As the writer of both X-Men Legacy and Avengers Academy, Christos Gage has found himself smack-dab in the middle of the Avengers vs X-Men battle, currently waging it’s war across the pages of Marvel comics.
“You just have to understand both sides and get their arguments and viewpoints across. For the Avengers, they’re trying to keep the world safe from a deadly threat, while these deluded fanatics are willing to risk the lives of billions of people for some pipe dream. Meanwhile, the X-Men think they have it covered—they can both save the world and give mutantkind a new start—and these arrogant outsiders who have no real knowledge of them or their people are trying to force them to do something they think is a really bad idea.
I don’t have a problem portraying either viewpoint because both are potentially legitimate. It’s not like I have to make The Red Skull sympathetic!”
He goes on to talk about classic Marvel battles:
“The first Marvel trade paperback I ever bought was ‘Marvel’s Greatest Superhero Battles’, and I still have it and treasure it to this day. The Hulk/Thing fight from Fantastic Four #25 and #26 was, to my 10-year old eyes, like seeing the Avengers movie recently: I couldn’t believe something so beautiful and perfect had actually been made. And the Daredevil/Sub-Mariner fight in Daredevil #7 blew my mind because it was so brutal, and the title hero actually lost the fight, but he came off as the winner because he fought so hard against impossible odds. Man, do I love that book.
Another early hero battle I was exposed to was Spider-Man fighting Nightcrawler in Amazing Spider-Man #161. Yeah, that’s right, I’m old enough to have bought a comic off the rack in 1976; I was really little. I had never seen Nightcrawler before and he looked scary, like a demon, but I ended up really liking him. That was my first exposure to the X-Men, I think. I still have that, too. I’ve kept it for 35 years, which should tell you something about the impression it made on me.”