Marvel's Jed MacKay Talks Avengers and X-Men, Storm vs. Hyperion

Jed MacKay has taken over the Marvel Universe with his writing work on Moon Knight, The Avengers, Black Cat, Doctor Strange, and the X-Men. We spoke with the talented creator at Fan Expo Canada about his upcoming and past works and much more! Check out our conversation!

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How important is it to give each character a chance to shine? With team books, sometimes main players can be lost in the shuffle. And how exciting was it to add Storm to that team dynamic?

Jed MacKay: Avengers was a very tough book for me to write, especially around the beginning, because I had never written a team book before — a team book like The Avengers is a book that carries its own connotations, but it's been a really rewarding thing because it's something that I didn’t know how to do. I had to figure out how to take the things I'm good at, which I developed and figured out how to do in solo books, and try to apply that to a team book, try to pivot in a way that I can do the things that I'm good at in a whole new environment.

So a big part of that is trying to find voices for the characters, trying to find things for them to do, both in action scenes, in the adventure parts, but also in, like, the smaller, quieter, little key parts where they're hanging out together or eating a meal or arguing about something. And I'm pretty pleased with it — there’s still always room to develop with it, and I'm still trying kinks out of some stuff, which, I guess, is not really what you want to hear at issue 17 [laughs]. But that's the thing with writing comics, is you're always trying to do things a little bit differently. You're always trying to put yourself out of your comfort zone. You're always trying to learn how to do something new that you haven't been doing before.

So having Storm in the book is an example of that because it's a big paradigm shift. Storm is a hugely powerful character in the universe. She is a hugely popular character, both in-universe and in our own world. And so, adding her to the Avengers is a whole new challenge, but a new challenge also comes with rewards.

What’s it like to work on a property where collaboration is key? Obviously, these characters appear in other books, where other creatives handle their stories. There’s a Storm book upcoming… how do you work around that kind of stuff?

So, I mean, I think the key is to try to be, you know, collegial. You want to be a team player. You want to be good to work with. You don't want to mess other people's stuff up. I say that having just written Blood Hunt… which kind of messed up everybody's shit all over the place. I felt very bad about it.

But yeah, I try to keep tabs on what's going on in different books. I'll talk to the creators of the other books if I need something or I need to run something by them and try not to contradict anything that's happening in those books. But at the same time, you also have to carve out something of that character for the Avengers because they still have to do stuff in your book, right? It’s kind of a push and pull. But the thing I always kind of have ahead of me is that the solo book will always take precedence. I can't do something in Avengers that is going to mess up the solo book. I can't do something in Avengers to contradict what's happening in the solo book. You know, if I can't have Scarlet Witch and Thor date in Avengers, if you know she's doing something else in Scarlet Witch, right? So, I'll talk to the other creators to varying degrees. Like, I talk to Steve Orlando a lot as I’m friends with Steve Orlando, and we talk about stuff a lot and complain about people yelling at us about Wanda and, you know, that sort of thing.

You've been really fortunate to work with some incredible artists. Valerio Schiti just joined the Avengers. Obviously, Pasqual Ferry’s work on Doctor Strange is sublime. How lucky do you feel to be working with such talented collaborators?

Only what I deserve, Liam [laughs].

I'm very fortunate. I'm really happy because you want a book to look as good as it can. Also, I would say the more talented, the more exciting a creator is to work with, the more you have to bring your own game up. You know, I don't think I've ever been so intimidated as when Tom Brevoort told me Pepe Larraz was gonna draw a Blood Hunt. I started sweating. So it's like, oh man, I really gotta step things up, or he's gonna get bored, or he's not gonna like it, you know what I mean? So it's good! Raising that bar meant everyone got to raise the bar the whole way across with that book.

What was it like to get the call for X-Men alongside Ryan Stegman and be part of the new relaunch? Was it daunting?

It was exciting because, especially at the outset, when Tom emailed, he said, like, “Listen, I've got X-Men, and I'd like you to consider doing one of the X-titles with X-Men in it.” It's a huge vote of confidence when someone will come and say, “Hey, we've got this big thing going on. We want you to throw your hat in the ring for it.” It was also very daunting. The first Krakoan era was hugely popular and it was really an exciting time for the X Men… A lot of big ideas. Coming after that, you're going to have disappointed people. No matter how good the book is, there's gonna be people who are disappointed with it. On the other hand, it's good to know that going in. For instance, when I was doing Moon Knight when it first came out, I wasn’t sure people were going to like it — It's really kind of up in the air. But with X-Men, I know some people are going to like it; I know some people are not gonna like it, but I know that ahead of time, right? And so the people that like it, I hope that they'll continue to like it! The people that don't like it? I hope that we can win them

What is it like working with Ryan Stegman?

Stegman is amazing. He set such an aesthetic tone for the book. He’s such a physical artist and brings so much energy to it. Also, at the outset, when I was first putting this book together, on my end, the story was still very loose because I didn't know how it was going to look. And when Stegman came in, he had such a specific look to his work, and he brought such specific ideas that he really just shaped that book into having a certain attitude that I think is really essential.

I'm one of the biggest fans of the Squadron Supreme. How did the idea of choosing Hyperion as an antagonist for the upcoming storyline. The Avengers are obviously a very powerful team, but adding Storm and then using Hyperion takes things to a new level. How did that come to fruition?

This was actually a story that predates my Avengers run. It was cannibalized from a Fantastic Four pitch I did. You pitch stuff, and sometimes it works; sometimes it doesn't. But I always keep all that stuff, and I cannibalize it for other stuff later down the line.

So there are a few things I've cannibalized from that pitch, and this Hyperion story is just like the latest one of them. I've actually had this one in my pocket for a while. I wanted to follow up on the Heroes Reborn Hyperion because I really liked it. I thought was fun. I used Nighthawk a bunch in Black Cat. I thought it was cool. Yeah, I thought it was, I just thought it was, like, a big, fun superhero story. And it was such a Jason Aaron superhero story. Will Moss, Tom, and I were talking and trying to find a place for Storm. You can put her on the X-Men, but Scott's going to go lead with this team. You can't really have a Storm on the X-Men and have her not be the leader. I mean, we've put her on the Avengers, which is more like a pantheon… that makes more sense. I'm like, “Okay, right? That works.” So then we're like, “Okay, well, if we put Storm on this team, what's, what story are we going to tell? It's got to be something big with that magnitude. You know what I mean? It's not like Storm’s gonna join the team to solve a bank robbery or the Avengers are going to save the orphanage [laughs]. It's gotta be something like Hyperion cracks the planet and a half by traveling at light speed for five and a half hours and shows up with enough kinetic energy to, you know, break the planet into pieces. Storm can deal with that kind of problem.

Readers can see Storm and Hyperion face off in Avengers #18, which arrives in comic book stores on September 18. Meanwhile, X-Men #3 is out now! Vengeance of Moon Knight #9 releases on September 11!

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