Exclusive: Arrow and X-Men Writer Marc Guggenheim On Geoff Johns and Brian Michael Bendis

During a longer interview that will run ahead of the final order cutoff for his first issue of X-Men later this week, Arrow executive producer and veteran comics writer Marc Guggenheim praised both Marvel's Brian Michael Bendis and DC's Geoff Johns for their contributions to the collective comics mythology.

Asked about the way that writers tend to reach back to landmark runs like Chris Claremont's X-Men for inspiration, Guggenheim said, "It's funny -- I'm a little, as a comic book fan, conflicted about it. On the one hand I love the fact that we're still mining things out of these stories. At the same time, are we losing our way a little bit in terms of not putting new toys into the toy box and not replenishing our set of ideas? In my mind, the best solution is a hybrid. The best solution is that we're having elements of stories that are being driven by ideas from two decades ago that are near and dear to all of our hearts but at the same time other ideas, other elements of arcs being wholly new and original so that we're always moving our art form forward."

When asked whether he thought the superstars of today were leaving something new in the toy box, he said that the biggest names at Marvel and DC are doing a pretty respectable job at doing so.

"I think it's remarkable what Geoff has done. And Green Lantern is probably the best example of it but that's what he does with all of his books," Guggenheim said of Johns. "I always describe Geoff as the modern-day John Byrne. The way in the '80s, John was able to come onto a book that was considered either too boring or too old or not commercially successful and reach down and find the essence of the idea and the essence of what made that character cool and reinvent it -- I feel that Geoff has that same talent."

Johns, of course, is working as a producer on Arrow spinoff The Flash, on which Guggenheim isn't working (but many of his Arrow collaborators are).

"And by the way, I admire Bendis's long runs on Avengers and Ultimate Spider-Man and Daredevil," he added. "The truth is, Bendis is the poster child for nice, long runs on books. I think all the stuff that Bendis did for Daredevil was amazing. Truth be told, he introduced the biggest change to Daredevil's character probably since the inception, which is the notion of the semi-public identity."

Check back later in the week for our full interview. In the meantime, you can get a copy of Guggenheim's novel Overwatch here.