Layton & Michelinie on Iron Man: The End, Other Projects

[Stephane Garrelie]

www.boblayton.com/Archive/January%2007/jan07.editorial
Back on Iron Man as inker of the regular serie. (EDIT: see Mattbib's post further: He is right, it seems that Layton won't work on the regular serie, even if at the origin it was supposed to be a part of the contract.[/Edit]
Iron Man:The End with Michelinie will finally see print.
There're others Layton projects in the works at Marvel as well.
Follow the link that's an editorial by Layton guest starring Tom Brevoort who wrote some lines as well.

[Haunt]

sounds good!

[Mitchel]

Best news I have read in awhile. I hope this gives way to David Michelinie returning to Marvel as well.

[Kirk G]

"Hey, La, Hey La...."
"My boyfriend's back...."

[mattbib]

Just to clarify...

"...it seems I won’t be working on the regular Iron Man series..."

Layton isn't back on the regular series.

[StoneGold]

Could be interesting. My only fear - you read any of that Future stuff?

[Stephane Garrelie]

It seems that Mattbib is right.:o
so we will have:
1) Iron Man: The End with Michelinie.:)
2) Other Iron Man projects.:)
3) Some projects about other Marvel characters.:)

[Frank]

That's one kickass armor!

http://www.boblayton.com/Archive/January%2007/2052.ironman.jpg

:eek: :eek: :eek:

[Babylon23]

It's great to see IM: The End finally seeing print. Bob posted a breakdown of the original proposal on his site a while back, and it sounds amazing.

Penciller on a special project? I'd love to see the return of the Romita Jr./Layton team.

[Stephane Garrelie]

Yep, Iron Man: The End is great news.

I wonder what are the other Layton projects?

Now if only they could bring back Michelinie on a regular serie as well, that would be fine :)

[Haunt]

it's a shame that Scott Lang is dead. he could have been part of Iron Man: the End; Michelinie being his creator and all.

[Babylon23]

it's a shame that Scott Lang is dead. he could have been part of Iron Man: the End; Michelinie being his creator and all.

On the January letters page at the Layton site, Bob posted an email I sent him asking about Scott Lang. Given that he was so heavily involved with the character, I assumed that he was involved in Scott's creation. Anyway, here's Bob reply:

Here's a little insight that you probably aren't aware of...I had nothing to do with the creation of Scott Lang. As much as I'd like to take credit for the development of Marvel's new Ant Man, it was all the delightful David Michelinie's doing. I was just the fortunate pair of hands that got to work with David on the project as one of the artists. Though I haven't read the issues myself, it pains me to hear of the death of such a fun character. Fortunately, no one who dies in comics ever stays dead for long, eh? So-- who knows?

There may still be hope for Scott yet!

[Dusty.]

The is awesome news! Dave and Bob did the TWO defining runs on this character, and I highly recommend picking up both the Demon in a Bottle TPB, with John Romita Jr. on pencils, and the recent Armors Wars TPB, with Mark Bright on pencils, with a special issue at the end pencilled by Barry Windsor-Smith) It's the cream of the crop with Iron-Man.

I'm glad to here that Layton is lining up projects, that's awesome news, but I would hope that Michelinie, who wrote some of the best Marvel comics ever, created Venom, wrote almost 100 wildly successful Amazing Spider-Mans, wrote the two defining Iron-Man runs, and some memorable Avengers stuff, would also have some offers coming his way. Lots of good vets that Marvel closed the door to. It's refreshing to see the door opened. Some Roger Stern Marvel stuff would be welcome, and definitely some Walt Simonson and John Byrne.

[Mitchel]

There may still be hope for Scott yet!

It would be so easy to have Ant-Man ressurected. The obvious one would be he is living in the Micro-verse with amnesia. He would be such an easy character to bring back. What worries me is the way Cassie was aged, that is
a lot harder to fix.

[Doom]

It would be so easy to have Ant-Man ressurected. The obvious one would be he is living in the Micro-verse with amnesia. He would be such an easy character to bring back. What worries me is the way Cassie was aged, that is
a lot harder to fix.

Why would you need to fix that? Is the relationship between Scott and Cassie Lang one that requires her to be 8-10? Does it not work if she's in her teens?

(wow talk about the cliche of fathers never wanting their daughters to grow older.)
I'm just honestly wondering would it be such a bad thing for a resurrected Lang to find that his daughter took up his mantle while he was gone?

[Mitchel]

Why would you need to fix that? Is the relationship between Scott and Cassie Lang one that requires her to be 8-10? Does it not work if she's in her teens?

(wow talk about the cliche of fathers never wanting their daughters to grow older.)
I'm just honestly wondering would it be such a bad thing for a resurrected Lang to find that his daughter took up his mantle while he was gone?

No its just personal preference. I thought Cassie Lang made a good female counterpart to Franklin Richards. We don't have a strong female child in the Marvel Universe plus I thought the absent mother was tons interesting. Literature tends to paint mothers as angelical perfect beings uncapable of irresponsible acts and doesn't have any trouble portraying fathers as irresponsible, drunks and even worst. I don't think I've ever seen Scott's situation portrayed in comics ever, this was a unique family dynamic in the superhero medium. Once Cassie is older and independent it looses its relevance. Scott's real superheroics wasn't in the ant-man suit but in the way he addressed his fatherhood and that's what made him an unique character.

[Haunt]

Why would you need to fix that? Is the relationship between Scott and Cassie Lang one that requires her to be 8-10? Does it not work if she's in her teens?

(wow talk about the cliche of fathers never wanting their daughters to grow older.)
I'm just honestly wondering would it be such a bad thing for a resurrected Lang to find that his daughter took up his mantle while he was gone?


no it wouldn't be a 'bad' thing if Scott were to be resurrected. but i'll tell you this, Cassie's path-to-heroism story has been kind of screwed up. why? because it was rushed. she goes from being a helpless kidnappee to a martial artist superhero in the span of a year. i think Scott being around to train her adds legitimacy to her becoming a hero; moreso than her just taking some self-defense classes and having stolen some pym particles. it would have made her very unique in the marvel universe. now she's just a watered down version of Batman. and Cassie didn't take his mantle by the way. she's 'Stature.' he was 'Ant-Man.'


No its just personal preference. I thought Cassie Lang made a good female counterpart to Franklin Richards. We don't have a strong female child in the Marvel Universe plus I thought the absent mother was tons interesting. Literature tends to paint mothers as angelical perfect beings uncapable of irresponsible acts and doesn't have any trouble portraying fathers as irresponsible, drunks and even worst. I don't think I've ever seen Scott's situation portrayed in comics ever, this was a unique family dynamic in the superhero medium.

he raised Cassie to be very independent but faced problems common to most single parents. he had 1 part-time and 2 full-time jobs, afterall. many of the moments i remember were over the phone. and, for whatever reason, they always involved Cassie experimenting with cooking (to lead into her job as a scientist in A-Next). nothing of the mother's situation was mentioned until Geoff Johns run. so who knows what was going on there? the issue made it seem like Scott and Peggy had at least a little contact over the years. Cassie recognized her and Scott seemed to believe that they were on good terms. who is forgotten in all of this is Scott's sister Ruth. she hasn't shown up once since the 80s but she and her husband raised Cassie while Scott was in prison. the ex skipped out for some reason. i wish Ruth had stuck around. she seemed like a nice person. she wasn't even at the funeral. at any rate, my speculation is that Scott got married really young and that Cassie wasn't a planned pregnancy. i'm betting that it happened sometime in college. Peggy was supposedly too busy building a career to care for Cassie. and the family was struggling financially because Scott (despite being Tony Stark's top engineers) could only get work at electronics repair shops.

[Mitchel]

no it wouldn't be a 'bad' thing if Scott were to be resurrected. but i'll tell you this, Cassie's path-to-heroism story has been kind of screwed up. why? because it was rushed. she goes from being a helpless kidnappee to a martial artist superhero in the span of a year. i think Scott being around to train her adds legitimacy to her becoming a hero; moreso than her just taking some self-defense classes and having stolen some pym particles. it would have made her very unique in the marvel universe. now she's just a watered down version of Batman. and Cassie didn't take his mantle by the way. she's 'Stature.' he was 'Ant-Man.'



he raised Cassie to be very independent but faced problems common to most single parents. he had 1 part-time and 2 full-time jobs, afterall. many of the moments i remember were over the phone. and, for whatever reason, they always involved Cassie experimenting with cooking (to lead into her job as a scientist in A-Next). nothing of the mother's situation was mentioned until Geoff Johns run. so who knows what was going on there? the issue made it seem like Scott and Peggy had at least a little contact over the years. Cassie recognized her and Scott seemed to believe that they were on good terms. who is forgotten in all of this is Scott's sister Ruth. she hasn't shown up once since the 80s but she and her husband raised Cassie while Scott was in prison. the ex skipped out for some reason. i wish Ruth had stuck around. she seemed like a nice person. she wasn't even at the funeral. at any rate, my speculation is that Scott got married really young and that Cassie wasn't a planned pregnancy. i'm betting that it happened sometime in college. Peggy was supposedly too busy building a career to care for Cassie. and the family was struggling financially because Scott (despite being Tony Stark's top engineers) could only get work at electronics repair shops.

Geoff Johns got in contact with Michelinie before adding his part and fleshing out Peggy so I think Michelinie wasn't leaving Peggy out of the picture unintentionally. In Geoff's run he is extremely clear Peggy abandoned them, she didn't wanted anything to do with motherhood so Scott had to take over.

I wasn't surprised they never brought back Ruth and her husband, traditionally Marvel is awful about their second and third stringers continuity, specially from the 80's up to now. Who remembers Wonder Man's mother turning up in Mephisto's domain looking like a well preserved middle age jet setter in his regular series while she had been seen in several WCA issues being still alive as an Aunt May lookalike years before that screw up?

[Dusty.]

http://www.boblayton.com/letters.htm



First of all, IRON MAN: THE END is not a series--but a forty-eight page one- shot. However, David and I are working on another project, an Iron Man mini-series, that should premiere somewhere around the same time as IRON MAN: THE END.

We certainly thought about Johnny as one of the pencilers on these two projects, but his schedule is simply too full for the time being. Though, that doesn't exclude the possibility of a reunion of the three of us some time down the road.

As of this writing, the tentative plans are for the books to be released some time around the premiere of the Iron Man motion picture in 2008.