Marv Talks Titans & His Approach to Writing
[from Amazing Heroes #135, 1988 - A Marv Wolfman Interview]
by Kevin Dooley Transcribed by Unda Gorell
WOLFMAN: [...] When we did the runaway issue of the Titans, the only
purpose of that was to inform kids that if they ran away, there were
places they could go to. In the "Runaways" we didn't say "Don't
run away." As I discovered in my research, very often running away
was the best choice they have, providing they know where to go, that
there are agencies set up that will not force them to go back home.
When we did the drug books, I think it was Ted White who reviewed it
for the Journal, he made a cardinal mistake. He said we were propagandizing
and telling only the negatives. First of all, I don't know if there
is a positive on drugs. I don't think there is. Anything that makes
you dependent on something outside of yourself is not a positive.
Secondly, this wasn't an issue of the Teen Titans. This was a propaganda
book. It said so. This was sponsored by the Department of Education
for a purpose. No, it was not going to be rounded. No, I wasn't allowed
to open it up to debate. No, I could not say anything like "Smoking
marijuana when you're dying of cancer may take away pain." That
wasn't what the subject was about. The subject was: kids should not
take drugs. Period. This had to go through the Department of Education,
five other agencies, and about ten parent groups. This was not "Marv
Wolfman writing a comic book on drugs:' which, by the way, would not
have been much different, because I have a violent hatred towards it-which
was a good reason for me to write it. The problem was, no, it was not
an "open" book. It's no more an open book to discussion as
to purpose than a book published by IBM on IBM computers is.
AH: Or any of the DC-Radio Shack books.
WOLFMAN: Right. It is a sponsored book. Therefore, you can't review
it the same way you review the runaway issues of the Titans that appeared
within the regular run of the Titans.
AH: You were hired for a specific purpose.
WOLFMAN: We were hired by the U.S. Government to produce a book to
do this. The range we had was nil. We had to relate specific messages,
specific intent, and nothing else would have been accepted. It would
have been removed from the book. Fortunately, since I do believe that
kids should not take drugs, it was very simple for me to do it. But
a review of it as if saying it was a review of a comic with an editorial
viewpoint was ridiculous.
AH: Some people out there might not know you were once editor-in-chief
at Marvel in the mid '70s. At that time, creators just kind of went
wild. There was so much artistic freedom, yet there was so much instability.
How do you explain that? How much of it had to do with you?
WOLFMAN: I don't know, I've never thought of it.
When I was editor-in-chief at Marvel, outside of the time that Stan,
Jack and Steve Ditko were doing the books, we probably had the most
creative time Marvel has ever seen to date.
A simple reason might be that we had an incredible number of interesting
and bizarre writers. We had Gerber at his best, Engelhart at his best,
Starlin starting out with Warlock. I encouraged strange things. Somebody
would come in with an idea that didn't sound overly commercial, but
I thought was good, we'd try it. For instance, Howard the Duck.
When Howard first appeared in that throwaway section of Man-Thing,
Roy, who was editor at the time, didn't particularly care for it and
asked for the character to never come back. Steve and I talked about
it-I was editor of the black-and-white magazines then- and commissioned
two scripts to be hidden in the back of one of the monster books.
Because I liked Howard the Duck. I thought it was creative. I thought
it was different and enjoyed the concept. We had given it to Neal Adams
to draw because he asked for it, but by the time I became editor-in-chief,
Neal could not draw it, so I turned it over to Frank Brunner and we
moved [Howard] into Giant-Size Man-Thing. And that's how he got started.
I just liked to experiment. But because we allowed the most creative
reign of writers available, they were also the most trouble. Juggling
all that was eventually the pain that got me to quit.
But I'm proud of several things. They had the greatest variety of things
coming into Marvel when I was editor-in-chief and when I was editor
of the black-and-white books, too, on a more limited basis.
Also, for at least the year I was editor-in-chief, there wasn't a single
reprint. There was none of the "dreaded deadline doom" that
had plagued Marvel before I got there, or after I moved on.
AH: Why was that?
WOLFMAN: I'm not saying in talent as either a writer or editor I was
better than the people before or after me- Archie Goodwin is one of
the best writers I have ever known, Len Wein, a writer/editor capacity-not
as much as some, because I have edited my own work. Some of them are
really good. Some of them haven't the foggiest idea what they are doing.
They just know comics and they like them and they're enthusiastic, and
they're hell of a nice people, but ultimately, they just aren't good
editors.
AH: Do you think it's only money, the fact that Marvel and DC are
putting out so much?
WOLFMAN: So is everybody. Fantagraphics is publishing a lot, Eclipse
publishes a lot, Comico publishes a lot.
AH: Do you think we're too greedy to keep up with demands?
WOLFMAN: You almost have to be.
There's five thousand items out there these days. You can't let your
company be reduced to four items, because you'd be lost. You could lavish
a certain amount of production value time on certain projects, but you
can't do it on everything, There isn't time. It's a vicious circle.
Every company is in exactly the same boat. Fantagraphics can't point
at DC; DC can't point at Dark Horse; everyone can point at Solson, that's
what it's there for. You always need the joker in the deck.
[...]
AH: Characterization in comics: is it always secondary to the action,
to fight scenes-how important is characterization in comics?
WOLFMAN: To have a successful comic, in my mind, characterization overwhelms
the action. Unfortunately, in hero terms, there are certain things that
are expected and the fights are part of them. The stories that I have
written that I've liked the most, have either never had a fight in them,
or were resolved through other methods, or were pure characterization
stories. The readers tend to like those the most, too. I have no idea
if you could sell a super-hero book regularly without, but it would
certainly be interesting to try it.
AH: By a super-hero book, you mean...
WOLFMAN: Actually, I think Concrete over at Dark Horse is an example
of that because there are no fight scenes. There is no "action"
per se. It's all a character story about somebody who happens to be
stuck in this concrete body. So, you can do it.
I don't know if I could do the Teen Titans month in and month out without
eventually having action. I think that would probably be a denial of
what a lot of the readers want, but all-out action stories are not always
my favorite stories.
The action must be secondary, because if you buy a lot of comic books,
within a month or two, you'll probably have read every possible fight
scene, whether it's on Earth or space or whatever else.
The only thing that can be original is the characterization. That's
the only thing you can change, that you can manipulate, that you can
truly move. You can have characters grow, fail, succeed, whatever. If
you want a reader to come back, there has to be something more than
just the action. You have to have an interesting plot. But unfortunately,
even plot becomes secondary in most super-hero comic books.
AH: How do you develop a character when you have one month in between
every single installment. And with the action, you have less than 22-28
pages to develop any personality traits no less a complete "person."
What's more, with the Titans, you've got a group, a whole group of characters
to mold as well.
WOLFMAN: It's what I said before: the individual issue isn't important
but the series is. You think of it in terms of the series view and one
issue may only have a little bit on one character, one issue may have
a little bit on another. Over a long time, you develop it, you have
to look at how a character grows; how he or she changes because of growth;
how the character's inter-relationships in the team book are altered
as they get to know each other more. People who may have been close
may slowly fall out and other people become closer. People who recede
in the background because of either their powers or emotions or whatever
else, come to the foreground because of change. And you try to come
up with more realistic ways of handling them.
I did an issue recently in Teen Titans called "Loving You."
Raven for several months had been unknowingly altering Nightwing's personality
so he'd love her. She, for the first time, had been feeling emotions.
She didn't know the difference between loving someone and being in love
with someone and that's a major difference.
AH: I like to think so.
WOLFMAN: She took signs that Nightwing made towards her as being "in
love," rather than just loving her as a friend. She did all this
manipulation. A lot of people thought it would end with a fight between
Starfire and Raven. As it turned out, all they did was go off to Tahiti
and talk and become good friends themselves. And they talked out the
problem.
Now this is a growth not only in Raven but in Starfire which was important
too, because she did not react first on a visceral level. She acted
intelligently.
AH: Nor like her warrior self
WOLFMAN: Right. A couple years ago, there was a story that I think
tends to be forgotten, but one of my favorite Titans stories. It was
with Changeling and the Terminator. Most of the issue was a big fight
between the two, but it's resolved when the two go into a restaurant
and talk over the whole thing. It ends on that level. A change was made
on an intellectual basis, an emotional one, not through fists. And those
are stories that have both been very well received.
I think those are the ones people like better. It's really hard to
determine if you can do that monthly.
AH: How do you plot the character growth?
WOLFMAN: What I've done with the Titans is, I plot it in advance. I've
been plotting the character development like a soap opera in a sense.
Sometimes I totally forget to plot the action parts of the story. In
my little one sentence briefs on the stories, the plot of the issue
is left out, but the changes in the characters and where I want them
to go are the things that I actually center in on.
As far as I'm concerned, the motivation for all the stories become
a character one, not a plot one. The Titans. I think is character-driven,
not plot-driven.
AH: So you know where the characters themselves inside are and whatever
happens plotwise occurs as a result of it?
WOLFMAN: It's almost like life. The characters keeps moving and developing
no matter what they face. In my case, the surprise is not what be faces,
but how what he faces or she faces it. In the Titans as opposed to Sable,
how the situation reacts off the character is important as well. So
you not only have the character development in terms of themselves and
in relation to the other characters, but in terms of how the character
changes because of the plot.
AH: Have you ever had a situation in where the plot will take the
character in a direction you weren't really planning on taken them?
WOLFMAN: That always happens. You make the character as realistic as
you can within whatever confines you have. They will react to the situations.
Sometimes you just start moving and you have to alter all your plans
to boot. The characters will control it to that extent. Every writer
no matter who it is, no matter what type of stuff they write, they tell
you occasionally the characters just refuse to do something because
if you develop the character correctly you know that they will not get
involved with a certain situation no matter how much you want them.
They just will not do certain things, because that's nor within the
confines of their personality.
AH: So you won't have people writing in, saying, "I don't think
that Nightwing would have reacted this way because you know at that
point where they're going.
WOLFMAN: You get that anyway, because fans have their view of what
the character is and you have your view. They don't like it when you
alter the character from their view.
AH: Well, then, maybe they're identifying with something, reacting
to something of themselves and you've succeeded.
WOLFMAN: Right.
AH: Is writing Sable, in which you have one character, as opposed
to the Titans, where you have a group, a lot easier to plot?
WOLFMAN: Oh yeah, God. Much easier, because you focus on one character
where you aren't making sure everyone has something to say to react
to. You just have one character to focus on and it's much easier.
AH: But you have fewer other characters for him to react to.
WOLFMAN: In that sense, it could be sometimes a little more difficult
because you can't let Sable ever get dull. Whereas, if something starts
getting a little dull with Nightwing, you can switch over to Starfire
or Wonder Girl or Raven. If I don't have any ideas for a character,
if I don't know where I'm going, say, with Cyborg, I don't have to make
him the point of the story for a few months until I come up with a new
idea.
AH: Right, but with Sable...
WOLFMAN: You're focused all the time, where is he going to go, how
is he going to react, what are you going to put him against?
AH: Sable has minor characters to react to, but he's always in the
limelight.
WOLFMAN: There is also issue after issue that they're not in the book
because he's in another country.
AH: in that case, I guess you'd just rely more on the plot to roll
along?
WOLFMAN: Right, they become what you consider a plot-driven story,
but then once you get that, you have to find some way to turn it into
a character-driven story.
[...]
WOLFMAN: You see, that's the whole thing. If it had begun over, you
wouldn't have had any questions. There wouldn't have been a Supergirl,
so no one would have to think about it. There wouldn't have been all
these other things. I would have been able to start Teen Titans over
without having to question who Wonder Girl is. I could have given a
new origin for Wonder Girl.
AH: What are you going to do about her?
WOLFMAN: George and I are going to do it in a sixteen-million page
graphic novel or something. But actually, 96 pages.
AH: Is that something you 're working on now or?
WOLFMAN: George is drawing it right now.
AH: You've already got the plot?
WOLFMAN: George and I worked it out together.
AH: When we were at a Fantagraphics party, I heard you say that
you had to come up with a few new characters with a certain amount of
new powers in a certain amount of time?
WOLFMAN: Yeah.
AH: Have you come up with them?
WOLFMAN: No [laughs]. I was talking about the West Coast version of
the book, that would be. in San Francisco. I had set a deadline myself
the week after Thanksgiving to come up with a book. At that point, I
was approached by CBS to do a development on an animation show for them
and then I was approached by another animation company to do a development
for them and they both had to be in and still have to be in before the
first of the year so I had to drop Teen Titans development right now,
though. it keeps going on in my head. I just haven't got the time to
sit down and write it. I'll do it after the first of the year.
AH: There is going to be a West Coast Teen Titans, then?
WOLFMAN: DC wants to do a West Coast Teen Titans. In the last run of
the book, before I did it, it was Titans East and Titans West. It was
a regular feature that pre-dated West Coast Avengers by about ten years.
They want to revive that. They asked me if I wanted to write it, or
would let someone else write it. Well, I want to control the Titans;
I think one of the problems with Spotlight was that I really didn't
do any. I think that's the reason that led to it eventually being canceled.
There was no sense of urgency to the stories, as good as some of them
were. There was no sense of the stories having any effect on the characters.
The fact that it lasted 25 issues, I think, is a testimony to the characters
themselves- that people still cared about them.
So, the deal I've made with DC is that when I have time, I will write
mini-series for different Titans, either for Action Comics Weekly-I'm
already doing one of those for Nightwing-or as a mini-series.
I will handle all the Titan work. That way there's a continuity between
what I write in one place and another. So the stuff will have some meaning
as a whole to the book. All of it will feed in on itself, which is the
way it should be. It's for that same reason I decided to do the West
Coast version.
AH: Will there some similar characters?
WOLFMAN: Cyborg will be moving to the West Coast. Red Star, who is
a renamed Starfire from Russia, will be a member of it. Chris King,
who is one of the Dial "H"for Hero character that I had done,
and I just reintroduced him to the regular Titans book, he'll be a member.
So we actually have a character who, every time you see him, will be
different.
AH: So you 're going to have to come up with a different hero every
issue?
WOLFMAN: Oh yeah. But they don't have to be the most wonderful characters
ever created. They just have to be different and silly and fun. [laughs]
Maybe I'll open it up to the readers.
AH: Here we go again. You did that on the Dial "H" for
Hero comic, didn't you?
WOLFMAN: Yes.
AH: That brings up the subject of what a hem is. Dialing "H"
doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be a super-hero, does it? Or
is that your criterion for his dial?
WOLFMAN: Well, because he is a hero, and his mind controls whatever
body he's in, it ultimately is a "superhero." He could, though,
become a sponge for one hour and not be able to do anything. [Laughs]
That's the risks of the dial, you just don't know what it's going to
do.
The fun of "Dial H", while I was writing it at least, was
always giving him powers that didn't help. They were not of immediate
value. And he had to make use of it somehow to overcome the lack of
value. Which, by the way, is the definition of a hero.
[...]
