Dan Slott Says “No One is Safe” in “Spider-Verse”

dan-slott-says-no-one-is-safe-in-spiderverse

“Amazing Spider-Man” writer Dan Slott visited the CBR Tiki Room at New York Comic Con for another entertaining and wide-ranging interview with CBR TV’s Jonah Weiland. The writer talks about how often fans accuse him of killing their childhood, how anything could happen to any character in Marvel Comics’ upcoming “Spider-Verse” event and why Spider-Gwen took everyone — even him — by surprise. The writer also discusses his impact on Spider-Man, from Silk graduating to her own ongoing series to where he ranks in terms of number of issues written. Slott sets up how much fun the upcoming “Spider-Verse” anthology is, the benefits of working Marvel Style and his bromance with “Batman” writer Scott Snyder. Things wrap up with Slott professing his love for Kamala Khan, and that he wrote the character in “Amazing Spider-Man” to shine a bigger spotlight on the work being done by G. Willow Wilson in “Ms. Marvel.”

NYCC: Marvel’s “Spider-Verse” Panel, “Spider-Gwen” and “Silk” Ongoings Announced

On why he decided to kill off “Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends” in the lead up to “Spider-Verse”: You want to show really early on in “Spider-Verse” that no one is safe. I’m willing to take your most beloved childhood memories… and crush them! [Laughs] And just like suck all the sweet nectar from your tears. Now you know, there’s no nothing. There’s no one I can’t kill in “Spider-Verse.” Everyone is fair game. You better read every issues. Oh my god, anything could happen at any moment.”

On Silk getting her own series and Marvel’s continued commitment to female-driven titles: I’m very excited with what’s going on with Silk, now we’ve announced that. “Oh, I sure hope Marvel does female lead character books.” We got “Squirrel Girl,” we got “Elektra,” we got “Ms. Marvel,” we got “Captain Marvel,” we got “Silk,” we got “Gwen Stacy: Spider-Woman” — it won’t stop. It’s great.

CBR TV: Slott Tells “Surfer” Stories with Allred, Excludes (Almost) No One in “Spider-Verse”

On the fun he had with the upcoming “Spider-Verse” anthology: There is a “Spider-Verse” anthology coming up. I got to help out on it and take part, and that’s gonna be fun. In that anthology, I kill two of three Spider-Men. Some might make it out. That’s the fun. One of the fun things about “Spider-verse” is we’re creating new Spider-Men. Along with using almost every Spider-Man ever, we’re also throwing in all-new ones. Some of the fun is not just letting the writers come up with stuff, it’s telling the artists, “Go crazy on the page. Give me some new Spider-Men.”

I had one of those pages where I gave that direction to Giuseppe Camuncoli and he turned in this gorgeous page with all these Spider-Men he started making up. I saw one and I was like, “Dude, I’m totally — we’re writing him in. We’re using him.” My favorite of the ones he did is the Spider-Man of the world where he’s also Iron Fist, so instead of having a dragon tattoo, he has a Spider tattoo. The way I see Spider-Fist’s powers working is the chi becomes extra arms, so it’s like multi-chi.

Slott Prepares to Explore Uncharted Space with “Silver Surfer”

On the benefits of working Marvel Style? Part of the fun of working Marvel Style is that your artist gives you gifts and you play off it and you bounce off. We have an upcoming issue of “Silver Surfer” where one of the things that happens in the story is you get five two-page stories. I knew what they all were when they were building up, except one. One of the five two-pages stories I’m like, “I don’t have that one down yet.” I go, “You know what, I’m working with Mike Allred.” So I call up Mike and I’m like, “Mike, what do you wanna draw? What kind of story do you want to draw? Go crazy.” And he goes, “You know, I’ve always wanted to have Surfer fly through a moon maze.” [Snaps fingers.] “Done. I will write a story about why Surfer has to fly through a moon maze.” I’m like, “That’s great.” And the art came in and it’s gorgeous. You never know what’s gonna happen and it’s almost like being in an improv group if you work Marvel Style. You throw someone something and you get something back and you go, “This is great!” All comics should be done like that.

RELATED: CBR TV: G. Willow Wilson Taps Into the Zeitgeist with “Ms. Marvel”

On being just the second writer to pen the new Ms. Marvel, Kamala Khan: Really? No one else has written Kamala Khan? Wow! Well I am honored ’cause “Ms. Marvel” is my favorite Marvel book that’s coming out right now. G. Willow Wilson is killing on that book! To me, out of everything Marvel is doing, it is the most that feels like classic Spider-Man. It’s a teenage hero, she’s got all these problems — her life is messing up her super hero life, her super hero life is messing up her real life. Trying to balance all that and learn how to use her powers, there’s something really neat about that. And also that she’s such a big fangirl of Carol Danvers, of Wolverine and Spider-Man, she’s thinking, “This is so cool.” There’s something really neat about the character. It was a joy to write her.

I’m liking everything the “Ms. Marvel” team is doing and we had this part in the schedule where we knew we had two issues before going into “Spider-Verse” where we were gonna do some “Spider-Verse” backup stories to lead you in from the “Edge of Spider-Verse” into “Spider-Verse” proper. I was like, “Can we use Ms. Marvel?” ‘Cause I wanted to help put more eyes on this. I wanted to help, you know, “Spider-Man” readers who’ve never picked up an issue of “Ms. Marvel” to go, “Who is this character? I want to read her stories.” So it’s one of those kind of like, “Can I do this?” and they were all really cool about it. Jonah Weiland CBR TV

Join the Discussion

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.