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What I Wanted To Do Was Drown Something Enormous, Like A Star Trek Or Star Wars Kind Of Space Opera-type Thing, But Actually Make It About Someone Who Was Just Married To The Wrong Guy, And That Guy Just Happens To Be This Amazing Dictator, And She Has To Get Her Kids As Far Away As Possible From This Guy. So Something That Could Almost Be A Tv Movie, If You'd Ground It And Set It In Wisconsin Or Something Like That, But To Give It This Enormous Setting.

-Mark Millar

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What I Wanted To

Mark Millar

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What I Wanted To Do Was Drown Something Enormous, Like A Star Trek Or Star Wars Kind Of Space Opera-type Thing, But Actually Make It About Someone Who Was Just Married To The Wrong Guy, And That Guy Just Happens To Be This Amazing Dictator, And She Has To Get Her Kids As Far Away As Possible From This Guy. So Something That Could Almost Be A Tv Movie, If You'd Ground It And Set It In Wisconsin Or Something Like That, But To Give It This Enormous Setting.

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The Books Are All Very, Very Different So The Publishers Really Had To Be Different Too.

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The One Thing We Can All Relate To Is Family, And Family Has Its Traumas Sometimes. Sometimes Things Don't Go Well For People. Sometimes Things Are Tough. So Everybody Kind Of Knows Someone Who's Been In This Situation Before, And I Think That's What Makes It Work.

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Matthew Vaughn Phoned Me Up And He Said, "hey, Listen, The Movie Has Just Done Gangbusters. We've Got To Do The Second One." And I Was Like, "matthew, I Have No Second Book. Dave And I Haven't Done It," And He's Like, "you're Kidding!" He Said, "this Movie's Just Made $420 Million!" I Was Like, "...we've Got Nothing." So The Amazing Thing Was, Because We Own The Rights, We Still Get Paid And Everything, Which Is Fantastic.

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For Years I've Wanted To Work With This Guy, So To Actually Write At The Top Of My Scripts "empress, Script By Mark Millar, Art By Stuart Immonen" Is An Absolute Pleasure.

At The Moment, I Have It Planned As A Six Or Seven Year Experiment, But The Books Will Only Ever Appear In Bursts Like This Every Couple Of Years And Only With The Best Quality Artists.

If I'm Creating A New Superhero, It Shouldn't Be Any Different From Other Superheroes In Terms Of The Qualities. Obviously The Personality Can Be Different. I Think Traditionally In Comics Women Have Tended To Be A Girlfriend Or The Daughter Of Whoever, Whether It's Even Batgirl As Gordon's Daughter, Or Whatever. There Is That Relation Of The Hero, You Know, Like Superman's Cousin, Supergirl. And That's Great. It's Fantastic To Have A Link To These Amazing Characters, But I Kind Of Like The Idea Of Things Being Something In Their Own Right, Which Is Why I've Always Loved Wonder Woman.

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Their Argument, And I Think It's A Correct One, Is That They'll Make More Money From The Trades And The Hardcovers If Nobody Messes With The Creative Team.

I'm Very Lucky That I Have This Other Career That Runs Alongside My Comic Career, Which Is A Film Career, And I've Been Given This Really Lovely Setup Where They Seem To Make The Movies Very Quickly As Well.

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I Just Trust The People Involved. Marvel And Dc For The Last 16 Years - Is That 90 Percent Of The Time It's Incredible Top Talent. Like, This Is What Makes It Different From The Pre-2000 Superhero Movies. I Would Say, Except Tim Burton And Richard Donner, It Was Generally, Comic Book Movies Were Done By Guys Who Weren't That Into The Material And People Who Didn't Really Respect The Stuff. But As Everything, Whether It's Wolverine, X-men, Avengers, Batman, All These Things, It's Just Been Done By Top-tier People. I Have Total Confidence That They'll Continue That Tradition Of Being Great.

Ever Since 1980, Sci-fi Has Generally Been More Bladerunner Than Star Wars. People Talk About Star Wars Being The Most Influential Movie Of All Time And Creating The Blockbuster Along With Jaws And That Sort Of Thing, But Really There's Not Been A Space Opera That Anyone Can Go And See.

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I'm A Huge Fan Of The Rod Serling Sci-fi, Where They Could Take The Most Odd And Enormous Ideas But Ground Them In Something Very Human.

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Guess That's Thirty-one Pieces Of Silver You've Got Now, Huh? Sleep Well, Judas.

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The Breadth Of The Potential Readership Is Also A Factor.

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I Just Noticed I've Been Writing Lots Of Female-led Things. Two Of Them Haven't Been Announced Yet, But The Big Greg Capullo Book I'm Doing Is A Female-led Story, And I'm Doing Another Series With John Romita Which Is A Female-led Story As Well.

All My Kids Love Superheroes, But My Middle Daughter In Particular Is Obsessed With Wonder Woman And Batgirl.

The Lovely Thing Is, If Marvel Had A Spider-man Movie Over At Sony Or Something, They Own The Rights To The Character, And The Editors And Producers Make Suggestions And Get Notes And Things. But You're Talking About Matthew Vaughn And Jane Goldman. They're Two Of The Best People In The World. The Notes Are Just Things Like, "this Is Absolutely Brilliant."

I Don't See One As Bring Better Or More Literate Than The Other And There's A Real Buzz To Not Only Writing About A Character I Love Like Superman, But Also Writing Something That Kids Can Enjoy.

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