If you were tasked with assembling your ideal superhero team, who would be on it and does it have to include Wolverine? Would you mix members of the Avengers and X-Men or maybe even throw in an Inhuman or two? As comic fans, it’s something we daydream and debate about all the time, but I was wondering how does it really work when you launch a new team title at a Big 2 company with an expansive universe of superheroes.
Luckily, writer David Pepose was able to shed some light on how he assembled his team with his first Marvel book, the upcoming relaunch of Savage Avengers. The book, out May 18, reunites Conan, the Barbarian with a couple of team members from Gerry Duggan’s Vol.1 run including Elektra and Black Knight, alongside newcomers Weapon H, Anti-Venom, and Cloak & Dagger. According to solicits, Conan enlists the help of the brutal heroes as he tries to outrun “the cybernetic soldier of the future known as Deathlok.”
The creator of Spencer & Locke also spoke about how he made the jump from journalism to writing comic book scripts, what we can expect from the new lineup and how the series draws from some top-shelf influences, including Al Ewing’s Mighty Avengers, Rick Remender’s Uncanny X-Force and Grant Morrison’s seminal JLA.
“Even dating back to the Avengers’ first appearance, this is a franchise that’s been about bringing together disparate heroes from various corners of the Marvel Universe and uniting them against a common threat. Savage Avengers is no different — this is a group of loners that have each struggled with their dark side, and they’re going to need to tap into this if they want to survive Deathlok’s rampage,” Pepose told ComicsXF in an interview last month.
ComicsXF: I’m curious on how you landed on each of the new team and what kind of process was required to clear your picks. Were there any characters you wanted but weren’t able to secure?
Pepose: I’d been dream-casting super hero teams for years, so when Tom Breevort first approached me about Savage Avengers, one of the first things I pitched was instituting a permanent roster for our series, to give readers ample opportunities to emotionally connect and invest in the book. For me, I approached this with a couple of angles I wanted to hit — the first being, which heroes fit into what I’d call that “savage” mandate, in terms of characters who have struggled with their inner darkness and/or violent tendencies? And springing from that, I wanted to include some characters that spoke to Gerry Duggan’s original Savage Avengers lineup, as well as to introduce an extra sword-and-sorcery component to compliment Conan. And lastly, just figuring out which roles and visual elements does each character fill, so I don’t double up too much.
With that in mind, characters like Daredevil, Anti-Venom, and Weapon H felt like organic echoes to Gerry’s inclusion of Elektra, Venom, and Wolverine in his first Savage Avengers arc, while Black Knight, Cloak, and Dagger all looked like they fit into that world of medieval mysticism that I wanted to play up in this series. But like I said, each character also fit into a particular role I wanted to fill — for example, Elektra being the battlefield tactician, while Weapon H is the team bruiser, while Black Knight is the builder who understands tech. Every character has their own personality, their own history, and their own roles to play in this particular squad, and you’re just trying to make sure there isn’t too much overlap.
Because I was sorting my draft picks in terms of either their squad role or which Marvel “family” they hailed from, I actually approached the process with lots of backup choices — but thankfully, I was very happy to find out that almost every top-pick cast member was available, and the one backup option I went for actually wound up being a much better fit for the team composition. I do remember it being agonizing to cut Moon Knight from the draft, though — with eight full-time characters in the roster, I didn’t think I could shoehorn in another character and do them justice, and Marc had enough overlap with Elektra, Flash, and Dane that he was the best choice to cut.
ComicsXF: Can you talk a little bit about working with Carlos Magno on this book?
Pepose: Carlos Magno is an absolute superstar in the making. I think his work is this wonderful stylistic overlap between Phil Jimenez and Bryan Hitch — just absolutely widescreen cinematic and muscular, but there’s this lovely expressiveness to his characters and his detail that speaks to that George Perez school of art.
It helps that Carlos is a die-hard Conan super-fan, and so you can see every time our barbarian is on the page, you can see Carlos just light up. But he also isn’t cutting any corners for the rest of the cast, either — in particular Carlos’ take on Anti-Venom is monstrously cool, and I honestly think his larger-than-life take on Cloak might be the best Ty has ever looked.
But also, you know how people say you have to choose two of three qualities: being talented, being fast, or being nice. With Carlos, I’ve been lucky enough to not have to choose — the man is brilliant, he draws pages like a machine, and he couldn’t be more gracious and friendly to work with. I’m honestly just grateful I get to ride Carlos’ coattails for this series. (Laughs)
ComicsXF: How has your experience in journalism helped you make the jump to comic books if at all?
Pepose: Absolutely. I spent over a decade in comics journalism, and it… was just barely enough training to help me get my first book over the finish line. (Laughs) I mean, that’s the thing, though — you can learn plenty of things in an academic setting, but it’s a very different ballgame to have to put it all into practice, right? I consider my time in comics journalism as my comic book industry boot camp — but you also learn best by doing, if that makes any sense.
But I think my time in the comics press really helped me synthesize my voice as a writer, by forcing me to articulate what I liked and what I didn’t (and why). That really helped me build my own toolbox as a creator, because I knew what worked best on me as a reader already, and I’d read enough that I was able to reverse-engineer it in my own way. I think it also helped me in terms of being able to write on a deadline, and not being afraid of a blank page — and it’s definitely helped me in terms of writing modularly, which keeps me flexible in pacing. So I really think I learned a lot in the comics journalism trenches!
ComicsXF: Deathlok has had an interesting run of late. In Jason Aaron’s recent Avengers run he got plugged into a Celestial. Can you tell me how if this is a different version of Deathlok in your book?
Pepose: Yes, the Deathlok in Savage Avengers is a different Deathlok from the main Avengers title, but they’re both members of the Deathlok Army hailing from the end of time. I’ve wanted to write Deathlok since my first emails with Marvel back in 2017, because I love how flexible the character concept is — there’s the man-versus-machine ethics of Dwayne McDuffie’s Deathlok (which was my introduction to the character during Maximum Carnage), there’s the continuity implications thanks to Rick Remender and Jason Aaron’s time-travel versions of the character… and the fact that he’s part-zombie, part-cyborg absolutely appeals to the mashup artist in me.
For Savage Avengers, I liked the idea of pitting Conan against the equivalent of a Terminator — just this pinnacle of human muscle going head-to-head against this relentless, remorseless machine from the far future. But when you add a team of superheroes to the mix, you’ve also got to figure out how to stack the deck so this bad guy stands a fighting chance — so I spent a lot of time giving Deathlok certain abilities and weaponry to bring the fight to our Avengers. Plasma cannons, cloaking tech, Taskmaster Fight Software… our Deathlok’s going to be kicking some serious ass in this story. I’m excited for readers to get to know him better.
ComicsXF: Vol. 1 of Savage Avengers was really brutal and gory at times, can we expect the same level of violence etc. in this book?
Pepose: We’re cranking the action to 11 on this series pretty much from the jump, and I’ve yet to let my foot off the pedal as far as scripts go. Some of our characters will get put through the wringer — especially in Issues #3 and #4. But then again, that’s why they call this book Savage Avengers, not Subtle Avengers! (Laughs)
ComicsXF: Out of everyone on the team, who’s been your favorite to write?
Pepose: Hmmm, tough call… they’re all my babies, you know? I hand-picked them all because I felt like there was something to like about all of them, and a big part of my process on this book has been to figure out what’s the lovable element about each character before I delve into a scene.
But with that said, it’s probably neck-and-neck between Elektra and Flash — Flash’s voice always comes really naturally to me, probably because he’s the team’s cocky ex-football star. But Elektra keeps stealing the show every scene that she’s in. And meanwhile, exploring the implications behind Dagger’s powers makes her super-fun to write… and then Dane keeps popping up at the most unexpected moments to totally save the day, so I love him, too.
Choosing between your kids is hard.
Dana Forsythe
Dana Forsythe is a freelance writer covering art, culture, tech and comic books.
