Future Podcast : Ask ASM writer David Michelinie a question

[BD]

Gang,
David Michelinie will be our guest on a future podcast. I'll ask select questions from the message board. Feel free to write them on this thread.

Please avoid repeating another posters questions. Also the more obscure the question the better.Try to think of something I won't ask in the first hour of the show.
And please keep it brief at all possible. It's ok to say a few lines, but paragraph after paragraph makes it hard for me to spot the actual question in the thread when we're recording the show.

Here's a list of Michilene's complete Spider-run courtesy of www.samruby.com

ASM 205, 290-292, 296-352, 359-388, Annual 21-26, A28
ASM Super Special 1, A25(B)
Spec 173-175, A11, A12, Super Special 1
Spec 220(B - Text only story)
MTU 103, 108, 110, 136, 142, 143
Web 8, 9, 14-20, A7, A8, Super Special 1
Spid 35, 36, Super Special 1
Venom Super Special 1
Avengers 221
Iron Man 234
Revenge Of The Living Monolith

[Funnykay]

OK, I'll start:

1) Mr. Michlinie At the beginning of your run you used classic character's such as Doc Ock & Prowler but as time went on you seemed to steer away from these classics and moved on to more and more new villains. Is there a reason for this?

2) At the time when yourself and Todd McFarlane were on Amazing it started to ship twice a month. Do you think this was a success?

3) What do you think about the 3 times a month shipping?

4) Did you feel that the artists you worked with on Amazing would become such phenomenons (McFarlane, Larsen etc...)

5) How do YOU feel about writing more Spider-man than anyone else including Stan Lee?

Thank you for doing the podcast sir. I look forward to Iron Man: The End and I also enjoyed your Avenger's run.

[Tetsuo_Man]

Mr. Michelinie let me just say first I am a huge fan of your work on spider-man and a huge fan of what you and your buddy Bob Layton did on Iron Man.

1. Anywho, I heard somewhere that you weren't a fan of marrying off spider-man and this shocked me because you wrote some of the best marriage stories.
It seem other writers on spider-man that didn't like the marriage usually couldn't write that aspect of their stories well while you could, why do you think that was possible?

2.Would you ever think of re-using your original concept of venom as a woman who's husband died and that she had a miscarriage?

3.You know use it for the origin of another villian, not nessicarliy a venom related character or even a spider-man character because when I heard of this original setup for venom and found it very interesting. I know mark bagley right now is DC only and working on trinity but once his contract is up do you think you'd ever work with him again?

4. There has been comments from current spider-man writers that Peter is a Loser and is best written as such. What is your opinion on this type of thinking?

5.Lastly what was the most fun moment in being a writer and the hardest moment in being a writer?

Edited to add bullet points.

[ditko_loves_green77]

1) Mr Michelinie, having written some of the most high-profile heroes such as Spider-Man and Superman, did you ever feel any pressure in writing these heroes (from fans or editors) that forced you to change a story?

2)What are the biggest difficulties in writing stories that contain controversial issues? (such as Demon In A Bottle which explored Tony Stark's struggle with alcoholism.)

3)Having written Amazing Spider-Man Annual #21 where Peter and Mary-Jane married, how do you feel that the story was changed and probably didn't happen after the events of One More Day?

Thank You for answering these questions and I'd like to say that I've extremely enjoyed all your comic work, at Marvel especially
Cheers

[rufusTfirefly]

Mr. Michelinie, I've been a big fan of your work for years, and I'd love to see you doing more work in the mainstream Marvel Universe sometime soon!

My favorite stories about comic book creators almost always revolve around the "stories that never were." So on that note, couple quick questions...

1. I seem to recall that your abbreviated run on Web of Spider-Man (with a very young Mark Silvestri no less!) ended prematurely, something to do with a story that was gutted at the last minute about Irish terrorists. Is it possible, after all these years, that you can talk more about this and where you had planned to go with the story-line?

2. I also recall that when you reintroduced Richard and Mary Parker back into the book, you had intended to have Peter unmasking to the world as part of the story-line. Is this true? And if so, can you also tell us where that story-line was headed?

3. A question about the creation of Venom. I've always thought that the character of Venom filled a hole left vacant by the death of Norman Osborne, i.e. the arch-villian who knows Spider-Man's secret identity and brings with him a deeper feeling of danger than your average villian. Was this the original intent for the character? And if so, do you feel that the return of Norman Osborne makes the Venom character redundant? It seems Marvel feels so, since they've used the two characters together very sparringly since Osborne's return...

And finally...

4. And if you want to skip this final question for personal reasons, I completely understand. I was hopping we could get some insight into what you felt is the most personal comic book story you've ever written, Spider-Man or not. The one where you really dug down and put a lot of your personal, emotional beats into and maybe the one where you still look back on it brings a rush of feelings welling back up. Like I said, if it's not a matter you really want to discuss on a podcast with complete strangers, I completely understand and I'll just tuck my tail in embarrassment and run away...

[Donomark]

Thank you for doing this podcast good sir!

If there was one DC hero you could write along with Spider-Man in a crossover, who would you like to write?

[CrazyChris]

What is your favorite Spider-Man story from the past 5 years and why? If you haven't read one in that time, when did you stop reading Spider-Man and why?

What was the last comic book you read, and what did you think of it?

[Kalgorn]

[s]What is the purpose of life?[/s]

BD Edit: Seriously, come on now.

[cpahl2000]

I David, I´m was a big fan of yours ASM run and specially with McFarlane and Erik Larsen, It was a great run, one of the greatest. I have three question for you:


1- During your run, with the Peter´s parents´arc, I liked the final of the arc but I really felt that the story was a little dark and full of bad energy, did you have any problem during the arc an until the end of it ? Do you have intention to lend it to the Clone saga or not ?


2- How did you come up Venom?


3- Do you have anything that you wrote and after those years would you do different if you have the chance?

[Leopard-Lad]

Hello David love your Spider-Man and Iron Man stuff.

Towards the end of your run on Amazing you had to take part in several crossover stories that spanned across the other Spider titles (Maximum Carnage for instance). Did you ever wish you could have had more control over the events which were occurring in the story and was it difficult having to continue directly from someone else's part of a story?

[Spidercraft]

David! You created one of my all time favorite comic characters ever...Venom! it was the Lethal Protector Trade that got me into comics! For that I am practically Indebted to you!

Ok my questions

1) What do you think of Venom being on Scorpion now instead of Eddie?

2) Recently they've been doing a Mini series that is retelling Venom/Eddie's origins called Dark Origin and it's totally retconned EVERYTHING you did about Eddie's life growing up. They gave him siblings, his mom never died, his father wasn't neglegent, and he was just simply a bit cooky in the head. Now I seem to recall you agreed to do the Lethal Protector Mini (and just that one) so you can at least start things right, correct? So how does it feel to have a nice background story you came up with, one that makes eddie more sympathetic, and having it replaced with oen that makes him just plan nuts?

3) Seeing as how Roger Stern was able to "Fix" (and I use that word rather loosely of course) what was done with Hobgoblin and do what he originally had in mind, do you think it's unfair that you most likely won't be able to have your chance to do your original take on Venom?

4) What is your opinion about Marvel, lately, making Tony a supposad "Futurist" in that he can see where things are going, guesstimate what the outcomes could be, and make the neccessary changes. I mean that just seemed to pop out of no where. Do you see Tony as being like that?

5) What's your opinion on the idea of venom jumping around to other villains in the marvel u? I mean in general.

6) How does it feel that Jim Rhodes has become such a staple in the Marvel Universe to the point where soon he'll be taking over Iron Man's title as War Machine?

That's all from me now...thank you for taking time to do this podcast.

[Irishlad]

Hi David,
Love your Iron Man and Spidey stuff but let's talk about Web Of Spider-Man 20...or the IRA issue as I like to call it.
Why-oh-why??
I was 15 when I read that (back in 1986) and was very taken aback because I thought it was extremely ill-informed.
I mean the IRA would never have attacked Heathrow Airport in London shouting "Death to da Brits and Maggie Thatcher".
LOL! I think it's sort of quaint now looking back on it but i remember at the time thinking it was all so wrong.
I'm not trying to have a go at you because the politics and history of this part of the world can be difficult to grasp ... but what was your thought process behind this story and what sort of research did you do?

[scooter]

Hi David,

Thanks for being here. I've got a couple of questions for you:

1) You were the writer who not only destroyed Spidey's red & blue costume but also brought it back. Were both of those stories editorially mandated? Which of those two stories do you prefer?

2) Much of your Spidey work has been collected, but a lot of it has not. Which story of yours would you most like to see collected that has not been?

In this age of Spidey "getting back to basics" I feel that your run on Amazing presented us with the most light-hearted, fun stories of the past 20 years. Thanks for all those great stories!!!!

[Zarius]

1. Venom's wife was killed off in 2000 under Howard Mackie after being driven to suicide by bonding with the Venom symbiote a few years ago, do you think more could have been explored with her in the future or would it have inevitably led to a domestication of Brock?

2. Peter and Venom's infamous "truce" at the conclusion of their long-term feud irked many fans, and many claim it was one of the seeds sown to later reveal Peter was a clone. Now that it is established that this Peter was the original, do you think this is something he'd plausibly do at this stage in his life? And if the Clone Saga idea hadnt come up, would this storyline have ended any differently?

[Wombat 909]

1) When you first created Venom, did you ever think that there would be more symbiotes like Carnage and Toxin that could be created?