 COMICS |  | WIZARD Q&A: ALEX ROSS | | The mastermind and cover artist behind Marvel's mega 'Avengers/Invaders' crossover dishes on what to expect when these three superteams meet | | | By Andy Serwin | | Posted 3/28/2008 | |  | | There's a whole different set of Invaders crashing the Marvel Universe this May besides those green scaly ones.
Worlds collide on May 7 in Avengers/Invaders—a 12-issue event maxiseries by co-writers Alex Ross and Jim Krueger (Justice, Project Superpowers) and artist Steve Sadowski (JSA)—when the World War II-era Invaders find themselves transported to the modern Marvel U. where they face off against both the New and Mighty Avengers. | |  This epic crossover raises all sorts of crazy-cool plot points: What happens when the 1940s Captain America learns how he died in the modern day, and sees what the post Civil War-world is like first-hand? Will Namor go apespit crazy when he learns the current fate of Atlantis? Can Bucky handle seeing what he's become as the Winter Soldier and the new Cap? How will the knowledge the Invaders gain in the future affect them in the past? Ross isn't spilling on those plot points just yet—hey, you gotta read the book to get that dirt—but he did talk to WizardUniverse.com about returning to the Marvel fold after nearly five years, dropped some teases about what to expect in issue #1 and discussed surviving in a summer crowded with blockbuster projects.
WIZARDUNIVERSE.COM: Alex, what can you tease for us about the set-up to Avengers/Invaders and what happens in issue #1?
ROSS: In some way, unrevealed as of yet, the Invaders basically walk into modern-day New York from the middle of a war scene in '43 and from one war zone into another. What you immediately learn from issue #1 is that they didn't go through alone, so that’s relevant later. It will be of great interest to watch how the members of this group, like Namor and the new Captain America, the Winter Soldier, being the only current living members of the Invaders, respond to how the future will deal with them if they come into full knowledge of what their fates might be. These guys have to return [to the 1940s], and need to be kept in the dark about certain things. And the great concern is, what should they be able to know, and what should they have hidden from their knowledge.
Without using the regular comic book-type conventions, I would imagine, like magic or mind wiping?
ROSS: [Laughs] Mind wiping's not proposed as an option at this point. At least not yet. But no, I'd say we tried approaching this whole project saying, "How do we do this without somebody having to have their mind wiped later?"...or reality being altered or blah blah blah.
In a summer that's packed with major events like Final Crisis and Secret Invasion…
ROSS: Great time to give up comics altogether.
What? Seriously? What makes you say that?
Ross: Well, I'm thinking, like, you know what? If you're a guy with an average income and means and you're, like, "Man, I wanna read all this but you know what? Any one of these things demands I read, like, 20 other things just to understand what's going on!" I can say this: Avengers/Invaders is pretty much contained all within this one series, and if it's a cool series then, hey! You bought the one 12-issue thing and you're done, okay? We’re not forcing anybody to go to 20 other different books to get the whole story. So there. Take that. | | I was actually going to ask you, how does Avengers/Invaders fit in with that busy summer? Are you concerned about getting lost in the shuffle to a certain degree?
ROSS: Of course I am! I'm totally terrified of that. Absolutely. The thing is that, you know, all you can do is try your best. I mean, I know that within the story we craft and in the artwork that Steve's doing is utterly exceptional and deserves to be looked at just because it's strikingly real—like, when you're seeing his pages, that looks like real people getting beat up. But then again, the difference now is that we've got a lot of comics like that that are done that well. You know, you look at Brian Hitch's Fantastic Four, you look at the rendering of Thunderbolts, it feels like a real experience, like it's happening to real people. You know, there's some amazing comic books out there now. Just having like a decent, realistic artist...that's no longer exceptional, so we gotta hope that we have a decent, realistic artist combined with a story that has characters and elements that people would want to read. But it's not easy. There's no guarantees.
How's your working relationship been since returning to Marvel?
ROSS: It's been really good so far. We're in that honeymoon period where nobody's angry at each other so everything's very cool. It's been great to work with [editors] Steve Wacker and Tom Brevoort, who I've had a lot of contact with. They are editing the living hell out of us, so they don't let anything slide. And the thing is that is impressive to see is that they're bringing a lot of attention to the whole thing. They're considering it something that, yeah, you do go over it with a fine-toothed comb, and I respect that.
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