Home > COMICS > [WWC] 'SECRET WARRIORS' Q&A WITH BENDIS AND HICKMAN
[WWC] 'SECRET WARRIORS' Q&A WITH BENDIS AND HICKMAN
Brian Michael Bendis and Jonathan Hickman discuss the Nick Fury-centric series spinning right out of the mega event 'Secret Invasion'
By Kevin Mahadeo
Posted 6/29/2008
Brian Michael Bendis loves Secrets—from Wars to Invasions to, most recently, Warriors.
Sneaking its way out of Marvel's Secret Invasion Panel at Wizard World Chicago, the brand-new ongoing series Secret Warriors follows the exploits of Nick Fury and his team of commandos after the events of Secret Invasion. Bendis originally schemed up the idea with the intent of penning the title himself; however, with time constraints against him, he handpicked writer Jonathan Hickman to take on full writing duties.
Desperate to learn their secrets, we spoke with the mastermind behind the project, Bendis, and followed up with a chat with his partner in crime, Hickman.
WIZARD UNIVERSE: Secret Warriors. Ongoing series. Nick Fury's new team. Kick ass. What can you tell us?
BENDIS: Number one, it's nice to add toys to the toy box. These characters are being embraced very warmly in the pages of Mighty Avengers. We had our debut of them there, and we're going to get another spotlight issue on them in Mighty issue #18. Then, obviously, we're not done with them because they'll be in every single issue of Secret Invasion until the end. After that, Secret Warriors #1 will debut.
I'm a huge, gigantic Jonathan Hickman fan. I haven't shut up about him for about a year. I'm always hungry for someone who has something really unique and new to say in comics, and I thought Jonathan's work in Nightly News and Pax Romana is really fantastic. I really recommend buying his Image books. So, I've been throwing around his name at Marvel because it seemed to me that he'd be a shoe-in—he'd be a perfect fit. Much in the way Mark Millar and I were hired off of our indie books to come into the Ultimate Universe, I thought Jonathan easily deserves that chance if he wanted it. And I found out he really did want it, so that was great.
This was a book I was actually going to write myself, but I just couldn't do all of it. I realized that I wanted to read Jonathan's version of this book more than I wanted to read my own version. And I love me. I'm a huge fan of me. So, when Jonathan's name was thrown out there, everyone agreed this was right up his ally.
So this takes place after the events of Secret Invasion?
BENDIS: Yes. Those who survive, and not everyone survives.
Hopefully Nick Fury survives because that would be terrible if you brought him back then killed him.
BENDIS: [Laughs] Secret Warriors #1, "Oh! My heart gave out. I'm 110!"
Was this series always in the game plan for you?
BENDIS: Yeah. I was always going to do a Nick Fury series, and it's taken different forms. Originally, me and Howard [Chaykin] were going to do a series together, but continuity went the way it went. It would have been a different type of book than what we were originally discussing. This is what it turned into, and what I was happy about is that it's an original series—it's something new. We haven't seen Nick Fury do this before. We haven't seen this character before their appearance in Mighty. Here's something brand new with who I think is the most forward thinking writer in comics (Hickman).
With Jonathan involved, how exactly does the writing arrangement work?
BENDIS: When I've co-written in the past, I've physically typed and more times than not rolled over on the other guy and just typed over everything because I have issues. I'm not doing that here. Jonathan will be writing this book. I've had tons of ideas about the series and the characters and the voice of the characters. So, I'm there for the first arc or two in the same vein that Bill Jemas was there in Ultimate Spider-Man, not that [Jonathan] needs me there. It's his book, and I want to make that clear.
You mentioned that you're a big fan of his work, so what does Jonathan bring to this title?
BENDIS: If anyone's read his work, they'd know he's one of those guys bursting with ideas a la Matt Fraction. But he's also got a very angry, unique, seething, political paranoid, Manchurian candidate point of view of the world that I love. You read his stuff and you go, "This guy has a lot to say." He's not just writing to write some cool thing that he's thought of. I like that about him.
So, he has a Nick Fury mentality? He is Nick Fury? Is that where you're going here?
BENDIS: Having now spoken at great length with him—I don't want to ruin it for him—but he's not, but I actually thought he might be. But the fact that he's able to portray this in his writing is phenomenal. The same way in that if you talk to Ed Brubaker, the way he writes and the way he talks are completely different. I love that about him.
Before we touch upon some of the characters we'll be seeing, I have to ask: do you personally have a favorite Secret Warrior?
BENDIS: Personally? Yeah. I'm a big fan of Daisy Johnson: Quake. I'm a big fan of her. I just keep shoehorning her into every goddamn event that I write. I like where she came from. I like her powers. I just like her.
Okay. Obviously, you can't reveal the lineup. But what can you say about the team?
BENDIS: Well, Nick Fury will be in the book, obviously. It's most of them that you've met. Yo-Yo and Quake and Druid and Stonewall, they're all going to be in the book. Here's what the point of the book is: Nick Fury is now an agent of nothing. He's an agent to nobody. He's now a man who has decided on his own that he knows what's right and he's going to train these kids to do what he knows is right. He can't trust S.H.I.E.L.D. He can't trust HYDRA. He can't trust anybody. On one point of view, you'd say, "Wait. Is Nick Fury now a terrorist? Because that sounds like a terrorist." Or is he a vigilante and he's right and this is exactly what we need? It's a completely unique take on the character.
This is Nick Fury having learned all the lessons he could have learned from the different walks of life—sergeant in the war and Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. and agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. and father and lover and all these different things. And also you have all these different kids on the road of self-discovery about who they are and where they came from. These group-ups really need a unique point of view and they definitely have it.
Does Nick Fury still have that giant gun? Because he totally should.
BENDIS: Of course. And you know why. Little [penis]. There's your headline.
[Laughs] Oh jeez. Moving on, what can you say about the other characters? Like Daisy, for example.
BENDIS: She's like the second in command. She's the most completely with Nick. She completely buys into it. She's drinking the kool aid. She's very young, yet she doesn't act very young. You'll forget just how young she is until it's maybe too late.
Ominous. Speaking of young, what's up with Ares' son Phobos?
BENDIS: That's a big one. Wait till Ares finds out about this sh—. Any guy with a battle axe and a mohawk, you really don't want to upset.
What about Druid?
BENDIS: He's the one whose power needs the most controlling and may be the most danger to the team. He may not fit into that world. Nick's going to be a hard-ass about this. Not everyone is going to make it. Not everyone is going to show up to the meeting. You're in or you're out. If you screw up, you may show up to the meeting the next day and no one's there and you never hear from them again.
Well, that says a lot already. Anything else you want to say about the team? Any hints, teases?
BENDIS: Yo-Yo's my favorite character—other than the other three that I've said are my favorites. And Stonewall is the one whose father hasn't been revealed yet, and wait till you find out who it is. There's a surprise appearance or two in this. These are Nick Fury's personal files of people he's been keeping an eye on. And this is the reason. This has been seeded back all the way to Secret War.
WIZARD UNIVERSE: Brian mentioned how he threw your hat into the race for this book, but for you personally, what was this like coming about?
HICKMAN: Well, let's see. I think I've been pestering Brian for a couple months for us to do something together. Out of the blue he sent me an e-mail one day and told me to call him. I did, and he gave me this long pitch and asked me if I was interested and I think said something like, "Yeah. Sure." I was kind of blown away by the opportunity. Then he sent me the scripts to Mighty Avengers #12 and #13—the issues he did with [Alex] Maleev about Nick Fury. At that point I was like, "Oh god, yes. This is right up my ally. We could really do a fantastic job on this."
You said you were bugging him about working together. Any particular reason? You're a big fan of his?
HICKMAN: Oh yeah. Brian is one of the better writers in comics. I don't think that's a big reveal to anyone. But Brian early, early on was a big pusher of The Nightly News on his message boards and stuff like that. I was obviously very appreciative of that. We would just swap e-mails every now and then, and I'd ask if there was something that we could do together to help me get my foot in the door at Marvel.
After reading the scripts you thought that it was right up your ally. What about this idea immediately drew you in?
HICKMAN: I think Nick Fury is a character that hasn’t been mined properly over the years. I think there's a whole lot of stories that you can tell there. I can't really get into what happens at the end of Secret Invasion and all that kind of stuff, but the setup is absolutely perfect for this kind of book. I've really liked the ensemble of kids that he's put together. I think there's an opportunity to tell a story there that is a marriage of superhero stories and really dense, underground spy thriller. There really hasn't been a lot of examples of that. I think Brian and I are so simpatico with how that story is going to work and how the characters should act and just the overall tone of the book. I just think it's going to be a fantastic project. I'm pretty excited about it.
Brian mentioned the rebel-ish nature of the book, and anyone who's read the Nightly News can see the similarity there.
HICKMAN: Yeah. My big hope is that it doesn't turn into the wordiest superhero comic ever. That's my only real fear. But I do think it's going to be a pretty amazing book.
If you look at Nightly News and Pax Romana, there's a very interesting style to it—especially with the text, as you mentioned. How does that affect your writing style here?
HICKMAN: Well, if you look at the work I've done for Image, especially the books that I'm writing and drawing, there's a time component to doing books like that, where you have to compress your storytelling. The big plus, the thing I'm so looking forward to in working with this series, is the fact that it's an ongoing and that I'm going to be able to more than just densely plot, I'm going to get to do some character moods and tell some stories that are able to take a breathe of air every now and then as opposed to being a thousand gallons of water poured on you every issue. And obviously I'm not talking about a decompression in the sense of spreading everything out. That's not what I'm talking about at all because I expect there to be a lot of moods inside each issue. But there's just an opportunity to do it in a much more subtle and graceful way.
Are you a big Nick Fury fan?
HICKMAN: I don’t know anybody that isn't really a Nick Fury fan. I mean, he's obviously a ridiculously cool character. I've done all the research. I've read all the old Nick Fury series and all that kind of stuff, and I just think there's another level that character can be taken to, and that's what we're trying to do. He's just an unassailably cool character, and you've got to keep that in mind. But I think there's a complexity and depth there that people haven't really gotten into.
Any other character you can talk about? Daisy?
HICKMAN: Um... No, I don't really want to say anything about Daisy yet. I don't want to get into any other specifics beyond which character I think there's a lot of potential for. But there's a lot of cool stuff we're going to be doing outside of Nick Fury and his team. I mean, the book is Secret Warriors, and that may be the name of a particular group of individuals, but I think it's also indicative of everything involved in the book. It's not just Nick Fury and his team.
How's it been working with Brian? What's the relationship like?
HICKMAN: It's been good. Brian's been very patient. I have a lot of questions. I never miss an opportunity to pick somebody's brain who's got a lot more experience than I do, which is everyone. But Brian's been very cool about answering all my questions craft-wise and story-wise. All of his ideas are really solid. His mind is pretty well setup for plotting and character moves and all that. Just in talking to him for the little bit that we have so far, he's pretty impressive with how all that stuff comes together. He's definitely on top of his craft.
What do you look forward to most about working on this series?
HICKMAN: I'm excited about the fact that more people are going to get the chance to read my stuff. I'm excited about that. That's always nice. I've only done a little bit of stuff at Marvel before this, but I've really enjoyed the experience. It's good company and doing good work. The number one thing I'm excited about is just being able to do something that isn't a limited series. I'm ecstatic!
