In the U.S., Superman or Batman or something, the law-enforcement people, are the most famous comic characters. Americans have a respect, I think, for badges and a respect for uniforms. I think that's, in some ways, quite a nice thing, but it can be dangerous, too, because it can obviously be abused.

I think most people know the concept of difficult family situations. So I try to just ground a very big concept in something we can all relate to on some level.

The ultimate [act] that would be the taboo, to show how bad some villain is, was to have somebody being raped, you know? I don't really think it matters. It's the same as, like, a decapitation. It's just a horrible act to show that somebody's a bad guy.

Marvel books also feed into the smaller publishers and the fact that this is happening in the same month we're launching Ultimate Fantastic Four is no coincidence.

I spent as much time writing proposals in '98 and '99 as I did writing scripts.

I wanted to portray very, very dark subject matter and a deceptively complex story in the brightest colours and simplest lines possible to leave the readers reeling.

When that character and the X-Force appeared, they took the comic world by storm. You have to look at those numbers. And you see that that isn't Rob Liefeld's only creation. There's all these other things, like Cable and Domino. There's so many things that actually could be fascinating onscreen and unlike anything you've ever seen before onscreen. So I think Fox is in a really nice position where they've got something that feels as wide and different as the Marvel Universe.