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SHOW NOTES
Season one, episode two of the Genre-rama podcast is titled: How to Write Superheroes and features an interview with Kick-Ass and Jupiter’s Legacy Creator Mark Millar.
To access the free creative writing starter library mentioned in the show, click here.
The fake sponsor for this episode is a fictional dating website called DatetheCape.World. This is the perfect dating site for superheroes, and those who want to buy them a milkshake. Whether you’re a super-stunner or just want someone who’ll always be there to catch you when you fall in love, or off a skyscraper, Date the Cape will find the perfect match.
This is #NotARealProduct. Anyone who tries to sell you a subscrption is an agent of evil and thus not to be trusted.
CAST
Host: Helen Cox
Guest: Mark Millar
Mark Millar is the New York Times best-selling comic-book writer of Jupiter’s Legacy, Kick-Ass, Kingsman, The Magic Order, Wanted, Old Man Logan, Marvel Civil War and Superman: Red Son.
He is also President of Netflix’s Millarworld Division in Los Angeles since he and his wife sold their company to Netflix in 2017
Jingle Performance: The One Man Barbershop Quartertet
Date the Cape Voice Over Artist: Blarock
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
Helen: Hi, Mark, welcome to the show.
Mark: Thanks for having me. Great to see you.
Helen: We appreciate you coming on the show. We’re gonna be talking to you today about a very exciting topic, one that I’m definitely interested in learning more about how to write superheroes, one of the questions I really need the answer to is, if there’s a particular character trait or attribute that’s kind of common to all superheroes that when we’re writing that kind of story we should try and engage with or work with.
Mark: I think that’s a really interesting question, because I’ve never been asked that before. And I’ve been doing this since I was 19. But I think the first thing is what is a superhero? Because Superman is a superhero, Spiderman’s a superhero, Captain Kirk and James Bond, you know, they’re just heroes. So defining what a superhero is, I think, quite interesting. Is it just wearing a costume? Is it having a power? Batman doesn’t have any powers. But he’s a superhero, you know. So like, so it’s an interesting one. And we know immediately we know Flash Gordon isn’t a superhero. But Zorro kind of is, and the Lone Ranger kind of is. So whenever you write them, they all have different approaches, because they’re all such different types of characters, you know, so, for me, a superhero, super means more than. So I think a hero is, you know, Jack Bauer, or, you know, Jason Bourne, or any of these guys, but a superhero is something more than that. It’s something that is that takes your breath away. It’s not like something you would see in a typical movie or in a typical story.
Helen: Yeah. Because I just I think you’re right, sort of going beyond and I didn’t, I was also wondering whether or not the idea of being misunderstood or not being very understood was kind of at the core of quite a few characters in the genre, because they’re different in some way.
Mark: They are and what makes them different probably is superheroes will tend to do the right thing, in a way that regular heroes won’t. Indiana Jones is a hero. But you cannot absolutely rely on him to do the right thing and to tell the truth and to save you. Whereas superheroes will generally save you and, yeah, you know, you probably succeed. Like if you fall off a building, there’s an excellent chance Indiana Jones will fail he’ll miss you or something, and you’re gonna die. But with Superman or Spiderman, they’ll pretty much always find a way to catch you. And there’s something very hopeful about superheroes that they’re more like mythological characters, that these guys are more like Gods than they are like, the pulp heroes, for example.
Helen: Yeah, that’s so interesting, the idea of them being people who you can rely on to be saved by I suppose that leads quite nicely into my next question. Dare I ask this from the creator of Hit Girl? But how should we approach the issue of whether or not a superhero kills in our story? I mean, is it possible to write a truly noble superhero who will kill?
Mark: Again, it’s a brilliant question, because it’s the ultimate debate. And I think a superhero is somebody who doesn’t kill. And I think that’s why Kick Ass is a superhero. Hit Girl’s, an assassin who’s dressed like a superhero. A superhero, I think, values life, I mean, all of the origin stories tends to be about somebody dying, who they love, and they promise that’s never going to happen, if they can help it, to any one again. You know, so like, Superman loses his entire planet. He loses 8 billion Kryptonians. Everybody dies, it’s really sad. And then he’s found that old couple who are in the final 15 years, and like, and then they die.
So superheroes are littered with death in their origins. Batman, as a child, sees a bullet go through each of his parents, so he’ll make sure he never kills anyone, and nobody will ever be killed on his watch. Spiderman the same, his Uncle Ben. He should have stopped that man, you know, but he was too lazy and too selfish to stop him, who would burgle his uncle’s house and kill his uncle. You know? So I think superheroes their origins are really linked and with preserving life, I always think it’s really important.
Helen: I mean, I never really thought about it that way. But you’re absolutely right, that they sort of experienced death at a really young age. And because of that, you know, preserving life becomes a core of who they are. Yeah, and it’s really interesting you say about a different sort of difference between Kick Ass and Hit Girl. You’re so right, that one is sort of going for a more traditional model. And the other one is kind of, as you say, dressed up as a superhero, and exhibiting very different behaviour. But, you know, that’s part of why the dynamic is so sparky, which you’ve got to love that.
So, thinking about the various elements of any story that we might write. I’ve always wondered about setting when it comes to superheroes because often, they usually city set, well a lot of them are, I wondered if there were ways of sort of optimizing setting in a superhero story. So not necessarily going for the most cliche, is there anything that you would recommend when thinking about setting as a story element?
Mark: I’ve become really interested in the setting of superhero stories which are not in New York. Because everything’s either in New York or an approximation of New York. But I get why that happened as well, because there’s a cultural shorthand. And a global audience.
Like, if you set all of your stories in Glasgow, right, if all of them are set in Glasgow, then somebody reading that in South America, or Korea or somewhere is like: what’s Glasgow like? You know and even the most famous building in Glasgow, as a big set piece at the end of the story is going to kind of mean nothing.
But the beauty of Hollywood is that it sold America to every single part of the world. So, when I first went to New York, and the first time I walked around, I kind of knew where I was. I’d seen it in Friends, I’d seen it and everything, from sitcoms to movies. And you almost felt like Spiderman should be swinging past, because it was so integral to these characters.
And Marvel Comics was in New York. So they set all of the characters in New York. But it is quite interesting when you suddenly are away from Hell’s Kitchen, or the Rockefeller Center, or the Empire State Building, or one of the places you’ve seen a million times.
So to set a story in Detroit, for example, which I did with one of my things, was really interesting, because Detroit’s an amazing backdrop and the history of the place is really interesting. The thing I’m doing just now is set in South America, and I’ve never seen a big superhero thing set in South America before. And setting them in Europe is really fascinating. I did a thing. It was a comic called Super Crooks. About 10 years ago, which we’re doing right now as Japanese anime show at Netflix. And what we did was, we thought, well, why does the Joker and the Riddler always go for Gotham City, whenever Batman’s there? And you think, he’s just going to catch him., So my idea was that they go to Tenerife. Why not rob Tenerife where there’s no superheroes?
So Super Crooks, is a story set where there are no superheroes. And that gave us a totally different flavour. And it’s all late night bars and sunny weather and everything. And it doesn’t feel like any superhero backdrop I’ve ever seen.
So in the same way that nearly all superheroes my entire life have been about 29, been about 6 foot 2, always blue eyes and everything you know, and just a certain look. Usually college educated, you know, often scientists, they’re quite generic, and I love them. But I do think it’s quite interesting to play with it and maybe try something a little different. So when I did a revamp of Kick-Ass a couple of years back, I made it about an African American woman who was a mum. And I’d never seen a mum superhero before. And, you know, she’s got quite a lot at stake. And she’s got a couple of kids and everything, if things go wrong, if her secret identity gets exposed. Different settings, different kinds of characters can really make your stuff a lot more interesting. So I really recommend around age playing around with, you know, setting can be really cool.
Helen: That’s so interesting about the fact that you were talking about setting and it’s lapsed into essentially opportunities for creating greater diversity in these stories. Because, like you say, traditionally they can be quite generic. But that I suppose provides us with a lot of opportunity, not just with setting but with all the elements. And to think about how we might twist them. I think that is the great thing about genre, once it’s been established that’s great. And then you can actually twist it and reinvent it from there. So sort of thinking about that. When it comes to themes, you’ve already sort of mentioned, life and death. And I wonder if there’s any other themes that sort of offer really ripe potential in superhero narratives. Are there ones in particular that you think are quite compelling when you’re dealing with these kind of characters?
Mark: Yeah, I mean, they tend to be coming of age stories, and people pulling their socks up. I mean, that’s kind of what superhero stories tend to be. It’s like somebody who’s taken an odd path in life, getting it together, and actually making themselves live their fullest potential. And that’s a lot of my stuff. But I think that classic hero mythology, isn’t it? You know, so instead of being a farmboy in Tattooine, you’re going to learn the force and you become a Jedi, you know? And that’s the classic superhero journey, isn’t it? So, Kick-Ass is a kid who is bored and still daydreaming about superheroes and then thinks: you know what? Being a superhero is a lot more exciting than reading about it, you know, I could actually go and do this. And Eggsy in Kingman as well, you know, like, he’s a kid who has gone from smoking dope and watching James Bond and a bank holiday Monday to actually being in an elite spy agency dropped in foreign countries and, you know, killing people and all that.
So it’s like, I think superheroes tend to have that thing as well. You know, it tends to be somebody empowering themselves in some way. And by the end of the first story, they are the person that they set out to be. So Tony Stark’s a great example, it’s not that he’s a dweeb, or anything at the beginning of it, he’s an arms dealer, he’s like a quite a bad person, you know. He is a merchant of death and he makes money out of selling weapons around the world. But he learns to be a hero. And in the next movie, he’s making money in more ethical ways. So superhero stories are about self-improvement, I think that’s the underlying thing that’s in every single one of them. Superman’s an orphan who doesn’t have a penny, wrapped in a blanket and stuck in a rocket and fired off into space. And he makes himself the best person on the world that he goes to. He’s the ultimate immigrant success story. So superhero stories are all about self-improvement. Likewise, orphans is another big thing. Like Batman, parents murdered when he’s eight years old, but he turns himself into the coolest guy in Gotham City. So I kind of like that. I think it’s a good thing for kids today.
Helen: It sort of goes back to what you were saying about them being emblems of hope as well. And so much tied up there, thematically, in terms of destiny and identity. There are just countless stories you can tell on that theme, depending on which character you choose to follow. So yes, really, really interesting. And I wonder, thinking about the fact that there are these kind of expectations within the genres, as there are any genre that you might write in. Are there any plot lines that you feel have just been overdone now? And we sort of need to say, okay, they’ve been done, let’s avoid those and do something else? What steps should we take to avoid things that have perhaps been a bit overdone? And which things would you say those are?
Mark: I guess the classic structure of hero gets powers, villain gets power at the same time, they fight, the hero loses, they fight a second time in the hero ultimately triumphs. That was the first 10 years of superhero movies of this current era, you know, 2000 to 2010. But it was also necessary. It was getting a little boring and was eventually by numbers a little bit, especially as the decade was going on. But it was so essential. I mean, there had to be, and I know people, when they watch those movies, they complain that they’re a little bit formulaic, you know that the first step is getting the powers and testing the powers. But you’ll never understand that unless it’s laid out simply for you as well.
So, I do remember people thinking a superhero movie 20 years ago was a really risky proposition for Hollywood. And they were like, you know, nobody’s into this stuff. Nobody understands it. So, they had to go really simple, to make it really straightforward. So I think even the things that seem tired now, were absolutely essential back then. But what’s really cool is that now the audience is so literate in superhuman storylines, and the narrative structure of superhero stories, that they’re now sophisticated as the comic fans who’ve read this stuff all their life. So, something like Infinity War, or Avengers endgame, that would have been unthinkable even 10 years ago because it’s so complex. To tie together eight or nine movie franchises into one film, and cross reference, every single one of the movies that have been before. Then do a time-jump story that goes back and references scenes you may remember from 10 years ago. All of that is bread and butter in comics. But it was actually amazing to see on screen because it’s actually really bold to try something like that. But we would never have been able to do it if we hadn’t had all the tropes already laid out, all the groundwork. And what’s really cool is you have guys like James Gunn, and hopefully ourselves, coming in and subverting expectation because of that. So I do you think that creatives rise to the challenge. So, I think that nobody’s doing anything anymore, that does seem tired, everybody’s pushing in very different directions. So One Division, for example, is unlike anything. Jupiter’s Legacy is completely unlike anything, you know. Half of it is set in 1929, which is really weird, you know, for a superhero show for a big modern audience. I mean, this is going to be Netflix’s biggest show, you know, it a huge thing. And a superhero thing that’s in 1929 for 50% of it. And it’s all about the origin of the human species. And it goes 10 million years into the future at the end of it. You know, so we can do things that we could never have imagined when we first started hearing about Fantastic Four and Spiderman and everything 20 years back.
Helen: So it’s really about as writers accepting now that people understand superhero narratives, and in order to surprise or delight them, we need to think beyond just the traditional expectations. The same way that you did Tenerife. Just thinking about other elements that we can bring in that, that perhaps don’t fit the traditional mould.
Mark: I think that’s the same with all writing, you know that the trick in successful writing comes from giving people something they’ve never seen before. People think that formula works, but formula really doesn’t work. And people often say to me, what is it that makes all your stuff translate to Hollywood, you know, that everything I’ll do ends up as a Hollywood thing. And I always say to people, don’t try and do something that feels like a Hollywood thing. Because you’ll fail, what you have to do is do something that you really enjoy. And it’s funny to you. And it’s interesting.
And if you look at the independent comics, like my stuff that get translated into movies, or television shows, they’re very much their own beasts, like look at Hellboy, or Ghost World, or 300. Or any of these things, you know, like Sweet Tooth, which is Jeff Lemire’s book that’s coming out with Netflix, you know, that’s about a boy, that’s a half human fawn, you know, like a half human, half deer. And it’s like, that doesn’t seem to me like somebody who’s trying to get a Hollywood deal or anything. He’s just done a book that he finds interesting. And I think all success comes from not imitating Harry Potter, but to be as fresh as Harry Potter scenes whenever Jo Rowling sat down and wrote it.
Helen: So true. Yeah, imitation just doesn’t really cut it when it comes to making a striking impression on somebody who, if it’s a movie, if we’re talking about movie money, you know, it’s not, it’s not a small investment, they have to be wowed by how interesting and striking it is. And you sort of dropped a few hints to the interview, it’s just been really interesting to hear all your different perspectives on the different elements of storytelling. But to round off, you have to tell us what you’re working on right now, as much as you can, and what we can expect from you in the near future, because I’m sure it’s going to be really great models for us as writers
Mark: Well, my career’s been an odd one, you know, like, I worked at 2000 AD when I was a teenager. And then I went to DC Comics to do Superman and Batman and everything in my 20s, Marvel all through my 30s and had a lot of really big books at Marvel that then took me into Hollywood unexpectedly. I mean, I’m a guy who lives in Scotland. I never dreamed of working in Hollywood, it’s just, how do you do that? You know, what’s the step? But they were making a lot of my Marvel books into Hollywood movies, and then they asked me, have you got anything else? Your own stuff?
And Stan Lee gave me the advice personally, you know, he said, I think you’d be really good at creating your own stuff. He said you should do less Marvel, do more you’re own stuff. Because that’s what he did. And I will say this to everyone that there’s the fan part of you that just wants to write the stuff you grew up with. Who wants to write Superman or Spiderman, or whatever. And it’s really fun to do that. You do something you love. If feels like playing as a kid as you know, you’re getting to imagine what it’s like to be Batman. So that’s wonderful.
But Stan said that he never did that. He created the Marvel Universe. He didn’t do Superman or Tarzan and stuff. He would often create it. And it was the best advice I’ve ever gotten you know. So I went off and created Kick-Ass and Wanted and Kingsman and everything you know and I sold that company to Netflix, my wife and I about three and a half years ago and then we took on staff jobs as executives so you know. So kind of like Pixar, or Marvel at Disney, we have our own division with a Netflix and we have 20 franchises we’re working on in various stages of development you know. So some of them are movies. Some of them are big television shows, others are animated. And it’s just so fun. It’s awesome. You know, the very first thing that will be coming out is Jupiter’s Legacy obviously on May the 7th, which is like Game of Thrones, with superheroes you know. It’s a big grand, operatic super hero thing. It’s awesome. You know, I’ve done nothing but watch it since October for the final edits. And the thing is so great. And just making little tweaks every day. And the next one that we’re filming, actually, although we can see, the next one that’s coming out will be Super Crooks, which is an anime thing we’re doing with our Japanese division. We’re doing a thing in South America called American Jesus, a horror thing, which is kinda like The Omen for Jesus kind of thing. It’s about a little kid who finds out he’s the son of Jesus Christ. We’re doing a thing called The Magic Order in Los Angeles later this year, we’re doing a big spy project. And I think there’s a couple more there’s a new Kingsman film coming out and the end of this year, and I’m doing a thing called Starlight with Fox which is my tribute to Buck Rogers and all those Old Republic movie serials and everything. And hopefully get that filming quite soon as well, you know. So, it’s busy you know, I mean, the great thing
Helen: Sounds like enough to keep you out of mischief. Almost, but not quite.
Mark: Not quite, you know, I’ll always find room for mischief. That’s just this year, which is crazy. You know, I’m just so bored because we can’t go out, you know, we’re stuck in the house. So, I think I’m working about 30% more than I usually work so I’m getting through tons of stuff. I’m sure you’ll find that and everybody listening to this, there’s nothing else to do. You can only watch TV for so long. You have to go write something.
Helen: Absolutely. And we’ll make sure to link to those projects in the show notes so people can easily find them when they’re out. Thank you so much for all your wisdom, Mr. Millar.
Mark: I’m very I’m surprisingly wise. Surprising wise.
Helen: And we’ll leave it on that note.