BIG HERO 6 Creators Discuss Disney Animated Film

Writer Steven T. Seagle and artist Duncan Rouleau created Big Hero 6 back in 1998, however they didn't get to spend a ton of time with their creations. In fact, the bulk of the team's brief Marvel history was penned in separate miniseries from Scott Lobdell and Chris Claremont. Seagle and Rouleau touch on that particular point while expressing their excitement about their creation potentially becoming the next big Disney animated franchise.

For all you collectors and speculators, Big Hero 6 first appeared in Alpha Flight #17. If the animated film is a monster hit, expect the value of that comic book to skyrocket. Seagle and Rouleau shared that at that time they were doing some really gritty and intense things in the series and wanted to add a lighter element to the story, thus Big Hero 6. Said Seagle, " We were doing a pretty dark story arc with the Alpha Flight characters -- lot of intrigue and conspiracy theory and stuff like that. Duncan and I were co-creating the book at the time and we would just meet and talk about what would be fun. We literally thought it would be great to just do the antithesis, which does seem like a super-happy, no-rules-apply super team. We wanted them to be Asian so we could tap into that pop culture idiom and play with all that stuff. We made them up purely out of this idea of fun and wish fulfillment. That's how we came up with Hiro and his sidekick BayMax and built the team around them."

The duo next touch on the fact that despite creating the team, most of their stories have been told by other creators. Shared Seagle on the subject, "The interesting thing about [Big Hero 6's] genesis is we did the one issue of "Alpha Flight" and immediately Marvel management said, "We want to put these guys in a series right away." Unfortunately, because Duncan and I were so busy on other books, we said, "We'd love to, but we can't do it for a few months." They were like, "No, it has to happen immediately." So we gave our notes to Scott Lobdell and said, "This is what we were going to do with it, good luck." He ran with it and did that stuff and some other stuff. I feel like Duncan and I never actually, aside from the one issue, got to play with them in the way we wanted to. So you know, never say never [as far as a return to Marvel for a new series]. We're very busy with other stuff, but definitely we had more to say about them and it would be fun at some point to do that, maybe."

There's more with the creators over at CBR including how Johnny Quest serves as a touchpoint for all their creations so click the source link below to read the full transcript of the interview. These days, Seagle and Rouleau are busy with animation juggernaut Man of Action (Ben 10) which they run along with Joe Kelly and Joe Casey but Marvel should definitely consider giving the creators a run on their creations and the opportunity to tell the story the way they initially envisioned.

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