three months.
Following that revelation, one fan bemoaned the glut of cross-overs in recent times. Peter David candidly responded that fans are buying the cross-overs and that’s really the only metric a corporation like Marvel really uses to determine the success and profitability of a title.
Christos Gage detailed the new House of M: Avengers title, which will drawn by Mike Perkins. It will include Luke Cage “and his band of Freedom Fighters”, including Misty Knight and Moon Knight. The story will take place of 20 to 25 years in the history of the House of M world – Luke Cage in his yellow suit (from the 70s) and “Misty Knight in an afro – and take the reader right up to the House of M event. The series will answer how mutants get to be a majority of the population in just the course of one generation. This world includes villains like Kingpin, and involves a world where the “Punisher was the token human” in the superhero community.
Matt Fraction talked about The Order, which ties into Civil War: The Initiative. The Order will become the California faction of the 50-state Initiative, and involves putting together a team from newcomers. He likened it to trying out for a baseball team, where each member must qualify and has a set of benchmarks to uphold, or they will be “cut”. The art chores for this book will be handled by Barry Kitson and Mark Morales. Along with a completely unknown group of heroes, the book will include new villains such as a team of cold-war relics that had been in suspended animation since 1964. All that, and it will also have “zombie hobos”!
Daniel Way discussed his Ghost Rider tie-in to World War Hulk. It this upcoming story, Ghost Rider gets sidetracked from his mission to track down all pieces leading to the devil and send him back to hell. He finds out that New York is being destroyed by the Hulk and a call is being put out for all the heroes to band together to stop him, and even Ghost Rider does his part. Way assured us that “absolute carnage ensues” and noted that 24 pages of the two issues are pure fight-scene.
After that two-issue detour for Ghost Rider, there will be a final confrontation between Johnny Blaze, Ghost Rider and Lucifer. (Including “undead football coaches”!)
Peter David assured us that he will continue to use Dan Slott’s supporting cast in She-Hulk, when he takes over for Slott. However, he is going to use some new characters, simply because he hasn’t seen Slott’s scripts for the final three months of his run and does not know who will be involved and how it will end. He stated that the story will shift three months ahead from the Slott’s final story, and will gradually fill in the gaps about what happened in the intervening months.
Peter tossed out an odd contradiction by saying that She-Hulk would have a “new status quo,” but assuring readers that his new stories and characters will “flow organically from what has gone before, in terms of everything we know about her.” He did say that should would return to having the ability to change from Jennifer to She-Hulk at will.
Christos Gage’s first Iron Man issues will start soon. “You will see stuff [involving Iron Man] you didn’t see in World War Hulk. It will not simply be a re-hash of what happened in World War Hulk.” Instead, it will show what Iron Man is thinking, his perspective on the battle. Despite Tony Stark’s problem with other former compatriots in Civil War, he assured us that “Iron Man is going to be the first in line” to deal with the Hulk problem, because he was the one who sent him away in the first place. The second issue of the two-part arc will deal with Dum Dum Duggan.
Daniel Way told us about Wolverine: Origins, which will delve more into how he got both the short haircut and his son: “He is inside the same shadowy conspiracy” that Wolvy was involved in, but his son “has never tried to get out of it and consideres his Dad a traitor.” He wants to get back at Dad for this. He noted that everything Wolverine has done so far has been planned in advance… “but not his plan.” In other words, he has been manipulated all along.
This arc will take place after the Wolverine: Captain America arc, which will be “a memorial kind of thing.” It will explain the long-running history between the two characters in a 5-part story: What they both were doing in North Africa during World War II, and the early story of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Hydra.
The last bit of news for the panel was more link a backwards “hint”. An audience member asked if there were any plans at Marvel for Dr. Doom, and Christos Gage said, “I was just told not to use Dr. Doom, so my guess is ‘yes’.”
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![[Frown]](frown.gif)
I'll probably end up dropping the book. 
