After 9/11, I knew I wanted to write about power and identity and the way Americans on all sides of the political spectrum often mythologize our leaders, which are themes that the superhero genre has always handled really well.

Your own creations are your own children; you gave life to them, so you'll always have, if not more passion to them, more connections to them.

I genuinely am sort of an emotionally stunted man-child, so if I just write to the top of my intelligence, it sounds like a teenager. I like being around teenagers. It's good for drama; they feel everything much more intensely than adults do, their lives are much more interesting than ours. They're mutants. They have these weird bodies that are rebelling against them and changing every day. Teenagers always equal good drama.

There's a lot of dark stuff from the '80s that we don't think about.

Fans of my books have just been supremely nice.

I like things that are weirdly imaginative and couldn't be real, but I also like stories that are recognizable and relatable.

I'm not afraid of the world. I'm afraid of a world without you.