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I have no idea.
I never know how to answer questions like this -- I just don't make lists like that, whether they're about who's the most powerful or the most underused or the most whatever. I don't spend any time ranking characters on complexity. I just want them to be interesting, and if I'm writing them, my job is to make them interesting, regardless of whether they were interesting before.
For instance, take Songbird. As Screaming Mimi, she wasn't all that complex. But to make her interesting, I gave her a past and a messed-up family, as well as a psychological issue for her to overcome, and now she's a lot more complex now than she used to be. So I don't look at characters from the standpoint of "how complex are they," but "how interesting could they be? What's there room for?"
After all, none of them are steady-state -- they've probably been more complex under some creators, less under others. I think there's a lot of interesting complexity to Banshee (Irish laird, Interpol agent, costumed criminal, superhero, country-music fan, has leprechauns in the family castle), so there's a lot to work with there, given all the experiences her must have had, the things he could have seen, and how they shaped him. But we don't usually see that much when we see him; he's just Irish and he screams. I look more at what could be rather than what is, so the possibilities inherent in a character who's been part of all those tangled worlds stand out to me more than the relatively-little that's been done with him.
kdb
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There haven't been all that many black writers at Marvel and DC, and probably even fewer on the X-books.
That said, I really don't know who all the various black X-Men have been -- I haven't read the X-books regularly since the early 1980s, and while I've caught stretches of them here and there there's a ton of stuff I haven't seen. But then again, the number of X-characters who've caught on since, say, 1990 seems to be pretty low, whether they're white, black, or anything else. So it might have more to do with there being few black X-Men in their "formative years" than anything else.
But who knows -- if someone gives some of the black X-Men other than Storm and Bishop more spotlight time and makes them engaging, rather than letting them vanish into the mass of short-term X-characters as most post-1990 X-characters have, then something could happen.
kdb
Last edited by Kurt Busiek; 08-03-2020 at 01:37 PM.
Visit www.busiek.com—for all your Busiek needs!
“Strength is the lot of but a few privileged men; but austere perseverance, harsh and continuous, may be employed by the smallest of us and rarely fails of its purpose, for its silent power grows irresistibly greater with time.” Goethe
Mr. Busiek...
Banshee is a hot piano player, too,
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OMG! I just saw the announcement about the Namor mini-series you are doing!!!
https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/marvel...w-namor-series
Yes! YES!! YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!! !!!!!
As a Namor fan, I'm so very happy at this news! It sounds like everything I would want from a Namor book. I've long complained about the lack of world building for modern Namor stories and the disappearance of so much of the Atlantean cast. And I LOVE Lady Dorma. She's always been my favorite of Namor's ladies. I can't wait till December!
I loved Autumn Lands and I think Ben Dewey will be great on this mini-series. I'm not familiar with Jonas Scharf, however. Is he inking Dewey? Or is the mini-series going to have two artists?
Namor the Sub-Mariner, Marvel's oldest character, will have been published for 85 years in 2024. So where's my GOOD Namor anniversary ongoing, Marvel?
Hope you like it! It's a different kind of story, but it's got stuff I think Busiek fans (or Namor fans, or Marvel history fans, or heck, even Conan fans (though there's no Conan content here) will like.
Ben's drawing the main story, and Jonas is doing some modern-day framing sequences. It's all gorgeous.I loved Autumn Lands and I think Ben Dewey will be great on this mini-series. I'm not familiar with Jonas Scharf, however. Is he inking Dewey? Or is the mini-series going to have two artists?
kdb
Last edited by Kurt Busiek; 09-10-2020 at 09:51 PM.
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Ah, cool! If a series has to have two artists, that's a great way to do it. It worked out well for Zdarsky's recent Invaders. I'll go hunt down some of Jonas Scharf's work.
Your description of it being horror, epic fantasy and superhero adventure is something I've long thought would be perfect for a Namor book. Before Marvel got the Conan license back, I thought epic fantasy with eldritch horror was a niche that Marvel was missing nowadays, that a Namor book could easily fill and add to with the underwater and Atlantean setting. Roy Thomas dabbled a bit with it, when introduced the Serpent Crown in Subby's book. So, yes, I think I'll very much like it. Thank you so much for taking the project.
Namor the Sub-Mariner, Marvel's oldest character, will have been published for 85 years in 2024. So where's my GOOD Namor anniversary ongoing, Marvel?
So excited about you taking on this Namor mini series!! That it stars such legendary Atlanteans as the awesome Lady Dorma and Attuma is the icing in the cake! Any chance we get to see a younger Vashti?
Visit www.busiek.com—for all your Busiek needs!
Visit www.busiek.com—for all your Busiek needs!
Sorry if this was already asked, are there any chances of getting a Defenders ongoing again? They are my favorite non-functional team. It would certainly be interesting to see them together, especially considering how much different they are from back in the day.