Amanda Meuwissen's Blog - Posts Tagged "captain-america"
BookLover Sue - Author Interview!
This week's tour stop was with BookLover Sue, and another great interview with some really fun questions. Here was one of my favorites:
Who is your perfect hero and why?
Captain America. Don’t get me wrong, Spider-Man is my favorite hero, but Cap…you can’t beat him. If you asked me to name the top 5 people I would follow into Hell if they asked, Cap would always be at the top (after my husband) because he just exudes good guy without being a boy scout like Superman, and is a solid leader. He respects everyone, believes in what’s right over what’s popular or accepted, and always gets the job done. You just gotta love him.
Hard to believe there is only one more stop next week before this tour is over. It's been an awesome ride. Don't forget to comment on the different blog stops for your chance to win copies of my books!
Who is your perfect hero and why?
Captain America. Don’t get me wrong, Spider-Man is my favorite hero, but Cap…you can’t beat him. If you asked me to name the top 5 people I would follow into Hell if they asked, Cap would always be at the top (after my husband) because he just exudes good guy without being a boy scout like Superman, and is a solid leader. He respects everyone, believes in what’s right over what’s popular or accepted, and always gets the job done. You just gotta love him.
Hard to believe there is only one more stop next week before this tour is over. It's been an awesome ride. Don't forget to comment on the different blog stops for your chance to win copies of my books!
Writing the Forgotten - The Arrival of My One-Armed Character
I know all writers aren’t the same, but at least for me, I don’t…create characters. Characters appear to me, and then little by little as I write their story, they reveal to me things about themselves and who they really are.
This is one of the reasons why I like to ruminate on original story ideas for a long while before I start writing, because often over time, maybe from everyday life and experiences, I’ll discover something completely different about a new character before I even write their first scene.
You want to call it Divine Intervention, feel free. I know I do.
Meet Connor Daniels, one of the main characters in my first book after The Incubus Saga ends, tentatively titled Life as a Teenage Vampire. I knew the basics about Connor right from the start. 18 years old, dark blond hair in a buzz cut with honey colored eyes. Average height, slim but surprisingly muscular underneath his baggy T-shirts. Crazy smart, especially with robotics, but goofy and a huge geek. What I didn’t know right away was that he only has one arm.
Whether I was inspired to change the character, or as I like to think of it, brought to the realization that this is how he was always meant to be, a series of events led me to this conclusion.
I won’t lie, a large part of it first came from my love of the new Captain America movie and The Winter Soldier character. I fell in love with this version of Bucky Barnes more so than in the first film, and became obsessed. Add in how his awesome metal arm reminded me of the cool older gentlemen who gave talks at the library about his hook hands when I was a little girl, the girl born without an arm in my high school, a good friend from college without fully formed fingers who has the motivation and spunk of someone with three hands, and several men I pass in the Minneapolis skyways without right or left arms, and it was no wonder this was on my mind. But the final push that made me connect all of this to Connor was Even Kuester.
If you have not seen this young man’s amazing artwork with prosthetics, go to his site now. His work is beautiful.
I looked at the arms Kuester had created for his good friend and immediately thought…Connor could probably make something like that with his robotics knowledge, and…and suddenly my mind went into a whirlwind, as more history and facts about this character filled my mind. Creating prosthetics for himself with his dad ever since he was little, until his level of skill surpassed his dad and he began making more and more, even making a prosthetic leg for the captain of the football team eventually. And suddenly there was so much more dimension to Connor, his motivations, his reactions, that I fell even more in love with his character than the protagonist of the story.
I’m excited to write about Connor and give some insight into one of the many millions of people we have in this crazy world who isn’t always focused on, who’s often forgotten. Because no matter the reason for being left out of many mainstream stories, everyone deserves to have their story told. I hope that Life as a Teenage Vampire manages to portray that in many ways, with Connor just one example, and that you all love him as much as I do when he makes his entrance.
Here’s to Connor!
This is one of the reasons why I like to ruminate on original story ideas for a long while before I start writing, because often over time, maybe from everyday life and experiences, I’ll discover something completely different about a new character before I even write their first scene.
You want to call it Divine Intervention, feel free. I know I do.
Meet Connor Daniels, one of the main characters in my first book after The Incubus Saga ends, tentatively titled Life as a Teenage Vampire. I knew the basics about Connor right from the start. 18 years old, dark blond hair in a buzz cut with honey colored eyes. Average height, slim but surprisingly muscular underneath his baggy T-shirts. Crazy smart, especially with robotics, but goofy and a huge geek. What I didn’t know right away was that he only has one arm.
Whether I was inspired to change the character, or as I like to think of it, brought to the realization that this is how he was always meant to be, a series of events led me to this conclusion.
I won’t lie, a large part of it first came from my love of the new Captain America movie and The Winter Soldier character. I fell in love with this version of Bucky Barnes more so than in the first film, and became obsessed. Add in how his awesome metal arm reminded me of the cool older gentlemen who gave talks at the library about his hook hands when I was a little girl, the girl born without an arm in my high school, a good friend from college without fully formed fingers who has the motivation and spunk of someone with three hands, and several men I pass in the Minneapolis skyways without right or left arms, and it was no wonder this was on my mind. But the final push that made me connect all of this to Connor was Even Kuester.
If you have not seen this young man’s amazing artwork with prosthetics, go to his site now. His work is beautiful.
I looked at the arms Kuester had created for his good friend and immediately thought…Connor could probably make something like that with his robotics knowledge, and…and suddenly my mind went into a whirlwind, as more history and facts about this character filled my mind. Creating prosthetics for himself with his dad ever since he was little, until his level of skill surpassed his dad and he began making more and more, even making a prosthetic leg for the captain of the football team eventually. And suddenly there was so much more dimension to Connor, his motivations, his reactions, that I fell even more in love with his character than the protagonist of the story.
I’m excited to write about Connor and give some insight into one of the many millions of people we have in this crazy world who isn’t always focused on, who’s often forgotten. Because no matter the reason for being left out of many mainstream stories, everyone deserves to have their story told. I hope that Life as a Teenage Vampire manages to portray that in many ways, with Connor just one example, and that you all love him as much as I do when he makes his entrance.
Here’s to Connor!
How Spider-Man Could Fix Marvel’s Civil War (Instead of Ruining It)
I’ve always been so excited for the Marvel Studio controlled films. They’ve been amazing, right? A new age in cinema, connecting so many films across so many years. Well…this is the first time I’ve ever been wary, because I was always so certain Civil War would never, could never happen in the movie-verse since they can’t have any mutants or other important characters that would be needed.
Well, they’re doing it anyway, and now they’ve finally managed to work things out with Sony to use Spider-Man.
A little background from me – Spider-Man is my guy, my favorite superhero since I was a little girl. I’ve enjoyed his films but none of them have quite captured Spidey right, not the way the 90s cartoon did, or other mediums. So I want to be excited at this second (third, fourth, a millionth?) chance to maybe get him right. At the same time…I don’t want his presence to screw this up.
See, I was already worried about Civil War because for those who might not be familiar with the comics, it was about whether or not people with abilities/powers should have to register with the government and give up their secret identities, sort of like the plot for the first X-Men movie. Obviously, mutants were against this. Cap was against it. Tony was for it. That’s what divided them.
We can’t have that be the plot here because…everyone knows everyone in this universe, there ARE no secret identities. So instead we can guess, since Bucky is planned to be such an important character in the next Cap movie, that the division will revolve around him. Everything will be strained after Ultron, with a lot of the blame on Tony and tensions high. After getting over PTSD, and everything else, this will leave Tony pretty broken.
Then boom, back from the dead is Cap’s friend Bucky who also happened to be the murderer of Tony’s parents. The division will come from whether or not Bucky should have to pay for his crimes.
Now, this is just a guess for now, but I’m pretty confident about it. The problem is, you could sort of understand both Cap and Tony’s points of view in the comic version of this story, at least at the start, but this? Bucky literally had no control over himself and shouldn’t be to blame for any of the things he did as Winter Soldier, so I feel the movie will really end up vilifying Tony even more than he was in the comics, and who wants to hate on RDJ? No one.
It also bugs me that we barely had one movie where they were really a team, the Avengers together, and already we’re going to divide them.
But of course, we can also guess, that this will mostly be resolved by the end of Civil War so that when the final Avengers movies come around, the team is unified again to face larger threats. So how will that happen?
In the comics, Cap turned himself in to end the bloodshed that had arisen in the face of this fight, and was assassinated, leaving Tony in one of the most iconic moments in comic book history, saying… “It wasn’t worth it.”
Now they could still do that, kill off Cap, leading in for Bucky to take up the shield, and still allowing for Steve to return some day, as is comic law. But given Spider-Man’s new involvement in this tweaked version of the story, I have a better idea.
The last thing I want is for Spider-Man to steal the spotlight here, and in doing so wreck what has been such a great run of amazing movies. After all, it was never assumed he would be able to join the team. But I think there is a way he can be important and impactful without ruining anything.
So many people are clamoring for Miles Morales to be Spider-Man. Miles is a young man of color who takes up the Spider-Man mantel in the Ultimate Universe (which the movies are more often based on than the normal universe) after Peter Parker dies. Now, I don’t want them to go straight to this, how can they when Peter hasn’t even existed in this version of the Marvel universe yet, but I’m not opposed to adding him eventually. So how about this:
What if Peter Parker as Spider-Man, a young hero who worships Cap and Tony, gets caught up in their Civil War, as is factual of the comic version, but instead of Cap…Peter is the one who ends up dead in the crosshairs. He’s what pushes it too far, what makes it ‘not worth it’ and ultimately brings Tony and Cap back together. This then leaves things open for the next Spider-Man movie, planned for after Civil War, to be about Miles. Everybody wins! We get a heartfelt more interesting way to tell Civil War, since it’s already a bit messed up from not fitting the comic book version anyway, and get the new Spider-Man that so many people want.
What do you guys think? Did my editor and writer side take this far off base, or should Marvel be paying me for setting up a better plot? Personally, I hope this is already where they’re planning to take things and that my (and my husband's) psychic powers are spot on.
Well, they’re doing it anyway, and now they’ve finally managed to work things out with Sony to use Spider-Man.
A little background from me – Spider-Man is my guy, my favorite superhero since I was a little girl. I’ve enjoyed his films but none of them have quite captured Spidey right, not the way the 90s cartoon did, or other mediums. So I want to be excited at this second (third, fourth, a millionth?) chance to maybe get him right. At the same time…I don’t want his presence to screw this up.
See, I was already worried about Civil War because for those who might not be familiar with the comics, it was about whether or not people with abilities/powers should have to register with the government and give up their secret identities, sort of like the plot for the first X-Men movie. Obviously, mutants were against this. Cap was against it. Tony was for it. That’s what divided them.
We can’t have that be the plot here because…everyone knows everyone in this universe, there ARE no secret identities. So instead we can guess, since Bucky is planned to be such an important character in the next Cap movie, that the division will revolve around him. Everything will be strained after Ultron, with a lot of the blame on Tony and tensions high. After getting over PTSD, and everything else, this will leave Tony pretty broken.
Then boom, back from the dead is Cap’s friend Bucky who also happened to be the murderer of Tony’s parents. The division will come from whether or not Bucky should have to pay for his crimes.
Now, this is just a guess for now, but I’m pretty confident about it. The problem is, you could sort of understand both Cap and Tony’s points of view in the comic version of this story, at least at the start, but this? Bucky literally had no control over himself and shouldn’t be to blame for any of the things he did as Winter Soldier, so I feel the movie will really end up vilifying Tony even more than he was in the comics, and who wants to hate on RDJ? No one.
It also bugs me that we barely had one movie where they were really a team, the Avengers together, and already we’re going to divide them.
But of course, we can also guess, that this will mostly be resolved by the end of Civil War so that when the final Avengers movies come around, the team is unified again to face larger threats. So how will that happen?
In the comics, Cap turned himself in to end the bloodshed that had arisen in the face of this fight, and was assassinated, leaving Tony in one of the most iconic moments in comic book history, saying… “It wasn’t worth it.”
Now they could still do that, kill off Cap, leading in for Bucky to take up the shield, and still allowing for Steve to return some day, as is comic law. But given Spider-Man’s new involvement in this tweaked version of the story, I have a better idea.
The last thing I want is for Spider-Man to steal the spotlight here, and in doing so wreck what has been such a great run of amazing movies. After all, it was never assumed he would be able to join the team. But I think there is a way he can be important and impactful without ruining anything.
So many people are clamoring for Miles Morales to be Spider-Man. Miles is a young man of color who takes up the Spider-Man mantel in the Ultimate Universe (which the movies are more often based on than the normal universe) after Peter Parker dies. Now, I don’t want them to go straight to this, how can they when Peter hasn’t even existed in this version of the Marvel universe yet, but I’m not opposed to adding him eventually. So how about this:
What if Peter Parker as Spider-Man, a young hero who worships Cap and Tony, gets caught up in their Civil War, as is factual of the comic version, but instead of Cap…Peter is the one who ends up dead in the crosshairs. He’s what pushes it too far, what makes it ‘not worth it’ and ultimately brings Tony and Cap back together. This then leaves things open for the next Spider-Man movie, planned for after Civil War, to be about Miles. Everybody wins! We get a heartfelt more interesting way to tell Civil War, since it’s already a bit messed up from not fitting the comic book version anyway, and get the new Spider-Man that so many people want.
What do you guys think? Did my editor and writer side take this far off base, or should Marvel be paying me for setting up a better plot? Personally, I hope this is already where they’re planning to take things and that my (and my husband's) psychic powers are spot on.
