Marvel: Universe of Superheroes is a can’t-miss experience for Marvel fans of all kinds, whether you’re a die-hard comic book fan, or devoted to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Now open at The Museum of Pop Culture in Seattle, the exhibit takes you through 80 years of Marvel history, as well as its impact on issues of race and gender. Former Marvel comic writer and editor Ann Nocenti is the EP of the exhibit, and she talked with us about her time at Marvel, the impact of female characters, and what fans can expect from the exhibit.
PopWrapped: There has definitely been a lot of discussion around what makes a strong or well-rounded female character. As someone who has created characters for Marvel, what was he character creation process like and was it different for female characters?
Ann Nocenti: When I’m creating a character, I don’t think about gender or race…you’re writing a human being, and while race, age, and gender definitely comes into it, at the end of the day, you’re always writing human beings. I think it’s always weird when someone asks me about the creation process, because you can’t really separate it from the artists or the editors. Most of the editors, at least back then, wrote or drew comics themselves, so they knew what they were doing. I tend to find one conflict for a character. Like there’s a character I’m working on, and she is germophobic, and as she changes throughout the story, she just starts not giving a shit about being germophobic. Every character has a little topline…and you keep notes for who each character is, which is in a lot of ways more important that what age or gender the character is.
PW: How did you come to work at Marvel and what advice do you have for women—or anyone really—looking to get into the comics industry?
AN: Comics in the 80s—there wasn’t the big movie thing yet, so they weren’t as cool or that hip, so it was easier back then. Dennis O’Neil put social justice issues into comics, and he was a big inspiration to me. He gave me my very first story. And then each editor I worked with—back then, they had a huge influence on writers.
For advice for girls, I would say read anything! Read Sana Amanat, who created Ms. Marvel, and also Kelly Sue DeConnick and Gail Simone. And not just their work, but read their interviews, because those are women at the forefront of making a safe space by talking confidently about issues for female-centric comics.
PW: With the movies becoming such a success and a potential draw to the source material for new fans, what do you think are some challenges new fans face and what comics should new female fans check out first?
AN: I think that it’s difficult to find a comic that you relate to. For me, I go into a comic shop, and there is so much stuff. I’ve been in the industry for 30 years, and I still don’t know what to buy. Certainly, checking out Ms. Marvel, anything Kelly Sue DeConnick does, or anything Gail Simone does. I would say fans can also go back in time. Read Love and Rockets by the Hernandez brothers, that was the comic I read and thought “oh wow, someone is writing for females, and it’s two guys!” I also think Chris Claremont’s X-Men, which Louise Simonson and I were the editors for—he has really strong female characters. He was a natural with writing not just females, but diverse female characters. So read Love and Rockets, read X-Men, and read what women are doing today is what I would say.
PW: As EP of the Marvel Universe of Super Heroes exhibit, how did you select which characters to feature and what was that process like?
AN: We had a first meeting four years ago, and back then we decided that we were going to have themed rooms. Like, here’s the cosmic character room, here is the Avengers room, and here is the street hero hallway with Jessica Jones and Luke Cage…we knew there were certain iconic characters, but we were also very aware that people entering the museum from the movies, they have holy grails. Like the mixtape from Guardians of the Galaxy, we have the mixtape. Because the Black Panther movie was so fabulous, we got the costume. So, there were certain things we thought about four years ago, and then certain things that changed when we really started working on the show a year ago.
And then Bejamin Saunders, the curator, he had a really strong vision that we’ve got to start with Kirby. We’ve got to go all the way back and show drawing tables and originals. We’ve got to show that there was this insane cauldron of creativity. It all happened really fast, and also Jack Kirby was an immigrant living on the lower east side, and that was really important. There are things in the show that are reflective of our times. I think seeing pen and pencils on paper, it’s amazing for people to see. It really is a holy grail. If you’re a Panther fan, you’re going to see kick-ass costumes. If you’re an original art fan, you’re going to see the very first page where Spider-Man puts on the costume and tries his web shooters.
PW: It was recently announced that there are plans for Ms. Marvel to join the MCU sometime in the future—are there any characters you’d like to see make the jump from page to screen?
AN: I’m a big Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur fan. She’s a little African American girl, she’s brilliant, and she has a dinosaur. That would be a good start, because there’s not enough comics for young boys and girls. When I have friends come over with their kids and I open my closet full of comics, and I think “oh, I can’t show them that, I can’t show them that, oh that’s kind of violent…” so I would love to see characters like Moon Girl, and more characters like Ms. Marvel. [The Ms. Marvel comics are] a tender, loving portrait of a Muslim family, and that is really important for young people to read that kind of content in the times that we live in.
PW: Shifting gears a bit, everyone loves a good supervillain, sometimes even more than the heroes. What do you think makes a truly unforgettable supervillain?
AN: I think the interesting thing about villainy is that villains usually think they’re heroes. You can even look to people in our modern society, our world leaders, they think they’re heroes, they think they’re saving the world. The old villains, that kind of cackle and crave world domination, it’s super fun, I love the operative quality that came from Jack Kirby and you see it in the work of Jim Starlin…you see this operatic mythology of heroes and villains, but I think the modern villain doesn’t know it’s a villain.
PW: Finally, and we touched on this a bit earlier, but what comics are you reading now and what do you think our readers should check out?
AN: Recently, someone came to me and said “why don’t you try Tom King’s Vision?” and I thought that was extraordinary. I think that one of the things that this currently comic climate is really open to is the idea of not getting so upset if someone takes a character and it’s a little off-cannon. So, you can say, hey, Spider-Man, he has all these problems and he’s a nerd, what if he were an African American? What dimension would that add? And people go for it, and it’s wonderful. The god of thunder, what if it was a goddess? I love that people are more open to that experimentation. The nice thing about that Vision story was…what if the Vision tribe lived the normal nuclear family life, with an android wife and android children. It’s a beautiful portrait of suburbia and consciousness, and I thought that was a really well written comic.
Interested in learning more about the Marvel: Universe of Superheroes exhibit? Click here to find out more.
