Comic Book Club Preview: Fred Van Lente

POSTED BY Alex Zalben, 31 August 2007

Sept. 4 brings us another edition of Comic Book Club, the live, talk show where you can meet me, Justin and Pete in person, and hang out with our comic book friends! Hooray! Before the show, I'm going to post up little chats I had with the guests. First up is Fred Van Lente, author of the current Marvel mini-series "Super-Villain Team-Up: MODOK's 11" — Alex

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PS: So tell me a little about yourself ... How'd you get into comics?

FVL: To paraphrase Hemingway, very slowly at first, then very quickly. I spent a decade struggling doing small indy projects with my artist buddies I met at college (Syracuse University), until, by coincidence, a "super-crime" comic I wrote, The Silencers caught the eye of Mark Paniccia at Marvel at the same time Action Philosophers won the Xeric Grant. Bizarrely enough, Action Philosophers #1 and my first Marvel comic, Amazing Fantasy #7, came out on the same day, even though their respective existences had nothing to do with each other... Weird...

PS: You're currently writing MODOK's 11... As a writer, how do you really get into MODOK's, uh, head?

FVL: I retconned MODOK slightly to make his motivations a little more intelligible — both to me and the reader. I find it very hard to write characters when I don't know what they want out of life — even the truly wacky ones like MODOK.

MODOK was supposed to be a Mental Organism Designed Only for Computing, but went mad when the full secrets of the universe were exposed to him all at once. He's trying balance the equation that explains where Creation come from, so, like any good mathematician, he's going to balance the equation by subtracting what sees as the variable, the "X-factor," in other words — life. That's when "computing" got replaced with "killing."

Oh, and he'd like nothing more than to stick it to the woman who dumped him before his head got so big — Monica Rappaccini, the current Scientist Supreme, who first appeared in the aforementioned Amazing Fantasy #7 and is currently trying quite hard to kill him.

So, to me, this is the essence of Marvel: A really cosmic superhero motivation (destroy all life in the universe) paired with a very human motivation (revenge on your ex).

PS: You have a great assortment of B- and C-list villains for the book ... Was there anybody you couldn't use, that you would have wanted to? Or is that for the sequel?

FVL: Yeah, pretty much everybody I wanted first, the cool villains — Red Skull, Dr. Doom, Taskmaster, Venom, et cetera -- I couldn't use, so that's how I got stuck with these Z-list guys. (laughs) That said, however, I think everything turned out much better because I had to use loser villains. It really taps into the heist genre stand by of a bunch of down-and-outers banding together for one last score.

PS: And the sequel ... That'll be called MODOK's 12, right?

FVL: Well, if we called in MODOK's 13 I think we'd confuse a lot of people.

PS: Let's talk Action Philosophers: Who would win in a fight, Plato, Socrates or Aristotle?

FVL: Oh, Plato, definitely. He has the pro wrestling experience! "Plato," in fact, was his wrestling name — it means "broad" or "flat" in Greek, which refers to his exceptionally big shoulders.

You think I'm kidding, but I'm really not.

PS: For those of our readers who have no idea what AP is, sell 'em on it. Why should we care about a bunch of stuffy philosophers anyway?

FVL: Hey, they're not stuffy — they're Action Philosophers! It's all the real lives and thoughts of history's A-list brain trust, told in hip and humorous comic book fashion.

Don't take my word for it: read some of the series for free on-line.

PS: You've written a bunch of Marvel Adventures titles, including Iron Man and Spider-Man. Do you ever get the urge to slip in something really dirty, just to see if you can get it through editorial?

FVL: I'm saving it all up for "Marvel Adventures Giant-Size Man-Thing." The only comic book fully endorsed by the Man-Boy Love Association!

PS: Prove your comic geek cred: First comic book?

FVL: "The Great Comic Book Heroes" by Jules Feiffer, which opens with Superman's origin by Siegel and Shuster.

PS: Favorite series/graphic novel/single issue of all time?

FVL: Hmmm ... So many to choose from ... Today, I think I'll say the Morrison/Case "Doom Patrol."

PS: The most annoying character in comics is ...

FVL: A two-way tie between the Impossible Man and Mr. Mxyztplk, both of which seem to exist so comic book writers can try their hand at "humor"... Which, um... Most shouldn't. Folks like Kyle Baker and Jeff Parker notwithstanding.

PS: The most awesome character in comics is...

FVL: Dr. Doom. Gotta love a man with a plan.

PS: Anything you want to plug?

FVL: Wellllll ... Lesse here ... In November, Greg Pak and I begin co-writing "Incredible Hulk" which sets the stage for the post-World War Hulk era ... October sees the premier of "Awesome," a non-profit anthology to benefit the great podcast Indy Spinner Rack and James Sturm's Center for Cartoon Studies in Vermont. In it, you'll see for the first time me and Ryan Dunlavey's follow-up to Action Philosophers (which ends with this month's #9), Comic Book Comics -- the definitive (and irreverent!) history of the comic-book industry as a comic book!

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Check out Fred Van Lente, and much more, at Comic Book Club; September 4th @ 8:00pm; at The Peoples Improv Theater!