Broken Frontier

Comics have long been at the forefront of epic storytelling in modern culture. By their very nature, comics reflect the epic storytelling of the past, and bring forth a modern-day mythology. Broken Frontier sat down with writer Greg Pak (World War Hulk, Incredible Hercules, Fall of Hulks) for a frank discussion about the modern mythology that is comics, as well as insights into the mind of a creator who makes this mythology real to his readers each month.

BROKEN FRONTIER: A lot of your comics have a mythological angle, like Incredible Hercules and Planet Hulk. Do you think comic books function as a kind of modern mythology?

GREG PAK: I think that there are some very interesting parallels between these ancient myths and comics. One of the biggest things is that they're both concerned with the education and development of heroes, and with individuals coming to terms with tremendous power. You know, what are the responsibilities of those who have tremendous power? There are lots of stuff in myths that are really applicable to writing comics. Also, if you look at the Greek tragedies for example, a huge part of that is that the gods do what the gods do and humans suffer. There's an interesting parallel with the whole notion in comics of super-powered people, people who have powers that rival those of the gods from ancient times. That creates opportunities for stories that deal with those kind of themes, like: what are the limits of powers that an individual person should have? How much power is too much? And what are the consequences of claiming and wielding this kind of tremendous power?

BF: So when you are writing a story that mirrors an ancient myth, like in the Incredible Hercules, how much research do you do on each myth?

GP: Fred (Van Lente) and I, each have our own mini library of Greek and Roman myths as well as mythologies from many different cultures too. So we're constantly referring to different books. The interesting thing about mythology is that there are different tellings of all these different myths, so there are conflicts and contradictions within. This presents another really interesting parallel to comics, there are different tellings of all the different stories in comics, all the different origin stories and everything else. It's a fun thing dealing with both of those at the same time. We try to do a lot of research, we find the stories that are the most compelling to us, and that have the most resonance with the current story we're telling in the book.

BF: The character of Amadeus Cho appears quite consistently in your work. You can tell that you're really endeared to him. Does he act as a sort of viewpoint character for you?

GP: I wouldn't really put it that way. I think Amadeus is a lot more willfully irresponsible that I have let myself be over the years. He's a fun character because he says things that other characters won't, but that's not necessarily what I would say in a given situation. I think there's something really fun about Amadeus, one of the things I wanted to do when I was thinking about this character and making this character up, was I wanted to write a character who was at that crazy point in time, as a young person where you think you know everything. And Amadeus might be smart enough that he does know everything on some levels, but he certainly has a huge amount to learn. There's something very appealing and fun about a character who has that much confidence, partially because you know they're headed to a fall and it's gonna be a lot of fun when things go wrong, and also because characters like Amadeus and Hercules are like bulls in a china shop - they make bad decisions all the time and that's very entertaining.

BF: You tend to make a lot of technology references in your comics, and this paints a contrasting picture to the mythological aspects you also use. How do you approach such a study in opposites?

GP: It's always fun to work with contrasts. One of the things that Mark Millar did during Civil War, when he was giving Hercules his new secret identity his name was Victor Tegler, and he was an IT consultant. We definitely ran with that. There was a point when I first started writing Hercules in the pages of the Incredible Hulk where he's chiding Angel on not knowing how to use keystrokes commands when he's working with a computer, so Hercules himself is a little more tech-savvy than you might expect. The point of that is that it's just fun to have contrasts, It's been a fun way to play with the characters.

BF: You wrote World War Hulk which was a big major event, what's the difference in writing a major event like that compared to a smaller book like Incredible Hercules?

GP: On the one hand it's the same thing: you're just trying to tell the best story you can and get to the heart of what makes these characters tick. But with WWH I had a huge amount of fun because I got to play with everything in the sandbox. On the other hand that meant I had to play well with others, which is a good thing to be able to do. That was a story that had to be coordinated with every other office in the Marvel Universe, with dozens of characters. There's a lot of behind the scenes work that is critical in order for a giant story like that to come off.

So that's a huge challenge, but it was also a lot of fun because I got to work with a bunch of different writers, and that's very exciting when you get to have the chance for that kind of interaction. Hercules has been a book that hasn't required as much coordination. Every once in awhile we'll have guest stars that have to be coordinated, but its also a book that if Fred and I have a crazy idea and we can sell it to our editor, it happens. Sometimes on a smaller book you can take crazy risks and do crazy things.

BF: You collaborate with Fred Van Lente but also write some projects solo. What does the process of writing look like for you? Do you sit down at your computer in the morning and say “I'm gonna write 1000 words today” or something similar?

GP: There's not quite any average day, because on any given day I'm working on different stages of any number of different books. Some days, maybe I'm just meeting with Fred and we'll go over stuff and talk through the next storyline. On another day we're actually pounding out the outline, or sending outlines back and forth. Writing the script is a whole other process, at a certain point we're doing dialogue tweaks based on the finished art. There are summits that happen where a whole bunch of people get together and we're all hatching out stories. There's a lot of different stages in the writing process.

That's another one of the things that makes working in comics so exciting, you're never bored because there are many different stages in the process. There's a lot of brainstorming going on between a lot of different people, and that's a really fun way to work if you can wrap your head around it. You were asking if I set a goal to write 1000 words. No, I set a goal to make my deadlines. It's a business where you gotta make those deadlines, every week there's a bunch of deadlines. It's not just about getting a script in, sometimes it's about getting an outline in or getting in notes and feedback on a script in.

Whatever it is there is always something that has to be done today. Before I started writing for comics I was largely working on my own schedule, so I had a long time to work through stuff. Comics has been a great training ground to force me to make it happen, to sit down and hammer it out and solve the problems within the time frame that's available. It can be very stressful, but at the same time it's hugely gratifying, I've had a lot of fun.

The next installment in Pak and Van Lente's chronicles of Hercules in the Marvel Universe is Heroic Age: Prince of Power #3, available July 14 priced $3.99. Greg Pak is also regular writer on Marvel's Incredible Hulk.