I didn’t write 'Guardians of the Galaxy.' I’m not even sure who they all are. I can’t wait to see the movie.

The cliché I tried to avoid was I hated "teenage sidekicks." I always figured if I were a superhero, there's no way on God's earth that I'm gonna pal around with some teenager. So my publisher insisted I have a teenager in the series, because they always felt teenagers won't read the books unless there's a teenager in the story; which is nonsense.

You remember when Tobey Maguire was first selected, most of the fans were angry. They felt, what kind of a guy is that for a superhero? Nobody thought it was a good idea. Yet he turned out to be great. The people at Marvel who do these things are really pretty smart. If they chose this guy, he'll probably be terrific.

I think almost everybody enjoyed fairy tales when they were young, tales of witches and ogres and monsters and dragons and so forth. You get a little bit older, you can't read fairy tales any more.

Once, I'd written a Western story, and one of the panels was just a hand holding a six-shooter, and there was a puff of smoke coming out of the barrel, and a straight horizontal line, indicating the trajectory of the bullet. So that page was sent back to me from the Code office, saying that the particular panel was too violent. I asked them what they meant, and they told me--I swear--"The puff of smoke is too big." Well, of course. So I had the artist make the smoke a little smaller, and the youth of America was saved.

I thought it would be fun to take the kind of character that nobody would like, none of our readers would like, and shove him down their throats and make them like him.

I enjoyed reading Batman, and Superman, and all the super ones, but I never wished I created them. I've got to let there be some work for other people!