I Always Figure I'm Not

Some People Are Able To Not Only Entertain The Public In Any Way That They Can But Also In Some Way To Throw In Some Sort Of Inspirational Message With The Entertainment. I Have Always Tried To Do That With Whatever I Wrote. And I'm Sure That A Lot Of Other Writers Do, Too.

The Cliché I Tried To Avoid Was I Hated "teenage Sidekicks." I Always Figured If I Were A Superhero, There's No Way On God's Earth That I'm Gonna Pal Around With Some Teenager. So My Publisher Insisted I Have A Teenager In The Series, Because They Always Felt Teenagers Won't Read The Books Unless There's A Teenager In The Story; Which Is Nonsense.

... And We Talk It Out. Lately, I've Had Roy Thomas Come In, And He Sits And Makes Notes While We Discuss It. Then He Types Them Up, Which Gives Us A Written Synopsis. Originally - I Have A Little Tape Recorder - I Had Tried Taping It, But Then I Found No One On Staff Has Time To Listen To The Tape Again Later. But This Way He Makes Notes, Types It Quickly, I Get A Carbon, The Artist Gets A Carbon ... So We Don't Have To Worry That We'll Forget What We've Said.

I Wanted Them To Be Diverse. The Whole Underlying Principle Of The X-men Was To Try To Be An Anti-bigotry Story To Show There's Good In Every Person.

I'm Afraid I Go Through The Same Thing All The Time.