Its a strange time to be a young person.
Things arent any less chaotic in the Marvel Universe.
In the wake of huge conflicts likeSecret WarsandCivil War II, faith in traditional superheroes has been somewhat shaken.
Credit: Marvel
Clearly at that point we will have been a victim of mission creep.
Tom and I talked about how theres been a very interesting generational shift in the last 15 years.
When we were growing up, the general perception was it takes adults to fix the world.
Marvel
Well, Mark Zuckerberg would disagree with you.
Well find our way, and well find our own way.
You have some of Marvels buzziest characters here, like Kamala Khan and Miles Morales.
How did you decide the lineup, and what is Scott Summers doing here?
That was an easy get.
Those three, in and of themselves, form a nice little subteam.
Their dynamic is great.
That was the starting point.
Tom, I believe it was you who suggested Amadeus Cho.
TOM BREVOORT:The Amadeus Cho Hulk worked for me because one, its a very primary character.
We thought that was pretty good for potential drama and interest.
Its my favorite Marvel comic.
So the moment that suggestion was thrown out there, it was a lock for us.
Ive loved Scott Summers ever since I first started reading X-Men comics back in the mid-60s.
So I campaigned quite heavily to get young Scott Summers on that team.
BREVOORT:This is the young Scott Summers pulled from the past.
In my head, hes kind of the first challenge the group faces.
This is a message that goes out and people come in response to it.
Its kind of like Kid Hitler showing up at the door.
The older Cyclops has done some stuff.
Is his very presence going to taint what were doing?
And thats kind of why hes there I think.
He wants to go down a different road than his older self did.
How did you settle on the nameChampions?
BREVOORT:Championsis sort of like the great lost Marvel team name.
We publishedChampionsin the 70s and havent been able to publish it since.
That always seemed off-mission for me.
Marvel comics always feel at least somewhat in-tune with youth feelings and movements.
How does this fit into that tradition?
WAID:The trick is that Marvel has always been to a large extent the world around us.
It has to be evocative of the world around us, the feelings people are feeling.
BREVOORT:I dont think we were braced for the size of the reaction to the Captain America thing.
We knew thered be a reaction, but we thought it would be a comic reader reaction.
I dont think we anticipated the specific bounds of that trajectory.
WAID:The tightrope is always trying to say something while never making anyone in your audience feel excluded.
Thats a harder tightrope than you think sometimes, especially as you come across elaborate socio-political-gender issues.
Youre running a tightrope there.
Whats the fun part about playing around with such new, young characters?
WAID:Younger characters are just much more emotional.
When youre a kid, regardless of the age you grew up, everything is high opera.
I couldnt have a better partner in crime in this than Humberto Ramos, with whom I didImpulse.
The two of us have a pretty unique handle on what makes teenage superheroes work.
Again, its high emotion.
