If there's ever a character who can only serve one metaphor, I'll probably tell one story with that character and be done with it.

"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.

The metaphors exist for the stories.

Youve got to leave the reader with more than just a name and a costume - they need to know who the character is, what theyre like, what kind of attitude they have, what sort of role they play.

I wanted to be a writer, but the idea of writing novels or movies seemed really intimidating. I never got more than a few pages into one.

Maybe I had a 'secret identity,' but then when you think about it, don't we all? A part of ourselves very few people ever get to see. The part we think of as 'me.' The part that deals with the big stuff. Makes the real choices. The part everything else is a reflection of.