With the second film based on his popular creator-owned series Kick-Ass (written by Mark Millar) hitting cinemas on Friday, legendary comics artist John Romita, Jr. is at a crossroads.Kick-Ass 3 is wrapping up soon (with a movie potentially coming, depending on how the second film does), and his years-long exclusive contract with Marvel Comics is at an end. He no longer feels the urge to lock in a years-long run on somebody else’s character, and rather wants to roll the dice on more creator-owned work, where both the risks and rewards are heightened.He’s got creator-owned work in the pipeline with some of the most revolutionary and best-selling names in the medium, and one of his earlier creator-owned works, Gray Area, is now a screenplay headed out to studios to be considered as a film (likely, given its nature, a franchise if it makes it into development).But he’s got a year, more or less, to kill. Each of the writers who want to work with him will need time to develop scripts, and Romita knows that if you’re out of sight in comics, you’re out of mind–and that can be a death sentence. So what will he do? He’s not sure yet–but he’s got a lot of offers.Romita is currently fielding interest from DC Comics and Image, as well as from Marvel, who would rather not lose him if all parties can make the numbers work. Even in work-for-hire, though, he says he wants to do his own stories and has a plot hammered out for a widescreen, high-powered superhero story that he’d like to try out with either Silver Surfer, Doctor Strange…or maybe Superman.
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