Today Marvel announced that the “Incredible Hercules” saga would continue in May 2010 via the “Heroic Age: Prince of Power” miniseries, starring Amadeus Cho, Herc’s best friend and the Marvel Universe’s most incorrigible teen genius.
The mini will be co-written by “Incredible Hercules” regulars Greg Pak and Fred Van Lente with pencils by beloved “Thorcules” artist Reilly Brown. A number of websites have featured interviews with the creators — here are a few excerpts:
Marvel:
“Keep your eyes open for Amadeus’ big-brained colleague Bruce Banner and a certain long haired individual of the Norse persuasion whose name starts with a T and ends with a-oh, heck, he’s on the cover,” Pak gives up. “We’re talking about Thor! The Odinson plays a massive role throughout this storyline. An extra bonus is that [artist] Reilly Brown, who knocked the ‘Replacement Thor’ storyline out of the park, is back on board for PRINCE OF POWER.’ He draws an incredible Thor-and his upgrade of Amadeus’s look is swoon-worthy.”
Pak: Fred and I have made an extra special effort to make Prince of Power new-reader-friendly. Yes, we’re paying off some major things we set up earlier in the series and launching an insane new era in the “Incredible Hercules” saga (just wait ’til you see how this baby ends!). But if you’ve been tempted to check the book out, this is a great place to start.
Van Lente: Remember, kids: If you read one title about a wiseass teen genius billionaire myth-slayer this year, let it be PRINCE OF POWER.
“At certain points during our ongoing storyline, we’ve had stories that are just larks. Like the ‘Replacement Thor’ storyline in ‘Incredible Hercules’ where Herc dressed up as Thor and Thor dressed up as Herc and mayhem ensued. Storylines like that are a little bit more wacky fun, even though they’re still building our characters,” Pak continued. “And at other times we’ve had storylines where the stakes seem higher and the feel is a bit more epic. Our ‘Secret Invasion’ tie in was a storyline like that, and I think we’re entering that kind of a phase again. So the emotions and the stakes are sky high. At the same time, we are continuing the vibe and feel that we’ve had in our stories all throughout.”
IGN:
IGN Comics: Is there anything else you’d like to add about Prince of Power at this point?
Brown: There are going to be notable appearances by other major Marvel heroes, like Banner and especially Thor, who I’m excited to work with. There’s also going to be a whole lot of villains and classical monsters who are going to need to be designed/redesigned, which is something I always love doing. This is going to be a fun book to work on, and I think readers will really enjoy it.
Van Lente: You can’t have a great hero without being complemented by a great villain. In this case we have a couple: Amadeus starts out fighting a classic Marvel foe that actually battled Hercules when he was with the Champions of Los Angeles, so he gets to prove his mettle that way.
Then also in #1 Cho encounters his arch-nemesis, and befitting the book’s pedigree he’s an Incredible Hulk villain we haven’t seen since Peter David and Dale Keown/Gary Frank’s classic run back in the 1990s, when he was supposedly killed… But has been known to run around with pantheons, or should I say Pantheon…
Greg, stop me if you think I’m being too subtle.
Pak: They’ll never figure this one out.
“Mister Green,” a short film written and directed by Greg Pak and starring Tim Kang and Betty Gilpin, will screen as part of the “Futurestates” shorts program at the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival. The screening times and locations are:
Marvel has announced that “Incredible Hulk” #606, written by Greg Pak with pencils by Paul Pelletier, has sold out at Diamond. A second printing of the book with a new cover featuring Skaar and Doom will go on sale on February 24. “Hulk” #19 has also sold out and will also get a second printing.