When I grew up reading comics, the part in the Marvel universe that was so exciting was that you could have a battle going on in 'Iron Man' and then, suddenly, Thor would fly overhead, and you realized, 'Oh, it's all one place.'
Jeph Loeb
The thing that makes us root for Spider-Man as he swings across the city is that he's either having the time of his life or worrying about whether he'll be able to get a good grade on that English paper or whether or not he's going to make it home in time for Aunt May to make his dinner.
Marvel is really about the stories of Peter Parker and Bruce Banner or Jessica Jones. These are - I'm hesitant to say the word, but - real people with real problems whose power comes, to use the great expression, with great responsibility.
For Marvel, we've never looked at any of our characters in terms of gender, race, or religion. It truly is about, who is the best character for the story? If that character happens to be a woman, fantastic.
Batroc is a laughable character. I'm the one who always makes fun of him.
The best thing I can say about 'Teen Wolf Too' is that it's the only time anyone ever referred to me as Preston Sturges. Leonard Maltin wrote that 'Teen Wolf Too' made 'Teen Wolf' look like Preston Sturges. I've always prided myself on that.
The Marvel catalogue of 9,000 characters really is that rich. It isn't just a bunch of guys running around with capes and cowls who have secret identities and fight across the street from each other.
As we've often said, to the world at large, Marvel looks like a giant octopus that's out to swallow the galaxy - which, by the way, we are. But we are, in fact, a rather small and intimate company.
Every generation has their favorite Spider-Man television show. For a lot of us, it's the one that has the song, 'Spider-Man, Spider-Man, does whatever a spider can.'
I started working as a movie writer and a movie producer... all the way back to 'Teen Wolf' and 'Commando.' All of those experiences, plus working both at DC and at Marvel - each of those things are bricks in the wall.
Marvel heroes, at their core, are people who are damaged, are people that are trying to figure out who they are in life. And that doesn't matter whether or not they're X-Men characters or they're Matt Murdock or they're Tony Stark or they're Peter Parker... That's where it starts.
Believe it or not, every Marvel character is someone's favorite character. There's a fan out there who absolutely believes that their character should have their own television show.
If I were to take five comic books, from four different publishers and Marvel, and lay them out, even if you didn't know the characters, you would be able to take a look at that Marvel comic and go, 'That's Marvel.' There's something unique about the way the story is presented.
One of the things that I really admire about the Marvel motion pictures is that, in one year, 'Captain America: The Winter Soldier,' which was a taut political thriller, and 'Guardians of the Galaxy,' which was a cosmic comedy, came out, and they could not be more different, and yet they both felt very Marvel.
There is no one who is more conflicted in the Marvel Universe, in my opinion, than Matthew Murdock. Is he his father's son, or is he the son of his father? Is he someone who is going to solve the world's problems in a court room, or is he someone who is going to solve the world's problems with his fist?
I really do see everybody at Marvel Television as storytellers. They might have different titles, but whether they're actors or they're showrunners or they're somebody that answers the phone, all of them are storytellers.
We always have a little comedy. It's the Marvel secret sauce. I think it's what helps Marvel resonate with the audience, that, yes, we're in the joke, too.
We all have things in our lives that are terrible: you apologize for them; you wish you never had you name on it. But 'Teen Wolf' is something that I'm very proud of.
Putting any show on television is a challenge. I've been very lucky to work with incredible showrunners on 'Smallville' and 'Lost' and 'Heroes.' I hope to bring a lot of those lessons to Marvel live television.
I went to Columbia film school; that's where I met Matthew Weisman. We then became writing partners, graduated, and moved out to Los Angeles. I didn't know a soul.
Marvel is at its best when we see how an ordinary person has something extraordinary happen to them - whether it's Tony Stark or Bruce Banner or Peter Parker.
It's such an enormously challenging process to make any kind of television. It's stressful and works towards getting the best out of creative people.
What's true of the Marvel brand is that we're not as invested in the cape and the cowl as we are in the individuals. That goes all the way back to Stan Lee, from the very beginning.
I'm not sure that, for a lot of people, the real world is an easy place to live in. And yet we still soldier on.
