From Comics2Film to Comics: YOUNG ANCIENT ONE's Rob Worley -- Part One

The creator of Comics2Film prepares to make his writing debut with Marvel Comics

By Patrick Sauriol     December 23, 2003

Call it karma, call it fate, but the universe seems to be showing some kind of symmetry when the creator of the Comics2Film website gets the chance to write for Marvel Comics. That creator, Rob Worley, is the brains (and writer) behind YOUNG ANCIENT ONE, a new adventure featuring the mentor of Doctor Strange back when the Ancient One was but a young man in 15th century Tibet. If you don't know who the Ancient One is, close yer eyes and imagine this: take Gandalf the wizard from LORD OF THE RINGS and imagine him played by Jet Li. Now imagine him at age 20 when he's just starting to learn martial arts and wizardry and -- BINGO -- you've just nailed the idea for YOUNG ANCIENT ONE.

Originally slated to be published as a three-part mini-series early next year under Marvel's new Epic Comics imprint banner, YOUNG ANCIENT ONE (or YAO) has now been folded into a new book called EPIC ANTHOLOGY, scheduled for a February 2004 release. Marvel's decision to take the remaining Epic comic series, which had been launched by then-Marvel President Bill Jemas as a proving grounds for new talent, has met with controversy from the comics community. Some have even said that the company is trying to forget about Epic since Jemas has now moved on to a less public position with the company. Regardless, whatever the reason behind Marvel's decision that isn't stopping Worley from talking about his book and it's high-energy spin on Asian martial arts action meets superheroes. Indeed, just from seeing some previews of the book's artwork and listening to the writer set up the premise of YAO, it's hard not to want to pick up and read it right now.

I had the chance to speak to Rob Worley and find out what the lowdown is on his new Marvel comic book, where the idea came from, how writing one of the web's most well-read internet entertainment sites helped him break into comics and what his take is on the controversy surrounding the Epic line and what the future may hold for him. Without further adieu, here we go!


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Q: In your own words describe what YOUNG ANCIENT ONE is about, who it stars and how it connects to the Marvel Universe. Who is he?

WORLEY: YOUNG ANCIENT ONE is the story of a cocky young kung fu fighter who gets caught up in a world of sorcery and mysticism. In other words, it's "Harry Potter" with Jet Li cast in the lead role.

For [artist] Andy Kuhn and myself, it's sort of our homage to kung fu movies that we love, like IRON MONKEY, THE STORM RIDERS, JET LI'S LEGEND and so on.

What'll make this extra fun for comic fans is that it is set in the Marvel Universe and, should we go to an ongoing series, there'll be some familiar faces popping in our hero's journey. Although the story takes place 500 years ago, the nature of the Marvel Universe is such that we can cross over with the classic characters in a variety of different ways.

In fact, we just realized that we could potentially do a martial arts
"Spider-Man" story that would be set in the early 1500s! The possibilities are limitless with this concept.

Of course, Marvel fans know from the title that the story is a direct
prequel to Dr. Strange, a character who learned the mystic arts from a 500-year-old Tibetan sorcerer. This is the story of that sorcerer's journey.

Q: What was the origin on YOUNG ANCIENT ONE? Was it the first or last idea you pitched to Epic?

WORLEY: YAO was the first idea I pitched to Epic, but it wasn't the first one I developed. I actually wrote about nine/tenths of a script called "American Marvel", which centered on a reality talent show set in the Marvel Universe. But the concept was too big for the one-issue pitch and, halfway through I got the bug for YAO. So, I never finished or pitched "American Marvel."

During the Epic process I was looking for characters that hadn't been done to death and that had rich potential. I also was eager to do a comic that didn't feel like every other comic that Marvel was putting out.

At some point I was reminded of the Ancient One and it was like (Keanu Reeves voice), "Whoa!"

Here's a character that has had 500 years worth of adventures which have mostly gone untold. I love mysticism and, over the past ten years or so, have become a great fan of Asian cinema, particularly martial arts cinema. When I hit on the idea it was alomst like, it's so obvious I can't believe nobody's done it already.

And it could easily fit into the one-shot mandate that Epic had, but once they bought into the concept Bill Jemas and Joe Quesada wanted to give me more issues to introduce the character. So it turned into a three-issue mini-series.

Q: Why tell a story about Dr. Strange's mentor when he was a young man? What attracted you to it? (And did the play-on-words title come first, or later on?)

WORLEY: As I said, here was this character who had 500 years worth of stories to tell.

How did he get from a normal guy to the wizened mentor of Earth's greatest mystical defender? How did he acquire all those cool artifacts that he bestowed on Strange? Where did the cloak come from? Where did the all-seeing eye come from?

The potential for stories that just build out the Dr. Strange mythos are limitless.

Also, there was this aspect that it's an era of the Marvel Universe that we haven't seen much of. What was that world like in the 1400s? The 1500s? What were Marvel's immortal characters like back then? What was Thor doing? What about Marvel's legacy characters? Who was the Ghost Rider back then? Who was the Spider Avatar back then (as suggested by Straczynski's new take on Spider-Man)? What about time travelling characters?

Likewise, the idea of just doing a fun, kung fu fantasy book appealed to me. I'm a big fan of a movie called STORM RIDERS, which is basically a superhero film set against the backdrop of martial arts. I'd hope to capture the groove and style of movies like that on the comic page.

Clearly, YOUNG ANCIENT ONE is such a rich concept, it'd be crazy not to do it.

Q: Has it been easier or harder to take a pre-existing Marvel Universe supporting character and go back and tell stories from their ancient past? Did you find yourself tied up in some ways, bound to what fans know of Ancient One in the modern day Marvel Universe?

WORLEY: It didn't really make the book hard for me. The Ancient One of the modern era is so far removed from our guy that we didn't really need to do any work to make him consistent. In fact, he doen't have to be consistent.

Unlike the future Ancient One, our guy is somewhat immature. That makes sense though, when you consider he's still in the infancy of his 500-year lifespan.

Our guy knows nothing of sorcery. In fact, when the story opens, our hero sees mysticism as a kind of superstitious belief, and he uses that to his advantage. By the end of the story that's changed and he's now eager to learn more about sorcery.

The point of all this is, all the continuity stuff doesn't get in the way, because it's all new to our character, just as it would be to someone who's never read a Marvel comic. That gives us a logical way to properly introduce the concepts that serve the story, without relying on the reader being a Marvel history buff.

In the first story arc, those Dr. Strange hooks that are in there are laid in gently, so the non-Strange fans won't be troubled by them, but Strange fans can get excited about them.

Q: Tell us a bit about the creative team working on the book and who they are.

WORLEY: I'm writing.

Andy Kuhn, who did FIREBREATHER recently for Image and MANTOOTH for AiT/Planet Lar is the artist supreme.

Andy was recommended to me by our mutal friend Keith Giffen (LOBO,
JUSTICE LEAGUE). Andy was drawing the Ambush Bug segments of the new LOBO comics and Keith was just blown away by his work. He put us together and we hit it off.

Man, I can't express how great it is having a storytelling veteran of 10 years working on this with me. Andy's one of those guys whose not content to just keep doing the same thing over and over again. I think he digs this project because he gets to draw all this cool Asian architecture and weaponry, and add some Ditko stylings in when we get into the hardcore sorcery. He's been such a great supporter of this from the moment he read the first script.

I see one of Andy's inked pages, and I usually flip out because they look so cool. Then Bill Crabtree's colored version comes my way and I flip out all over again, because he really takes it up to 11.

Bill and Andy have collaborated quite a bit in the past and Andy was very committed to having him on board. He's one of the most talented colorists out there, and a good dude besides.

Dave Sharpe came on board later to handle the lettering. He's been a great addition to the team too as he seems genuinely excited to be involved. He's lettered hundreds of Marvel books, so we know we're in capable hands with him.


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In tomorrow's second part of the interview, Rob talks about how he made the leap from running Comics2Film to writing comics, the fallout from Marvel deciding to take YAO and publish it as part of an anthology book and what he'd like to see in future YOUNG ANCIENT ONE tales (and what else is on his plate creatively.) See you in 24 with more.