Marvel superheroes, like Captain America and Spider-Man, try to inspire their comrades with their righteous examples and exemplify important mottos like, "With great power comes great responsibility." There are also heroes like Hercules and Deadpool, who, rather than inspiring their superpowered colleagues to better themselves, are more likely to severely annoy their fellow heroes. This November, writer Fred Van Lente and artist Dalibor Talajic will show Marvel Comics readers how Deadpool and Herc affect each other with the debut issue of the new ongoing series, "Deadpool Team-Up." CBR News spoke with Van Lente about his plans for the Merc with a Mouth and the Greek Goliath.CBR: Did this assignment spin out of your work on October's "Deadpool" #900?FRED VAN LENTE: Yes. Editor Axel Alonso and I had a great time working together. And I worked with Dalibor on that book as well and he's awesome. He drew our story, which is called "Silent but Deadly" for reasons that are obvious if you've seen the cover of that book. Here, we're doing a story where the Marvel Universe's two most irresponsible heroes team up and create a wide swath of destruction.
SomeYes. The traditional way of looking at a mythological labyrinth is that it's a metaphor for life. You go in one way and find the center, but what you learn on the way there changes you. So you don't ever come out of the Labyrinth the same way you went in.Deadpool bears mental and physical scars and Hercules bears some pretty heavy emotional scars. So Nightmare and Arcade are hoping that Deadpool and Herc will be crushed by what they discover in the center of the labyrinth, making them easy pickings for their villainy.You're writing only the inaugural issue of "Deadpool Team-Up," correct? And it's not issue #1 but issue #899? Yes, this story is just a one-off. And as to the numbering, it makes as much sense as anything that comes out of Deadpool's mouth, which I think is the idea."Deadpool Team-Up" is an ongoing series with rotating creative teams. Would like to come back and revisit this book some day?Definitely. I really love writing Deadpool. He's a fun character and I've done two stories with him now. I love the interplay between him and his various voices and the fact that you really don't know what he's going to do next. Deadpool is the perfect combination of Spider-Man's jokes, Wolverine's lethality and invincibility, and Bugs Bunny's attitude.