Mark Waid

I know my 'Archie' history.

There is a reductive nature to the Internet, and it's not limited to comic book news sites and stuff: it's everybody. There is a reductive nature of it, by which anything that's said very quickly gets reduced down to the next. Reduced, reduced, reduced to the point where rumors with some sense of nuance to them just become fact.

I love 'Archie' comics.

When they first asked me to do 'Hulk,' my first instinct was to say no because I didn't think I had anything to say with the character, especially when they said, 'Please do what you did with 'Daredevil,' whatever that was.'

Find me anybody in comics who has a longer history of yanking defeat from the jaws of victory than Bruce Banner.

You don't want to hit readers over the head like they're completely incapable of picking up on subtlety.

I think superheroes are about flying. They're not about moping.

I broke into comics by working as a press reporter for the industry, for a trade press in comics, and reporting on events and reporting on books and so forth, and I got to know some of the editors at DC Comics in the mid-'80s.

I knew I really wanted to work in comics in 1979.

I love Jughead. I love his one-step-removed perspective on everything in Riverdale. And I love the fact that he wears that stupid hat.

Juggling a huge cast is a bear.

The idea of lasting consequences isn't your usual 'Archie' trope.

What sets 'Archie' apart from the many, many times I've reworked and rebooted long-standing characters is that this time, it was really scary.

It's Marvel's toybox; I'm just glad I'm able to play with the toys and have some impact on what goes on. I didn't create Daredevil, so I'm not about to stand here and say that I'm the only one who gets to play with the toy.

I do like Hank Pym.

I don't write stories about despair. I write stories about hope.

Maybe this is because I'm a comics historian as much as anything else, but I really have a deep-seated respect for the characters that have been around since before I was born and are probably going to outlive me.

If you're ruling the world, you can't trust anybody. Because even those who profess to be working in your interest - those are also villains in and of their own right.

Flash is about freedom; Flash is about expression. Flash is about just the joy of exuberant running and of freedom, and the moment you weight him down with too much Batman-like baggage... that's not the Flash anymore.

The best stories, the most-fun 'Avengers' stories, explore the relationships between the characters.