His action-packed and high-octain G.I. Joe epic ‘World War III' coming to an end leaves the breakout writer time for a new series
By Kiel Phlegley
Posted 06/23/08
June marks a few endings for Mark Powers. Not only will his massive "World War III" arc in G.I. Joe: America's Elite end with issue #36, the series also takes a bow as does Devil's Due's option to make more Joe comics (owner Hasbro has yet to announce who gets the license next). But the writer is far from done, as his own series Drafted kicks into high gear and he gets ready for a new project with "Heroes" star Milo Ventimiglia.
WIZARD: "World War III" is wrapping up with Cobra Commander attempting a scorched earth policy to destroy what he can't have. Will the Joe team reunite to fight him or fight on multiple fronts?
POWERS: By the twelfth issue, they will be reunited. Basically the last chapter is Cobra reunited, G.I. Joe reunited in one massive battle with a lot of smaller moments that will address any lingering character arcs or plot threads. I don't know that it's possible to cover all that stuff that's been out there for 20-odd years, but issue #36 is the big blowout.
Specifically with this issue being the end of the Devil's Due run and the Larry Hama continuity, did you have a creative statement to make with the team at the end?
Yeah. We wanted to give the property a really appropriate sendoff. If it ends up being the end of the story, we want it to stand as the end of the story. I don't think it'll come as a great surprise that if whoever [gets the license] ends up publishing Larry's version of the property, they can pick it up or ignore it.
But on the other side of the coin, your creator-owned series Drafted is staying put, right?
It's doing pretty well so far, and we have a new artist coming on who I'm really excited about. Her name is Rebecca Isaacs. She has a completely different set of strengths to the book. I think she's awesome, and she's really young. You're like, "God damn it! She's too young to be this good! I'm jealous!" [Laughs] That's the most exciting thing for me on a daily basis working on the book.
Just announced was the fact you'll be working on a thriller comic based around "Heroes'" Milo Ventimiglia as a character who has to avoid sleep to defeat a shadowy conspiracy, right?
Milo and his partner Russ Cundiff have this property called "Rest" that I believe they want to develop as a film, but what they first want to do is a really cool comic book based on the idea. I'm going to be writing it with their input, and that's a major thing. It's a very cool concept.
