Greg Weisman Teases a New Dynamic Between Peter and Miles in Spectacular Spider-Men (Exclusive)
Greg Weisman talks to ComicBook.com about the Peter Parker and Miles Morales team-up series Spectacular Spider-Men.
.
Return to Spider-Man
ComicBook.com: How does it feel to return to the web of Spider-Man all these years post the Spectacular Spider-Man animated series?
Greg Weisman: I love it. I have been a big fan of Spider-Man since I was a little kid, long before you were born. So, getting to do Spectacular Spider-Man, at this point, over 10 years ago, was a huge, huge deal to me, and I've missed it. I missed Peter. I missed the cast. And now I get to write Miles, too. And so, it's just joyous. I don't know how else to describe it. I'm thrilled to be on the book. I'm so glad they asked me to do it. It sort of came out of nowhere, but it's been a lot of fun. So much fun.
With Spectacular Spider-Man, you were writing Peter and his friends back when he was in high school, and now you're doing the adult version of Peter. How much difference have you noticed with that?
The setup's very different. The show was about Peter's life. He was the center of the wheel that all the spokes led into, whether they were villains or Aunt May or Jonah, or whoever. The deal here is that this is a partnership. What I'm trying to do is evolve Miles and Peter from the simple protege/mentor relationship. Simple is the wrong word, but the protege/mentor relationship that they've had up to this point, which is important, but see if they're trying to discover if they can evolve past that to just being friends.
And so on the one hand, I am writing 16-year-old Spider-Man. It's just not Peter, it's Miles. And then on the other hand, I'm writing Peter at whatever, 26-27, he's at these days. But the interesting thing about that is because they're trying to be friends and not mentor/protege, Miles is, in essence, trying to punch up. He's trying to show how mature he is. He's hanging out with this guy who he's respected for so long and who's been such a huge influence on him. So he's really trying to be mature and trying to do this.
And Peter, on the other hand is like, "I'm hanging with a 16-year-old. I can let my inner 16-year-old out." In some ways, Peter's behaving like a goofball because he feels free to do so. And so, there's an element of the Peter that we wrote in Spectacular to this Peter, but if anything, he's a little goofier because again, when Peter was 16, he was trying to be older. Now that he's 26, 28, something like that, he'd like to be younger. This is probably the youngest Peter, in some ways, that I've ever written because he's not trying to show how mature he is and that kind of thing. He's just trying to hang out with his buddy, hang out with his new friends at the coffee shop, and enjoy himself. And so he's letting his inner 16-year-old out.
Writing Miles Morales
I don't know how much you've worked with Miles before Spectacular Spider-Men, but did anything surprise you about him as you began writing him and finding his voice?
Yeah, I have never written Miles before. I'm having a great time doing it. What I love about this book is that on the one hand, I feel very comfortable writing Peter. I feel like I know him inside and out, and I feel like I'm stretching to write Miles, because although I've been reading the character for years and years, I've never written him before. And as a Black/Hispanic kid from Brooklyn, that's out of the experience of this white guy from Los Angeles. So it's a stretch for me, and I like that. As a writing challenge, I like that I've got a certain comfort level with Peter and other members of the cast, and that there are yet other members of the cast that I'm stretching and trying to do a good job, trying to do justice to their characters.
Whether I succeed or not, it's really for the readers to decide. But I am working really hard to try and capture Miles' voice with as much confidence as I think I have with Peter's voice. But one it feels fairly easy to me, and one feels challenging, I'll admit. And I'm working towards evening that out, making it feel organic and natural.
.
Landing Spectacular Spider-Men gig
Process questions are something I've always been curious about. When you're starting a series like this, obviously you've been reading Spider-Man for a long time, but how much research do you have to do to go and catch up with the most recent current events for both characters?
When I got the gig, I didn't know it was coming, and had to hit the ground running. So Nick Lowe, who's my editor on the book, he's curated a bunch of stuff, like, "I think you need to read this, I think you need to read that." There was some of that stuff I'd read already, but it had been a while.
Meanwhile, I'm keeping up with all the new Spider-Man stuff, the Gang War stuff, for example, that's coming out now. So there was a lot of reading to do, but I didn't have the time to say, "Oh, great, yeah, I accept the job, but give me six months to read 200 plus issues of two different, or eight different Spider titles." There wasn't time for that. So I won't pretend that I've read everything. I haven't, probably not even close. And I have huge gaps in what I have read, but I've read a lot, and I'm reading more, literally all the time. And I think, thanks to Nick, I've read the stuff that he feels is most key to what we're doing right now.
So, it's a work in progress, let's say, but I feel pretty confident that I've read the stuff I most need to read, and meanwhile, I keep reading more as we go.
Is the Jackal back?
I see Jackal is the first villain that Peter and Miles are going to be paired against...
A jackal.
Oh, okay. A jackal. That's interesting.
Not the jackal. A jackal.
What does this Jackal have cooking? He's notorious for Clone Saga stuff, and both Peter and Miles have gone through their own trials with their individual Clone Sagas.
I'm sort of famously spoiler-averse, so I can't tell you much. What I will say is that in the first issue, Jackal shows up, whether or not he's the Jackal is somewhat ambiguous, and because he's not like any Jackal Peter's faced before, and they deal with that, but it's not over. Beyond that, I'm not inclined to reveal too much.
In fact, I wouldn't have revealed that, but you got to promote the book, so you got to tell something. If it were up to me, I would literally give you nothing. But that's where it starts. Then there's another plot that's building there, as well, with two other really fun villains, and we have a murder mystery, and all sorts of stuff going on in the book. So there should be a lot to keep fans interested and curious, if I've done my job right.
And then the most important thing is that, whether I've done my job or not, the artist is Humberto Ramos, and the artwork is so great. I mean, really, so terrific that it almost doesn't matter what I write, because it's so gorgeous to look at. I like to think I'm doing a good job too, that I'm holding my own. But really, you've got Humberto Ramos drawing two Spider-Men. I don't think it gets any better than that.
.
Working with Humberto Ramos
What was it like working with the Spidey legend himself, Humberto Ramos?
It's so great. I mean, Humberto sends out a penciled page, I'd say almost every day, I get one page. I mean, not just me, Nick [Lowe] and everyone on the team gets it, too. It's not like I get it alone. And each page is just this wondrous little story of its own. And there's so much acting and character in the faces, and there's so much movement, which, of course, with Spider-Man is so important. Whether it's Miles or Pete, Spider-Man is a character who moves.
I've done a lot of work in animation, and when we did character designs for Spectacular Spider-Man, it was really essential for us that we get designs that were clean enough, but they looked iconic to the characters, and the animators would be able to really make those characters move. But what you're watching on screen, you're literally watching them moving. To get the illusion of movement on the printed page, when in fact what you're looking at are static images, that's a whole different kind of challenge. And Humberto is just rocking that.
The character work is so phenomenal. He's got funny stuff in there, stuff that breaks my heart. It's terrific. Just great.
Favorite Spider-Man
I'll end on a somewhat hard question for you. If you had to pick your favorite between Peter Parker and Miles Morales, who would it be and why?
Well, I don't know that that's a fair question. I've got, like I said, 50 years of history with Peter. He's literally one of my favorite characters of all time. But I love Miles. I don't think this is shocking, the two Spider-Verse movies are a huge influence on me. All the comics we've talked about me reading, that's true. But my experience with Miles is I've read some books here, and then I've got gaps, and then I've read some, but those movies present this cohesive version of that character that knocks me out, and I love the character of Miles. And so it's been great working with that character, as well.
It's tough to compete with my love for Peter, but I am not writing Peter Parker, co-starring Miles Morales. I'm writing The Spectacular Spider-Men, and they are equal partners in this book, and that's the fun of it. Again, I'm trying to evolve them. I don't mean instantaneously, but I'm trying to evolve them past the mentor/protege relationship and the idea that these are equal partners in this book, and I'm just enjoying that a lot.
.
Trending Now:
-
1Demon Slayer Season 4 Finale First Look and Synopsis Revealed -
2Nickmercs, TimTheTatman Respond to Dr Disrespect's Admission of Messaging a Minor -
3Star Wars: The Acolyte Finally Unmasks the Sith Master -
4Jujutsu Kaisen Team Addresses Gege Akutami's Health Amid Hiatus -
5LEGO Star Wars Dark Falcon, TIE Fighter and X-Wing Mashup Sets Are On Sale Now