interview by Mikespins

Spinning out of Marvel Comics' Civil War event is the new title Avengers: The Initiative written by Dan Slott and drawn by Stefano Casselli. Dan Slott makes a quick stop into the Basement to tell you why you should be reading his new book.

For anyone who hasn't followed Civil War can you give a quick recap of where things stand now and how your new book ties into the overall story?

Well, the Civil War is over and Iron Man's side, the pro-registration side, won. And now what you're going to find out in The Initiative is that everyone who registered as part of Tony Stark's 50 States Initiative program has to go through superhero training since that was the promise of the whole registration act: from now on our heroes will be responsible, they'll be trained as perfect first responders and that's what the Initiative is about.

It's about the boot camp, Camp Hammond, which is actually set up at Stamford, Connecticut, the city the New Warriors blew up, as a hub for all the super hero training. It's a way for Tony Stark and the people of the Initiative to say to the people of Stamford, "From now on, from this day forward this will never happen again." All our heroes are going to be responsible, everyone is going to be held accountable. There will be oversight, and since so many heroes are going to be flying in and out of the Initiative, this is now superhero central. It's going to be the safest spot on Earth.

In the first issue one of the recruits asks the question "What happens if we don't pass?" How long will readers have to wait for an answer to that question?

Very Soooooooooooooon!

Take us through the process the recruits face...

There's going to be a whole measure of things... This isn't the Xavier Institute. This isn't about just learning to use your powers. This is about being a first responder. If someone in the real world, if you suddenly got into a car accident, you'd want a trained paramedic. The last thing you'd want is a stranger showing up in a mask. If someone just ran up to you in a Nixon mask and said "I can pull you out of this car," you'd be like "no, I don't think you should move me yet."

What the Initiative is about is you're going to learn everything and some of that will happen on camera, but there's all kinds of different elements. There is the kind of element that you're in a school almost like the X-Men and Harry Potter and you're learning all these skills but it's also a military operation. And it's very much like the Grrrrr red meat Larry Hama G.I. Joe stuff going on where we're going to have to fight the forces of Hydra and we're going to have to hunt down rogue heroes and we're going to be sent on dangerous missions. It's bizarre, it's this weird mix of all these different things.

It's going to be very strict military training, there's going to be training in other skills too, from CPR to superhero ethics, to you name it. Anything you would need to be a superheroic first responder, whether it's a fireman, a paramedic, a policeman, the whole gamut. They're here to serve the people of the Marvel Universe now and they're going to be accountable for all of their actions. That said, there's also going to be a lot of learning on the fly as you go to dangerous situations and dangerous missions.

Aside from the Avengers training the new recruits, it's mostly new characters right?

Well, there is going to be a strong supporting cast which is the people running the base and these are heroes and characters we've seen before in the Marvel Universe and some new ones too. The staff on the base includes War Machine, pretty much running the whole shebang, Yellowjacket, who is doing a lot of stuff in the lab because it's kind of hard to fill a 50 State Initiative and, like we've seen with The Champions, some heroes are going to have to be made.

Working with them in the lab is an ex-Nazi supervillian, you get Henry Peter Gyrich, who is kind of like your liaison to the armed forces, he's the Secretary of Superhero Armed Forces. And Justice from the New Warriors, who's been through it all. He's been a prisoner in the Vault, he's been a member of the New Warriors. He's been an Avenger. He's really seen the superhero world, especially as a young hero, from so many different angles, being best friend of the Thing, an admirer/protoge of Captain America. This is a character with a really rich history, especially for teen heroes, and he's going to serve as the teen counselor on the base. And we have a new character, The Gauntlet, who people have seen glimpses of, tiny glimpses of, in the She Hulk book, and he is your drill sergeant. So, right there you have a really rich supporting cast of characters and they are also going to be fairly main characters too.

And for the new characters that come in, if they make it through the process then they get assigned to one of the fifty states, so who knows how long we'll see these characters or whether fate will be kind to them.

You will see new characters and old characters and classic characters and there's going to be a lot of characters coming in to be guest instructors and characters who might need a refresher course in certain things. Like maybe you need to relearn lifeguard procedures and how to save a drowning victim or maybe you'd like to learn how to properly enter a burning building and deal with things that a fireman would have to know. So, at any point, even long-established characters could be trainees for certain areas.

Who would you out of the new characters think readers are going to take to?

You know I thought it was going to be a certain character, I don't know. I think fans will make up their own minds. I really can't predict this time around. I really thought it was going to be Trauma, there's stuff going on with Trauma that I really like, but I was just working on a script today and, boy, Hardball, once you get to know him and who he is, he's really fun to write. And so is Komodo and there's a lot of new characters running around.

For anyone sitting on the fence about the book what would you say to sway them to give The Initiative a try?

All the people who were arguing about Civil War and who enjoyed arguing about Civil War are really going to like this book. Even if you think you hate the 50 States Initiative you're going to like this book. One of the things I think Civil War did really well, was it brought up tricky issues. The thing sold like gangbusters. Everybody read it. Even people who claimed they weren't reading it were reading it and you would see on internet boards and on message boards everybody going at it. Arguing over different points and talking about the story.

If you liked that debate, if you liked taking part in that, you're going to like this book because it really isn't a pass on the 50 States Initiative and nor is it a condemnation of it. Everyone is going to have different points of view in this book. And you're going to look at this book and at times think that the Initiative is a positive force in the world and other times you're going to look at it and go "Ohhh that makes me feel weird. I don't know how I feel about that."

This is a book for people who like exploring the Marvel Universe and arguing about it.