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.

I don't see one as bring better or more literate than the other and there's a real buzz to not only writing about a character I love like Superman, but also writing something that kids can enjoy.

The weird thing is that Stuart's the one guy - Stuart [Immonen ]and Sean Gordon Murphy, they're the kind of guys you can trust, where you don't need to do that because those guys are so incredibly reliable. They're just like clockwork, they turn in the pages just so perfectly on time. But I'm so paranoid, because I've been burned so many times, that I'm still even banking these guys.

For years I've wanted to work with this guy, so to actually write at the top of my scripts "Empress, Script by Mark Millar, Art by Stuart Immonen" is an absolute pleasure.

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.

Would you rather see a super soldier battling Nazis or something more serious? Or lesbians down a coal mine? Generally, the films are engaging in the same way as the comics are. It's no coincidence that the biggest movies are genre-related, whether it's Lord of the Rings or comic books.

One of the things that made Star Wars work was the kids didn't know who their dad was.