Many of you may recognize his credits on POWER PACK or nearly all of the current and past MARVEL ADVENTURES titles, including FANTASTIC FOUR, SPIDER-MAN and IRON MAN. And of course we can't forget the new WOLVERINE: FIRST CLASS, can we?

Whew... one has to wonder...does Fred Van Lente sleep?

munkeypunk: Let's say we get a few tone setters out of the way; What are you listening to these days? Is there a soundtrack to some of your stories?

Van Lente: My wife has gone to a playwriting retreat for two weeks and before she left she made me a mix that's a jumble of stuff that I've been listening to while she's been gone. A lot of stuff from the Juno soundtrack, and this band she's recently really gotten into, The Decemberists. They're great.

I find music is a great way to train my brain to think about certain projects, and each major one I usually make a play-list for on iTunes, and play that, and only that, while working on it. When you juggle as many projects as I do, it's useful to condition your mind in a Pavolvian way to shift from say, an all-ages book like Power Pack to a Marvel Universe title like Incredible Hercules ... and a couple of the series I'm working on right now, which are the definition of "dark." It prevents me from getting genre whiplash when hopping from tone to tone.

munkeypunk: Last movie you actually went to the cinema for (and did you like it)?

Van Lente: I saw Redbelt, David Mamet's fighting movie, and yeah, I thought it was great. As one would expect the acting was terrific, particularly Chiwetel Ejiofor. He's awesome.

munkeypunk: What was the last (big boy) book you finished or do you find yourself avoiding others work when you write?

Van Lente: Sometimes. Depends on the project. I find tone more important than anything, so if I'm reading, say, a mystery while writing something noir myself, that helps get my brain locked-in. Right now I'm almost finished with The Good Rat by Jimmy Breslin, which is, more or less, about the trial of the "Mafia Cops" here in New York City.

munkeypunk: Do you have a particular comic or character that got you hooked?

Van Lente: Spider-Man, I think. When I was very young my parents gave me the Pocket Books color reprint collection of the first six issues of Amazing and I read it and re-read it until it literally fell apart.

munkeypunk: Dogs or cats?

Van Lente: I like both. I'm an animal person. I own three cats, but I would love to get a dog. I haven't yet just because I live in an apartment in New York City and couldn't deal with the responsibility.

munkeypunk: When you mentioned juggling projects you weren't kidding. You seem to have a lot of balls (ahem...) in the air right now, from the "kid friendly" (a good comic is a good comic folks) Iron Man in the Marvel Adventure line to Wolverine: First Class to the fan favorite Incredible Hercules not to mention the upcoming Secret Invasion tie-in; Skrulls vs. Power Pack (H.E.R.B.I.E. is a Skrull!)

Quite the eclectic group of characters and "Universes" to keep tabs on. How do you find yourself approaching these varying projects? Is there a difference?

Van Lente: Yeah, there has to be, because in each one you're appealing to slightly different demographics. Power Pack has a largely kid audience. Marvel Adventures serves both kids and adults look for a more classic, "nostalgic" feel. Incredible Hercules, etc., hits the more mainstream fans, obviously.

The differences also manifest themselves in the way the different comics are structured. Marvel Adventures have to be "done-in-one", single-issue short stories so each individual issue can be say, packaged in with one of those sponges that grow when you pour water on it (as my first Spider-Man was ... my wife ran screaming out of CVS in upstate New York holding it when she discovered while we were on vacation). Power Pack is done in a series of self-contained minis of four issues each.

Herc, obviously, is open-ended and part of the on-going epic of the Marvel Universe as a whole. It's exciting. Each new writing assignment is a new challenge, and I really enjoy that Marvel offers me all these different kinds of challenges to confront.

It keeps me from getting bogged down in any one project -- if one is giving me trouble, I can just switch off to another before returning to the one I had problems with, looking at it with fresh eyes.

munkeypunk: So on average, how long do you spend on each script?

Van Lente: Fortunately for somebody in my line of work, my brain does not know how to shut itself off. If I'm grocery shopping, watching a ball game, in the shower, pretending to listen to people talk to me, my mind is habitually going through every project, running through old scenes, examining ides for new scenes that keep gurgling up.

So almost always when I sit down at the keyboard, I have a pretty good idea of where I'm going with something. And very frequently, if I don't, what I end up setting down in MS-Word turns out to be crap. However, through obsessive force of habit, I've trained myself to make very quick decisions.

The Comics Journal used to run this Gil Kane quote with its advertising -- in effect, that art is the discipline of being able to tell the good from the better, and deciding on the latter. I try as much as I can to not "think" while I'm actually writing -- typing. If I've done my mental work properly, I should be able to instinctually choose the right path almost instantly.

I don't spend a lot of time worrying things over or trying different things on for size. I just do a beeline for what I've already subconsciously determined is the best choice, for me. So, the net result of this mental prep is that I write one 22-page comics script, on average, in two days.

On the third day I wake up, reread the whole thing, make tweaks, send it in. Of course, the Mark Paniccia and Nate Cosby office, where I've done almost all of my Marvel work, requires short, three-or-four page outlines before writing begins. I'm not factoring that time in. You get a lot of good prep work done that way. I'm now working for another Marvel office that doesn't require outlines.

That issue took a couple of days longer to write. Of course, that was a #1, which is inherently harder, with set-up and so on, so it's hard to say if that's not the reason.

munkeypunk: Ah, so right now, even as we type, you're mentally mulling over...? Maybe you can give us a little sneak peek of what you're working on now or at least the play-lists?

Van Lente: Well, since the last question, I went to a meeting in Manhattan, came back, watched "Top Chef", played Grand Theft Auto 4, and went to bed, got up again, and am now looking over what is basically the final issue of Marvel Adventures Iron Man, which is a one-shot coming out in September. Due to schedule concerns I've got Margot Blankier helping me out and doing the heavy lifting.

I'm looking over her script pages, so the "Iron Man" mix is on. Hmmm...This play-list is a lot more literal than the other ones. "Superhero" by Jane's Addiction (Tony and "Entourage" go hand and hand, don't you think?) ... "Son of A Bitch," AC/DC ...The Flying Lizards' cover of "I Want Money" ... "Lust for Life" ... and an amazing jazz trio cover of, yes, "Iron Man," by the Bad Plus.

munkeypunk: Final issue? That's too bad, but the hint of schedule concerns bodes well. That does brings up an interesting point, though. There is no doubt that Marvel has again struck celluloid gold with Iron Man, but his comics (and all spandex properties, for that matter) seem to struggle to find an audience. From a creators perspective what are the major obstacles you face when trying to entice some of those ticket holders into becoming comic buyers?

Van Lente: Beats the hell out of me. I think if Hollywood makes good movies and we make good comics, that's all we really can do. I signed at my LCS on FCBD and we blew through a bunch of MAIM, mostly to kids and people who had just seen the movie the weekend it opened. They have the MAIM digest sitting on their counter next to the cash register, so clearly they're trying to leverage the movie into sales.

I think Tony Stark is a special case, though. That's part of what I enjoyed about the movie so much, is they turned what really is most problematic about him as a super hero character into a strength.

Superheroes, to be very reductive, are really about empowering the powerless, so the most successful properties tend to focus on nerds (Clark Kent, Peter Parker, Bruce Banner), the persecuted and/or discriminated against (the entire X-Men franchise; Wonder Woman, arguably) and the emotionally damaged (Batman, the Punisher, Wolverine). Tony's problem is that he doesn't need any more empowerment.

He's a handsome billionaire genius. It seems almost unfair to give him superpowers. Would you want to give Bill Gates any more power? So he's kind of an odd duck with a history of spotty popularity. There's the heart thing, that's supposed to knock him down a peg, but I always thought that was a silly idea (he's the richest man in the world and he can't afford open-heart surgery?) and I think I mentioned it all of two times in the entire MAIM run.

However, what I thought was fun was this idea that Tony is this altruistic guy who, because of his status in life, is kind of disconnected from reality. He's almost like, say, the President of the United States, living in a rigidly-controlled bubble, but still trying (one would hope) to do the right thing for "the little people."

It's no coincidence, I think, that he was most appreciated when he was a drunk. That gave him a vulnerability he would otherwise lack. Let's face it, he's basically a happy, successful, beloved guy. And that very much goes against the grain of the genre.

munkeypunk: I think that's what makes Tony such an interesting character. He's a self obsessed control freak, qualities inherent in many intelligent and successful people. I believe his motivations, more than say Batman's, who seems to hide and focus on more extreme scenarios, instead of just using his "billions" to truly change the world. Tony makes no bones about it, he is here to usher in the future. So now that we know a bit about what the future holds, let's look back at how you got into comics. Two words; Action Philosophers! Two more words; what the?

Van Lente: Well, it's a common misconception is that I broke in with Action Philosophers. Or "broke through," for that matter. I'm the classic ten year overnight success. One of the things I worked on in those ten years was an independent "super-crime" comic about powered mob enforcers with future Zuda winner Steve Ellis.

That was called The Silencers and it got me noticed by then-Tokoypop, soon-to-be Marvel editor Mark Paniccia. He invited me to pitch for the new "Scorpion" series in the pages of Amazing Fantasy.

Meanwhile, on a completely unrelated track, Ryan and I had applied for a Xeric self-publishing grant for AP, which we developed for a start-up comics magazine that went under before its first issue was published; and we had a whole comic's worth of strips and nowhere to print it.

So, by a bizarre coincidence, my first Marvel work, Amazing Fantasy #7 (1st new Scorpion) and Action Philosophers! #1 came out on the same day in March 2005. Ironically, I had managed to shatter my ankle and I was laid up in bed right after surgery and couldn't get to the comics store to see it. Even more ironically, at Jim Hanley's my two breakout comics from two different publishers and two very different pedigrees were sitting next to each other thanks to the alphabet; Ryan sent me a photo as proof from his cell phone as I was stuck in my living room with a cast on the lower part of my left leg.

munkeypunk: And what was that moment like, seeing your work sitting on the shelves?

Van Lente: It's painful. It's literally physically painful. I try to avoid seeking my own work out on the racks whenever I can, but sometimes it's unavoidable. If there's a big stack there, I'm worried the retailer ordered too much, and he'll be stuck with all these unsold copies. If there are only a couple issues, I'm worried he didn't order a lot and so we're not selling well.

If it's not there at all, I'm worried we're not getting reorders. My insecurities drive my wife crazy. The comp process at Marvel is interminably slow, so whenever she wants to read my comics she asks me to go to the store and buy a copy for her, but I always refuse. So if she really wants to read it she has to go buy it herself, or wait a few months for the comps.

munkeypunk: Well between AF and AP, I would hazard a guess that they were two distinctly different types of consumers, what was fan reaction like?

Van Lente: The new Scorpion reaction was a little on the rough side. I think a lot of it was reacting to the manner in which she was created, which was as a result of a fan poll on Marvel.com to give characters a makeover, and the Spidey villain Scorpion won. I'm not certain, but I think a lot of fans didn't think the character was going to be made over that radically -- making her a teenage girl, a SHIELD agent, et cetera. That said, however, to this day I get enthusiastic fan mail from that series, so it really became a favorite of a lot of people, and I was pleased, because I really poured my heart and soul into it as best I could.

And the pounding I took on that series was my introduction to the, er, less wonderful aspects (for a creator) of the world of comics message boards and news sites, so that was definitely a trial by fire. I've certainly toughened up since then, but I lost some sleep over some of the stuff I read, definitely.

I'm only human. But, you know, that was a learning process; this just comes with the privilege of being able to do this for a living. If you can't take criticism from the public, then a life in arts and entertainment is not the place for you, my friend. Action Philosophers was an almost instantaneous success. We sold out of the first issue very quickly. I was absolutely stunned. I thought we'd sell a couple hundred copies in the Direct Market, then try and interest a big book company in it.

Dunlavey claims he thought all along it would be successful, but I know he's a filthy liar. Success always feels weirder than failure. I can't explain it. You feel like it's somehow separate from you.

Perhaps it's because you spend more time rechecking your work in avoidance of failure, that you always expect failure a little bit, so when it comes, it's almost a confirmation.

Success, however, is like a gift from strangers -- it just comes from nowhere.

munkeypunk: Well, rest assured that not all of us "posters" are frothing at the mouth over any little change. I actually missed the Amazing Fantasy books (back issue bin here I come) and only became aware of the new Scorpion through the Heroes for Hire back up stories running in issues 11-13 and was quickly moved by her "trial" with Paladin. You seem to have a soft spot for villains (I'd even posit a slight obsession with A.I.M.). Is this what motivated Super Villain Team-Up Modok's Eleven?

Van Lente: The A.I.M. connection is entirely via Scorpion, trust me. And MODOK. I'm definitely AIM-ed out at this point. But yes, I do so love super villains. They tend to be infinitely more interesting than the heroes, and more fun to write about.

I've always been a big fan of the crime/mob genre. MODOK's 11 was a simple case of knowing what to sell a particular editor. When Amazing Fantasy was wrapping, I was wracking my brain for a new project to sell to Marvel, and since Mark loved The Silencers, which was basically "Sopranos with Superpowers", I thought a pitch that was basically "Ocean's 11 with Superpowers" would be something he would be into, and I was right. He really loved the villain in "Scorpion," her mother, AIM Scientist Supreme Monica Rappaccini, and he wanted to do a series about her and some of the other well-connected villains in the Marvel U, so we just folded the two ideas together.

munkeypunk: There was a rumor floating around the interwebs about how M11 was to tie into Secret Invasion in an unexpected way. Can you confirm this, or should we just chalk this up to wild speculation?

Van Lente: Wild speculation-- the first I'm hearing about it, certainly. That series was so long in development we actually tried to tie into Civil War, but we decided in the end it wouldn't serve the story. As you'll recall it sort of very loosely ties into World War Hulk, vis-a-vis the phony memories implanted in the Chameleon's mind.

munkeypunk: World War Hulk served as a staring point for several different titles, most of which were penned by your writing partner Greg Pak. Of all the titles to continue the Hulk thread in the Marvel U, by far the most compelling and strangest was the conversion of the Incredible Hulk into the Incredible Herc. How does this partnership with Pak actually work?

Van Lente: It's very 50-50. We chat over the story together, than one of us writes half and the other writes the other half. We've varied it slightly recently because in order to get a jump start on third arc with a great artist (Mr. Clayton Henry), one of us is concentrating on ramping up that arc while the other works on wrapping up "Sacred Invasion," the current arc. But we both look over each other's work and tweak as we see fit regardless.

munkeypunk: I think what I like most, and there is a lot to like to like here, from the beautiful line work of Khoi Pham and now Rafa Sandoval or the colors by the late Stephane Peru (1981-2008), to the buddy movie banter and loyalty between Amadeus and Herc (perhaps reminiscent of a previous Hercules relationship with Argonaut and companion Hylas?). Not to mention the road/chase feel of staying one step ahead of SHEILD, all interesting premises on their own, but what I find most compelling is the depth of character you've given Hercules.

I think for the first time, I'm getting a real sense of age from the Prince of Power. This is the Hercules of myth, the three thousand year old demigod who committed horrible acts of violence, yet always strove to make right in the only way he knew how, through acts of pure strength and courage.

But green eyed Athena seems to have other plans, Issue 117, Part one of Sacred Invasion, the Secret Invasion cross over, we are introduced to the "God Squad" and the mission they have gathered together for; to pierce the heart of an alien spirituality and slay the Skrull Pantheon! Can you tell us what a War of the Gods might mean to the overall Skrull invasion plans?

Van Lente: Athena certainly seems to think that a victory of the gods will cause chaos among the followers. Also, as we'll soon learn, Athena is something of the gods' spin-meister. She knows that part of the reason their worship has fallen off so radically is that the mortals are like, "What have you done for me lately?" So to a certain extent many of her actions are making the gods relevant to humanity again. Sacred Invasion seems as good a place as any to start.

munkeypunk: So for Athena it's a two-fer? But why put Hercules in charge? He is nothing more than a self admitted brawler and roustabout. If this mission is that important why would the Goddess of Wisdom trust Herc to lead this ragtag, from the Four Corners of the world, God Squad?

Van Lente: Athena, who is basically the third major character in Incredible Hercules, always looks at The Big Picture. That's one of the pluses of being a goddess of wisdom. It's part of what makes the other gods so mistrustful of her -- she is always working multiple angles. In fact, as Anansi himself pointed out at the Council Elite meeting, she probably has something up her sleeve. And while the choice of God Squad leader may seem kind of odd on the surface, it may very well make perfect sense when one sees the full extent of Athena's plan.

Which extends well past "Sacred Invasion" and form the major throughline for the uber-arc of iHerc as a whole...

munkeypunk: So you and Pak are on for the long haul?

Van Lente: Ayup.

munkeypunk: Not having a home has to be forefront in Athena's thoughts, assuming she isn't a Skrull, which begs the question, one even the Gods addressed, can a Skrull impersonate a God?

Van Lente: Somebody else asked this recently ... Since I'm not sure we have the senses to differentiate gods from mortals, and if the Super-Skrulls can impersonate any variety of super-powers, it stands to reason they could impersonate gods if only be emulating their superhuman abilities. The question, probably, is whether or not they could actually fool other gods. That remains to be seen.

munkeypunk: What are the chances that one of these beings is not what they seem?

Van Lente: High. (wink)

munkeypunk: Hmm. Alrighty folks, on you marks; Ready. Steady. Guess. Changing gears I like to get your opinion on some of the charities and organizations that are set up help those comic creators who may have fallen on hard times (much like some Greek Gods I know), places like the Hero Initiative or even our own EB30?

Van Lente: Well, I worked for Jim McLaughlin at Platinum Studios and was delighted to sign for Hero Initiative at both NYCC and now at the upcoming Wizard World Philly. I think they're important organizations fans and creators alike should enthusiastically support.

munkeypunk: Every little bit helps. I think it's important to give back to something that has given so much to all of us over the years. From monthly's and mini's, to crossovers and conventions, you are indeed a very busy man. But before we let you get back to work let's ease out with a few random questions; Any comics you can't wait until next month for?

Van Lente: Angry Youth Comix by Johnny Ryan, Thunderbolts by Ellis & Deodato.

munkeypunk: Are you a morning or night person by nature?

Van Lente: Morning.

munkeypunk: Is there a character in either of the big toy boxes that you can't wait to play with?

Van Lente: One day I'll get to do my reboot of the original Guardians of the Galaxy, with Vance, Yondu, Charlie and all the rest... One day...

munkeypunk: What would your last meal be?

Van Lente: Burger and fries, I think. I could come up with all kinds of gourmet alternatives, but I think a "last meal" type situation almost cries out for comfort food, yes?

munkeypunk: Thanks Fred

Van Lente: Thank you! It's been fun.