Marvel Heroes: Bendis Wants it "Inviting and Entertaining"

Earlier tonight, we shared the first part of a conversation with Brian Michael Bendis, head writer [...]

By Russ Burlingame

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Earlier tonight, we shared the first part of a conversation with Brian Michael Bendis, head writer of the Marvel Heroes massive multiplayer online role-playing game. Bendis, as one of Marvel's hottest writers, has almost unparalleled access to what's going on at the publisher, and has been using that information to inform the game, making it something that can get closer and closer to the movies, TV series and publishing line. He even hopes to one day cross the game over with the comics for an event story. In a roundtable with reporters, Bendis also admitted that he and Marvel "nudged" Gazillion to put Rocket Raccoon in the game, not really understanding why, and then when the movie was announced, the game studio understood what was going on. Here's the second half of the conversation, which is less about the story and more about the gaming experience. I get the feeling that a couple of these characters were ones that you very specifically want to be included. Like maybe Luke Cage...? It was very sweet. Actually I didn't even have to go that far. I think they knew to just include them without me whining about it. I was actually pretty happy to see that. It just also showed that the developers and all the guys behind the scenes were really on the same page with me as what would be cool for a game. Also, they were taking the temperature of the readership while they were doing it and they kind of knew that as crazy as Squirrel Girl's popularity is, putting Squirrel Girl says a lot not only about the breadth of the game but also who they are, behind the scenes, that they know who Squirrel Girl is and that they'll take the time to make her and put her in the game says a lot about who they are and that they're one of us and not just some soulless, weird bunch of developers who have some gig. They're very excited to be doing this. It's a pretty crazy group of characters. On top of the ones you expect and you want, there's going to be a lto of characters that you guys don't even know about yet that will make a lot of people happy...or at least five people happy.

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You've written some version of every playable character in this game. Was there anyone in particular that you were excited to delve into a little bit more?Well, just on the most egotistical level it was nice to see Luke Cage included on the list and there's some other characters too that I wonder if they would have made the list before New Avengers. That made me personally like a proud daddy. "Oh, look--they're legitimate now." I really tried to create a voice for the characters that was the quintessential version--not my verion or Jonathan Hickman's version or Roger Stern's version, just the quintessential version so they can be as relatable to as many players as possible. You talk about fans who want to rebuild the universe in their image; you've had the ability to actually do that. How's it different to write the quintessential version from the Bendis version? Not to get all Stan Lee, but that's kind of the responsibility of the gig, you know what I mean? Also, you're setting up the player to then build it into what they want to build it into. From even the earliest days of this project I've said this is going to be the best thing for the writers of the Marvel Universe becuase there's not one of us who doesn't get "Why don't you do this? Why don't you do that? Where's Dazzler?" I get a letter every five minutes and now I can just say "Here." I want it to say on the box "The Marvel Universe: Here, now leave us alone. Knock yourself out, do whatever you want."

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That's the job is to create the Marvel Universe that not just comic book readers but also people who are coming in from the movies and don't know even where to start with the comics--and now even the sizable television audience that are coming in from the animation and Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. as well--will be coming at this. You want to make it as inviting as possible just like you would at the beginning of any issue of any comics. Make it clear who everybody is, what everybody wants and fun. So it's not unlike what we do on our normal day, which is we make sure that every issue could be someone's first and make sure it's inviting and entertaining. One of the appeals of video games is their longevity; you can get twenty to forty hours or more out of one. What does a video game translate to in terms of a regular monthly run of comics? I can't say what it would translate to in issue numbers because it's pretty substantial but I've been working on this on and off for about two and a half years so add that up--to I don't know--over fifty issues? I couldn't even come up with a number. It's got that event level feel to it because the story escalates and escalates and escalates and the danger is real and even from the beginning you're feeling Dr. Doom's power level is at a leven we haven't seen before and he does something drastic and huge just to launch the game. So it's a Marvel Universe-changing event that goes on for a while.  It's quite a lot. Let's say 2,000 issues! You've written for other video games before. How did the experience of writing this compare to that? It's a much different beast. I've been very lucky in the video game world; my last big, giant full thing was doing the Ultimate Spider-Man video game, where I met Brian Reed and all the folks over at ActiVision and they were really super cool with us and as in love with the book as we were and they were just so nice they held my hand through the process and let me discover all the differences and so I'd already had that experience when I came to this. And though this is a different animal--and so much so that the difference between the comic book game and the MMO is huge, but I did have a very strong feeling about writing the information but then you're wriiting a lot of setup and then the player takes over and sometimes for a writer the setup is the fun part.  I set up and then the player has to figure their way out of it--pretty cool. Everybody at Gazillions was big fans, really cool, really knew their stuff and the first time we came to see them we all hung out at a comic book store all day. They helped me through the biggest difference, which is really that there's limitations to the animation and the gameplay and what they can and can't do so we just wrote toward their strengths. We did it together and it worked out great. I've got to tell you it's so nice working with lovely, caring people and you don't know going into the job whether they will or won't be. I think the die-hard Marvel fans would be relieved to know that the game was put together by people who give a s--t about the characters just like the editors and writers at Marvel really care. So it's in the same vein. How much did the Ultimate Universe impact the game? Might we see some of those variant versions of characters show up? You know, there is Ultimate costume options all the way through--it is the Marvel Universe proper, though; there are things from the Ultimate Universe that have seeped very strongly into the cinematic universe (obviously Nick Fury being the strongest) and those things come through so it's kind of like mostly the regular Marvel Universe with the best of Ultimate stuff as well. As far as the Miles Morales costume and other stuff? I'm not sure what I'm allowed to say since a lot of that stuff isn't being released at game time so I don't know what's coming and what's not coming. So a big maybe, how about that? It sounded like a yes but that's a maybe.

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Obviously the hope for this game is to be hugely successful and have a big launch - and if it does then the idea would be to have some expansions, additional characters, maybe some new storylines. Is that all stuff you're lined up to do?I can tell you from the very first conversation about this storyline expansion packs were talked about immediately. And that's another reason why the Marvel Universe is begging for this kind of treatment because anyone worth their salt can think of at least ten expansion packs that would be awesome. You say, "Let's go to Asgard," "What about the Inhumans?" "Let's go to Atlantis!" All these things are storylines that you can adapt or tweak or create new stuff for--there's so many different places you can go and that's making everyone very excited as well. How did some of these more obscure characters end up being chosen for the game? One of the pluses of hiring me at all was the fact that I'm neck-deep in what's going on in Marvel publishing--not only what's going on right this second but what's going on a year from now, two years from now, you know. So I could take this information to Gazillion and say "They're doing this, they're doing that, this character is looking like it's going to pop, I happen to know this writer is going to go nuts with this character" and they immediately take that information and start applying it to the game, which is setting us up for some really cool interaction between publishing and the game down the line where things could start to get really close together in terms of if there's an event happening in publishing you may feel it in the game. If a character is getting a redesign, we immediately show those designs to Gazillion. For example, we have the original X-Men who are the stars of my book All-New X-Men and a lot of fans know that they're getting a redesign for the fiftieth anniversary of X-Men. Those designs immediatley go to the game for them to decide whether or not they can or want to include those costume as choices for those characters.  So all of that is the potential for this game that's unique to any other MMOs because publishing is a constantly moving organism and the game also is a constantly-moving organism so they can move toward each other. What do you think makes this game feel like an authentic Marvel experience? Well, all the things we just talked about. Number 1, the heavy connection to Marvel publishing, which as I said before is a continually evolving thing. The game can also be a continually evolving thing. Think back to the 60's; Stan Lee was the first guy who talked right to the reader, he made you feel like you're a part of the Marvel bull pen. You know a lot of it was Stan's trademark carnival showmanship. It really was the thing that connected us to the characters. This isn't just something, we are part of something. That's why we started picking up all the issues instead of just a couple of them, and for the modern audience, a game like this can be the next step of that evolution. We as fans have always been part of the Marvel Universe, and now we can actually start playing the Marvel Universe. Literally I've been chasing this down for years. Some of you who really know your game stuff will know that there was another attempt at this a few years ago, which I was a part of at Microsoft, and when they fell apart for whatever reason. I have absolutely no idea why it fell apart, but I did say to Tiki and Marvel games, "If this ever comes up again, please let me know because I really believe that for this next generation of Marvel fans, this is the absolute connection that no other pop culture Universe has, and I want to be part of it." So, I'm glad I got to be.

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