HEre's my guest David Anthony Kraft one more time from our August talks. He and I are doing a big retrospective of his life and career very soon, featured in Alter Ego magazine, published by the man who hired DAK to Marvel, Roy Thomas. It's going to be so cool.

While we're rapping about deep identification with the characters one writes, DAK and I switch over to She-Hulk. He wrote the series, passed straight to him and Mike Vosburg after #1 with John Buscema and Stan Lee doing that one The Marvel Way. DAK's approach, since this wasn't a hero seen before- and to keep her from seeming overly much like something done before-was to instead emulate the world of the Marvel Age, as the stories that originate it appeared in their forms from 1962-1965, basically. If She-Hulk were made then, what might her arc be like? How would she then be an utterly modern woman, too, to create the vibrant contrast with her and Marvel's superheroes? download! You can bet there's more to say, but here's a podblast w/ DA-Koom, enjoy your DAK-attack with the original She-Hulk series writer.

Uncanny X-Men #165 was both the debut of artist Paul Smith on the title, and a psychologically-rich characterization story. Faced with their ghastly coming death as incubators for the Brood’s larvae, the X-Men realize it’s suicide or a horrid death of self, becoming Brood themselves. While trying to find some other way- at the very least, making their inevitable deaths count by eliminating Brood World- each of them turn to their humanity: religion, friendship, romantic love. How will they respond? How does one behave? They become so vivid as people, interacting. It’s a new era for depicting their personalities outside the pulse-pounding battlefield: still suspenseful stories, but now, who they will become as people, what their adversity reveals about each of them gains a new independence from the conventional wisdom that action requires a certain amount of space each issue. It’s an environment that brings greater dimension to their villains, too. Antagonists increasingly beha...

Ron discusses here how the storytelling elements that make comics great were mostly developed in the work of Will Eisner, Jack Kirby, and Steve Ditko, and how he works with the earliest versions of characters to tap into their essence. Art from my earliest Ron Frenz comic, Marvel Team-Up #140, and a commission such as you'll find at

Alpha Flight was, of course, the second spin-off from the best-selling Uncanny X-Men series at Marvel Comics Group. 1983 first brought The New Mutants, written by the Chris Claremont half of the classic X-Men team that took those characters to the top. A lot of attention went into making these titles unique from their parent series. New Mutants told stories of the new teen recruits, whose existence as a team grew organically out of an X-storyline: the Brood-possessed Professor Xavier would bring fresh blood to his academy, candidates for Brood egg-implantation. (Promise I’ll be back for New Mutants, especially for you fans of Legion X!) New Mutants’ origin grew out of one of Marvel’s earliest graphic novels; distinct from the original team, yet costumed and trained similarly, they weren’t intended to be a combat unit. The emphasis on dealing with their powers and place in the world reminds me a lot of Hero Duty, this creator-owned property I’m writing with artist Joe Phillips ...

Integr8d Soul: The Shared Marvel Universe, as seen in FANTASTIC FOUR #232, 241 & 242 The interweaving of the fictional world depicted by Marvel Comics Group was always, when observed, a strong suit, and things at the turn of 1982 reflected wonderful integration! I happened to be writing up the guest appearances in Fantastic Four #241 and 242 about the time I kicked back with a copy of Amazing Spider-Man #229 to analyze the Stern/ Romita, Jr. run. Spider-Man’s desperately brainstorming with Madame Web, the imperiled psychic, for help protecting her from the Juggernaut. The footnote, as her efforts fail, refer us to Fantastic Four #241 and Avengers #219. Very cool! I’d covered the Avengers some years back, battling renegade Moondragon on a planet she’s taken over in collective style like Unity on Rick & Morty. The Fantastic Four happen to be exploring an anachronistic colony pervaded by an alien power in Wakanda alongside King T’Challa, the Black Panther. By the next ...