BC: Moving on to Guardians of The Galaxy.
BMB: Ok, our next issue, issue 14, is the 100th issue of the proper DNA creation of the team, so I have the lead story which takes them into a new big story, which has the first appearance of Venom and Captain Marvel. Also, free Comic Book Day is coming very soon which will illustrate how venom joins the team. That’s free, and all drawn by Nick Bradshaw, so that is very exciting. There are also back-up stories in the back of 14 written by D, and A, since they are writing separately now , but that will take the Guardians into a brand-new storyline, picking up where we were in the very first issues, with the cosmic council and what have you.
BC: Did they give you Venom to use?
BMB: No, it was actually funny; my initial pitch was wouldn’t it be great if there was a proper Marvel character on the team? That would kind of anchor it to part of the Marvel universe. I didn’t think I was going to get Tony Stark. Tony Stark is involved, that was shocking to me, I didn’t even have him on my list of maybes. And then I brought it to the room: who would be cool? Who can leave? There was talk of Luke Cage and I was like “He’s got a wife and a kid, he’s not going to go off into space.” There is no way he goes off into space and is not a dick, you know what I mean? “Hey, enjoy the diapers, I am off into space! Hey Angela.” [laughs] before Iron Man happened, the one that was getting the most votes in the room was Venom.
Everyone wanted Venom on the team, and just the image of the spider character, I was not sold on it right away. A couple months later, the Planet Symbiote idea took over, we have never seen where they came from. We have seen them take over a planet, but we have never seen the home planet of the symbiote. And everyone got pretty excited. First, he (Flash Thompson) is getting a reboot, a redesign. A cosmic Venom makeover, Drax is going to take him and get him new weapon and stuff. His earth guns are not gonna hack it out there. So for people who are looking for the next fan-fiction shipping it is going to be Drax and Venom. If you guys wanna get a head start on that, that is where we are going. Drax and Venom are the new besties.
Flash is going to slowly learn things about the Venom suit, and the suit is not going to be happy that he is learning these things, and then we are going to get the planet. I even put it out there that this is where we are going on Tumblr so people could try and call us out on it and nope, we have never seen it, so we are off to the races with an original Venom idea which is a huge relief. It’s hard! And it will completely make him a valuable member of the team, because there is a cosmic reason for him to be out there.
BC: What about the Annual you mentioned with Frank Cho?
BMB: Well it was going to be Kevin Maguire, who I had a wonderful time with, actually came to visit us in Portland and is now moving to Portland; that’s what I do to people. He literally came over for dinner with us and the Fractions and the Ruckas, and the Marquez’s and called me the next day and said he was moving here. And then says I don’t think I can get the annual done in time because I am moving there. So, he was nice enough to bail, and we are going to do something else later. Of course they want it out for the movie, so Frank Cho raised his hand and it’s PERFECT for him. What I had for Kevin is perfect for Frank, and he was thrilled to jump on. I am thrilled to be working with him again! As long as he doesn’t wait until the last minute and bitch about it on twitter and Facebook and Rich writes columns about it [laughs], insinuating I was late with the script when I was never late with the script. Anyway [laughs harder] I love his work, I think he one of the best illustrators in comics, and to work with him on and off over the years is awesome.
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