Tuesday Q&A: Alex Ross

The acclaimed painter and storyteller reveals the trickier parts of time travel tales and announces some exciting new covers

Posted Oct 21, 2008 12:00 am

Updated Oct 24, 2008 10:33 am

By Kiel Phegley It's no surprise to any fan that Alex Ross loves the classics. Since his major debut in the 1990's with the acclaimed series MARVELS, Ross has made his bones by casting a new realistic light on some of the most legendary characters in comic book history. His newest venture, AVENGERS/INVADERS, continues this tradition but also infuses some of today's biggest names. While the series features the World War II versions of heroes like Captain America and Namor, it also makes great use of the modern interpretations of the Avengers in a way few of Ross' projects ever have. So, in advance of the approaching midway point for the series, we spoke with the painter/writer on his attraction to crossing over time periods, some of his favorite Marvel costume designs, the unpublished Human Torch series that impacted how his latest opus was created and more.

AVENGERS/
INVADERS #6
cover by
Alex Ross

Marvel.com: What do you find most interesting about a story like AVENGERS/INVADERS, where you take a group of characters from the past and thrust them into the future? Alex Ross: The best part for me is defining these characters with a grounded quality that hopefully makes it seem somewhat legitimate that these characters existed at all—that these Golden Age characters did what they did. And with the art styles in particular, that's always a thing I'm interested in seeing how it's communicated. Not just in the way that their language is setting them in a world that seems like they are legitimized but with the fact that with two members of the team, they're running around in underwear. Not long underwear—underwear. [Laughs] Trying to make that somehow legitimate—that with their powers and what they can do, all of this is viable. That the teen sidekicks seem real and could be taken realistically. Much thanks to series artists Steve Sadowski and Patrick Berkenkotter there. But for my own part, in getting to try and illustrate these characters in the modern day, I love to try and make them seem—as I have my whole career—as strong a visual as anything contemporary in comics. I guess I'm much more driven for the old stuff. And this is stuff I grew up with. It's not about something that was made 40 years before. It's about the fact that [when] they were first introduced to me, I fell in love with the fact that they were the first concepts in comic books. Marvel.com: I know that for some of your cover work on this series, you'd looked to pay homage to Golden Age artist Alex Schomburg's great covers featuring the Invaders characters at war. Did those big battle covers and the way that they got to the visceral feeling of war even with big crazy characters influence this book on the whole? Alex Ross: Yeah. I'm not sure how well I've been able to accomplish that, but all the covers I've done for this series this year as compared to other stuff have been the most ambitious in terms of the number of figures engaged in a cover and acknowledging that in any one issue it's not about one character or a couple of characters. With rare exception, [the story is] about three teams getting together in one series—two Avengers teams and the Invaders themselves. That's a lot to relate. In a way, there's not much left over for the real world as it is, even though I tried

AVENGERS/
INVADERS #7
cover by
Alex Ross

establishing that a couple of times. Like the most recent issue on the stands takes place in Washington, D.C., and you see the ground below them when they're on the Helicarrier and you've got all three teams engaged aboard. And in a weird, disconnected way, that's an homage to the very first cover of INVADERS by John Romita. It's not the same poses, but it's almost the same lighting and intentionally evocative. Marvel.com: You and Jim Krueger have gone about working the clash between characters who exist in both time periods like Cap, Namor and Bucky and how they confront 2008, but I also found it interesting how you've built up the original Human Torch's character as a fighter for android freedom, so to speak. Was that a storyline that evolved out of a "Well, what the heck are we going to do with Torch?" kind of conversation? Alex Ross: That was an absolutely natural instinct for us because we, 10 years ago, made a pitch for a long Human Torch original series that didn't take hold. That was one of the things we were already connected to because we'd spent a huge amount of time and thought to that one character and wanting to bring him back to today's modern Marvel. So his particular aspect was something Jim wanted to sink his teeth into, and I found it very interesting as he's built up that personal story to find the motivations of an artificial man in a world that still seems to be as inconsiderate of humanity or of humanoid people. There's a devaluing quality to the humanity of 70 years ago and the humanity of today where we take groups that are different and decide that they are less than human. Marvel.com: And was his leading the revolt of the S.H.I.E.L.D. LMDs always a part of the story? Alex Ross: It was some part of the original breakdown. It wasn't the first thought that was had, but if anything that was one of Jim's biggest contributions—that creative leg of the story that provides a chance for that key character to have a much more personal stake in the series at large.

AVENGERS/
INVADERS #8
cover by
Alex Ross

Marvel.com: In the opening issues, you've found ways to complicate matters for the time lost characters from the new Cap telling Bucky not to stop the missile at the end of World War II to Iron Man refusing to tell Captain America about the modern era. Is it tough to complicate the story enough to make it exciting but to not change so much that it doesn't make sense when the Invaders leave for their own time again? Alex Ross: Well, it's a tightrope I wanted to walk because I didn't want anything [to] have to be retconned into not having ever happened. This adventure is part of their past. They did come and do this. When they go through everything they're going to go through by the end of the series, this travel through time could be recalled by them. It doesn't change the universe as a whole and completely rewrite time and space, and there are good reasons why they won't remember these characters when they encounter them later in their lives. Like, in the example of Iron Man and Captain America. When he one day gets to know Tony Stark, who he's never seen in this story out of costume, he wouldn't recognize immediately that this armored figure is the person he met in his past because he meets one the earliest designs of that armor. That's what he'll see when he goes through time and lives his life. First there's the giant tin can armor, and it gets streamlined and more like the suit he actually met. Maybe that's something internally for the man that Steve Rogers is to reconcile. It's not exactly something that will change everything he did in years past. Marvel.com: Over the past year, you've done a few covers for Marvel not for the AVENGERS/INVADERS series. With things like UNCANNY X-MEN #500 and the recent Green Goblin cover for AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, you've done more classic versions of the characters aside from the modern versions in your series. How is that to shift back and forth between eras? Alex Ross: Well, the two Avengers books that we've got now are ones I've been a fan of, so getting to do the modern versions of Iron Man's armor or different Avengers' looks have not been so far removed from what I've always loved about

AMAZING
SPIDER-MAN #568
cover by
Alex Ross

these characters. But I do have a general taste and drive for doing the classics in whatever form I can because I think a lot of those classic costumes are the ones that everything eventually reverts to. And if you spend your entire time working on one version of a character, eventually, it might be 20 years later, the other version is going to come back, and then it will supplant all that you did in the time you worked on the character. So I want to take the time to do illustrations that are fool proof of the various changes to modify and redesign and redesign. It will always revert. Marvel.com: What is next for you in terms of Marvel work? Any more covers planned? Alex Ross: I've agreed upon doing a number of covers for various books that hit milestone status over the next year. I just completed one for INCREDIBLE HULK #600, and when they get that from me in the next month they'll be able to show that off. And I just did one for the new SPIDER-WOMAN series that's written by [Brian] Bendis. That's one of those things that feels classic because it brings back a character that I and many people enjoyed from about 1978 who has been largely unused for 25 years. Now thanks to Frank Cho and Brian Bendis and so many others who have dedicated themselves to resuscitate her fully, it's been thrilling and awesome to have her back. Marvel.com: That's another that has that classic design sense that can't be replaced. Alex Ross: Well, that's what's so nice about [Marvel] resuscitating Ms. Marvel and Spider-Woman and a few of these others in that position. Marvel was deficient in great female lead characters for a very long time, and even though many have tried over the years, none became the standard bearer for the universe. Back in [1978], they made the strong conscious decision that that's what Spider-Woman was, and she was put into all their advertising and closing of the decade representation of what was Marvel. For those of us who grew up back then, you wouldn't forget that impression they tried to make. They tried very hard. So the fact that she's now back in the mix along with some of the better designs of that era—they've kept She-Hulk alive all this time—there's a good assembly of female characters that Marvel can do something with. Great designs like Tigra and Ms. Marvel, especially with the Dave Cockrum redesign. There are so many cool things that are being more fully exploited. It's a great era for Marvel Comics in terms of the quality of the great designs that they've reignited interest in and allowed the talent to embrace. For more Alex Ross, visit Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited! Check out the official Marvel Shop for your favorite Marvel Heroes!