I couldn't say no when I received that offer [to re-invent the DC characters]... How can any writer say no to the opportunity of redoing every one of DC's top superheroes?

Everybody learns differently and everybody gets to a certain point from a different direction.

I'm no prophet, but I'm guessing that comic books will always be strong. I don't think anything can really beat the pure fun and pleasure of holding a magazine in your hand, reading the story on paper, being able to roll it up and put it in your pocket, reread again later, show it to a friend, carry it with you, toss it on a shelf, collect them, have a lot of magazines lined up and read them again as a series. I think young people have always loved that. I think they always will.

I'm just working with ideas in my head and with drawings that the artists did. And suddenly to see these things come to life in movies - it's just wonderful.

Of what import are brief, nameless lives . . . to Galactus?

When writing, I model all the heroes after myself. Of course, it's hard to make them quite as wonderful as I am, but I come as close as I can.

I'm lucky. I don't have to produce the whole movie. What I've been doing is just coming up with ideas for movies. I write a concept, a treatment, an outline, and if I sell that to a studio, then someone else does the actual production and I go on to another project, although I keep the title executive producer.