I was on the set of the first Powers pilot, and an actor of color came up to me and said, "When I was a kid, my friends wouldn't let me play Batman or Superman, because I wasn't their color. But they would let me play Spider-Man. And that's the difference." And I realized I had heard this story a hundred times from different people, but I wasn't there in my head yet.

I obviously love those characters ['The Avengers'] with my whole heart. I was on a one-man "Luke Cage is cool" campaign for most of the Aughts. When we announced the New Avengers line-up, and Luke Cage and Spider-Woman were there, a lot of fans went, "WHAT?!?!?! Bulls--t!" And I had to prove myself. They were right: I can't just announce they're cool. What's less cool than that? I have to show that they're cool! But this is way farther than I ever thought it would go.

I was into comics because these were my real male role models, even though at the time, I didn't know it.

The only damn thing I ever learned in all my years in art school was a piece is never done, it is just finished. You have to trust your inner voice, your instincts, when they tell you pencils down. And you roll up your sleeves and you start over again.

Artists are not your art monkeys. They are your collaborators. They should be given all due consideration to follow their journey.

I didn't write superheroes for the first 10 years of my comic career. I was just doing fan fiction. I wasn't thinking about superheroes at all, even though I loved them. I was raised by Watchmen and Dark Knight, so I was raised in with it's all been done, they don't worry about that.

I couldn't take my eyes off of Stan [Lee]! As good as the movie is, all I could think about is, "What's he thinking?" So the movie ended, and then he, very whimsically, expressed all of his feelings about how long he waited, and how the TV shows in the '70s were all, "If only they could do this," and now they could. And he didn't get choked up and blubbery, but he was moved. Like, "Ohmigod, it happened while I was alive." And I can't believe I got to see that. He was very raw. It was quite beautiful.