CraveOnline: You announced recently that you’re leaving Hulk to focus on Thrillbent. What’s coming up in your final Hulk storyline?
Mark Waid: We’re finishing up with our big “Original Sin” crossover with Iron Man. The way “Original Sin” has worked out for Marvel, the conceit being that secrets are revealed to our characters throughout the Marvel universe, things they didn’t know, things that are acts in the past that have to be accounted for now.
The four part crossover between Hulk and Iron Man that deals with both those characters is what happens when Tony Stark realizes he may have been way more complicit in the origins of the Hulk than he ever realized. And worse, how does Hulk deal with it when Hulk realizes that Tony Stark may in fact be responsible for the creation of the Hulk. It doesn’t go well.
Can you tease what’s coming up in Daredevil?
Sure, actually. We’re also doing a two part “Original Sin” story in Daredevil that I’m doing with our colorist and often guest penciler Javier Rodriguez, which is the reveal of exactly why it is that Matt Murdoch’s mother left back when Matt was just a baby and let herself be believed dead by Matt all these years, and why Battling Jack Murdoch, Matt’s father, never spoke of the mother.
We know what became of her since. Frank Miller has established that she is now working as a nun in New York and Matt now has a bit of a relationship with her but Matt’s never really sat down with her and had a conversation, why did this happen? Why did you leave? When he finds out the answer, the whole bottom drops out of Matt’s world. It forces him to question every allegiance and every belief he’s ever had about his upbringing.
Now that Thrillbent has been around a couple of years, are you satisfied with its success as a digital publisher?
Yeah, I’m more than satisfied. I can’t believe we’ve accomplished as much as we have. Again, it’s not just me. It’s everybody who has contributed to Thrillbent. We’re all pulling together to make waves and get attention out there and show off what digital can do for comics. I’m especially proud of the fact that we have become a really good showcase for creator-owned material, anything from Valentine which was by Alex De Campi who was one of the big figures in early digital comics and one of the people who helped us figure out how to do this from the beginning.
All the way through writers like James Tynion who is taking his Batman work by day and his independent work by night and doing more material for us. He’ll be rolling out a new series for us in June. So again, it’s not just Empire, it’s not just James Tynion stuff, it’s not just fantasy novelist Sheanen McGuire and not all the other weekly installment creator-owned material that we have at Thrillbent of which we already have a backlog of 300 or so comics. It’s all the new material we’ll be cranking out as well. I’ll be doing more creator-owned stuff through Thrillbent. Empire of course will be twice monthly.
For a subscription of $3.99 to be tied into all of that stuff, to be tied into some of the best, the most exciting digital comics being done out there, the content far exceeds what you’d be able to get in print for $3.99. I think that’s a hell of a bargain and I’m hoping people join us on this because I’m very excited about it?
What’s the future of Thrillbent? And what are some of your upcoming titles on Thrillbent (both from you and other creators)?
Like I said, we’ve got Empire launching. We have The Damnation of Charlie Wormwood which is one of our most critically acclaimed series. And then, like I said, fantasy novelist Seanen McGuire is working on a brand new series for us at Thrillebnt. We’ll be rolling that out later this summer.
We’ve got another volume of Insufferable that we’ll be rolling out later this summer. That’s by myself and Peter Krause. Over the coming weeks we’re going to be announcing at least one new project every couple or three weeks. I’m very excited about what we have in the pipeline.
Are you keeping those projects secret until the announcements?
For the time being. I don’t want to blow everything all at once. I want to focus right now on hey, look, Empire. The theory is that people have been asking us when is it coming back at every convention and store appearance for 15 years. This is a good day for you because here it is.
What was it that drew you to Dr. Spektor for Dynamite’s Gold Key revival?
It was actually something that Dynamite publisher Nick Barrucci asked me if I’d be interested in. He talked to me about the Gold Key characters. I had no real interest in doing any of the other ones because they’ve been done many times very well, whereas Dr. Spektor really hasn’t been much since his original 1970s incarnation. So I liked the challenge of trying to find a way to update that for the 21st century and apparently Nick liked my take and we’re off to the races.
Why do you think that no one has taken a crack at revitalizing Dr. Spektor before now?
Have you ever heard of Dr. Spektor?
Actually, no, that was a research question.
See, that answers the question. Because nobody had really heard of him. He wasn’t a costumed character. He was more of a 1970s character, not a 1960s character. He sort of fell off the radar of fan appreciation.
