I always sympathized with the people who did work for hire; I was one of them.

I've been very lucky. All I wanted was to pay the rent. Then these characters took off and suddenly there were Hulk coffee mugs and Iron Man lunchboxes and The Avengers sweatshirts everywhere. Money's okay, but what I really like is working.

The movies have made the comic books much more valuable and more respected.

I'm afraid I go through the same thing all the time.

I think it's just the challenge. It's not that all my life I've wanted to do characters [in Marvel] , because I never particularly thought about it, but the challenge of saying, "How could they be done differently that may be more absorbing or more effective?"

Some people are able to not only entertain the public in any way that they can but also in some way to throw in some sort of inspirational message with the entertainment. I have always tried to do that with whatever I wrote. And I'm sure that a lot of other writers do, too.

Ideally, anything one writes should have a social conscience: if you can write a story that thrills, and with a good message, that's the perfect type of a story.