"Superhero" is a term that's been borrowed in order to say "big and larger than life and loud and active and dumb." And I don't think that's a useful definition. That's more a dismissal.

I'm not building each one character around one metaphor, so much as trying to build a heroic archetype that can be used to express the kind of metaphors that I find in each story.

Superhero creators who engage in deconstruction fall into two categories: There are the guys who do it because it's easy, because it gets an audience reaction if you point out that superheroes must be a bunch of psychotic nuts. And there are the guys who do it because they're actually interested, and they're trying to get at what's going on underneath. They're interested in the process and the results.

The metaphor is the story, not the character.

The Hulk is rage personified, just, "I don't like something. Break it." And that's a great concept for a seven- or eight-year-old.

When you have a novel set in a fictional history, you still should get your history right.

It's fun to take a piece of formula and go someplace else with it and see what happens.