It was a meeting of Marvel titans at San Diego Comic-Con, where Marvel editor-in-chief C. B. Cebulski welcomed Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige for a conversation about collecting and the ways comic books inspire films (and vice versa).
Cebulski spent part of the panel showing off famous comic book art, and pared them with the scenes they inspired in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Among them was the iconic cover to 2007’s Civil War No. 7, which showed Captain America blocking Iron Man’s beam with his shield, and the cover to the 1939 classic Captain America No. 1, in which Cap punches Adolph Hitler in the face. Both moments inspired moments in Captain America: Civil War and Captain America: The First Avenger.
Feige remarked that it’d be cool if Disney+ had a feature that would allow one to scroll through a movie, and then see the comic book art that inspired the shot. Cebulski joked that Feige should use his pull to make that a reality.
Feige also shared a story about the montage in The First Avenger in which Chris Evans’ Steve Rogers punches a man playing Adolph Hitler during a traveling, patriotic road show. As the team was leading up to shooting that scene, they knew they had to cast their Hitler. That’s when a stand-in named James Payton caught people’s eye. He worked on the set to stand-in for various people during set-ups and light tests, and ss Feige noted, you spend a lot of time at the monitor looking at stand-ins.
“He looked nothing like Hitler,” Feige recalled, but the team thought it’d be fun to throw him in. He added to laughs from the crowd: “He had to call his mom. ‘Mom I’m in the movie. I’m playing Hitler.”
The panel also welcomed two key members of the MCU family: Ryan Meinerding, the longtime concept artist and character designer, and comic book artist Adi Granov, who Iron Man director Jon Favreau tapped to help out on the film after reaching out to him on Myspace. (Yes, Myspace. Feige remarked that fact made him feel old.)
Both Feige and Cebulski gave particular credit to Granov for his Invincible Iron Man No. 76 cover and his role in creating (or at least popularizing) what’s known as the “superhero pose” – a pose that has become so ingrained in the public consciousness that it even became a joke in Marvel’s Black Widow movie.
Feige noted that the cover unlocked extra the potential for Iron Man, saying the movie team wanted to emphasize that “the Iron Man suit was not a costume, it was a vehicle.” With Granov’s art, “it felt like a vehicle.”
To close the loop on the comics influencing hte movies, Cebulski noted that the opposite is true. He cited Phil Coulson, the popular Iron Man and Agents of SHIELD character played by Clark Gregg, as being active in the comics, while Alligator Loki from the Loki TV show has also jumped to the page. And, he revealed Miss Minutes from Loki will be getting some related characters called Sir Seconds and Doc Clock in a TVA-focused comic from Loki writer Katharyn Blair and drawn by artist Pere Perez.
The panel came as Deadpool & Wolverine is looking to break the record for top opening for an R-rated movie this weekend. As for Feige, he’ll be back at Comic-Con Saturday for Marvel’s Hal H panel, which is expected to reveal news about Marvel’s movie future.
