Interview with Joe Kelly: The Man, The Myth, The Legend

I had a unique opportunity to pick the brain of an evil genius - an inmate just like the rest of us - Mr. Joe Kelly - commonly known for re-inventing Deadpool and writer for X-Men, Spiderman, Superman, Ben 10, I Kill Giants… the list goes on and on. This is a man of pure brilliance, captivating and friendly personality, and - not going to lie - great looks to boot. Then again, if my life centered around writing geeky things all day long, I’d probably look that good too! … Oh wait…

I had to know what his take was on the Avengers movie. So many times we run into harsh critics when big title movies come out. So I asked.

Joe Kelly: “I loved it. I had a really great time with it. With the combination of what they’ve been trying to do, they did a really great job. As far as it being true to story, you have to update it. Iron Man was a perfect example - you‘re not going to put that movie in the Korean War setting. Same with the Avengers; their first time together was not in the setting that you saw in the movie. They’re necessary translations. We have so much room in a comic to have characters talk as they as we want versus what you can do in a movie. You have to just roll with it. We just want people to take the same spirit of the comics and cartoons that they love with them always.”

Heather Tinneny: “We’re all really excited about The Dark Knight rises. Any inside info you can spare?”

JK: “I know nothing. Absolutely nothing. I wish I did!”

HT: “So, Deadpool was essentially the cornerstone of your career. How did you feel about Ryan Reynolds being cast for that roll?”

JK: “He was a huge Deadpool fan for a really long time, actually. Someone had interviewed him when he was in Blade, I guess, and someone wrote to me and said ‘Ryan Reynolds is a huge Deadpool fan. He’s been lobbying to be him. I think he pulled it off for sure. I spoke to the people that did Wolverine and they know they did a huge misstep with Deadpool in that movie, so if the Deadpool movie comes to be… Ryan Reynolds would be attached to it.”

HT: “Is there a Deadpool movie in development?”

JK: “Yeah - it’s scripted.”

HT: “Do you know who’s going to be directing it?”

JK: “Not a clue, but it’s written by the guys who wrote Zombieland, so it should be really good. I really hope [the directors] do it. They also did a test for the CG animation. They know this is a really big risk. They know that this is going to be a PG-13, maybe R-rated movie, you can’t exactly make it family friendly.”

Just as a quick review, the Stan-hattan Project was a joint program between Marvel Comics and NYU (where Kelly attended) that trained potential comic book writers and gave them professional opportunities at being a big shot.

HT: “How were you recruited into the Stan-hattan Project?”

JK: “Mark Powers and James Felder were editors at Marvel at the time and they were looking for new talent, so James had gone to NYU and I was a graduate student so he wrote a letter to the dramatic writing department, and the director at the time was more of a playwrite and didn’t really have any interest in it, so the secretary had said to me ‘Hey, there’s this letter from Marvel. It’s probably gunna go in the garbage - maybe you should check it out.” So, I kinda stole it… and read it, and it told me what to do and I volunteered to run it, so they let me run it with them. After a couple of months, they liked the way I did dialogue, and once they know you can write, they kinda just pawn you off everywhere. So that‘s how I got in.”

Protip: If you’re a potential comic writer hopeful, steal mail. .. Just kidding, don’t do that. Steal letters with permission from the secretary instead.

HT: “How do you feel about the Avengers vs. X-Men story arc?”

JK: “I think it’s going to be really fun. I haven’t really kept up with it.”

HT: “DC had canceled all their upcoming work and decided to restart it and launch the new 52 line.. Do you think that was a good move on DC’s behalf?”

JK: “It was a really risky move that seemed to have paid off. People are still really into it. I’ve heard people that are really happy with it and others aren’t. I’m out of the business loop as far as that goes because I’m doing animation and independent work mostly, but it was really a decision that was made on many different levels. Some of the books that they didn’t expect to do so well, actually is and people are into it, so I guess it doesn’t matter either way really.”

HT: “What would you consider to be your favorite work?”

JK: “I Kill Giants, probably.. You know, it’s really near to my heart, really proud of it, very personal story. Deadpool is a cornerstone in my career and I love him. Spiderman too… really fun. Superman.. I mean, I love everything I did. There was never a job that I really had to take. I was lucky to have great editors that liked to shepherd ideas more than just shove them down my throat.”

HT: “How did you get from writing comics to doing animation like Ben 10 and Johnny Quest?”

JK: “The guys who created Robot Chicken, one of the guys named Matt Senreich used to work at Wizard Magazine. They were just trying to launch the show and the executive from Warner Brothers who they had met said ‘I wanna meet with some comic book guys because we want new ideas, write some super hero stuff’ and Matt said ‘Hey, well I got some guys that you’ll like to meet’ and introduced me to him. That’s how that came about. It became a worldwide phenomenon. It made Cartoon Network 3 billion dollars, and it’s really cool when you go to Comic Con and you have these fans that have been following you for a while, but then Ben 10 came out and now suddenly you have these little kids like admire you so much. It’s just really cool.”

HT: “I also hear that you’re supposed to write a story for The Amazing Spiderman sometime this year?”

JK: “No… there was talk about it because of it being the 50th anniversary. I would really like to and we keep talking about it, but I don’t know how to fit it in my schedule.”

HT: “So should we expect something in the foreseeable future?”

JK: “There will be more Bad Dog to come. Four Eyes could be out by the end of this year. Hopefully I’ll be leaking stuff out. I cant really talk about it because I don’t want to say anything and then have people with pitchforks pointing it at me if it’s not out when I say it would be. I’m really looking forward to the new work that’ll be coming out because of the artist that I’ll be working with. I mean, I’m excited about all my artists, but this one I’ve hunted for a really long time, so I’m super excited.”

So there you have it right from the source. Let’s give a recap of what we learned:

Steal mail. It could make you super friggin famous.

The Deadpool movie is written and is under way. And if you’ve seen Zombieland, then you know what to expect from this movie. A lot of debauchery.

Kelly will be releasing more work real soon, and whoever this artist is going to be is going to be someone that we all know and love and admire. The excitement in Kelly’s voice couldn’t be contained well enough to tell me that this new work is going to be awesome.

And finally, as if it hasn’t been beaten like a dead horse already, to go see Avengers. Just do it. Don’t think about it. Just go.

We here at Geek Asylum want to extend a huge thank you to the Comic Book Depot in Wantagh, New York and Joe Kelly for allowing us to have this amazing opportunity and for spreading the geek love around the world for everyone to love. Rock on.