Marvel 616 (2020–…): Season 1, Episode 2 - Higher, Further, Faster - full transcript

[Kidman] Women have compelling stories,
and women are compelling creators.

[Amanat] There was something about the
superhero world that just felt like me.

But I did not look like any of the girls
and the women that were featured in there.

[Magruder] This whole notion
that you can identify with a character,

I couldn't really understand.

I can't even imagine
the impact that might've had.

I need to write women,
'cause there aren't enough women,

and there aren't enough women
writing women.

I thought to myself,
"I wanna read a story that's about a girl

because if it's about a girl
then the girl can't lose."

People are drawn to characters
where something about them resonates.



[Amanat] Superheroes are supposed to be
these positive ideals.

Those are the images we internalize
and we compare ourselves to.

The hardest thing
is choosing to look like yourself.

[Amanat] I grew up in a small town
in New Jersey.

I had three older brothers,
a really big family,

and we were probably
the only Muslim family in that town.

It was
a predominantly Caucasian community.

It was a great childhood, but it was still
one where I was a little bit shy

and definitely very awkward
and definitely felt like an outsider

in so many different ways.

I very much was an introvert.

I was in my room drawing,
writing my own stories,

playing with my Barbies

very much in my own world,
in my own imagination.



I tried to play with my cousins
and my brothers a lot.

You know, I was the girl,

and I couldn't, sort of,
do the play-fighting that they would do,

and I couldn't really tackle
like they would be doing.

So they'd say that I could be on the side
and be the cheerleader.

And that made me real mad.

I got into the superhero world
and the comics world through my brothers,

mainly my oldest brother,
who was a big sci-fi fan, big comics fan.

And he had a collection of comics.
Like, just stacks and stacks of comics.

There was something
about the superhero world.

As fantastic and high-octane they are,

there was something about it
that just felt so much like me.

I discovered the X-Men cartoon
in the '90s,

which was, like, the big awakening for me.

It was about these young people

who were still coming into themselves,
figuring out who they were,

but also had these struggles,
and they found a way

to make their insecurities
into these really incredible strengths.

And when I was very young, that's
something that deeply connected to me.

I didn't realize at that point that it was
a thing that really boys only liked.

I just loved
that they were cool characters

with really amazing stories
that I connected with.

[Robbins] Starting in the late '40s,
my girlfriends and I all read comics.

All kids read comics.

So, as soon as I was old enough
to cross two streets

with my allowance clutched in my hand,
I would go to the corner candy store.

And they had a rack that said,
"Hey, Kids! Comics!"

And I basically bought any comic
that had a girl on the cover.

But not a girl being rescued by a guy,
but a girl in command.

A girl starring on the cover.

There were so many comics to choose from.

Sometimes when my mother
would go to the store

I would read comics
off of the spinner racks.

So I would read cowboy comics
and the occasional Superman.

But I found that Lois Lane irritated me
because she was constantly trying to prove

that Clark Kent was Superman instead of
getting out and doing reporter things.

There were 70 million regular comic book
readers in the late 1940s.

That was over half of the US population
were reading comic books,

and they were reading
a lot of comic books.

And the readership was really
50-50 male-female at that point.

And this was largely because the genres
were really, really wide-ranging.

[Kidman] Women played a significant role
in the workforce in the 1940s,

particularly during World War II.

This country relied on the labor of women
to keep the home front moving forward.

And you see that in comic books as well.

[Robbins] There were amazing women
of comics but who nobody knew about

because when the guys
write books about comics,

they just wanna write about Stan Lee
and Jack Kirby and the Hulk.

Timely Comics
was what became Marvel Comics,

and they had a whole group
of superheroines

who each had their own title.

Tarpé Mills was a newspaper cartoonist,

and she drew
the first really important superheroine,

costumed action heroine, Miss Fury.

Marla Drake was a socialite

who puts on this panther skin
and becomes Miss Fury.

It's very film noir, and Marla Drake
looked exactly like Tarpé Mills.

She put herself into her strip.

It was like her own fantasy life.

It's kind of a cliché to say
it opened a new world to me, but it did.

It opened a world to me.

Then the industry crashed,
pretty intensely, in 1954 and 1955.

Comic books were accused
of endangering America's youth.

The only way that you can
really stop this kind of thing

is to arouse public opinion.

If the people in a section decide
they don't want

these horror and crime comic books sold,
read by their children,

if they will become adamant and vigorous
about it, that is the best guarantee.

So they brought
comic books up in front of Congress.

There were hearings.

[radio host] Good afternoon
from the federal courthouse

in Foley Square in Downtown Manhattan.

WNYC is about to bring you the afternoon
session of a Senate subcommittee

on juvenile delinquency
investigating the effect of comic books

on the increased rate of juvenile crime.

[Kidman] And after that, a code
was created to restrict comic books.

And that is pretty much
when everything changed.

Readership dropped by about half
over the course of just a single year.

And the industry was really struggling
to figure out what to do from there.

These publishers
had to figure out how to stay afloat.

And because Marvel
had its own distribution company,

they were able to
actually stay in the business

longer than a lot of these other companies
who were falling left and right.

They had to think about which comic books
were the most important to them

and the most likely to succeed.

So they decided to focus
on a demographic they could count on,

and this ended up being
young or teenage boys.

And they found tremendous success
with superheroes.

And as they focused on
these Silver Age superheroes,

all of these other genres
gradually started to fall away.

I like Spider-Man and Avengers,

Flash, Iron Man and Hulk.

They're nice comics.

[Magruder] I was always that kid in school
that was drawing.

It was something that became
a vocation for me.

My mother took us to the library,
like, all the time,

and I would just get out stacks and stacks
of drawing books,

and those were instrumental for me
in learning how to draw.

It was such a fight when I was younger
and I wanted to take this art path,

and my mother really didn't get it.

And she was also experiencing
a lot of pressure from our community,

from friends and family who didn't
understand and who were telling her like,

"When are you gonna make Nilah stop
with this art hobby of hers?"

So we fought a lot
leading up to high school graduation.

You know, my mother wanted me to major in
accounting or computer programming,

but that first year after I graduated,
I didn't go to college,

because I was so adamant
that I had to get into an art program.

Eventually I got into Ringling College,
into their computer animation program.

And it afforded me
the opportunity to do things with art

I'd never done before,
and it was pretty cool.

But I didn't actually start reading comics
until manga started coming over.

And as much as I loved them,
I noticed this trend

in that there's usually
one female character,

and if she were to fight,

if she were to go up against a guy,
specifically, she would always lose.

And the expectation for a woman in comics

is that they're bubbly
and likable and upbeat,

so that when the male character
is experiencing doubt

and when the male character
is having all his angst and feelings,

it's the woman who supports him
and helps him to save the day or whatever.

So, you don't get to see very many
female characters be vulnerable

and be unlikable and have depth like that.

And that's, kind of, what interests me
about female characters.

And I thought to myself,
"I wanna read a story like these

that's about a girl because if it's
about a girl then the girl can't lose."

["It Would Take A Miracle"
by Otis Mable playing]

Twenty-five years ago, 1961.

Now there's a notable year.
John Kennedy became president.

Alan Shepard became
the first American in space.

The bikini became fashionable,
and Marvel Comics made its debut.

[Duffy] There's the story
that Stan's wife, Joan, said to him,

"Stan, why don't you just write something
for yourself that you're going to enjoy?"

And that's when Stan first did
the Fantastic Four.

[Robbins] The early '60s
was when the Marvel renaissance happened,

with these new superheroes
who really were new and amazing.

You know, there had never been superheroes
who had issues, who had problems before.

I mean, Spider-Man's costume would rip,
and he would have to sew it up by hand.

I loved the Human Torch
because he was a teenager,

he drove hot cars, he was blonde,

Jack Kirby made him look crazy,
crazy handsome,

and he was just somebody
I could relate to more,

plus being able to fly
and have fire powers.

So cool.

I had no idea
they were considered to be for boys.

That was quite a shock to me.

When I got to a teenager
and girls would be like,

"Oh, you have to talk to my boyfriend.
He likes comics."

I was like,
"Well, why can't I talk to you?"

"Well, I don't read comics."
It's like, "Yeesh."

And, uh, it didn't occur to me,
even when I got into the business,

that I was getting into a field

where almost none
of the creator credits were girls.

There was a token woman here,

there was somebody's girlfriend there,
there was somebody's wife there,

but women weren't doing this.

[Steinberg] Oh, Stan.
Do you have a few minutes?

[Lee] For our fabulous gal Friday, sure.
Say hello to the fans, Flo Steinberg.

[Steinberg] Hello, fans.
It's very nice to meet you.

As Marvel's corresponding secretary,
I feel as though

I know most of you from your letters.

[Robbins] Flo was there
from the beginning.

Everyone adored Flo,
and she was like a fixture.

She would personally answer the letters.
She took care of all that.

With her adorably unique voice
and her absolutely charming manner,

everyone loved Flo.

She lives forever
in the memory of Marvel fans.

So everyone knew Fabulous Flo Steinberg.

[Duffy] Back then, there were only
a handful of women in comics.

There were none of them writing or drawing
any regular superhero books at the time.

You know, Paty Cockrum and Marie Severin,
two of the greatest artists,

and they were both
doing production art in the office,

instead of out there
on regular series where they belonged.

[Robbins] You know, they called her--
I don't know what they called her,

Mirthful Marie,
or something awful like that,

and she did always put on
this happy face, and she didn't push.

She would not have
even drawn comics for them.

She was just doing erasing
and fixing of pages until 1966,

when Esquire wanted to write an article
and they needed someone to illustrate it,

and all the guys were too busy
drawing the Hulk.

So Marie said, "I'll do it."

And when it came out,
Martin Goodman saw it and said,

"Hey, she can draw. Stan, give her work."
And he did.

She never pushed.
She never asked for work.

[Brigman] Marie was really versatile,

and I think she did
a lot of design work for Marvel

that she's never really
been given credit for.

And I think she was just
too busy doing what she did

to really be concerned
with any kind of gender politics.

Even if there had been gender politics,

I think she would've just been like,
"Eh. I've got deadlines."

[Simonson]
Marie was just extraordinarily talented.

It's mind-boggling to think about
the number of characters she worked on.

What sort of career is this
for a grown woman?

It's a riot. It keeps me young. [laughs]

Getting the idea is easy.

The tough thing is saying to yourself,
"Okay, I've got an idea for a character,

but now what can I do to this character
to make the readers care about 'em?

What haven't we done?"

Publishers were trying to do
whatever they could to build an audience.

So there were lots of experiments,

lots of efforts to reach out
to different audiences,

to do different kinds of genres.

[Duffy] In the 1970s,
comics were in the doldrums.

The companies were not
really supporting the comics.

There was no money to be had,

and the only people doing them were people
who just loved comic books so much.

[Robbins] In the early '70s,

Stan Lee did make
an attempt to bring back superheroines.

And most of the writers were women.

He did The Claws of the Cat.

And, oh, my God, Night Nurse.

And he did Shanna the She-Devil,

and also, um, there was one other--
Oh, Ms. Marvel, of course.

[DeConnick] All right, so Carol Danvers.

So 1968, Carol Danvers makes her first
appearance in Marvel Superheroes #13.

She is a supporting character that
later moves to the Captain Marvel title.

She is a woman security officer
for the air force,

and she stays that way
for a number of years.

And then, in 1977,
Gerry Conway and his then wife, Carla,

launched Ms. Marvel #1
which elevated Carol Danvers.

Carol is caught in the blast
of a Kree Psyche-Magnitron machine,

and it transfers
the powers of Captain Marvel

into the body of Carol Danvers,
and she becomes Ms. Marvel.

And so she has all of his power set
but also amnesia and a "seventh sense,"

which is my favorite.

I think it was supposed
to be women's intuition.

We just kinda let it die away.

For Carol, her formative wound was

her dad is a construction foreman,
and he has two older boys and her,

and, basically, can afford to send
two of them to college

and figures Carol's just gonna
get married anyway,

and he doesn't wanna waste the money.

And so, she actually joins the Service
in order to get college paid for,

and that's where she kind of
finds her agency.

That's where she learns to fly.

And so, that was really good
because the thing about Carol is just--

She's like,
"Higher, faster, further", right?

She's always pushing herself.

Reach always exceeds grasp.

She always wants to do more than she can,
and she's trying to prove to her dad

that she's just as worthy as the boys.

When I got out of college and was ready
to look for that all-important first job,

the people at Marvel knew
perfectly well who I was

because I was
an obnoxious letter-column person

who was always dying to tell them
how to do their jobs better.

They hired me in December of 1976, which
was six months after I got out of college.

What they needed was somebody to return
artwork to the artists, and I was like,

"Job at Marvel Comics?
Ding, ding, ding, ding! Sold."

So while I was doing art returns,
I wrote some little five-page stories

that were auditions for me,
and I would get my try at writing.

And then one of
the assistant editors left,

and the job opened up,
and I kinda slid into it.

The agreement is always an
assistant editor will get to write a book.

And, somehow, that was never me.

Finally, when I was like,

"Hey, there are assistant editors
you've hired since me

who've got one or two books
a month to write each.

When am I gonna get mine?"

And that day they said,

"Well, who's the most
over-committed writer we have?

Oh, that would be Chris Claremont."

"Well, Chris is writing Ms. Marvel.

So, Jo, how about
if you take over Ms. Marvel?"

And Chris said,

"You're not getting Ms. Marvel
away from me. I love her.

Give Jo Power Man and Iron Fist."

And I was like, "Suits me fine."

"Ms. Marvel I could take or leave,

I love her costume, but I've never
related to her as a character.

But Power Man and Iron Fist
I'm crazy about.

I loved Bruce Lee.
I love big, strong, tough guys.

I never missed an issue
of either of their books when I was a fan.

Give me Power Man and Iron Fist."

Under my run, it became quite successful.

It went from near cancellations bimonthly
to healthy monthly.

And, suddenly, Power Man and Iron Fist
was maybe better handled by somebody else.

So, as a result,
after Power Man and Iron Fist,

suddenly it's like,
"Jo, Star Wars looks like it's moribund.

How about if you do that next?"

But how I coped was by
never trying to get near anything

that was some boy's childhood best friend
he would kill me if I tried to write.

-[Amanat's mother] Hello, Sana.
-Oh, my God!

-We are moving in.
-Oh, my...

-Are you ready for us?
-I don't want you to move in.

Look at the luggage.

Why did you bring so much?

-I told you I had everything. Come.
-No, it's, uh... [stammers]

-You know... Wisdom.
-We have plans.

Okay.

And this is all your pictures...

-Oh, wow.
-Hopefully, hopefully.

All right, so, Abbu,
do you want tea or something?

[Amanat's father] Anything that you give.

-[Amanat] Can you tell? Where is that?
-Brilliance of the Seas. This was in...

-Mediterranean, some years ago.
-Okay. You have chance here to talk a lot.

So I thought I'll put this picture here
so she can--

She put our picture
of the wedding day over there.

[Amanat's mother] We grew up in
a very international environment in India,

in Bombay.

You know, this was just when
the riots of partitions were just over.

It was very multicultural,
very British-style everything.

That's how we grew up. Accepting everyone.

I think I somehow, directly, indirectly,

I passed on to my children in story forms,

know your identity yet appreciate others.

[Amanat] There was a moment.

It was the first World Trade Center
bombing back in the '90s.

And, afterwards, this kid came up to me,
and he was just like,

"Hey, can you tell your people
to stop bombing us?"

And I was so confused, 'cause I'm like,
"Who? My what? Who are you talking about?"

And I realized that there was

an actual issue
when it came to Muslims in the West,

at a very young age.

I must've been 11 at that point,
maybe 12. Eleven or 12.

And I think that was the moment
where I was like, "Oh, I am different.

And not only am I different,
I think that people don't like it.

I think that people don't like
that I am who I am."

[Amanat] I went into college
thinking I was going to be a journalist

or be an international lawyer.

I was gonna change the world,
heal the divide between the East and West.

I had this really innate desire
to change people's perceptions

and change
people's perceptions of Muslims,

and I thought the only way to do that
was if I was a part of the media

and I was telling the stories
and building the narrative.

[food sizzling]

My parents were always very supportive
of everything that I wanted to do.

I think my mother has always been like,
"Try to do something practical."

She was the one who had told me,

"Don't depend on a man. Get a job."

Which is the polar opposite of probably
every South Asian mother out there.

And my father was always
more about the broad mission statement of

always doing something good,
whatever it is that you're working on.

And so I thought,

"Okay, be an international lawyer.
Start affecting policy in a real way."

I was studying for the LSAT,
and I'm like, I'm doing something

that I think I have to do to be able
to make these big, impactful changes,

but it's fundamentally not who I am.

Thank you.

I got a job at a small indie comics
company called Virgin Comics.

My first job was technically, like,
editorial assistant.

I had a tough experience because

I genuinely did not feel like
I was good at it.

And a lot of it was because
some of the feedback

I had gotten by people in the community,

because I didn't grow up reading comics
the way that they had

or I didn't have this sort of comics IQ
that was necessary to be a comics editor,

perhaps I didn't have what it takes
to be a good editor.

And that was hard
because I internalized that a lot,

because I didn't know
if I had what it took.

I didn't read everything.
I didn't know everything.

And quite frankly, I wasn't sure
if I wanted to stay in comics.

MacKenzie Cadenhead is who mentored me
in my first job in comics,

and she really wanted me
to stay in the industry.

She's like, "You just have
a natural inclination to storytelling,

to visual storytelling,
to comic book storytelling,

that I haven't really seen before,
and it would be such a waste for you

to just do away with that
and forget about it."

Her husband, Dan Buckley, at the time he
was publisher at Marvel,

offered me a job, but I told him.

So I said, "Look, I'm a little nervous
because I don't think I can do

what some of the editors
who've been around forever can do.

I don't know everything.
I don't know if I'm gonna be able

to be a strong enough editor."

And he's like, "Look,
that is totally fine with us

because you're gonna
give us something completely different

than someone who's been around
for 20 years,

who's edited comics for 15 years.

You will add a different kind of voice
to Marvel Comics' editorial,

and that's exactly what we need."

And so, I had that support from the get-go
and really kind of decided,

"Okay, let me do this
and see where it takes me."

And I couldn't have imagined
where it took me. [chuckles]

[woman] Who's that that you're drawing
right now?

[Magruder] Abbie.

I was always more drawn
to the side characters

in any media that I consumed,
and one day it kinda hit me.

"You know, you're spending all your time
on these side characters.

Why don't you make the side characters
main characters?"

And so, Abbie was, kind of,
one of my first instances of that.

She's introverted, sarcastic
and kinda mean sometimes,

and that's her identity.

It was one of my first experiences
of having a main character that I loved.

Around the same time, I'd also been having
this conversation with my parents

in which they would look
at my art and ask me,

"Why do you draw
so many white characters?"

Like, a lot of my characters were pale,
and this is something

that I've actually talked
with other artists of color

'cause we all have experienced
this same phenomenon

where when we dream up
our own stories as children, at least,

those characters are often white or,
you know, light-skinned.

And so I started having
this very honest conversation with myself

in which I was asking, "Why does
dark skin make you uncomfortable?"

And so, when I started developing M.F.K.,

I realized this was an opportunity
to kinda confront that discomfort.

And so my goals were to make a female
character and make a black character.

I started putting M.F.K. online.

The great thing about webcomics
is it's a very accessible way

to show what you can do.

All you need is Internet access,
and you can view them anywhere

on any device in any country.

For me, it was a way of showing that

not only can I draw,
but I can write as well.

M.F.K. had always had, kind of,
a small following

because I didn't
go out of my way to advertise it.

I kinda let it spread by word of mouth.

So, the followership was pretty small up
until the Dwayne McDuffie Award.

When I saw the finalist list

and saw that I was up against
Shaft by David Walker and Ms. Marvel,

I did not think it had a chance at all.
It's just my dumb little webcomic.

When I received the award
and the ceremony broke,

and I finally checked my phone,
it was just blowing up.

I feel like
that was kinda a turning point.

All of a sudden,
I had all this media attention,

and it was the level of attention
that I had been wanting for the comic

and suddenly I had it.
It's kind of a trippy experience.

-[Nocenti] Hello, how are you?
-[Simonson laughing]

-It's so funny because I was--
-Isn't it kinda like...

Now this is funny.
Look at all these girls.

These are women that worked at Marvel.

So I don't remember the story

-because the words are gone,
-[Simonson] I don't remember it either.

[Nocenti] But this is from the Fumetti,
and it must've been a story

where it's like, "Let's get all the women
that work at Marvel into an office,

and then Stan comes in?"

-[Simonson] I don't--
-[Nocenti] There you are, right?

[Simonson] Oh, yeah, there I am. Wow.

[Nocenti] Oh, my God. Look what I found.

-[Simonson] Oh, there you go. [laughs]
-[Nocenti] The welcome mat. [chuckles]

[Nocenti] The Bullpen,
and we were all working there,

has a history
of ruthlessly making fun of everyone.

-[Simonson] Yes.
-[Nocenti] And one day I came in

and there was this
blank-eyed idiot on my door.

I was like, "I guess that's me."

And then the next day I came in,
and someone had turned it into a doormat.

And you know what it was all about?

Because Barry Windsor-Smith

-was drawing the X-Men...
-[Simonson] Uh-huh.

...and people thought
I was letting him go wild.

And so somehow that translated
into my face on a doormat

-at the entrance of my editorial office.
-[Simonson scoffs]

First of all, I think that's rude.

Second of all, you were actually able
to get work out of Barry Smith,

which is a first-class miracle
right there.

And Barry's work is always beautiful.

[Nocenti] It's always good.

By the time I got to Marvel in the '80s,

I think we happened to
hit at the sweet spot

when the people were really
welcoming to have females in comics.

Everybody was like,

"Oh boy, there's a girl here.
Let's help her."

It was the opposite from what I hear
people talking about in the '70s.

[Kidman] At that time, in the 1980s,

comic books were still
a very male-dominated space.

But then it started to open up again.

In the early 1980s,
both DC and Marvel shifted

from bigger distributors
to specialty shops,

and it was through those specialty shops

that they were able to cultivate
a loyal audience of fans

and actually flourish in the late 1980s.

-[man] You read the Marvel Age?
-[boy 1] Yeah, totally.

[boy 2] Where, like, three people die?
Well, issue #210...

Marvel is more, like, realistic.

[Nocenti] The first time I walked
into the Marvel Comics office,

I wasn't that aware
of what a superhero was,

and the magic
of what Marvel Comics was up to

became apparent really quickly.

I mean, you walk into the Marvel Bullpen
and there's Marie Severin,

and she's telling you stories and drawing,

and she's pulling out her guns
for reference.

You had Archie Goodwin, who was considered
the master of plot mechanics.

Denny O'Neil, who was a journalist.

If you were having trouble with a plot,
you'd go in and there would be Denny.

The spirit of the place was so playful
and so much fun,

and you had a constant sense
of being mentored.

Louise Simonson taught me everything
that I know about editing.

[Simonson] I think I was the only editor
who was a mother then.

I had a daughter
that I had to drop off at school.

So my daily routine was not
what the suits would have liked.

And I was told by,
I think it was the comptroller

just riding up in the elevator,
he said, "You know what?"

He said, "You have this terrible record
for coming in on time."

But he said, "You do more pages
than anybody else,

and they're making more money
than everybody else is.

So, just keep doing what you're doing."

I mean, I thought it was
actually kind of cool.

Now, honestly, as far as the amount
of money the books I was making went,

I did have the X-Men. So, duh.

I mean, yeah, I was just lucky.

[Nocenti] I was Louise Simonson's
assistant, and when she decided to leave,

the X-Men were actually, I think,
the best-selling books.

And Weezie asked everybody, you know,

"Do you want the X-Men?
Do you want the X-Men?"

Everyone said,
"No, we don't want the X-Men"

because people tended
to love what they were doing.

You know, you're the Avengers editor
or you're the Spider-Man editor.

So nobody wanted the X-Men,

and I had already
gotten to know Chris really well

and sat in on all their story meetings,
so it was a really seamless transition.

I started getting little short stories,

and then I got the assignment
to kill Spider-Woman.

That was my first big assignment.

I was excited
at the idea of killing Spider-Woman.

Maybe I was too naive and stupid
to realize

that killing a character
is not something you want to do,

and that Mark had probably asked
every other writer

if they would kill Spider-Woman,
and they all went, "No."

Look at this.
This is the first drawing of Longshot.

This was like him saying what kind of
stuff he would like to have in Longshot,

-what the theme should be.
-[Simonson] That's great.

-[Nocenti] Isn't it sweet?
-[Simonson] I know.

-[Nocenti] Look, "To Louise and Anne."
-Aw.

I love Arthur.
I had totally forgotten about this.

When Annie started writing Longshot,

and I saw
what a strong point of view she had,

and how well she expressed it,
I thought, "Wow. She's really something."

She had a real distinct way
of thinking about things,

and I think that that's...
that was such an advantage for her.

It's really important to read works
by people who have points of view

because it expands my own point of view
of somebody who sees things differently,

and Annie saw everything differently.

Her stuff was just brilliant.

[Nocenti] I remember just sitting on the
subway every day going to work

and wondering what everyone was thinking
and taking that to the next step of,

"What if the train went to hell,

and then Daredevil gets to go to hell
and meet Mephisto?"

That's like fun. That's like an opera.

[man singing opera]

[Nocenti] There's a lot of fun
to choreographing a fight.

I mean, when I was writing Daredevil,
I started taking karate classes.

It was like I wanted to learn
how to fight.

I started boxing.

So, I got into it,
and I enjoyed the choreography of a fight,

but at some point you have to say,

"What am I saying about the world that
everything has to escalate into a fight?"

People talk about
why there aren't more women in comics.

I've always thought it had to do
with that narrative itself.

Women relate to feeling powerful,
feeling emancipated, having agency,

but do they relate
to people smashing each other?

I don't think so.

Back then I wasn't thinking,

"How do I draw females
into being interested in these stories?"

[Simonson chuckling]

-It's so good seeing you. [chuckles]
-Oh, I know. [chuckles]

I avoided female characters
like the plague for years.

[Nocenti] Why?

Because I didn't want to get typecast
as a woman who writes female characters,

-'cause those characters never lasted.
-Yeah.

And no-- And then you were out of a job.

I think I was just trying
to write like a man back then.

-Yeah.
-I was just like,

"Oh, let me be one of the boys.

I'll write Punisher,
Wolverine, Daredevil."

-And then I thought that you...
-[Simonson] Mm-hmm.

...and Trina Robbins were the first people
that were kinda like,

"Wait a minute.
Let's try a comic that isn't for men."

[Simonson] I thought, maybe,
I wanted to write something,

and I had this idea
of four little kids who are superheroes.

[Brigman] Weezie said, "I have an idea
for this comic book called Power Pack."

The stories she wrote were really more
like classic young adult stories.

I don't think there were
any other comics like that.

It appealed to a different
sort of audience,

from the 13, 14-year-old-boy audience.

[Simonson] I like stories that have power,
if I'm doing one of the superhero stories,

but Power Pack was a little different,
and it wasn't just about power.

It was about family, about interaction.

[Brigman] She looked at my portfolio,
and she said,

"Do you know how to draw children?"

And I said, "Yeah.
I can draw children." And I could.

What did you do before Power Pack?

-Nothing. [chuckles]
-Nothing?

-That was it.
-[laughs] Nothing really.

[Brigman] It's remarkable
that this book came along when it did,

because I was not good
at drawing superheroes.

It was really hard for me to exaggerate

the way you needed to exaggerate
the human body and anatomy,

-but I could draw children.
-[Simonson] She was just brilliant.

The characters became
even more themselves when she drew them.

[Brigman] I was really lucky that I worked
with a writer who knew what she was doing,

because I was just starting out,
and I really didn't know what I was doing.

We were at a convention,
and this young woman came over,

and she had graduated from SCAD Savannah,

and she goes, "I just wanted to meet you
'cause we studied you in class."

And I was like, "What class was that?"
And she said, "History of Comics."

-[Simonson] Oh, God. [laughing]
-[Brigman laughing]

[Robbins] Most women I know who draw
comics, and there are very few of us,

don't really draw superheroines,
and I come the closest to it.

I draw strong women,
but they don't have superpowers.

They're victorious in the end,
and they're strong

because I like women who are like that,
and I wanna be like that.

In fact, this woman I'm drawing right now
has thigh-high boots.

But I decided against
making them high-heeled

because it's very hard
to fight crime in high heels.

I brought my idea for a comic
to Jim Shooter,

and the idea was to tie it in
with Marvel and their past,

that my heroine Misty
would be the niece of Millie the Model.

And so he said,
"Let's do a six-part miniseries."

And that's what I did. Meet Misty.

And unfortunately, what happened
was that, at that point,

you could only buy comics
in comic book stores.

And the comic book stores
were all superhero,

and so they didn't wanna carry our books,
and they would order maybe two copies.

And when those two copies sold out,
they'd go, "Phew, got rid of those."

And they wouldn't reorder.

But that's what killed the books.

My editor, Ann Nocenti,
every week she would mail me

a manila envelope stuffed with
letters and designs from little girls,

and they would not write to me,
but they would write to Misty.

"Dear, Misty. I love your book,
but I can never find it."

Karyn Bryant here at Marvel Comics
talking with some more guys.

Now, exactly how many
comic books are in the Marvel library?

Oh, you mean currently put out?

-[Bryant] Yeah.
-About 200.

[Kidman] In the late 1980s
and the early 1990s,

we saw the rise of the graphic novel.

And the graphic novel made space
for comic books in bookstores,

which is not a place
that comic books had ever been before.

[male editor] In the '80s,

I know that you'll probably
remember, where did we buy comic books?

[Kidman] And once comic books
were in bookstores,

they were accessible to women again.

So, all of a sudden,
this female market arose

that just hadn't been noticed before.

And I think that that really caught
the attention of comic book publishers.

That there was the potential
for this girl comic book audience,

a potential that had always been there,

but that they had been
really just overlooking.

An editor from Marvel
e-mailed me one day and said,

"Hey, we have this anthology
we're working on

and we have this story.

It's a Rocket Raccoon,
Tippy-Toe Squirrel team up.

Would you be interested?"

And first I just stepped away
from my computer and screamed for a while

'cause, you know, it was like...

I'm just this random webcomic creator.

An e-mail from Marvel
is beyond anything that I anticipated.

And, of course,
when I finally settled down,

I went back and said,
"Yes, of course." Like, "I will do this."

This story is mine.

I think it's really hilarious
that they offered me Rocket and Tippy-Toe.

The editor was Kathleen Wisneski,
and I wonder if she looked at my portfolio

and was like,
"Oh, yeah, she loves animals."

Like, I really appreciated that, actually,
because I do love talking animals.

I was like, "Yes. This is totally my jam."

Marvel, actually,
gave me a lot of freedom.

A lot more freedom than I expected.

They kinda just said, you know,

"Here's where Rocket and Tippy are
in the current continuity and go."

When the conversation turned to
the first black women writing for Marvel,

you know, Roxane Gay, Yona Harvey, me,

it was just, I don't know,
this surreal feeling of, "No way.

Like, that can't be possible.

Marvel has been in existence
for over 70 years.

How are we the first?"

So Marvel's Spider-Man department
came to me

and told me
about their Spider-Geddon event,

and they basically asked me
to pitch some ideas.

They told me, "We want you to do
a character that you're excited about."

And so, I had pitched Spider-Byte,

and that's B-Y-T-E,
as this digital Spider-Woman.

I thought it was a really cool concept

because we have all these
spider characters in the real world,

and we didn't really have
a superhero for the virtual world.

And it was also an opportunity to
make a black woman as a spider character.

Putting any story out there
is always, kind of, a leap of faith.

It's always a huge risk.

In particular, a character that
the Marvel Universe had not seen before.

And so that kinda felt like...

putting my imagination on the line
with thousands of people.

[Amanat] Working at Marvel is actually--

It's like a pretty standard office job
in a lot of ways,

except you get to wear
comic book T-shirts and sneakers,

and you have
all this incredible artwork around you.

-Hi. Do you need me?
-[worker laughing]

[Amanat] So the job of a comic book editor
is very similar to, like, a producer.

It is very much
a relationship with the creators

that you have on a particular series,

and really bringing out, I think,
the best of everyone, individually,

into one collective story.

Ooh!

Captain Marvel was the first, I think,
female-led title that I edited fully.

We didn't really have
any other female-led comics.

Like, women were on team books,

but we didn't have any solo series
featuring a female character.

[DeConnick] When I came to Ms. Marvel,

it was this really Machiavellian choice,
to be honest.

I had no particular like, "Oh, I have
a passion to write this character."

It was, "I need an ongoing."

Carol Danvers is Ms. Marvel
for a number of years,

but during that time
she doesn't have a lot of agency.

Not a lot of women characters in comics
had a lot of agency at the time,

and, so I pitched Carol Danvers
as Chuck Yeager.

Someone out there pushing boundaries,
taking chances,

walking away from the burning plane.

I called up Steve Wacker, and was like,
"I wanna pitch you a Ms. Marvel series."

And he was like, "Okay."

Steve was into it, and he championed it
up the chain, and then he called me

and he says,
"Yeah, so, you're not writing Ms. Marvel."

"Okay, well, that's, that's cool.
You know, I mean...

We'll move on to the next series."

And he's like,
"'Cause you're writing Captain Marvel!"

I was like, "Really, dude?"

And then he was like,

"And as long as we're going to do this,
we should put her in pants."

And actually, that was in an e-mail,

and I have the e-mail I wrote back to him,
and I was like,

"I can't tell if you're kidding."

[Amanat] Kelly Sue DeConnick,
who's the writer on Captain Marvel,

did such an incredible job
creating this amazing female character

that is so much more relatable.

She was no longer created in a way
that was inherently misogynistic.

She wasn't sexualized.

Her rendering was more about her being
a strong fighter-pilot than anything else,

which was so much more
closely linked to her identity.

This was not a Sana note.

It came from somebody else,
but was delivered through her.

There's a monologue I wrote for Carol
where it's like,

"Have you ever seen a little girl
run so fast she falls down?

There's a moment
before she hits the ground,

a moment before all of her doubts
and fears catch up to her,

and in that moment, she flies.
In that moment every little girl flies."

And the note was,

"Could we change it to every little kid?
So we don't alienate the male reader."

Uh, and I, like, lost my mind.

So I'm like, you know, "Can you call me?"

And so Sana calls. And I'm like,
"Yeah, I am not changing that."

She's like, "Okay."

[Amanat] There's so many things
that make a difference

when you have a female writer
and a female editor,

where you can get away
with pushing back on a line that says,

"Hey, look. I understand
the need to be more inclusive,

but the focus right now is on women

because we have not focused on women
in a very long time,

or in a way that we should be
focusing on women."

Kelly Sue and I would try to figure out
what are the elements that we need to do

to make sure that we are telling a story

that is obviously
going to sell like gangbusters

but at the same time keep
pushing Carol's story forward

and her character forward.

Because we needed to start telling
those human elements of Carol

because I think
that's what really makes her work.

[DeConnick] I wanted Carol to have friends
that were older than her,

that were younger than her
and that were her same age,

and I also wanted Carol to be able
to compete with other women

in a way that did not destroy
their relationships.

We usually see women competing in a way

where they're pretending
that they're not competing.

Right. It's all very, like,
"Oh, you." "No, you."

And usually competing
for the attention or approval of a man,

and it's always very, like,
backhanded and conniving,

and the fact is,
that is not my experience of the world.

That is not my experience
of the women in my life,

and yet I never see it reflected
in my culture.

So I wanted to see Carol competing
with female colleagues

the same way
that I compete with female colleagues,

but we support one another,
and we're happy when somebody succeeds.

[Amanat]
As soon as Captain Marvel came out,

and Kelly Sue started nicknaming
her fan community the "Carol Corps"

in a very loving way,

I really witnessed the transformation
of what a Marvel fan was.

It was really more
about supporting one another.

We were supporting them because we were
creating a version of Carol Danvers

that women really wanted to see,
young girls wanted to see.

And they were supporting us
by buying our comics

because people really believed
that women weren't reading comics,

women didn't like comics.

And it made us realize, as a company,
that there was this audience out there

who was paying attention, and, finally,
there was a character that was for them.

We saw this really great spike
in excitement

and love and passion with Captain Marvel.

And it really, sort of,
inspired us to do more

because we knew there's a fan community
out there that's activated.

We can create more content for them.

You know, Captain Marvel was, sort of,
that signpost of change.

I had a conversation with my old boss,
Stephen Wacker.

We were talking a lot about my childhood
and talking about the experiences I had,

how I went to prom in a piece of cloth
I had wrapped around myself

because I couldn't find any clothing
that was appropriate

for a young Muslim woman to wear to prom.

Prom, which, by the way, I went by myself
because I was not allowed to date.

And running, like, doing track
while I was fasting, and just--

He was just really interested in the fact
that I lived such a distinct experience

that not many people really talked about.

And he walked in, and he's like,

"You know, I was really thinking a lot
about your stories,

and it would be great if we had
a character that was based on you.

Based on the young Sanas of the world."

And I was like,
"Are we allowed to do this?"

Like, just the concept. I didn't think
that anyone would be interested.

And he was like, "Let's do it."

We went straight into pitch mode,

and the first person that I thought of
was G. Willow Wilson,

who was a comic book writer
and a novelist and a Muslim.

She called me out of the blue,
and she said to me,

"Hey. We want to create a new,
young American-Muslim superheroine

and put her on her own ongoing series.

Do you want to write this book
and help develop this character?"

And I was pretty convinced
that they were joking.

[chuckles]

Because I said there's no way
that you ran that past Marvel Comics

and they said, "Yes."
How often does that happen?

I didn't say yes right away.

To be called up by two editors
at Marvel and told,

"Yes, we want to put a Muslim editor
and a Muslim writer

on a book about a Muslim character,"

I was like,
"You're going to have to hire an intern

just to open up all this hate mail."

You're gonna--
It just seemed like waving a red flag

in front of all of the people who thought
that people like me and Sana

should not be in comics at all.

But Sana was so driven about this series.

She was so prepared to usher it through,
to make sure that it was done right,

to oversee all the nitty-gritty,
to run interference if necessary,

that I was just, kind of, swept along.
I was like, "Yeah, absolutely.

If you're this committed,
I'm this committed. Let's do it."

[Amanat] She was like,
"All right. Let's try this out."

And me and her kinda went back and forth
with different iterations of Kamala,

who would become Kamala Khan.

What we realized was telling those stories

about being young and feeling different
and feeling like an outcast

and then suddenly being activated

and having powers
and finding that you have powers,

that's such a great story
about growing up,

and that's an important story to tell
about being a minority at the same time.

We were trying to figure out ways
to tie this character

into the broader Marvel Universe that
would increase its chances of success.

Because, especially at the time,
the understanding was

that new characters
do not do terribly well.

And if you add on any kind of modifier,

if they are female,
if they're from an unusual background,

it just gets worse and worse and worse,
and this was just, sort of, the math.

And so we've decided
to make her a legacy character,

to, sort of,
tie her to the legacy of Carol Danvers.

[Amanat] Kamala Khan is
this young South Asian Muslim girl

living in Jersey City, and she looks
across the river every single day,

and she sees these beautiful, strong
heroes saving the world every single day,

and one of those characters
is Captain Marvel.

And Captain Marvel is this tall,
beautiful, blonde woman

who makes saving the day look so easy

and kicking the butt look so impressive.

And for her, that's the ideal.

And when you're, of course,
a young brown woman...

that's, kind of,
all you see out in the world,

is this ideal
that does not look anything like you.

And I think the first time
that Kamala Khan gets powers,

her go-to is to be become
exactly like Carol Danvers,

to the point that she transforms
into the literal version of Carol Danvers,

the version of Carol that was popular
for so long, and that was intentional.

The hardest thing
is choosing to look like yourself

because you don't feel
like it's impressive enough

or beautiful enough or strong enough,

because that's what you're always told,

and so her challenge and her journey
is kinda coming back to herself.

When we were, sort of,
gaming out the first year of the series,

the one question that Sana would ask me
over and over was,

"What is the 'With great power,
comes great responsibility' moment

for this character? And how is it
different because of who she is?"

"What is the Muslim 'With great power,
comes great responsibility'?"

And it drove me nuts.

I mean, I spent months trying to figure
out even what the heck she was asking.

[chuckles]

And really drilling down
and getting to that point,

trying to figure out how it would look
and what it would sound like.

And, you know, I did eventually get there,

and it's, sort of, that moment
in the first arc, when Zoe is drowning.

And Kamala has just gotten her powers.

She still isn't really
in full control of them.

She doesn't know
what she's supposed to do with them.

She doesn't know who she is now.

And she has to make
a split-second decision.

And she thinks of a line
that is very important to Muslims...

which is, "To kill one person
is to kill all of mankind,

and to save one person
is to save all of mankind."

And that, to her, is her motive.

That, yes,
she has a duty to save this person.

You don't have to save the whole world.
You can't save the whole world.

But you are responsible for the people
in front of you right now.

[Amanat] When we were trying
to develop Ms. Marvel and her power set,

Willow was really adamant that Ms. Marvel
didn't have "pretty powers."

She would say, "Traditionally,
a lot of our female characters

either had sparkly powers
or some mind control abilities."

So that was incredibly important to her,
to kind of break the mold in that regard.

And the decision for Kamala
to figure out how she uses her powers

and how she embraces her powers
and figures out her identity

was the journey of the story
that we felt was the most powerful.

The response to Ms. Marvel
has been incredible.

As soon as the series was announced,

and just the character of Kamala Khan
came out in the world,

we had people sending us fan mail.

It was trending before Ms. Marvel #1
had actually ever come out.

[girl 1] My parents are from Pakistan.
I love Kamala Khan.

All of the issues she's going through

are the same ones
I was experiencing every day.

[girl 2] I am very much looking forward
to this character

because it has never actually
crossed my mind

that someone like me could be a superhero.

[girl 3] Thank you so very much
for Ms. Marvel.

[Amanat] People had no idea
who Kamala Khan was.

There was no concept of the story,
no concept of the supporting characters.

And there was so much love
in the idea of it,

and I realized
there was a lot of importance

behind the character itself
because of what it meant.

It was a stunning upset,
not just of general industry expectations,

but of Sana's and my own expectations,

when that first issue
went into a second printing.

And then into a third printing. And then
into a fourth, fifth and sixth printing.

We were interviewed by The New York Times,

and there were people in cosplay after
the first week that it had been on stands.

Shock doesn't cover it.
Like, I still haven't woken up.

I'm convinced this is all a dream.

[Amanat] No way in my wildest of dreams

would I imagine that
a young Muslim superhero

would be one of the most popular
new characters that we would have.

I was very lucky to be invited
to the White House,

when Barack Obama was president,
for Women's History Month

celebrating different women
from different fields across the country.

And they were like,
"Hey. Would you be interested

in introducing
the President of the United States?"

And I was like, "What?"
And, of course, I said yes.

Thank you, Sana, for your incredible work.

Ms. Marvel may be
your comic book creation,

but I think for a lot
of young boys and girls,

Sana's a real-life superhero.

["On + Off" by Maggie Rogers playing]

[Amanat] I saw the impact
that we could make

with the types of stories
that we were telling.

And Kamala Khan was a very natural segue,

and I didn't even realize
I was building to it my entire life.

It was everything
that I had always wanted to do.

And I think once she came into the world,
it opened up this door of possibilities.

And what that's really allowed us to do

is to connect with a lot of different
creators that we never would have before.

[Magruder] Marvel Rising is a new series.

They're this new generation of superhero
in the Marvel Universe.

We have these hyper-intelligent
female characters now.

Getting to work on these characters
just feels like a momentous opportunity

that I didn't expect to get.

Even when I first started
coming to comics,

it was still very white and very male,
and so a lot of this change

of having prominent characters of color,

especially women and girls
of color, is very new,

just in the last five or so years.

I'm glad to be a part of this moment.

This is what I was waiting for.

The current state of comics
is beyond my wildest dreams.

I really never dreamed

there would be so many women doing comics
and so many girl-friendly comics.

[Kidman] Creativity and innovation

and access to new kinds of creators,
to more diverse creators,

tends to come from the margins.

[Amanat] Women have been here.
They've always been here.

Women helped build the legacy of Marvel.

It just stuns me when I look
at how far society has come

and how far the industry has come.

These days I think
there are just as many young women

as young men interested
in careers in comics.

But I've certainly had women
who took bullets so I wouldn't have to,

and I hope I've done that
for the women coming after me.

[Nocenti] I think what's great
about the women that are coming in now,

they are trailblazers in that
they're writing narratives for females.

How can you relate to a story
if you can't see yourself in it?

[Amanat] It took me a long time
to find strength in my own identity

and to really feel more confident
in who I am and what I belong to.

[Magruder] It's great
to see women excelling at superheroes.

I think this conversation now
about mirrors versus windows

and, like, seeing yourself in story,

it did an amazing thing
for comics and for women readers.

But we could still do more
to see more disability,

to see more open queerness
in these comics,

more Asian and Latinx
characters and writers.

Why settle for a little
when you can just open the floodgates?

["Back In My Body"
by Maggie Rogers playing]

[no audible dialogue]

[Magruder] My mother, she's so supportive.

She lets me have the freedom
to do what I'm going to do.

And I can always call her
for a pep talk if I need it.

Now, my mom, when she sees
those old critical friends, she can say,

"Oh, yeah.
My daughter's working for Disney,"

or "She's working for Marvel, you know.
She's doing pretty fine."

And, you know, they didn't understand
what I was doing before,

but they definitely know those names.

So, yeah. We had the last laugh.

[Amanat] My dad, when I was younger,
always told me,

"Whatever you do, make sure
that you are trying to help people."

What's really satisfying
about having Ms. Marvel out there

is that it really directly
impacts my family.

My nieces and my nephews,

they now have this character
that reminds them of themselves.

Not even just for my nieces
and my nephews.

I just love that any kid is going to see
a character out there

and not just a part of everyday life.

["Back In My Body" continues playing]

[no audible dialogue]

[no audible dialogue]

[song continues]

[song fades out]

["Here We Go" playing]