Captain America Artist Romita: I Never Would Have Attempted Zola

During our recent conversation with veteran comics artist John Romita, Jr. about the upcoming film adaptation of his creator-owned comic Kick-Ass 2, we took a few moments out to grill him on his run on Captain America.In the course of our interview, he noted that technology has moved so fast that just about any comic book story ever told can now be successfully adapted to film.That’s right, we said–but what about the Captain America story he’s currently doing with writer Rick Remender? After all, it still seems like we’re a few iterations away from film being able to easily translate characters like Arnim Zola and M.O.D.O.K. in a way that doesn’t look preposterous on the screen.The question we asked was a simple one: What’s the most bizarre, hardest-to-translate character he’s ever drawn in his decades of comics work?His answer was thoughtful, and surprisingly detailed. Turns out that in his long career, Romita has drawn a number of fairly oddball characters.”There’s the Spider Slayer and there’s M.O.D.O.K. and there’s Zola. That’s a great question. It’s a brutally honest question and it’s a great question at the same time,” Romita told ComicBook.com. “I always cringe at silly characters. I did one of the worst, when I first started on Spider-Man a million years ago–which was twin midget nuclear scientists that were a threat to the world. Then it was also the Rocket Racer. Then I did the Mud Monster. I did Squid Man. I have lost my pride in comics a long time ago, but what that does is also make you appreciate the brilliance of everything else. Now, Jack Kirby created Zola and M.O.D.O.K. And Stan Lee created the Spider Slayer. Once you buy the premise, you’re in and nothing is out of the ordinary. Nothing is out of the realm of possibility.”