Marvel Exec Tom Brevoort: Marvel to reimagine CrossGen properties; previous runs done.

News, Top Story

For folks who wanted to read the continuation of Ruse or Sojourn, you’re out of luck. Your Ruse will have some similarities to the old series, but will be brand, spanking new’ish. So says Marvel Execs Tom Brevoort and Axel Alonso.

Congratulations all around! The last thing I wanted to ask about was something out of New York Comic Con where you guys teased the plans for the CrossGen titles. I know you showed a picture of Ruse and noted that Mark Waid would be working on a title, which everyone assumes just means Mark will be writing “Ruse” again, but what can you tell us about the direction of the line as a whole? Will you be continuing stories from the old series or reprinting the original tales?

Brevoort: I think the one thing worth stating is that what we’re doing with these CrossGen properties isn’t just picking up where they left off and continuing them. If nothing else, it’s been four or five years since any of those series were in print. So this is effectively a new start, wherein those properties will be reimagined (some more so and some less.) Yet all of them will be recognizable in their connection to the original material. But it’s not like all of the sudden we’re going to release “Sojourn” #40. They’re all going to start fresh, and none of the titles that we’re planning at the outset will be set within the Marvel Universe proper. They’ll be of their own place and time. What we’re looking at this as is a place where we can potentially tell some more genre-related stories than we typically do in the Marvel Universe. One of the things that CrossGen was excellent about was that they didn’t do any real super hero books. They did Victorian crime fiction and pirates and space marines and sword and sorcery and ’50s weird horror and ’60s kitsch super-spy stuff. So getting to play in all those genres in a way that also hopefully gives us a bit of a built-in fanbase to launch the line off of is an interesting, compelling challenge we’ll be moving to meet.

I don’t think we’re ready yet to talk about specific titles. And beyond what we showed at the panel, I don’t think we’re ready to talk specific creators. I think we can say that the initial books we’re launching will hit in March, so within the next four to six weeks you’ll be seeing some further announcements. And we’re going to be rolling these out slowly. We understand the way the market is right now and that nobody can absorb eight new titles into their buying habits. We’re going to start out with a smaller number and then roll into some new series out as the months roll on.

Alonso: The game plan for CrossGen is “slow and sure.” I’m extremely excited this initiative since it allows us to do a wide span of delicious genre material. And the talent involved – writers and artists – are bringing their A-game, each motivated by very…personal things. [Brevoort Laughs] I think this is a great opportunity to build something new at Marvel.

Ruse Mysterious Red Head

John is a long-time pop culture fan, comics historian, and blogger. He is currently the Editor-in-Chief at Comics Nexus. Prior to being EIC he has produced several column series including DEMYTHIFY, NEAR MINT MEMORIES and the ONE FAN'S TRIALS at the Nexus plus a stint at Bleeding Cool producing the COMICS REALISM column. As BabosScribe, John is active on his twitter account, his facebook page, his instagram feed and welcomes any and all feedback. Bring it on!