Marvel Goes Beyond!

[GrnMarvl14]

Original article.

When you think of Marvel characters, would you consider them as oddball, goofy and downright silly fictional characters? C'mon - at least some of them are.

Well, in case you missed it, one of the major announcements made at the recently concluded WizardWorld: Los Angeles was that in June, Marvel will take a diverse group of Marvel’s B-list characters (and lower), and place them in a cosmic situation, off world in a new mini-series simply titled Beyond!.

“Beyond! is a six-issue limited series which unites an oddball assortment of characters from across the Marvel Universe, and sends them across the galaxy in a sweeping adventure,” Marvel Executive Editor Tom Brevoort reiterated.

Just who are these characters? “Well, there's Spider-Man and two of his antagonists, Venom and Al Kraven, former Avengers Firebird, Henry Pym and Pym's estranged ex-wife, the Wasp, Medusa, queen of the Inhumans, the rookie superhero Gravity and the Hood, a small time crook recently turned supervillain,” writer Dwayne McDuffie told Newsarama. “That's the main group, but we've also got a couple of surprises up our collective sleeve guest star-wise. Everyone's role will become apparent as the story unfolds. The most important thing is seeing these characters out of their usual element. It's a great way to reveal new facets of characters, even ones we've known for years.

“They're kidnapped to another world by a being of unimaginable power, a world so dangerous that they'll have to learn to cooperate if they're to have any chance of survival,” McDuffie explained. “On the other hand, the same being who brought them there has promised "anything you can imagine" as a reward, should any of them manage to kill all of the others, so, you know, it could go either way.

“The antagonists are mostly in the group I mentioned above,” the scribe added. “This is very much a "man vs. himself" story. That said, the "being of unimaginable power" is well-known to longtime Marvel fans. I bet some of you are already guessing who he might be.”

While the entire comics community as a whole is eagerly awaiting Marvel’s big, status quo shattering Civil War event, Beyond is a crossover of similair magnitude, but doing it in more of a stealth manner. “It’s not specifically tied into Civil War—though it takes place in the same Marvel Universe, of course, so the effects on characters of one will impact on how they interact in the other,” Brevoort added.

However, the origin of Beyond has something to do with something old – the first ever massive company-wide crossover event from way back in 1984 – and something new that’s really, really hot now – Jeffrey Lieber, JJ Abrams and Damon Lindelof’s popular TV series. “The genesis of Beyond is kind of a strange tale in and of itself,” Brevoort explained. “When Marvel moved offices last year, we cleaned out our file room, and among the stuff we unearthed were several old fanzines dating back to the early 1980s. And in one of these fanzines, I read an interview with Jim Shooter about the then-upcoming Secret Wars. And one of the things he was stressing was that Secret Wars was going to take all of these big mainstay Marvel characters and plop them down in unfamiliar surroundings far removed from their day-to-day lives. And this remove was going to impact on how the characters behaved and interrelated—guys that were enemies would find new common ground apart from the familiar contexts, and guys who were staunch allies would find their friendships fragmenting under the hardship. This all sounded pretty interesting to me, but I didn’t feel like it got explored quite this way in the actual Secret Wars book itself—at least not in the way I saw in my head upon reading this interview.

“So from that starting point, and with the knowledge that Lost is a huge phenomenon, and plays with some of the same ideas, I set about compiling a list of characters in the Marvel Universe who were maybe lying fallow, whom I could pull off-world for potentially months of time, and maybe dust off and make interesting again, or interesting in a new way.

“And the name Beyond comes directly from the Secret Wars inspiration, and the Beyonder. I just thought it sounded cool, and summed up the project really well.”

Beyond sees comic book writer, Static creator and Justice League Unlimited writer Dwayne McDuffie teaming up with artist Scott Kolins. “I called them, more or less,” Brevoort recalled. “Dwayne and I go way back, to when he was on staff at Marvel in the late 80s/early 90s. He had been itching to get back into doing more comic book work, and I thought his experiences writing Justice League Unlimited for several seasons would come in very handy, in that they showed that he understood how to break a character down to his core and present that character in a straightforward and cool manner in a minimum of space (or time). When you stop and consider all of the obscure elements that were pulled into that series during its run, it’s kind of amazing that Dwayne and the rest of the guys at the show were able to make it all work, and all be accessible. And I knew that that was a strength that we’d need in Beyond, because this eclectic group of guys includes some fairly obscure elements.

“And Scott Kolins was getting close to finishing up Thor: Blood Oath, and with his last two projects, that and Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes having been set in the past, I was looking for something that would allow him to show his chops in the present day Marvel U. Plus, Scott’s proven adept at handling large casts of characters, and his personal viewpoint and preferences definitely factored into the final line-up for the series in a significant way.”

For Kolins, as much as he would like the recently resurrected Hawkeye to make his grand return in Beyond, he is still having a ball of a time with the oddball assortment of characters. “I look for reference and read up on the characters and combine that with Dwayne’s script,” he said. “Each character should stand/talk/walk speaking to their character. For the most part, a character should be recognizable even if they were in silhouette. Spider-Man shouldn’t stand like Hank Pym or move around like The Hood. This is a good group in variety and complexity; lots of fun stuff to cover: a new hero Gravity, the skeptical tough guy Al Kraven, the moody Inhuman Queen Medusa and the disgusting maniacal Venom. I was asked to give several updated looks and also was asked if I wanted to include any other characters. We were a bit short on lovely ladies so I suggested Wasp and Firebird, among others. And Dwayne was kind enough to include some of my other requests as the story goes along. I can’t wait.”

And Marvel’s lovely female characters are in good hands as far as Kolins is concerned. “Firebird is my favorite redesign,” he continued. “I think her new uniform much more implies her roots while still feeling like super-hero – yet not dressing in spandex. So I think it walks the line of classic hero attire and keeping up with modern tastes, without being trendy.

“Medusa’s outfit is in some ways much more trendy; Matrix-y and Ultimate universe-y – but still really coming from her costume roots so you still recognize her immediately. I like all the details and texture on Medusa but I’m most proud of her long skirt. I think it gives her a royalty flair which I’m not sure she’s ever had before. Something that Dwayne is really playing up in the script and I love it.”

Since when is SPIDER-MAN a B-list or lower character? Wasp and Henry Pym are MAYBE B-list. Why is Venom WHITE AND RED? And who is Al Kraven?

But I applaud the idea, and continue to wonder why Gravity is constantly involved in random team ups...and what exactly his powers are.

 

[Lil Brother]

VENOM!?!?!?

WHAT IN THE WORLD. Eddie Brock's dead... And Venom's hanging with the jailed Scorpion now... But when they became "we" they were still as black as ever! It looks like Venom's been taking costume tips from Guardian.

Al Kraven? Haven't there been a few Kravens/Hunters since Kraven's Last Hunt? I know Kraven's son took up the role, and I remember something about a Gray Hunter...

Gravity's becoming X-23's clone at this rate, popping up everywhere. Hehe, a male clone of a female clone of a male...

Spidey's there to sell the book, of course.

I'm just going to say "meh" to it for now.

 

[GrnMarvl14]

Well, during the League of Losers story in Marvel Team-Up, Gravity and X-23 actually got together, relationship-wise. But he IS turning up everywhere, and it's very odd.

As for Kraven, the only ones I'm aware of are the original, his son, and his brother impersonated him at some point.

And I get that Spidey's there to sell books, but you don't say "b-listers" and then throw on your second biggest property. It's like DC doing a "Formerly Known as..." again, only with Superman or Batman in it.