Occupation: Highly respected assistant manager of a very, very popular comic store.
Group Affilliation: I have chosen to grace the SBC with my wisdom.
Base of Operations: Florida
First Appearance: Nearly 40 years ago.
History: For more than seven years I have been an invaluable asset to the comic industry as a knowledgeable and talented assistant manager.
Powers and Weapons: Unlike so many other columnists and "professionals," I know the truth about comics. I will not waste your time with opinions, dear reader, I will give you only the facts.
A short while ago, my editors here at Silver Bullet Comics, with the same show of random genius that made them ask me to become a regular columnist, asked me to branch out and do some interviews. It was suggested that I do a John Byrne interview, but with my frantic schedule as the assistant manager of a busy and popular Florida comic shop, I did not have the time to track down Mr. Byrne and engage him in an interview. As I am a fan of John Byrne and I have read and scrutinized all of his work, I felt I had a simple answer to the problem.
Since I know everything that John Byrne knows, there’s no need for me to interview him. This is the Truth!
Below I have presented interview questions followed by my own answers as I have deduced that John Byrne would have answered them. By my calculations, there is a less than 1% margin of error in the answers I have provided.
Hal Roth: Firstly, thank you for agreeing to the interview.
John Byrne as Imagined by Hal Roth: How’s it Goin’, eh?
Hal Roth: With your project Generations and now Generations 2 you are dealing with different versions of Superman and Batman. Why weren’t you allowed to just do a new Superman reboot? I find the fact that the man responsible for rebooting Superman is only allowed to further a new Superman reboot via a mini-series highly suspect.
John Byrne as Imagined by Hal Roth: Those guys at DC are hosers, eh? Y’see, Generations started as a pitch to do another Superman reboot, but DC didn’t want it. I asked them to send me a check for the pitch, so I could get some bacon and beer, but they said they wouldn’t. They said I should do a mini-series out of the pitch, and then they’d send me a check. I said, “Ok, eh?”
Hal Roth: With a lot of your recent work; Generations, Generations 2, Spider-Man: Chapter One, and X-Men: The Hidden Years, you are dealing with the concepts of comic book time, both with DC time and Marvel time. Why the fascination with time?
John Byrne as Imagined by Hal Roth: Time’s a weird thing in comics. Sometimes it goes really fast, eh? But most of the time, it goes really slow. I mean, like, really, really slow. So, I’m tryin’ to set standards for time depending on how each company has treated time and relating it to events in the continuity of each comic. Kinda complicated, eh? The beauty of time is that you can always find a time that no one has done much with and make up a bunch of your own stuff to fill up that time.
Hal Roth: Speaking of Generations, who do you prefer Kirk or Picard?
John Byrne as Imagined by Hal Roth: Oh, take off, eh?! S’gotta be Picard! Kirk had to wear a wrap around his middle ‘cause he was getting too pudgy. He would do cool drop kicks and stuff and then his shirt would come up and you could see his girdle. Geez.
Hal Roth: If you could return to any project you worked on in the past; which would it be?
John Byrne as Imagined by Hal Roth: Oh, no question, it would have to be Uncanny X-Men with Claremont and Austin. That run was my favorite, eh? If I woke up one morning and I was suddenly back on that book with that team, it would be the best. Beauty.
Hal Roth: How fast can you turn out finished comic pages?
John Byrne as Imagined by Hal Roth: With a box of doughnuts, some beers and a pee-jar nearby, I can do, like, twenty pages a day. It’s the formula, eh? I mastered the John Byrne formula something, like, fifteen years ago. Back, before that, it would take almost one whole day to do one page; with different poses and expressions and spotting my blacks and all. I was such a hosehead then. Can you imagine, one page a day?
Hal Roth: I loved your take on Namor. You came up with the idea that because Namor is both human and Altantean, he is chemically imbalanced and therefore manic in his mood swings between hero and villain. I heard there was a backlash against this theory from the American Psychiatric Association because it belittled real patients with real imbalances. What is your take on this?
John Byrne as Imagined by Hal Roth: That was a tough time for me, eh? I wanted to make something good come from the bad, ya know? I offered to make Namor the poster child for the chemically imbalanced, but that just made the APA even madder. It’s their fault I had to leave that book. I should have told them to just take off, eh?
Hal Roth: In your reboot of the Spider-Man origin, which I thought was great, you came up with the fantastic idea that the accident that granted Peter Parker his powers killed several students who were also in attendance. I believe Peter David thought this was foolish and likened it to rebooting Bruce Wayne’s origin so that his parents were two of many innocents killed when a madman opened fire into a crowded theatre. Now, Peter David is a competent writer, but why is it that your writing is so much better than his?
John Byrne as Imagined by Hal Roth: He’s a hoser, eh? He’s always been jealous of me.
Hal Roth: Death Star vs. Borg Cube; who wins?
John Byrne as Imagined by Hal Roth: Good one, eh? If it’s just a regular Borg Cube, then it would have to be the Death Start what wins. But if it’s the Borg Queen’s Sphere…all bet’s are off, know what I mean, eh?
Hal Roth: Do you have any regrets regarding any past projects?
John Byrne as Imagined by Hal Roth: I always have a hard time going to sleep at night because of what I didn’t do with Spider-Man: Chapter One. I should have done so much more, eh? I should have made Peter an alien. Or maybe I could have made the spider that bit Peter really have been Hank Pym in a radiation induced frenzy. Something, eh?! I should have changed it more. But I didn’t. I have to live with it now.
Hal Roth: John Byrne, thank you for your time and your wisdom.
John Byrne as Imagined by Hal Roth: Thank you. Good day, eh?
The opinions expressed above are entirely the author's and do not represent those of Silver Bullet Comics, or any of its staff, or contributors.
A short while ago, my editors here at Silver Bullet Comics, with the same show of random genius that made them ask me to become a regular columnist, asked me to branch out and do some interviews. It was suggested that I do a John Byrne interview, but with my frantic schedule as the assistant manager of a busy and popular Florida comic shop, I did not have the time to track down Mr. Byrne and engage him in an interview. As I am a fan of John Byrne and I have read and scrutinized all of his work, I felt I had a simple answer to the problem.