Greg Pak talks Hulk, Herc, Chaos War on the Randumb Idiocy podcast

DeWayne Feenstra interviews Greg Pak about Hulk, Hercules, Chaos War, and other comics-related stuff for the Randumb Idiocy podcast.

Check it out!

BrokenFrontier.com interviews Greg Pak about comics and mythology

Tony Josepf of BrokenFrontier.com has interviewed Greg Pak about comics and mythology (and Hercules and the Amadeus Cho). Here's an excerpt:

BROKEN FRONTIER: A lot of your comics have a mythological angle, like Incredible Hercules and Planet Hulk. Do you think comic books function as a kind of modern mythology?

GREG PAK: I think that there are some very interesting parallels between these ancient myths and comics. One of the biggest things is that they're both concerned with the education and development of heroes, and with individuals coming to terms with tremendous power. You know, what are the responsibilities of those who have tremendous power? There are lots of stuff in myths that are really applicable to writing comics. Also, if you look at the Greek tragedies for example, a huge part of that is that the gods do what the gods do and humans suffer. There's an interesting parallel with the whole notion in comics of super-powered people, people who have powers that rival those of the gods from ancient times. That creates opportunities for stories that deal with those kind of themes, like: what are the limits of powers that an individual person should have? How much power is too much? And what are the consequences of claiming and wielding this kind of tremendous power?

iFanboy.com interviews Pak and Van Lente about Amadeus Cho and "Heroic Age: Prince of Power"

An excerpt:

Matt Adler: Amadeus Cho seems to be a rare character, in that very few new characters have caught on and taken hold in readers' minds the way he has. Why do you think that is?

Fred Van Lente: I think partly it's because his creator, Greg Pak, never gave up on him, and found opportunities use him in big events like World War Hulk, where he could get maximum exposure -- and WWH led directly to Incredible Hercules, of course.

Greg Pak: Editors Mark Paniccia and Nate Cosby deserve huge credit here. They loved the character from the start and were as eager as I was to engineer his next appearance. And Marvel's David Gabriel gets a gold star for suggesting the Hercules/Amadeus team up book in the first place.

In terms of the character himself, you can never predict just what readers will pick up on. But Amadeus seemed to fill a certain niche in the Marvel Universe at the time, and by providing such a contrast, he made a great foil for established Marvel characters like Hulk and Herc. We were also incredibly lucky to have the amazing Takeshi Miyazawa do the original character design and have fantastic artists like Gary Frank, Carlo Pagulayan, Leonard Kirk, and all of the Incredible Hercules artists put their spin on him. Reilly's new design for Amadeus in Prince Of Power is the icing on the cake, growing the kid up a bit while maintaining that irreverence that makes him so fun.

San Francisco Chronicle profiles Greg Pak and Amadeus Cho

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Jeff Yang has interviewed comic book writer Greg Pak about Amadeus Cho, Hercules, and the "Heroic Age: Prince of Power" miniseries that begins in May. Here's an excerpt:

Cho's Korean identity is essential to his reality; when he meets his dead parents in a journey to the afterlife, the first thing his mother does is remark how skinny he is and offers him food. "Umma made mandoo and miyukguk," says his mother. "Sweet! They have a Korean grocery down here?" asks Cho. "That's why they call it Heaven," says his dad. But at the same time, he's more than just his race, or his funny name, or his big brain.

"He's totally a Korean American kid; that's who he is," says Pak. "At the same time, he happens to be spending a lot of time with Greek gods, so his ethnicity isn't necessarily the first thing on his mind all the time. There's a whole wealth of stories we have set up -- a whole lot he has left to learn and deal with."

With any luck (and a little reader support!) Pak will be able to tell those tales. And if he is, maybe Marvel's new owner, the Hercules of childhood known as Disney, will realize what it has on its hands and bring young Amadeus to a much bigger audience.

After all, in the saga of Amadeus Cho, Pak has created the rich, funny, deeply engrossing tale of an ordinary, yet extraordinary boy who stumbles into a destiny of limitless power, and must learn step by step how to wield it -- while dealing with loss and love, encountering friendship and rivalry, and going through the entire painful, wonderful process of growing up.

And ask your local comic shop to order a copy of "Heroic Age: Prince of Power" #1 for you today! The book hits stores on May 12.

Panel Borders interviews Greg Pak about "Mister Green," the Hulk, and Amadeus Cho

Alex Fitch of Panel Borders has interviewed filmmaker and comic book writer Greg Pak about his new short film "Mister Green," which just won the Sci Fi London Best Short Film award, and his work on "Incredible Hulk," "Incredible Hercules," and Amadeus Cho.

Click here to listen to the podcast.

Amadeus Cho headlines "Heroic Age: Prince of Power" in May

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 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.