[UNIVERSO MARVEL US] - ENCERRADO

Marvel cancela Powers e United States of Murder Inc.

Ambas as séries eram criações de Brian Michael Bendis

Após a saída de Brian Michael Bendis para a DC Comics, a Marvel confirmou o cancelamento de Powers e United States of Murder Inc. – ambas obras criadas pelo roteirista ao lado de Michael Avon Oeming.

Ao longo de 18 anos na Marvel, Bendis criou Jessica Jones; o Homem-Aranha de Miles Morales; Maria Hill, da SHIELD; Daisy Johnson, também conhecida como Tremor; e Riri Williams, que assumiu o lugar de Tony Stark e tornou-se a Ironheart.

INTERVIEW: Inhumans: Judgment Day Marks the End of a Marvel Era.

The cosmic landscape of the Marvel Universe is home to a number of familiar alien empires and cosmic beings, but there are still entities and races lurking on its outer edges, waiting to be discovered. In the current “Fire From Heaven” arc of Marvel’s Royals series, writer Al Ewing and artist Javier Rodriguez are chronicling an encounter between the former Inhuman Royal family and just such a previously undiscovered race. These beings could hold the cure to the mysterious disease that is killing the Inhumans’ former Queen, Medusa, and provide an alternative to the Inhuman’s transformative Terrigen, which was destroyed in 2016’s Inhumans vs. X-Men miniseries. Unfortunately, the beings the Royals discovered are the Progenitors, a mysterious and powerful race that helped create Inhumanity — and stealing from them will lead to dire consequences.

“Fire From Heaven” comes to a close in Royals #12, the final issue of the series, and by the time it wraps the titular characters will be back on Earth and one of their number will be dead. Their nightmare continues though in the January one-shot Inhumans: Judgment Day, by Ewing and artist Mike del Mundo, where Earth’s Inhumans must protect their planet from the wrath of the Progenitors.

Ewing spoke to CBR about the Progenitors, the romantic relationship that’s blossomed between his cast members Medusa and Gorgon and bringing his cosmic Inhuman saga to an epic close with Judgment Day.

CBR: Al, we’ve now met the Progenitors and seen them in action, and they’re a very mysterious race. What inspired their creation and their computer-like way of thinking and viewing the world?

Al Ewing: I wanted to introduce a new alien species into the Marvel Universe, and I wanted them to be physically imposing, and I wanted them to be unknowable. There have been some comparisons made by fans to the Celestials — those aren’t without merit, considering there’s a touch of the Von Daniken about the Progenitors — but the Celestials are, now, fairly knowable and fairly known. So I wanted to create something new, something that was more a kind of mid-point between the Celestials and, say, the Kree, a species that was a Type Three, Type Four civilization, but not so advanced as to be hanging out in the cosmic realms. And something that could go anywhere if other writers wanted to use them. And when Javier Rodriguez came back with his designs, that inspired a lot of where they ended up going — those designs were so good, so perfect, that they shaped a lot of my thinking about what these creatures were.

They’re a system. Each different “class” of Progenitor has a different function inside the system, and it’s all overseen by the “Overlord-class,” the highest point in the system. So when we see them “speak,” it’s in a very computer-like way. But I also chose that way of speaking because I didn’t want them to be familiar. I didn’t want them to talk like people talk. The “essentially speaking English” thing works for most of the alien races, because they all serve, in one way or another, as metaphors for what we know. The Progenitors are metaphors for what we don’t or can’t know.

(Fun fact — they were originally going to talk entirely in alchemical symbols. That idea proved unworkable very fast, though I’m sure Clayton Cowles, our letterer, would have been over the moon with me about it.)

[Laughs] Some interesting relationships developed during your cast’s journey to the Progenitor’s homeworld; the biggest one being the romantic one between Medusa and Gorgon. Gorgon clearly has feelings for Medusa and it’s clear she cares about him. But is Medusa thinking long term here? Does she believe she might survive this trip? Has she thought about what might happen between her and Gorgon if she does survive?

Well… what if this isn’t a mistake Medusa’s making? What if it’s fine? If Medusa does survive, I’d imagine what would happen between her and Gorgon is… more of what’s been happening. And at some point it might lead to an awkward conversation, or some hurt feelings. Welcome to the world. Welcome to humanity. I mean, two old friends got together, entirely consensually, and they’ve started something, and a lot of their mutual friends are taken aback because there’s a weird class situation involved, and some don’t fully approve, and everyone’s just going to have to navigate the situation as it continues — how is this not just life? Sometimes life doesn’t have long term strategies. Sometimes two people just fall together, and nobody was planning on that outcome, but it’s here now and it feels right and let’s just see. Why is that so unthinkable?

If the question you’re asking is, “is Medusa going to suddenly walk it all back and return us all to a simpler time,” then no, that’s not going to happen. What is going to happen is that Medusa and Black Bolt are eventually going to have to talk. I’ve actually written that conversation — I made sure to run it past Saladin Ahmed too, because as far as I’m concerned he’s the final authority on Black Bolt, and Black Bolt is one of the best titles out right now. That happens in Judgment Day, coming this January.

Which isn’t to say Medusa doesn’t die, of course. Ouija boards exist.

You bring Royals to a close in December with issue #12, the final part of the current “Fire From Heaven” arc. What sort of hints and teases can you offer up about these final two issues? Will we know the identity of the cast member who does not return to Earth before issue #12 is up?

By the end of #11, you’ll know who doesn’t make it back. Issue #12 deals with the fallout from that, and also finishes up the “5000 years in the future” plot line. For those just joining us now — every issue of Royals starts with a flash-forward 5000 years in the future, where we follow the Last Inhuman on a quest across the remains of Earth — we’re starting to see now how that future storyline is informed by the events of the present, and how events in the present, like what’s been happening to Flint, are hinted at by events in the future. And then in #12, we flip things around — we start in the present, and that’s a framing story before we go into the future. And that’s kind of the end of the arc — we now have everything, what the Royals have done, and where their quest ultimately leads them. And then, in Judgment Day, we see what happens next.

I’ve loved what Javier Rodriguez’s design skills and layouts have added to both the present and far future stories you’ve been telling in Royals. What’s it like wrapping this story with him?

Javier Rodríguez and Álvaro López make an unstoppable team — Javier’s page layouts are exactly what we needed, at this point, to really get across the alien-ness and strangeness of the Progenitor World Farm, and to get us into that mindset where we’ve gone outside the Marvel Universe as we knew it and into a place where everything has this strange, sci-fi/mythic resonance to it, where every action is charged with this magical significance. It’s like, I don’t have to lean so hard on the “Inhumans confronting their deities on Mount Olympus” angle, because it’s all kind of inchoate in the art. And then you’ve got Jordie Bellaire, adding color, and bringing it all back together — the black and white art is one magical thing, but adding those colors just multiplies it all, takes it all up to a whole other level. It’s perfect stuff.

And coming back to help play us out is Kevin Libranda and José Villarrubia, who’ve been backbones for this book in a lot of ways. Kevin designed the Last Inhuman, and he’s designed a new Progenitor as well that’s impressively creepy, so it’s good to have him and José return to show us the end of everything.

In January you bring your larger Inhuman epic to a close with the Judgment Day one-shot. As you mentioned, this brings Black Bolt back into your cast. What’s it like writing the Midnight King in light of some of the things that’s happened to him in his ongoing? What’s it like bouncing him of the surviving cast of Royals?

Well, as I said before, I’m taking my cue very much from Saladin Ahmed here, and also from Christian Ward. So I’m plugging Black Bolt into the situation I’ve created, but it’s the Black Bolt from that book, Saladin and Christian’s Black Bolt. If you’re caught up to the latest issue, you’ll know he’s been through a number of changes — subtle changes, but changes nonetheless. He’s been forced to re-evaluate his perspective on himself and the world. He’s not the same man we saw in the opening pages of Inhumans Prime, which was the last time I had my hands on him. Which is fine, because Medusa isn’t the same either. So we’re going to see what happens when these two people, who’ve been through different things, and similar things, and come out the other side changed in subtle ways, who are both quite raw and open at the moment they meet — we’re going to see what they talk about, and how they deal with a problem. And I think if readers come with us, they’ll enjoy seeing that.

RELATED: Inhumans: History of Marvel’s Royal Family

How big of a cast are you dealing with in Judgment Day? Will we see other Earth based Inhumans like the Secret Warriors? Will other Marvel heroes like the Avengers play a part?

We’re going to see some fan-favorite Earth-based Inhumans. These are people I got to write in Prime, briefly, and now I’m heading back to work on them again. One is a character I’d enjoy having a real, long-term crack at, maybe even in a solo book, if the original creator gave their blessing. One of the things I dearly love about the Inhumans is that their powers are more poetry than science fiction — and in Judgment Day, I get the chance to explore one of these highly poetic power sets; think about it sideways and find a way to do something perfect with it that’s also reminiscent of some of the minor themes I’ve been playing with in Royals. So that’s a lot of fun. You’ll see what I’m talking about when the book drops.

What can you tell us about the action, scope, scale, and tone of Judgment Day?

There’s action — walls are pulled down, statues get smashed, hair grows. Everything a Marvelite could want. But I want to focus a bit more on the tone of it — we’ve been working out how to play it so it functions as something grand and apocalyptic and also works in the context of Black Bolt and the other books, and what we ended up with was a kind of mixture of something that’s both epic and intimate — so it features this huge life and death struggle against these vast alien creatures who want to effectively destroy humanity, Inhumanity, the Earth and whatever else is in their way, but it’s also about two people, journeying together through hell, in order to save everyone. To save their people. So it’s kind of a strange, unique tone and scale, the macro and the micro. Fairly unique, which is kind of what an Inhumans book should be.

You’re collaborating with artist Mike del Mundo on Judgment Day whose recent Marvel work includes both Avengers and Mighty Thor. I really enjoy the way he brings to life strange phenomenon and settings.

There’s something about his work that’s just perfect for this project. You’ll see in the finished thing how we end up using him, but he’s got this style that’s like… it’s like everything’s made of light and jewels. These perfect figures made of light. And I’ve got him working on a couple of spreads that are coming out just beautifully, like the most sublime movie posters, and I’ve given him some landscapes and vistas to work with that I’m pretty sure are going to end up gorgeous just because he’s doing them, and he gets some Progenitor moments and some action beats that should be fun. And also he gets the most important emotional beat in my entire run, maybe. The most important or the second most important. But it’s up there. And I can’t wait to see what Mike does with it.

Finally, it feels like Judgment Day isn’t just the wrap of your current run on Inhumans, but sort of the finale for the past several years worth of Inhumans tales. Is that a fair description? Is this the end of what’s come before and the beginning of what’s next for the Inhumans?

To an extent. Black Bolt will still be going when Judgment Day hits the shelves, and readers will see how the two tie together as Black Bolt continues. But we leave the Royals in an interesting place, with everything to play for, and I think from here, the Inhumans really can go anywhere and do anything. I want to leave the next writer, or writers, with a nice setup with limitless potential to move forward into whatever future they want to build, and I think I’ve just about managed that. We’ll see.

I’d like to end by saying thank you to all those who’ve given good word of mouth to Royals and to the other Inhumans books — it’s been great seeing people connect with the work and enjoy it. It’s all very much appreciated.

Royals #12 is scheduled for release on Dec. 13. Inhumans: Judgment Day one-shot is scheduled for release on Jan. 24.

Homem de Ferro | Edição 600 será o último trabalho de Brian Michael Bendis na Marvel