Archive for the ‘Interviews’ Category

Interview With Abby Denson

Saturday, September 19th, 2009

abbydenson1The following interview was conducted several years ago and is being republished.

Abby Denson is a writer, illustrator, and has been involved in punk music, playing in a couple of local New York City bands. Her first work, TOUGH LOVE, initially came to my attention quite by accident on Ebay earlier this year. Abby made frequent appearances this past July at the Prism Comics booth at Comic-Con. She was always animatedly talking with con-goers and I was a little too impatient to stay in one place too long to figure out who she was. I did have a chance to talk with her, regrettably too briefly, after Andy Mangels’ Gays in Comics panel. Her personality is infectious, so I hope you enjoy!

Joe: Abby, will you give us a snapshot of the story for anyone who hasn’t read a description of your TOUGH LOVE?

Abby: TOUGH LOVE is about Brian, a gay teen coming out in a suburban high school, his friend Julie, and his kung-fu fighting boyfriend Chris. It deals with serious issues like gay bashing and suicide attempts, but it’s also a fun, life-affirming story.

Joe: If I’ve read other interviews correctly, you were going to Parsons School of Design when the idea for your story came to you. That brings to mind a couple of questions. First, how did the idea come to you, and did being in an art school environment in any way affect the project?

Abby: I was inspired to cover this subject matter by seeing some shounen-ai anime at an anime convention. I had been a fan of more mainstream manga like Ranma ½ as well as underground American comics like Love and Rockets, but hadn’t previously considered being a cartoonist. I was studying illustration and thought cartooning would be tedious, drawing the same characters over and over struck me as boring. When it occurred to me that I should do a romance comic, but with gay teens giving it a different twist, it inspired me enough to kick-start my cartooning habit, which is still going on today. Art school definitely was an enjoyable environment and it impressed my teachers and classmates that I had a paying art gig pretty early on. It also was great for the art training of course!

Joe: What qualities about shounen-ai stories first attracted you and do you still enjoy reading it?

Well, the art is very beautiful and the boys are very attractive to look at, and since none of it was translated at the time, it just seemed really mysterious and romantic. Shounen-ai is made for and by women in Japan and culturally I think it’s a bit of escapism for them as well as being titillating. Of course, it is usually not realistic at all to the actual gay experience and that was one thing I tried to address in TOUGH LOVE. I adapted the basic subject and androgynous look of the characters and a bit of the soap opera feeling, but I made the story more realistic and the art more my own high-contrast style.

I haven’t been keeping up on a lot of the shounen-ai out now, though I’m glad so much of it is currently available. I got Kizuna and Antique Bakery, which I’m not positive is technically shounen-ai though it has gay characters. A lot of it was more fun when I didn’t understand it all and was looking at the Japanese. I guess I was able to imagine better stories than were actually there! Ha!

Joe: How did the idea to send your comic to XY come about?

Abby: I had printed 50 copies of the first Tough Love mini-comic and just sent them around to cartoonists I liked as well as putting them in indy comic shops in New York. XY magazine was just coming out then, I would see it on the newsstands in New York. I thought it would be cool to send it in for review, but I also suggested it could run in there. Luckily the publisher, Peter Cummings, enthusiastically picked it up and it ran for two years. I’ve also done some other comics and illustration work for them.

Joe: In other interviews you’ve mentioned that you’d received emails from some suicidal teens when XY ran the story. It seems a very powerful comment on how people can relate to stories and a wonderful compliment to you. What kinds of reactions have there been to the collected edition?

Abby: Interestingly, I am getting a lot more Myspace messages than e-mails this time around. Technology marches on! I’m not getting any troubled teens so far, I think it’s because we added suicide hotline information and other resources in the back of the book, so if teens are in trouble they are hopefully making use of that information. Also, XY had my e-mail address right next to the comic and with the book you’d have to look at my website and find my e-mail there. I’m also getting people who had followed TOUGH LOVE in XY and are thanking me now later in life. It’s a very rewarding feeling. Also, I’ve been hearing from straight male comic fans who picked up the book because they liked the cover, didn’t know what it was about, and enjoyed it.

Joe: I think what I’m curious about is if you can use TOUGH LOVE as a sort of social barometer for how gay youths and American culture may or may not have changed between 1996 and 2006. Do you have any thoughts about that?

Abby: On one hand things have progressed a bit. I think there are many more resources now and as the youth are getting more and more wired into technology the resources on the internet are getting better and play into peoples lives a lot more than in 1996. People are coming out earlier than ever before. Also, in entertainment you have things like Will and Grace and Brokeback Mountain, gay people are getting a lot more visible in the public consciousness. However, politically things are just getting worse it seems. There’s a real tug of war going on, I feel like I’m being hit by good news and bad news all the time, from the sodomy law being changed to the back and forth on gay marriage decisions. I feel that the stances George Bush takes are unabashedly anti-gay and anti-woman. Imagine being a scared teen who’s on the verge of coming out and you see the president making these statements and decisions against you. He’s supposed to be representative of the country as a whole and is stomping on your rights. It’s not easy for teens to communicate openly about sexuality with their parents, especially if the parents are pro-Bush. That is where it’s really dangerous, when teens have nowhere to go and nobody to speak to suicide becomes a risk. Parents really have to get over their own hang-ups and realize that their silence is risking the lives and health of their children, whether it’s a closeted gay teen or a teenage girl who is uneducated about birth control and disease prevention.

Joe: Your publisher, Manic D, has sent you on a book tour. What was it like to go out and promote your book? Any surprises on the road?

Abby: The West Coast tour was probably the most amazing experience of my life so far! We called it the Summer of Tough Love West Coast Tour and I’m actually continuing my appearances in the East Coast through the fall and winter. As soon as I got the book deal I knew I wanted to tour and figured I’d start from San Diego Con since I go every year. I ambitiously wanted to go all the way up the West Coast to Vancouver, BC since I’d never been to the Northwest. I didn’t think we’d necessarily manage to get all the cities I wanted in, it took a whole month of planning, but we managed it! Also, my friend Larry designed an amazing silkscreen tour poster for me. Manic D was great and publisher Jennifer Joseph showed me all around the San Francisco area.

The Pacific Northwest is especially beautiful. I’d encourage every author to go on tour if they have the chance. It was great seeing the sights and meeting the fans, I met several teens who said some really touching things to me about the book and how it affected them. I also got great feedback from librarians and teachers. That is major since we really want TOUGH LOVE to be included at libraries and schools, especially since it includes important resource information. I was really surprised by the great folks at the store Comics Unlimited in Westminster, California. They got me a TOUGH LOVE cake with the book cover design on it. I was happily surprised at being on the cover of Vancouver’s Westender weekly paper. It was very surreal to see my face on every street corner! Also, I heard about the Stonewall Award nomination on the road. That was so great!

You can see my entire tour blog with pictures here.

Joe: What have been some of your other projects?

Abby: I’ve self-published the comics Night Club, Dolltopia, The Koi Fish, S.P.O.L., Deadsy Cat & Kissy Kitty, and Jamie Starr Teen Drag Queen. Some of those comics ended up in various anthologies and in XY as well. Night Club and Dolltopia are the only ones currently available from my website but I hope to get more in print soon. I’ve also been scripting licensed comics since 1999 and my credits include Powerpuff Girls, Simpsons, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and various ones for Nickelodeon Magazine among others. Most recently I’d been scripting Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi stories for DC’s Cartoon Network anthologiees.

Joe: Any chance of seeing them collected? I’m especially thinking of S.P.O.L. and Jamie Starr Teen Drag Queen.

Abby: I’ve thought about that and would love for that to happen. Though I’m thinking I’d like my next book to be newer material, I definitely would like a collection as well. Ideally I’d like a big collection of all my self-published stuff in one book and I fantasize that it would have some glossy color pages and illustrations included.

Joe: Do you have a dream project that you’ve been dying to work on?

Abby: I’ve been fantasizing about a TOUGH LOVE movie, complete with animated dream sequences and really hard–core Kill Bill style Kung Fu action. Something fun, but also intense. I’d also like to explore Li’s character more if I got to do a movie. Comics-wise I’d love to do a Dolltopia graphic novel and I have some other ideas brewing as well.

Joe: On a related note, are you a manga fan still and are there any manga creators you’d like to work with?

Abby: I do read manga still, but not as much as I used to. Ironically, being a cartoonist can stymie actual comic-reading, especially time-wise! Currently available manga I like include Antique Bakery, The Wallflower, Bambi and Her Pink Gun, Tramps Like Us, and Othello. Who would I like to work with is an interesting question since I usually do it all myself, but I guess Rumiko Takahashi since she’s so legendary, one of my original influences, and I bet she could teach me a LOT. I’d also like to do a comic biography of Joan Jett, Blondie, or Pansy Division. Really any rock bands I like!

Joe: Who are some of your influences?

Abby: Jaime Hernandez, Andi Watson, Roberta Gregory, Rumiko Takahashi, Howard Cruse, and Lynda Barry are a few I can think of. I’m also a fan of Keith Haring and Rodney Greenblat. I used to work as Rodney’s assistant and also was in a band with him! Writing-wise, Poppy Z. Brite, Martin Millar, and Alvin Orloff are some of my faves.

Joe: How did the GN come about? Was it your idea? What kind of experiences did you have shopping it around?

Abby: I always wanted a TOUGH LOVE collection and had a lot of stops and starts shopping it around. I actively shopped it around 1998-2000 but didn’t get any serious offers, so I started focusing more on licensed work and started other projects. The indy comic publishers I took it to weren’t ready for the subject matter and art style and the gay publishers didn’t know how to deal with a graphic novel format. Now that the market is much more graphic novel-friendly and manga has made a major splash in the bookstores, it’s a great atmosphere for TOUGH LOVE. Sometimes I feel like I was ten years ahead of my time! I found Manic D Press because I was a fan of their novelist Alvin Orloff, his book I Married An Earthling is one of my all-time faves. When I had the opportunity to meet publisher Jennifer Joseph at a release party, I pitched the book to her.

Joe: Sometimes readers latch onto a writer’s characters and create personal scenarios based on them. Well, maybe it only happens with me. But I’m curious if Chris and Brian live on in your mind and, if so, what their lives are like right now?

Abby: Hmm, good question! They are a part of me, all of my characters are. By now they’d have been in and out of college and while I think they make a great couple it would be unrealistic to expect that they’d stay together the whole time. Not many people stay with their high school sweethearts these days. Though perhaps they’d have ended up at different colleges, then get back together afterwards. I like to think they’d end up together ultimately after experiencing more of life and growing up a bit.

Joe: How does it feel to have TOUGH LOVE nominated for a Stonewall Award from the American Library Association?

Abby: Amazing! And it’s really an affirmation after all the work I’ve done and the delays I’ve gone through trying to get this book out. I hope TOUGH LOVE will be recognized in other areas like the JoeAAbby Media Awards too. It’s an entertaining and socially relevant book, it does have the capacity to actually help people, which is especially rewarding.

Joe: It wouldn’t be fair to talk only about TOUGH LOVE and not mention your other love, music. How’s that going?

Abby: I’ve always been musical since being in my first all-girl band as a teenager. Rock and roll is definitely a love of mine. However, it’s always been more of a hobby than a career. Since things have been heating up with my book tour and I have other book projects on the horizon my band, The Saturday Night Things, will be taking hiatus. I have mixed feelings about it, but I’m trying to avoid biting off more than I can chew right now. Luckily I have a lot of recordings to feel proud of and you can find stuff from my bands Mz. Pakman and Let’s Audio on itunes and CD Baby. My other stuff is all available for free download on myspace. Links are all on the music section of my website (see below). We have a show on Oct. 7 at Bowery Poetry Club in NYC as part of a Punk/Comic event and that’ll be our good-bye blow-out. For now anyway! I’m also hoping at some point to get more time to work on more music with my computer like I did on my Abbymatic project. There are just not enough hours in the day!

Joe: Do you have any advice for people who are thinking about making comics?

Abby: Make sure you have an idea you’re really passionate about before you start a project because it’s a lot of work and you’ll need the inspiration to drive you all the way. Taking life drawing classes is always a good idea. Also, don’t hesitate to self-publish, especially if you have a really original idea. Making it into a web comic and having a web presence will help you a lot. Now there are great print on demand services like comixpress.com that make it so easy and cheap to make great looking books. I’m always thinking of how much easier my early zine years would have been if there had been such high quality print on demand back then! That book can be your calling card when you meet other creators and publishers at conventions and such. Always carry some copies with you because you never know who you may run into. Also I’d encourage people to get postcards and pins made once they have a book out. These are cheap items and great to give out to people who may be interested in your book. Also, getting involved with organizations like Gay League, Friends of Lulu and Prism Comics is a great way to meet other like-minded cartoonists and share resources.

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Jim McCann and New Avengers: The Reunion

Tuesday, March 10th, 2009
Jo Chen's cover art to #1

Jo Chen's cover art to #1

Interviewing New Avengers: The Reunion scribe Jim McCann was suggested by longtime Mockingbird and Hawkeye Mike McDermott, who contributes questions as well. Thanks, Mike!

Joe: Jim, for people who aren’t familiar with your name, can you tell us how you got started at Marvel and how you came to write the NEW AVENGERS: THE REUNION mini series starring one of Marvel’s married couples, the newly reunited Hawkeye/ Ronin and Mockingbird?

JIM: I’ve been working at Marvel for almost 5 years now. I’d been in the ABC Writer Development Program where I learned a lot about crafting serialized fiction and was able to write for the soap opera ONE LIFE TO LIVE. I moved to New York in the hopes of landing a job either with ABC Daytime or Marvel Comics, the latter being my dream job from the time I was 10 or so. I was incredibly fortunate to be hired in the Operations Department at Marvel a month after I moved here. From there I went into the Marketing & PR side of Publishing, where I’ve been ever since.
My writing background (I majored in TV/Film, Minored in Theater and English at Xavier University, where I’d won their BEST WRITER award) led me to penning a few back-ups, including a crossover between the New Avengers & the soap opera Guiding Light, which was a surreal but incredibly fun experience. About 5 months ago, I made the leap from full time staff to consultant, allowing me time to pursue more writing opportunities while staying with Marvel, which has become an amazing home to me.
I had pitched for NEW AVENGERS: THE REUNION as soon as I knew we were looking to bring Mockingbird back from the dead. They were and are my favorite couple in all of comics and I had a very clear idea of what their new status quo would be, what it would be like to be reunited after all this time, and what Bobbi’s been through all this time people thought she was dead.

Joe: How did you get started reading comics?

Jim: I remember reading comics in the infirmary at summer camp when I was in second & third grade. I would always either get hurt or fake being sick because the infirmary cabin was WAY nicer than the cabins we had to sleep in as campers. AND they had comics! Then, a friend gave me Uncanny X-Men #165 and GI Joe #1. Those are the first I remember owning. They were a few months old, but I started collecting with those two comics in 1983 and never stopped.

Joe: What is it about these two that fascinates you? What was special about them to you back in the day and how do you recapture that and move them forward?

Jim: What I love about Clint & Bobbi is that they are such a REAL couple. I read the original Hawkeye mini when it came out and I LOVED the rapport they had and the chemistry, even if I didn’t know what that was exactly at the time. I knew Hawkeye was funny and I loved archery and Mockingbird was a touch spy chick turned hero. I fell in love with them as fast as they did with each other.
As I grew up and West Coast Avengers came out, the couple grew and had honest issues, the kind you didn’t see in comics at that time. They fought, they made up, they separated, and they had honest trust issues. But they kept being drawn to each other, and I kept being fascinated by them.
As I look back at their relationship and look at moving them forward (in whatever capacity that may be “together” as well as individually), I found that they brought out the best & worst in each other. They are both impetuous, passionate, strong-willed, witty, and flawed. They are each others’ mirror-selves. They bring out the best & the worst in each other. When they are in sync, they are incredible as a pair, but if one of them tips the balance, it leads to serious drama and friction. What writer WOULDN’T love that interaction?!

Joe: You’ve made comparisons with Clint and Bobbie to Mr. and Mrs. Smith as well as Nick and Nora Charles from the Thin Man movies. Do you have an appreciation for old Hollywood films and have any influenced your ideas?

Jim: I can honestly say that almost half of my DVD collection is pre-1960. I love the films from the Studio System age of Hollywood. I love the films of William Powell & Myrna Loy; Spencer Tracy & Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, and anything directed by Billy Wilder, George Cukor, and Hitchcock. Film Noir fascinates me, as well, but I am drawn to the romantic comedies and suspense films of the 30s-50s. I also LOVE the Emma Peel years of the British TV series The Avengers. I would say that those directly influence all of my writing, but this series in particular. In fact, all 4 issues (plus the prologue) are named after a classic film.
I also studied a number of great espionage and caper films from the classics to today in order to really prepare for the spy-nature of the story.

Joe: Who would you cast in a movie starring the couple? What kind of movie would it be?

Jim: I would have said Harrison Ford when I first started reading for Clint. He has that scoundrel and adventurous nature as well as a bewildered look when he realizes he just got himself over his head. Current actor though would probably be Josh Holloway, Sawyer from LOST. They have very similar attributes. And I think David Lopez’s Clint looks a little like Sawyer. For Bobbi, hands down Katee Sackhoff, Starbuck from BATTLESTAR GALACTICA. I’ve had the pleasure to meet Katee and she is as beautiful as she is tough. She embodies Mockingbird, especially the Bobbi Morse of today.
I’d love to make a caper film, high on action and mystery, but with the banter and quips of The Thin Man or Tracy/Hepburn’s pairings. I think they spend as much time fighting each other as they do a common foe, and need each other to get them out of the fire the other got them in.

Joe: Bobbie and Clint have complicated histories, both alone and together so it seems fair to ask how accessible will “The Reunion” be to new readers or someone with limited exposure to the Avengers mythos? How does their story in DARK REIGN: NEW NATION relate to the larger one in your mini?

Jim: Since Bobbi was gone for 15 years of reader time, I had to really approach this as though she was a new character while also respecting and building on her history. It’s a balancing act, but my editor, Jeanine Schaefer, really helps with that. She is relatively new to the characters, so if I put something in a script or outline that relies on assuming someone knowing as much about the pair as I do, she flags it and I find myself going “Oh yeah! Ok, how do I introduce this in an organic manner and not just try and get away with adding an editor’s note”…which is NOT an option, by the way. It’s challenging but ultimately serves the story best. This is its own story and over the course of the 4 issues recaps their history as well as catches you up on what’s happened to each of them individually (especially what happened to Bobbi while she was held captive by the Skrulls). The prologue set up some of the story and dropped a few clues into the tapestry but if you weren’t able to get that issue, you shouldn’t be too lost. The main things from that are that Bobbi & Clint are “keeping up appearances” when they are around the other New Avengers, but Bobbi is holding Clint at arms length romantically and they are arguing a lot behind closed doors. She’s shutting him out. She also brought SOMETHING back with her from the Skrull world, something that is vital to her mission here and now, and that she is going out on her own, no Avengers and no Clint. Or so she thinks…

Joe: In real life traumatic events like the death of a spouse and kidnapping and torture have significant repercussions. Thinking about all the villains and subsequent results sometimes I wonder if the fictional people populating either DC’s Gotham City or Marvel’s New York are living with mental disorders. And then there are heroes who’ve first hand experiences. Clint moved on with his life, died, returned, and picked up things again while Bobbi’s been captive during this same period. Reunions can be a mixed bag of emotions. How do you build on those circumstances and balance them out with action?

Jim: Bobbi is certainly living with circumstances that have changed her. Something happened to her while she was gone. She is dealing with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, the root causes you will see play out in the series. You catch glipmses as she has flashbacks that set in during times of stress. PTSD also affects your relationships to other, especially your loved ones. It’s affecting her relationship with Clint the most, for MANY reasons. All of this is what the story is built on. Without the circumstances, the series would not be nearly as interesting.
The great thing about this couple is that their psychological & emotional issues (be it morality & ethics, dealing with sexual assault, self-esteem problems, etc) have always been at the core of their greatest stories. They lend themselves to that emotional grab bag.

Joe: Every comics writer needs an artist. David Lopez who drew Catwoman is your partner in this. How did it feel to have Lopez bring your scripts to life?

Jim: David is an AMAZING collaborator. He brings the characters to life, and really pulls out the conflict they are feeling inside. His facial expressions are so perfect, and he gets the subtext, that they may be saying one thing, but felling & meaning something else. And his action sequences are fantastic. He draws combat scenes that are as amazing if it’s a crowd or just one-on-one. He adds details in that give me ideas to build on in the next issue every time. His redesign for Mockingbird was perfect, too. It’s a modernizing, yes, but it keeps elements of the classic design. It makes sense for her new mission and status quo.

Clint in a tux!

Clint in a tux!

Joe: Speaking of art, Jo Chen is your cover artist. I’ve seen the covers to the first and third issues. It’s rare that I dream about superheroes and kind of embarrassing to admit, but for whatever reason a few years ago I dreamt of Clint dressed in a tux for a night on the town. Whose idea was it to put Clint in a tux because I’d like to say “thank you.”

Jim: I cried a little when I head Jo was doing covers, not going to lie. For the tux cover, that was my idea because (brace yourself) Clint is in a tux for issue 3. And I think we both had very similar dreams years ago!

Joe: Thanks for that, Jim! Are there other characters you’d like to write? Pretend one of your proposals has just been given the green light: what would you do?

Jim: Runaways, Young Avengers, GI Joe, X-Men, so many come to mind. And who wouldn’t want to write Spider-Man?! But I have to be honest, my dream project would be to write these two characters (with some of their West Coast and East Coast Avenger pals) for the rest of my life!

Joe: The impression I’ve gotten from reading interviews and listening to podcasts is you’re very enthusiastic. What’s a day in the life of Jim McCann like and what is “hummingbird mode”?

Jim: That’s what I love- every day is different. I deal in our mainstream PR for publishing, so I talk to a lot of different press outlets, look over upcoming stories and help plan when and where to break them in the press. I write a lot of ad copy and scripts for our trailers as well. I am only in the office a few days a week, and on the days I am not in the office, I am writing or researching whatever project I’m working on at the time.

My philosophy for my job is to get people as excited about our comics as I am.

Hummingbird mode is what I kick into at cons. On Friday of New York Comic Con this past year, a friend in the industry texted me right after I hung up with him, after filling him in on the panel room situations and problems I saw that could arise. He said “Brrrzt! That’s the sound of Convention Jim turning on. Symptoms include running around, mania, and no-nonsense.” I tend to be very focused on making sure everything is perfect for the panels, the talent and the press and as soon as the panel starts I want to make sure that people know they are at a Marvel Panel, and have fun being there. Without the fans we are nothing, so I want to make sure that they have the best experience possible.

Joe: For the past several years Marvel and DC have been driven by events that are planned out well in advance at summits. Sales figures speak otherwise, but there seems to be a number of fans experiencing event fatigue and feeling the economic cash crunch. Care to comment from a marketing point of view? Will there be a break after Dark Reign’s conclusion before the next big event?

Jim: I can’t speak to our long-term plans as they involve a lot that haven’t been announced yet, but I think “event fatigue” is a easily thrown around buzz word that people talk about and apply to things that aren’t actually events. DARK REIGN isn’t an event, it’s a simple bannering that indicates what books deal strongest with the fall-out of Secret Invasion. Events sell well because people like shared universes and for the events in one comic are reflected in another. During Bill Jemas’ days, people were complaining that the Marvel U seemed too pocket or segmented. “Magneto destroys New York in New X-Men, so why doesn’t anybody talk about that?!” Now we have a shared universe and the people that liked pocket segmented books are the ones voicing their complaints.

Economics and the strain of the customers AND the retailers are very much on our minds, so we are making sure that every book is worth your money and not forcing people or tricking them into buying more books than needed in order to get a full story.

Mike: Your upcoming miniseries deals with the reunion between Ronin (the Avenger formerly known as Hawkeye) and his wife Mockingbird.

Mockingbird was long believed to be dead, but turned out to be a prisoner of the Skrulls and was freed during the recent Secret Invasion. For the benefit of newer readers who may not be familiar with her–who is Mockingbird? What was it about her that made you want to bring her back after all this time?

Jim: Mockingbird, aka Bobbi Morse, is a former spy with a PhD in Biology. She discovered corruption within SHIELD and so she went rogue to find the root of it. That led her to taking up a costumed identity. She met Hawkeye and the two hit it off (and each other) very quickly. The eloped 9 days after meeting. She always struggled with the restrictions that being an Avenger vs being a spy put on her usual means of dealing with threats. She had a different set of personal rules than what Clint did. This, combined with serious trust issues, led to the collapse of their marriage. The two separated and tried to live apart. They kept being brought together , and finally decided to try and make another go of their marriage. Just as they seemed they could recapture the happiness of their early days, she was killed. Or so it seemed. As we know now, at some point along the way, she was abducted and replaced with a Skrull. Where and when will be revealed, but it’s at a very crucial point in their history, and impacts where both of them are coming from in their dealings with the other.

I think she’s a fascinating character, a very strong female hero. A woman with no super powers, but is an expert marksman who relies on her wit and cunning as much as her aim. She brings something to the Marvel U that no one else does on the canvas right now. She also brings out a side of Clint that has long been missing in the character and makes them both far more fascinating for it.

Mike: Clint Barton has been through a lot of changes since Bobbi’s supposed death. He has also been killed and brought back from the dead. He’s given up the Hawkeye identity and become Ronin. And he’s started moving on to new romances–he had a serious relationship with semi-reformed supervillain Moonstone for a while, and had gotten intimate with fellow Avenger Echo just days before Mockingbird’s return. Where is Clint at mentally and emotionally now that his “dead” wife has now returned?

Jim: That is a great question and is something that is glimpsed at in issue 1 in his talk with Bucky. But issue 2 REALLY gets into Clint and Bobbi’s heads, where they both are emotionally. So you’ll have to read to find out!

Mike: What kind of “reunion” should readers expect here? The marriage between Clint and Bobbi was a complicated one–when times were good they could barely keep their hands off each other, but when times were bad they went through a very bitter separation. Given how much time has passed, and all the changes while Bobbi was gone, is it even possible for them to pick things up where they left off?

Jim: You said it yourself- this will be a VERY complicated reunion. It’s impossible for them to pick up where they left off because Clint doesn’t know anymore where they left off since he doesn’t know when she was replaced. And what Bobbi went through while captured, in addition to where she was when she was taken, makes it impossible for her to pick up as well. They don’t need to figure out if they’re on the same page, they have to see if they’re even in the same book, so to speak!

Mike: Given how long she’s been gone, Mockingbird must have been one of the earliest victims of the Skrull infiltration. Why did they choose her to kidnap and replace?

Jim: That, my friend, is something you will see in issue 3. It’s going to be controversial, I know, but is a logical reason and what happened after will have people talking. A LOT.

Mike: Presumably Ronin and Mockingbird will be dealing with more than just their own emotional drama. What sort of external threats will the heroes be dealing with in this storyline?

Jim: Bobbi has info from the Skrull homeworld she took from their observations of us as they were planning their Infiltration. That, combined with what she went through while captured, has set up her new status quo. She wasn’t the only person abducted and left forever changed by the Skrulls. She has seen the worst in humanity thru the eyes of the Skrulls. And now she is determined to use their intel to deal with the threats we have here on Earth.

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