BONUS - Thor: Love and Thunder Mailbag + Thor Comics Writer Jason Aaron

and pop culture. In this bonus episode, we're gonna answer some questions that you sent us about the Thor Loven Thunder and then we will clear the lane so that comics legend Thor writer Thor God of Thunder writer major influence on Thor, Love and Thunder person Jason Aaron can be interviewed by us and you can hear him talk about just how he created one of the great comic arcs of our time. Truly.

Arasham in the Hall of Eternity which got smashed. I would assume Arisham is somewhere planning on how to He's watching Earth, seeing if Earth is worthy of existing, and planning his judgment whatever that may be. And I think, like you, Yeah, you brought up something really good in the in the our Lost episode author Love and Thunder episode about how the celestials could become part of like Zeus's god war against the superheroes. So I think there's many things that he's cooking up.

if they've thought about it. And then two, you know, you mentioned your your favorite movie, The Eternals is growing on me as well. Actually, but the end of that movie, we saw that there is there ended up being a huge celestial carcass in the Pacific Ocean, and we expect at some point when they put the Avengers back together, that that will be the headquarters of the Avengers. But I wonder, like, is it a tourist attraction? Like what's going with the carcass right now?

Thorn Loki to reunite again? Considering how different their stories are? Well, in the comics, Loki has died at times so many poet on the board many many times and replaced with younger versions of himself or different versions like the versions of himself that seem to suggest and set up the fact that we can get a Loki, and potentially not a Loki played by Tom Hiddleston again in the future, like's that's absolutely on the table, that we either get a young Loki or a female Loki. That can happen.

I think that that can definitely happen. What do you think?

or something. But I also think you're right, like Kid Loki in the event in Young Avengers, very likely we already met him in the series spoiler a lot, and I definitely think Sophia Dimontino's version of Loki is also probably going to continue in the MCU too. So yeah, at some point, you know, could see Jane Foster Mighty Thor and Sophia di Martino Loki. You never know that, you know, there's there's some there's some Thor reuniting that could happen in different ways.

As me and Jason talked about a lot Secret Wars includes a thing battle worlds where all these dimensions come together on one Earth. It seems like they're establishing something like that, And I think Omnipotent City is another example of a secret society like Wakanda, like Carmouitage that could become a part of this global battle in Secret Wars.

But you also did mention something that I think a lot of people are thinking after the Stinger in Thor Love and Thunder, which was War of the Realms as a potential.

He wants people to bow down to him, and he will put in an alliance with who never to do so. And that would also be a reason why Hercules could turn his back on his father and team up with the Rose as we know he's more than likely gonna do. Here's my pitch, So Kevin listening.

He loves to get drunk, and he does not hold his liquor as well as some of the other heavy, heavy drinkers in the MCU, notably Thor, notably Logan, no, the others, every guys, Guardian, I mean, Hercules just gets after it. Now, what if it's this, What if Dario Ager, CEO of Rockside, we thought.

are we losing this why are we lose? We just a massive oil spill over in the government and then he just turns into a minute. But I love people.

a medical conspired hero Circe. Jemma Chan had been in this really incredible show where she played like a robot who was gaining sentience and freedom from the people who created her, very similar to the Journey in Eternals.

love Door, Love and Thunder. But like the moments that I think really sung to me that I would have loved to see expanded on were those moments with Jane and Val, like when King Val goes and finds Jane and Jane's broken the sink Alla Wolverine and the much beloved movie Wolverine Origins. You know that moment between them

where they have you know, are you packed? And they both have their weapons and they have the little kind of the thing playing Mary J. Blige, And I just think I would love to see a whole movie of that. I think we could still see it if I was gonna pitch it. It would be like a cosmic road trip. I want the cosmic buddy movie. Maybe they're both Valkyries,

Maybe they're rounding up other Valkyries. Maybe they're just going on a fun trip, doesn't have to be anything to do with trauma action, and they're just like gonna buy thor a birthday present, and they want to get him like the funniest birthday present in the universe, Like give me that movie. I would say it's a crime if it doesn't happen. But as Jason said, still lots of time.

so I'd assume they're working on that too. But like at some point, you know, as we've just seen damage control as a kind of like human reactionary force to the sudden expansion of the population of enhanced people in the MCU, bad guys win, like at some point a dark rain kind of situation where you know, the governments of the world are like enough with these super powered people like either Circovia style, sign the shit or we're

coming after you, and then we get like siege. Yeah, whoever takes control of the military slash government in the US or in the world is like Okay, let's get as guard out of Earth they can go. They have like there's seven other realms, like they don't need to be on this one.

I just think we shouldn't count out seeing those kind of things Siege, Dark Grain, and maybe even seeing the MCU's version of some of those more iconic characters that we've already seen in the in the Spider Verse, but reimagined in new ways.

was your what's your comics origin story? How did you decide to be a writer, and then how did you how did you start first thinking about becoming a comic book writer.

you know. I mean I was fifteen or sixteen before I discovered a comic book store because I grew up in a small town. But once I did, I've I've had a pull list one place or another, you know, every year since then. So I've kind of always been read and knew pretty quick that I, you know, that's what I wanted to do. I love to write, and I remember telling my parents when I was a kid that you know, yeah, I want to write comics someday.

Had absolutely no idea how you begin to even attempt to do that, especially for kid growing up, and you know, it's little town and backwards Alabama. So it took until I was I was almost thirty. I was in my late twenties, and I won a Marvel Comics talent search contest, which was this weird thing that Marvel had never really done before in that way they and they haven't done it since, so it was this kind of strange one time thing. I you know, I sort of lucked into. I guess I haven't looked back.

of consistently writing comics. And that first story I was a Wolverine story, right, yeah, yeah, it was so yeah, And what was that like for you to you know, grown up on those spinner racks, reading those comics and then kind of just writing this short Wolverine story and it being published in a comic shop that you could get from a comic book store.

that wasn't for me. And I was writing a bunch of terrible novels that hopefully no one will we'll ever get to read, and going, you know, just anything I could do to write. You know, it was just consumed so much of my time, which was really like the most important thing I did, you know, through those even though I don't really have anything to show for it in terms of like published work, it was still all that time I spent writing was kind of getting me

ready for when the opportunity would arise. And then getting this, you know, this weird random talent search popped up. So it's like I got lucky, but I'd kind of made my own luck. And then I felt like I was ready by that point to do something interesting, and thankfully, you know, caught the attention. It was editor Mike Martz,

who was the X Men editor at the time. I was working like a crappy job at a video rental store back when they still had those, you know, and I had I had a message on my answering machine this or on my cell phone. This was like months after the contest, and several months after i'd you know, just dropped this page, this piece of paper in a box and there was a message on my phone just hey, this is Mike Martins and Marvel give me a call back.

And literally my first thought was like, man, that's really cruel of the guy to call me just to tell me I did not win, Like why would he do that? What a terrible guy. But it turns out I did win.

I've got that that big hardcover edition too, that's got that script in there, and I like I had found at some point years ago, I found this what was the first comic script I ever wrote, back when I was in high school, and it is absolutely me trying to do this incredibly long, incredibly detailed letter to the to the artists, you know, like Alan Moore's scripts were, Yeah, and then eventually find out, well, really nobody else writes comics scripts quite like that. But that's the thing. There's

no kind of standard format. I think, if you you know, I like collecting scripts from from other artists, who who whose stuff I like, and there everybody kind of does it differently, you know. I mean, some people use like standard screenwriting format at this point, but I've never really done that. So yeah, back in the day, I had

no idea. So that was very much, you know, relying on my editors and Mike Martz for that initial Wolverine story and then I started doing stuff after that Vertigo and Will Dennis was a big help and just showing me, you know, here's here's how people who are really good at this do it, and being able to try to copy that, I guess.

take a take a turn south. But so I think it was just kind of something different.

then you know, he'd died too young. He died like in the nineties and in like a flophouse motel in Greece. So I never really got to talk to him much about, you know, writing, once I was kind of old enough to have something to say about it. So I just spent a lot of time researching his life and through that met a lot of his his fellow marine combat correspondence from from his era, and got to hang out

with some of those guys. And so I think all of that led me to want to do a Vietnam War book and initially pitched it to Marvel as a relaunch of the Noom you know that that eighties series, and didn't get picked up there, and just kind of pitched it around to different people, and Will Dennis at Vertigo I focused in on because he edited a lot

of the books that I really enjoyed reading. And then he also had edited the only you know, war comics really anybody had done in years, which were those garthiness war stories. So yeah, I sent it to him and he turned me down like a couple of times, but I was I was politely persistent, which I think is another important key to break it. Not you know, not like being a bother or pain in the butt, but like, be persistent, just be polite, be respectful of editors time.

So I send him the script. I had written the first issue script and said, hey, would you, you know, take a look at it at least and let me know what you think, And he said sure, told me again, you know, I still can't use it, but I'll take a look at it. And then he read it and you know, liked it and got greenlit it at Vertigo.

So I think I've never worked harder in my life on a comic script than that one, the first, because that was the first full, you know, then twenty two pages script I'd ever written, which I worked on probably for months, so I was still probably the I was selling book I've ever written. You know, it's the very first one, but it was the most important one, I think, because you know, it sort of paved the way for everything I've done since then. M h.

to other genres. So kind of right from the get go in terms of my career, I was doing, you know, create her own stuff, balancing with the Marvel and DC stuff.

What's what's that journey been like for you? Because you've been a professional comics writer almost as long as you were just a fan, you know, so like, what what has that journey been like for you of doing it full time and doing creator own books that people have loved and always coming back to those superheroes too.

or so, so, you know, even within that. I you know, it's spent like six years, six seven years writing Wolverine stories. I've spent seven years writing thor stories since then I've been doing Avengers. So it's still I've changed over the course of that. My work's changed, the companies changed a lot, and I and you know, things are still changing for me, as they are for most everybody after the last couple of years, right, so, I think this next year for

me will be another one of even bigger changes. So but I think all that's good. I mean, from granted, not all of those changes have been good. Certainly the ones we've all been dealing with lately have not been. But I think it's good and that it just I don't ever want to get stagnant or bored or just feel like I'm punching the clock and and doing this just to pay my bills. I think as a creator, you always want to feel like you're challenging yourself and

doing something that's different than stuff you've done before. So, you know, I'm very happy and fortunate that I feel like I've been able to do that. I haven't spent my time doing jobs that were forced upon me that I that you know, or somebody else's ideas or things that I didn't want to do. So it's been a it's definitely been a journey, but been a fun one, and I think you do have to be conscious of not getting burned out. To me, the only thing I

think is just the grind of doing ongoing books. I think I'm you know, maybe interested in kind of jumping off that train at some point and doing more stuff, kind of like what I'm doing with Punisher right now, or it's just sort of you know, set number of issues, set artists, just because I think that can get to be a bit of a grind when you're having to write for, you know, many different artists at the same time.

I'm excited to do. And it was a matter of good timing and that Thor was not really a character I had been long interested in, but that moment in time it struck me to whereas, yeah, I think I really want to do Thor, and yeah, I got to work with an incredible lineup of artists, very very lucky over the series of people I got to work with. I think for me the biggest thing was I'd been at Marvel long enough at that point, you know, I'd

been writing Wolverine Next stuff for so long. I felt kind of comfortable with my position in the company, with my relationships with everybody, that I kind of had the confidence to sort of say, Okay, I'm taking over Thor and I'm going to stay here as long as it takes me to kind of see all this through, because I knew I was kind of laying tracks like this is going to take a while, you know, like this is going to take years for me to pay all

this off. And I kind of just said, like, I'm going to stay on here until you know, you guys fire me or take me off or I'm done, you know, one or the other, and kind of felt again, felt confident enough to say, like, I feel like I can just do that right, Yeah, And thankfully, you know, I didn't get fired along the way, and I got to finish the story the way I wanted to.

was laid out at the beginning. Obviously there's a bunch of different you know, crossover events that intersected with these stories, and a bunch of different things, you know, different directions that the company was going on editorially over this run. So how much of that were you able to kind of lay out at the beginning?

became Jane Foster stories, and things got moved around. So I think the Jane part of it definitely shifted things around in part because I was so like, I enjoyed that story so much, Like I kind of, you know, I think I did realize you're talking about in terms

of realizing like the what we were doing. I realized in the midst of that Jane Foster story, I'm really really happy and really really proud of this, there's a lot of meat on these bones, you know, just emotionally, Like I knew this is something not just it's fun to watch her go around and punch Odin in the face and do all this big stuff like that's cool. But I realize this is a very potential if we do it right, to be a very powerful emotional story.

And I feel like we did that. I feel like it was first and foremost because it was for all of us involved in making it, you know. I mean I cried writing issues, and Russell cried drawing them, and our editors cried when the pages came in. We'd all cry. And I'll still do signings, you know, where people bring

up door comics and start crying and everybody's crying. And so I've never I've done stories that have affected people, and done other stories I'm really proud of, and then I think all the parts came together in the right way. But that Jane Fosters story in particular, I think is a bit of a cut of a cut above especially the other Marvel stuff I've done, in terms of the impact it's had on people.

me in ways that I was not ready for. Jane's in the hospital and Volstag is there asleep in a chair like in like a like a bag of chips on his on his lap, and you know, it's a really simple scene obviously contrasted with with the kind of more godlike adventures that Jane is having, and it's so grounded and it's so grounded in the friendship, really surprising friendship between Volsag and Jane, and it was it was

just amazing. It was just an amazing scene. I love quiet scenes like that as a longtime comics reader, and it was that was a moment where I was like, wow, this is really good, this is special.

love comics do. Like me and Jason talk a lot about the eighties X Men stuff, like the Clamont stuff, that was a lot of what kind of made us fall in love with comics.

work for higher business, is it? What's it like for you when you then see Natalie Portman get on stage with Taikawai Tit and hold up the hammer and you know that she's going to be Jane And then what does it feel like a year and a half later when you're seeing her on screen in this story that this film that is obviously so inspired by the story that you guys created.

a it's been a fun experience the whole way. It still is, you know. I'm I'm still going to Target and buying Jane Foster toys as they pop up on the shows.

can't do that like I can't. I just have to write the script the way I write it, which is generally I'm you know, I'm not writing those like five page panel descriptions like in the Alan Moore Watchman script. I'm not. In my mind. My job is just to kind of give the artist enough of a springboard and then get out of the way and let them do what they do. So that's generally what I do, regardless

of who I'm working with. I think the few exceptions are there times I've worked with somebody like Chris Pachallo where it would develop into more like a some version of a Marvel style approach like which was generally just because I would I wrote a full script for him and he would change it so radically. It didn't make

sense for me to do that. Yeah, it's like get out of the way of let cause you know, I would never have the guts to write a sixteen panel page for anybody, even Chris Pachalo, but he would, he would break him down that way himself. So I thought, it's like, well, why don't we just let him do that? So I would, and I think I've done that with Adam Kubert. Just a couple of guys who want to

do that. Not all artists, you know, want that responsibility of sort of breaking everything down themselves, but some do. But beyond that, you know, I just feel like it's not my job to tell Russell or as Old or any body like how to draw. They know how to do that, I don't. I just need to give them some cool ideas, give them the emotion that's necessary in this in this panel and this beat, and then just get out of the way and let them let them draw beautiful pictures.

way I've approached it. That said, there definitely, you know, there's a short list of characters that I am such a huge fan of that I've never really gotten to tell a story with in a big way. I mean, you know, Conan the Barbarian was on that list, and I got to check that one off the last couple of years. So yeah, there are definitely other characters a Marvel,

you know, a few. I mean, I feel like at this point I've kind of gotten to my stories with most everybody and some, but there's some I have not really written in any significant way, and certainly haven't outside of Marvel, haven't really written anybody else, but I you know, I would say an oddball when, which will probably never happen in my life, is I'm a huge Uncle Scrooge I love.

from fantagraphics, really really well done books. I recommend them all, but I think I would the Uncle Scrooge I would put on the list probably if I had made a list five years ago, been Conan number one, Uncle Scrooge number two. So I've marked off one of those. We'll see if someday I can get the other one.

a while. It comes from your experience in ways maybe that some of your marvel work maybe doesn't.

through all of my thort stuff. So I'd never written about football in any significant way until I got to Southern Bastards, and it really the first idea was I hadn't when I was doing Scalped I had an idea for a crime boss who was a high school football coach that I winded up never using, and that was kind of a great springboard I thought for doing a you know, a deep South crime story So it's very much about you know, where I grew up, which is kind of a as I've talked about, it's a love

letter slash, you know, letter of rage and anger. It's sort of the things you love and that you don't like so much about about where you're from. I love being from a small town. I love being from the South. I still I think I will always think of myself as a Southern writer, even though I've lived outside the South now for twenty years, twenty two years. So yeah, I think it's very much that it's the as Southerners, we don't like it when people from outside the South

talk crap about us. We kind of we only take that from fellow Southerners. So it's me, you know, just trying to pour all that into into one comic.

and love of comics. And I think even now and probably until the day I die, if I if you, if I close my eyes and you say, you know, picture a comic book page, it's drawn by George Perez, always in forever. So I've been pulling a lot of that stuff out. You know, I have a lot of comics like my I just moved like a year and a half ago, so I just recently had to move them all. So it made me appreciate even more how many,

just how many long boxes I have accumulated. So I love digging into I'm pulling out lots of old books, you know, Like I said, there was a lot of stuff from that mid eighties DC period that I loved Atari Forrest's kind of forgotten Jose Luis Garcia Lopez sci fi book Blue Devil that same period by DC. It was a huge book for me. And I think, I think, I look at Blue Devil and Blue Beetle and and

ex Caliber, the original ex Caliber. Yeah, I love that, the Giffn demitaeas Justice League, like all those things that were funny and irreverent, but also you know, had real emotion and waight and well rounded characters to them. I think those books together defined so much of what I love about comics.

And that's something people are willingly doing now and it's given me a lot of and I feel great about kind of where the community is because of that, which is why I ask.

You just have to be able to find it. You need to walk into a good shop where they can help direct you to it, or you find it, you know, digitally, however you find it, however you get access to it. Whatever that book is, I think, you know, we just want to welcome people into comics, like please, please come

find that book. And every time I go to one of the great comics stores we have across the country, where it's you know, Third Y Comics in Maryland, or the Isotope in San Francisco, or Our Heroes are hard to find, and Charlotte a comic shop in Orlando, like these are the shops I go to that Every time I walk in, I see how passionate the people who work there are, how beautiful a shop is, how it's how easy it is to walk in out of the blue, never been in a comic shop before, don't know the

secret handshake or the lingo, don't know anything, just looking for something. And it makes me feel good to know those people come in this shop, they're in good hands, right, They're going to be directed to find a book they will enjoy, and they will hopefully make them a comic book reader, just like you know New teen Titans did for me all those years ago. So I still love that.

I love that idea of the good shops, and like I said, every time I go to them, i'd leave excited to go do new work, you know, excited knowing like those are the people on the front lines, those are the people putting books in the hands of readers. So it just makes me happy to see people who are loving that and win such a great job of it.

guy pissed off. You don't want him. I mean every time he sort of looks around at the landscape of college football and says, hey, is this how we want it to be? And everybody says yes it is. He says okay, and then he goes and you is that to win football games? And I feel like this season, this team he's got could be the best team he's ever had, potential to be the best team he's ever had, which I think should frighten and terrify the rest of

college football. That's just what that man continues to be capable of.

by Chris Lord and Soul Rubin. The show is executive produced by myself and Sandy Rhard are editing and sound design who's by Vascillis Photopoulos, Dilon Villanueva and Matt de Group provide video production support. Alex Rella for handle social media. Thank you Brian Vasquez. For the music, see nex Time