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Marvel Omega is home to some of the best writers in fanfic. And with Spotlight, readers will get the chance to learn more about their favorite writers here at the site, through an interview where they answer questions about their craft as well as pick some of the best stories they've turned out for the site.
He’s a right bastard, that’s who he is. I wouldn’t let Chris Munn shine my shoes. I once heard a rumor that he was shat from his mother’s womb some 27 years ago in the backwoods of Kentucky, and has made a royal cock-up of things ever since. 10 Shillings to the man who brings me the head of Munn! What traumatic event occurred during your childhood to turn you into the sick and depraved bastard we all know and love? Believe it or not, I had a pretty normal childhood growing up. Other than that disturbing muder/sucide pact my kindergarten teacher tried to press on us. What are the biggest influences on your work? I’m a pretty big fan of classic literature, actually. Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein, anything by H.G. Wells, and Lord of the Flies all rank up as heavy influences on my various ideas and approaches to things. I’ve found that modern horror writers just don’t do it for me, considering I despise Stephen King’s prose. Chuck Palahniuk has become a pretty heavy influence over the last few years, I suppose. Not many comic writers really instill the creative spark in me, but I’ve found myself unconsciously trying (and not often succeeding) to emulate James Robinson on a few projects. Give us a rundown of all your projects, both at MO and at other sites. Oh, Jesus. For MO, I’m currently attached to X-Men and Ultimate Ghost Rider. DC Omega has me handling part of the writing chores on Wildcats. At Marvel 2000 I write both Thunderbolts and Avengers Immortal. I also run the Strange Tales fanfiction site, where I pen Foolkiller, Werewolf By Night and Defenders. You killed off the members of Generation X at the end of the first volume. What made you decide to bring them back? Believe it or not, the plan was always in place to have the kids come back to life after they died. The “mutant heaven” story was one that had festered in the back of my mind since pretty much the beginning of my comic fanfic "career"; it just took me a good number of years to finally get around to it. At the time of the idea’s creation, the Generation X kids were the heirs to the X-Men, just as the New Mutants had been in the 1980s. Naturally, that’s no longer the case, but the Gen X gang were and probably always will be close to my heart – as at least one of them, Chamber, ranks as one of my favorite characters. They’re a group that I’ll probably always have stories to tell with, but on the other hand those stories will have to be some really special shit for me to come back. Only the best for those kids! But yeah, when I was wrapping up the first volume of Generation X, I detailed the "Wonderland" story to Ryan Krupienski, and he was kind enough to let me run with it – so much so that he based a few plotlines of his own around the mysterious deaths of those poor teenagers. He was also cool enough to deal with my incredibly sporadic release schedule, one that to this day haunts me. It took me over two years to write a 5-issue mini-series, and I’m pretty sure people still laugh at me behind my back about that. It’s cool, though…I know where those people sleep. You've gone from writing mutants to heroes to horror characters. Is there any book you've never written but want to? Actually, one book that I’ve always wanted to write but never have is one that I’m taking on for MO in the run-up to Conspiracy – namely, Iron Man . Tony Stark is a character that has always fascinated, and though I’ve written him in various Avengers titles I’ve handled, I’ve always missed out at writing his solo adventures. Thanks to MO, this is going to change. Another character I’ve always wanted to write is Daredevil, and I recently had to back away from an offer to write that series for another site. Who knows what’ll happen in the future? What was the deal with Exiles? Oh Lord, where do I begin? Exiles started out as way too many late-night chat sessions between me and my frequent writing collaborator Ian Astheimer. We started talking about alternate realities and how much we both liked Marvel’s Exiles book when it first started out. We then brazenly declared that we could do a better job with the concept and came up with an Exiles series of our own. We had lots of cool characters and concepts as we went balls to the wall with it: Roxanne Simpson as the Ghost Rider, Rick Jones as Captain America, Hercules from a world where he’s worshipped like Jesus, etc. We also had a cool gimmick in store where Ian and I would switch off every other issue by killing off a cast member and replacing them with more and more fucked up members, surprising each other with how crazy we could get. I don’t know who all he had in mind, but the roster would have eventually had people like Spider-Ham and Rocket Raccoon on it due to my crack-cocaine fueled story ideas. But then the concept changed, due to my obsession over Grant Morrison’s Seven Soldiers of Victory concept. Now, after more discussion with Ian, Exiles was going to instead be a group of mini-series focused on D-list characters that we would re-imagine as members of the Exiles, a team organized to stop God from coming to Earth and annihilating the universe in a childish rampage (an idea borne from the end of my Generation X series). Some of the character choices were out-there, I admit, with my own personal choices being NFL Superpro, Foolkiller, and the Human Fly. Ian’s, if I remember correctly, were Night Cat, Spitfire, and Damage Control. Unfortunately, Ian and I bit off way more than we could chew with a project that would involve dozens of tightly-coordinated issues all building toward an eventual Exiles series. The plotting logistics became a nightmare, and we burned ourselves out on the series before we ever started writing it. So, after much agonizing, we decided it best to just put the concept to pasture as a "would’a been cool, but not practical at all" thing. Of course, that’s not to say some of those mini-series ideas won’t eventually happen sometime in the future – the thought of doing a super-soldier steroid addict as the new NFL Superpro still brings a smile to my face. Now you're writing X-Men. How the hell did that happen? Short answer: blame Ryan Krupienski. In the first Omega Spotlight, Ryan mentioned that he’d like to see me take over his Uncanny X-Men when he stepped down from the title in the future. That flattered me immensely, but also got the gears turning in the ol’ noggin. With Exiles looking less and less likely at the time, I figured writing an X-Men title would allow me to follow up on all those ideas I created while writing Generation X. After a lot of plotting and character mining, I came up with the "X-Men as terrorist" angle and proposed it to Ryan and Dino – and alas, I took over the reins of the dormant X-Men title. What do you think MO is lacking at the moment? Though I think Omega is really trying hard to diversify itself, I’d really like to see some variation in the titles being written. X-Men stuff is all well and good, but when you’ve got books like Captain America sitting there open it’s hard to take us seriously as a Marvel site, if you know what I mean. I’d like to see some more horror stuff – like Nightstalkers – or hell, even a western book like Phantom Rider or Rawhide Kid would be awesome. Though I know it sounds hypocritical, I really could live without any more X-books coming out from the site, lol. Right now, you're only writing X-Men and Ultimate Ghost Rider for MO. Will it stay like this for the immediate future or is there a project you'd like to tackle? As I said a few questions ago, you can expect me to take over Iron Man in the run-up to Conspiracy, but only for one story-arc. Following that, who knows? I love writing for Omega, so I’m sure I’ll be picking up something after my Iron Man arc ends. What can we expect to see in your titles? In my titles you can expect to see good people doing very bad things in the name of some very shaky causes. You can expect to see bad people also doing very bad things, because that’s what bad people do best. Most of all, though, you can expect the unexpected to happen on a regular basis. How’s that for the hard sell? Heh, though truthfully, there’s some cool things coming up in my books. In X-Men, following the conclusion to "Iron Hell", we’ll be seeing a one-shot story that I hope will become a regular addition to the plots following each arc: a story focusing on an X-Man in a solo adventure. The first one focuses on Chamber (of course) and his adapting to being alive again. Following that will be a return of a classic X-Men villain, Nimrod, and a tie-in to Omega’s super-secret Conspiracy crossover. In Ultimate Ghost Rider, the first arc will be wrapping up in one more issue with Frank’s final confrontation with Blackout, the monster that killed his family. After that we’ll be delving head-first into the origins of this Ghost Rider with the "Biblical Proportions" arc. Issue #9 will start the all-new stuff after the remixing/rewriting of my old MDD issues, and I hope everyone sticks with the book to see where it’s going. Two villains being "ultimized" in horrific ways: the Orb and Jigsaw. Neither will be what you expect (see the first answer to this question above). If you died tomorrow, who would you pick to take on your books? Wow, good question. For X-Men it would have to be someone with a similarly nasty disposition, though Curt Fernlund could pull it off despite being a nice guy. Ultimate Ghost Rider, on the other hand, could only be written by one of two people: Mike Rasbury or Matt Pierce. Which books at MO make you excited? New issues of Uncanny X-Men always make me stand up and pay attention. I’m currently digging on Ghost Rider by the ubertalented Meriades Rai, Marvel Two-In-One by Curt Fernlund, and I’m looking forward to all the cool stuff that will be happening when Conspiracy hits. Name one book you want to see at MO. Five words: Peter Porker, The Spectacular Spider-Ham. Make it happen. Yeah... we'll get right on that... Finally, pick the five best stories you've written for the site (they can be single-issue or story-arcs). Oh man, I don’t think I’ve written that many stories for the site! Let’s see here: 1. "The Day
the World Went Away" (Generation X 2.0 #1-5) – probably
one of the best stories I’ve written period. I’m immensely proud
of this one. For more works by Chris Munn at the site, check out his listing on the Staff page.
PREVIOUS SPOTLIGHTS #1
- Ryan Krupienski (March 2006)
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For
Spotlight #3, we found Chris Munn hiding in a ditch somewhere puffing away on
stale cigarettes. Chris first came around way back when the site was still affiliated
with Marvel-X, when he took over the duties of Generation
X and promptly killed them off. When MXU became Marvel Omega,
the Munn-Thing stayed on to resurrect Marvel's mutant teens with Generation
X 2.0. He's since launched Ultimate Ghost Rider (originally posted
at Marvel: Dark Design) and reinvigorated X-Men with
a new concept. Plus, he's going to have a hand in this summer's upcoming Conspiracy
event.