CBR: Forget It, Spidey! It's Chinatown: Van Lente on Mister Negative

[CBR News]

In"Dark Reign: Mister Negative," Spider-Man finds himself caught in the middle of a gang war between the enigmatic title character and the demonic crime lord, the Hood. We spoke with Fred Van Lente about the book.


Full article here.

[Flipsilk]

these pencils look like a lovechild of Stefano Casseli and Mark Brooks

[Tien Long]

Obviously, Van Lente agrees Li has much in common with another fictional character famous for transforming into an evil alter ego, Henry Jekyll. “Although it’s not necessarily as literal,” Van Lente said. “One of the major themes of the miniseries is in Taoist philosophy, where the Yin-Yang symbol comes from, you can only have goodness because you have badness. You can only have light because you have dark and it’s the tension between those two things that makes up reality, as opposed to everyone having this dark side they have to suppress in order to be an upstanding Henry Jekyll style citizen.”

While Van Lente is chronicling “Mister Negative” on his own, he did receive some help and inspiration from the character's creator, Dan Slott. “I had a very nice long conversation with Dan one day about the character. He told me a lot about the powers that Negative has which you haven't seen yet and we'll also see what he had in mind for how the character got his powers. Then I went and researched the history of New York's Chinatown area and the modern day smuggling of illegal Chinese immigrants into the United States, particularly around New York City. So a lot of Martin Li's background comes directly out of the research I did.”

Being a Chinese studies major, I like the fact that these particular aspects of philosophy and history are being addressed. Always love walking the streets of Manhattan's Chinatown, and been a fan of it's history, particularly it's seedier side. If only I wasn't so against the dissolution of the Peter/MJ marriage, I would really be keen on picking this up.

[ShaggyB]

the art inside that is amazing...... i dont care for the cover but man o man im excited to read / look at it now.....

[ShaggyB]

Being a Chinese studies major, I like the fact that these particular aspects of philosophy and history are being addressed. Always love walking the streets of Manhattan's Chinatown, and been a fan of it's history, particularly it's seedier side. If only I wasn't so against the dissolution of the Peter/MJ marriage, I would really be keen on picking this up.

sounds like you're gonna miss out then..... Sad really, because as you are a major in said studies i would have enjoyed hearing your take on what you had been excited to read.

[Dr. Chaos]

Looking good.

Been craving a lil more Hammerhead and it doesn't really feel like Negative has been given the attention he deserves to develop lately so I'm all for this.

[spiderman_rj]

Look awfull....please don't tell me the headshot dude is that lame vilain from that lame black crime fighter who was mexican or sth in the 70s.......actually if its him great, he is done for good.

aint picking.,

[americocaine]

Dammit, Dork Regin. Please end soon so its actually safe to read Marvel again.

[The Complicated]

Aww man, I'm gonna wait for the trade for this one like because it's a mini but I'm really looking forward to this because it sounds like that there's a lot of exciting things in this mini, lots of Mr. Negative, Hammerhead and a bit more of Van Lente writing The Spot.

[The Confessor]

I wasn't initaially planning on picking this up but after reading that and seeing those sweet preview pages...I've simply got to give it a shot. I also wanted to highlight a sentence from near the bottom of that article...

I love the Answers, Spots, and White Rabbits of the world and they're going to appear in this 'Mister Negative' miniseries, so that's very exciting.

Wait a minute!! Did he just say that the White Rabbit would be appearing in this mini-series?!
Oh boy, oh boy, I hope so.

[MIMIC616]

White Rabbit rules!!

[paulski]

these pencils look like a lovechild of Stefano Casseli and Mark Brooks

Yeah, there's some very definite Caselli influences there.

[James Conniff]

This looks like it will be pretty good. And with Bachelo on pencils for the Sinister Spider-man mini, it looks like I'll be picking up both of the Spidey Dark reign tie in mini's.

[FeminineMystique]

White Rabbit rules!!

She certainly does. She's quirky, she's funny and she's a sexy red head who dressses in a bunny girl outfit. What's not to like here?