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Thanos Imperative
Dan Abnett has written various comics as well as novels. Andy Lanning has both penciled as well as inked comics. Together, they are the writing team affectionately referred to as DnA by their fans, as well as have serviced such books as Punisher, The Legion, as well as The Authority. a lot of recently, they have been writing books in the cosmic corner of the marvel universe such as Nova as well as Guardians of the Galaxy. This month, they begin The Thanos Imperative, a cosmic miniseries that gathers together Marvel’s cosmic heroes. Westfield’s Roger Ash recently spoke with Abnett as well as Lanning to discover much more about this series.
Westfield: For people who haven’t been reading your stuff in the cosmic corner of the marvel Universe, what do they requirement to understand going into The Thanos Imperative?
Dan Abnett: Essentially, they don’t requirement to understand anything. That’s one of the things we’ve taken excellent pride in. Although, if you’ve been a regular reader of our books – Nova, Guardians of the Galaxy, as well as so on – over the last few years, you will get a excellent offer of enjoyment from seeing exactly how a great deal of storylines as well as threads tie together in this huge event. We wanted to make sure it wasn’t inaccessible; it wasn’t a closed club. So from the start of what is efficiently the prologue issue, which is Ignition, we make sure that every piece of info you requirement is contained in it. You shouldn’t be mystified by who anybody is or what they’re doing or why they’re doing it. It’s not like there’s a significant exposition or download. It’s a great chance for people who’ve not read the cosmic books however have heard excellent things about them as well as really want to jump in as well as see exactly how much fun can be had with superheroes in space, to do precisely that as well as at the same time please the existing fans.
Westfield: Andy, anything you’d like to add?
Andy Lanning: whenever we’ve done one of these huge events in the cosmic realm, we try to make them as easily accessible as possible as well as have gone out of our way to discuss as much of the set up as well as the characters within the story as possible so that you don’t have to have reams as well as reams of star Wars-like narrative at the beginning of every episode to set whatever up, even though we still do that. laughter I think the thing is to really try to get people to pick them up as well as get them engrossed in the story as soon as possible as well as get everybody up to speed within the story itself. The allure of Thanos is he’s such a marquee character that we’re hoping people will pick it up as well as really delight in it.
Marvel Masterworks Warlock
Abnett: then again, if you do want to study up on this beforehand like it was some kind of huge test, you might do a excellent offer worse than go back as well as read volume two of the Warlock Masterworks which is Jim Starlin’s stuff collected together there as well as likewise the Life & death of Captain marvel trade paperback which has a lot of of Jim Starlin’s other excellent Thanos story in there. The Infinity Gauntlet as well as the regeneration of Thanos as well as then our stuff from the last few years in Nova as well as Guardians of the Galaxy if you really wanted research the subject.
Lanning: That’s all the stuff we’ve just read. laughter
Westfield: What can you tell us about the story in the miniseries as well as the characters involved?
Abnett: certainly Thanos plays rather a significant role in it. He is the central figure in a substantially villainous way. It’s rare in a story where Thanos turns up as well as he isn’t the poor guy. however there’s an terrible great deal going on at the same time. We have a great deal of threads that we’ve built up through our Realm of Kings books over the last few months which included the Fault, which is this significant hole in time as well as space, as well as the universal Church of truth which then brings into it Adam Magus, the dark half of Adam Warlock. On the great people side, we’ve got the Guardians as well as Nova. We’ve commonly focused our interest on the lesser cosmic heroes so this is an chance for us likewise to bring in some of the real severe heavy hitters like Silver Surfer as well as Quasar as well as to put them alongside Nova as well as show that in the past few years he has matured as well as he is now absolutely capable of holding his own with them. just in power levels as well as everything, he’s there with them. It must be excellent fun.
Thanos Imperative: Ignition
Lanning: I wasn’t joking, we have read all that stuff as well as we’re in a setting to run with some ideas as well as some loose threads that hark back ideal to problem #1 of Guardians of the Galaxy which we’ve been playing with. practically two years down the line now we’re seeing the fruition of some of those story plots as well as being able, very kindly by Marvel, to play with one of their greatest characters as well as bring back Thanos which we wanted to do ideal from the get go. regrettably he was dead when we started writing the stuff. We thought it was respectful, not only to Thanos however to Keith Giffen who’d killed him, to make it imply something as well as likewise have a story that [was worthy of] bringing him back. So it was something we certainly had in the back of our minds all along. We’ve said this before, however Dan as well as I were never rather sure who was in that cocoon when we very first introduced it in Guardians of the Galaxy. It’s changed numerous times. Thanos was always one of our options so as we developed the concept of the fault as well as the concept of the life universe, which we call the Cancer-verse which is full of Cthulhuesque monsters, the ideal antithesis of that is Thanos. This gave us a fantastic chance to bring him back as well as lucky for us, marvel said yes.
Westfield: What is the charm of the cosmic characters for you?
Abnett: For me, as well as I think for Andy as well, it’s a number of different things. We both loved Jim Starlin’s work. When we were growing up we were significant fans of that. so that helped; associating with specific talents that we like – Jim Starlin as well as Steve Gerber. When we were kids, they appealed to a especially British sensibility that combined superheroes in the American sense of costumed heroes with British science fiction. It was a excellent combination that we saw as kids in things like 2000 AD. So the cosmic end of marvel was a very appealing playground to us. I think in the cosmic books there is a way of portraying superheroes where they are godlike beings where their powers are commonly defined by alien technology, or just technology generally, rather than people who put on bright colored costumes in an daily world. For a character like star Lord or the Guardians of the Galaxy, it’s just a uniform or a utilitarian costume they’re wearing not costumes they’re making for identity purposes. I rather like that concept of playing in a world where people had remarkable abilities sort of as part of the landscape rather than remarkable abilities that stood out from the norm. That’s the sort of thing that’s appealed to me considering that I started to read them.
Lanning: I think it’s safe to say that Dan as well as I are both men of a specific age laughter as well as we both grew up in the 70s as well as there was an absolute wealth of sci-fi stuff coming out from marvel at that time since of the success of star Wars. It was the heyday for cosmic stuff as well as really was what we were weaned on as kids. as well as once again since of the success of star Wars, we had 2000 ad at house so we had home-grown science fiction stuff as well as well as excellent American import stuff which we might pick up in reprint versions in the UK. I think it really did notify us. I had a excellent love of marvel stuff growing up through those black as well as white reprints which were fantastic four as well as Spider-Man. as well as as major backups in those, we had Warlock as well as Captain Marvel. even the fantastic four is a science fiction comic as far as I’m concerned. Their primary adventures are very cosmic as well as very out there. I was a large fan of that stuff. A large Kirby fan as well as well as you got to see him do his adaptation of 2001 as well as the Celestials. It’s a excellent source of creativity for us to be going back as well as playing with these characters which we grew up reading. even a character like Rocket Raccoon has got an exceptionally convoluted background as well as history going back to, strangely enough, the late 70s. We’ve been pleased as punch to play with these characters that we grew up reading.
Guardians of the Galaxy
Westfield: You two have been working together for a long time. exactly how do you write the stories together?
Abnett: We started writing together I think since it was fun. I write stuff on my own. Andy is certainly an inker. We both work on stuff on our own, as well as over 20 years back now we realized that, I mean in the same way that American comedy shows are commonly written in that kind of writers room thing, it was much more fun to get together as well as bounce ideas off of each other than it was to create projects in total isolation. We get together on a regular basis as well as have most likely too much of a laugh bouncing ideas off each other, which then we can take away separately as well as break down into manageable pieces as well as turn into plots as well as scripts as are needed. As a freelancer, it’s very simple to do whatever completely in isolation as well as then get on the phone to the editor as well as email stuff in. It is keeping a strand of what we each do as something we do together. It’s verified very, very beneficial as well as very, very practical to our sanity. I think there’s a risk of cabin fever. A great deal of freelancers get extremely stir crazy after a while.
Lanning: When Dan was my editor, I was working on the Sleeze brothers comic at marvel UK, as well as we were both working on Ghostbusters comics for marvel UK. We would satisfy regularly; when or twice a week in the offices as well as go down to the pub as well as share ideas as well as spitball stuff. It’s a practice that we’ve developed over the program of our working relationship as editor as well as freelancer. then when Dan went freelance as well as we had a possibility to write some stuff, Punisher I believe was our first, we already had a way of working. We refined it as well as refined it over the years however I think the core nugget of the whole relationship is sitting together as well as knocking ideas around as well as having a giggle, which we do hysterically like little girls. laughter
Westfield: What can you tell us about the artist you’re working with on the book?
Lanning: We’re rather ecstatic to be working with Miguel, as well as we’re very lucky that Brad Walker’s in a setting to start the sphere rolling by doing the prolog problem which is called Thanos: Ignition.
Abnett: Miguel Sepulveda has come off Thunderbolts.
Lanning: He’s got rather a dark, gritty, technical style which, I think, provided that Thanos is the avatar of death as well as the grim nature of his existence, his stuff is going to be especially suited to it. I think he’s rather ecstatic about the concept of getting to draw some space stuff that doesn’t include loads as well as loads of real world stuff which, as an artist, is always appealing, being able to just make stuff up. It can be daunting often as well however it can be very liberating too. We’re very keen to see what he comes up with.
Nova
Westfield: after this is done, do you have any type of other projects planned?
Abnett: We do have things planned, regrettably we’re not allowed to whisper a word of them. The world as well as you pesky kids have not seen the last of us.
Lanning: info will get released as soon as it’s available. I think marvel are rather cautious about letting bits out piece by piece.
Westfield: any type of closing comments?
Abnett: I’d just like to say that the readers who have been reading our cosmic books for the last three years or so, I hope they’re in for a real treat with this story, much more than normal with huge events. It’s somewhat rare for innovative teams to have a long term goal as well as be able to realize that in the way that we’re realizing this. I’m hoping there will be huge fulfillment to be gleaned from seeing where the storylines go to. This isn’t just a quick flash in the pan story that starts as well as finishes before you’ve even begun. I hope there is a sense of it being something really, really worthwhile. I think we’ve got in the program of it some real juicy surprises.
Lanning: This is our cumulative story arc based on the run of stuff we’ve been doing up to this point. It’s been two years or much more in the planning as well as we’ve been allowed by marvel to really do what we want to do to wrap this story up with the Thanos stuff. as well as to use characters that we’ve grown up reading. To get to tell a story that involves the return of Thanos as well as have Silver Surfer, Quasar, Nova, Guardians, Inhumans, Shi’Ar, it’s like we’re getting to do a excellent huge epic Lord of the Rings-style book in the program of seven issues. We’re having a blast plotting it. If it comes out anything like we want it to, it’s going to be a excellent read.