The Future is Here!

Adventures in Poor Taste rates Future Foundation #1 an 8.5!

The Future Foundation is a fairly recent addition to Marvel’s teams, but they are a natural addition to the universe that have felt like they belonged from their inception. Whitley and Robson have delivered a wonderful return for the team, showing exactly what makes them stand out from the rest of the universe and why they’re so fun to read. 

Gullapalli, Vishal. “Future Foundation #1 Review”, Adventures in Poor Taste. 7 August 2019.

Weird Science Marvel Comics offers up a few spoilers, and gives the book an 8.3/10!

Whitley sprinkles in subtle humorous elements and banter between the characters showing the family dynamic of the team while introducing the cast of characters for new readers who are leaping into the series with a fresh take on the Fantastic Four series. New readers will fall in love with this team while old fans of Hickman’s FUTURE FOUNDATION will latch on to this incarnation awaiting the clever tales to come. The only aspect missing from the issue was Valeria and Franklin Richards. This reviewer hopes they can rejoin the team in the future.

dispatchdcu. “Future Foundation #1 Review”, Weird Science Marvel Comics. 7 August 2019.

It’s Future Foundation Day!

Honestly, I don’t know if it’s luck that my Marvel stories keep getting @JoeCaramagna as a letterer or if they just see my scripts and go “only Joe can save this one” but I’m extraordinarily grateful either way.— Jeremy Whitley, Soda City Comic Con, Aug 10-11 (@jrome58) July 31, 2019

The Future Foundation makes its first appearance today in a 10 page story in Fantastic Four #12!

Unpacking the Power of Power Pack

It was my privilege to hang out with Jeff and Rick at the Unpacking the Power of Power Pack podcast. We talk about the upcoming Future Foundation on-going series which features Alex and Julie Power. Give it a listen!

The Future Foundation will be making its return in Fantastic Four #12, which comes out this Wednesday – July 31.

The Bard’s Gambit: Interview with Jeremy Whitley

I had a chance to talk with Matthew Scott Kirkham of The Bard’s Gambit podcast about The Unstoppable Wasp.

He also did a write up for Medium about the comic back in February.

Whitley’s work in this first run does more to humanize a character than any other comic I’ve ever read. In this run, Nadia is established with clear, reachable goals (claim citizenship, save friend, find smart women), she’s given a personal role model (Mockingbird/Bobbi Morse), she and Janet organically fall into their surrogate mother/daughter roles, she’s given a close-knit group of friends (a diverse and colorful group of friends at that), and most importantly, clear and apparent weaknesses. Nadia may be intelligent and powerful, but she can’t solve everything on her own, and every aspect of the comic reinforces this idea as a very clear theme. She can’t claim citizenship without Janet, she can’t save her friend Ying without the help of the intelligent women she’s come across throughout the story, and she couldn’t have found those women without help from Jarvis (the avenger’s butler, also strongly characterized in this series).

Kirkham, Matthew S. Let’s Talk About Nadia Van Dyne”, Medium.com. 27 July 2019.

You can read the article “Let’s Talk About Nadia Van Dyne” in its entirety over at Medium. You can also read “Let’s Talk About Priya Aggarwal”. This article dives into Priya’s role in Unstoppable Wasp #5.

CBR: …on Relaunching Future Foundation

I got a chance to talk with CBR about the upcoming Future Foundation series.

After starring in a special back-up story in this month’s Fantastic Four #12, the young super-geniuses of the Future Foundation will star in a new Marvel series. Written by Jeremy Whitley (Unstoppable Wasp) and illustrated by Will Robson (Spider-Man/Deadpool), who also team up for the backup story, the upcoming relaunch has the team of genius-level adolescents and teenagers scour the Marvel Universe for pieces of Molecule Man to put the powerful character back together.

While speaking with CBR at HeroesCon in Charlotte, Whitley shared details behind the eagerly anticipated relaunch and how Fantastic Four writer Dan Slott’s decision to keep Valeria and Franklin Richards with their parents allowed him to increase the focus on the young ensemble’s other characters.

Click here to continue reading Sam Stone’s interview!
Click here to get the TLDR version!

The Future Foundation will be appearing in Fantastic Four #12, which hits the shelves July 31, 2019.

To All My Agents of G.I.R.L.

This letter comes from the final page of The Unstoppable Wasp #10.

I love that I have a job where I get to tell stories. It’s the job I’ve wanted since I was five and I haven’t gotten tired of it. Sometimes there are roadblocks and sometimes there are stories that you just have to finish, even though you may not feel enthusiastic about them. That’s what makes it a job and not a hobby. And as you do it more, you start to realize that not every story has the luxury of being “important.” Some stories are fun. Some stories are puzzles and once they’re solved there’s little novelty to them. Some stories are just gigs.

But as I write this, we are putting the finishing touches on Volume 2 of the UNSTOPPABLE WASP and while I feel a sense of loss that Nadia won’t be in my life ever day, the thing I feel the most is profoundly thankful. I’m thankful to Marvel Comics, to C. B. Cebulski, to Tom Brevoort, to Guirihiru, to Alti Firmansyah, to Joe Caramagna, to Espen Grundetjern, to Mark Waid, to all of my consultants, all of my Agents of G.I.R.L (both in the book and on Twitter) and most of all, I’m thankful to Alanna Smith. Alanna has been my editor for both volumes of UNSTOPPABLE WASP and she’s just as much a part of this as Nadia, Janet and I. It has been her guidance that helped me turn this from a well-intentioned story to a truly well-told story.

“Nadia,” the name, means “hope.” That has been the driving force of this book from Day 1. From the Pakistani pastry shop and the immigration office to G.I.R.L. Expo and Shay’s hospital room, it has been the one constant. Nadia spreads hope to young girls, to female scientists, to friends and strangers and sometimes enemies. That’s what makes her special.

Telling a story where Nadia had to face her own mental illness and, for a time, lost sight of hope was a difficult and sometimes exhausting task. After I finished issue #5 of this series, I couldn’t write for two weeks. I kept convincing myself that I had done something terrible and I kept going back over the pages. I consulted with people who both treat and deal with mental illness every day. I talked to other writers. I talked to Alanna. I panicked. Maybe that story got better for my anxiety. I don’t really know. But I know something else for sure.

I got to write an important story here. I got to tell a story that incorporated issues with mental health, sexuality, gender expression, found family, race, ethnicity, culture and science. And the response I got from people both in person and online will never leave me. There has been some crying on both ends, and…the idea that thanks to these ten issues of comic books, I know for a fact that readers have both recognized themselves in Nadia and gone to therapy and at least one friend and reader has come out publicly about sexuality are the sorts of things that can’t be canceled. We’ve done something good here and, hopefully, along with Nadia, we’ve spread some hope. Thank you for being here and reading this, whether you’ve been with us from issue #1 or this is your first issue.

In the long scope of things, everything is a limited series. But hope…hope is ongoing. Share your love for the book and maybe we’ll get to come back to tell more stories. Alanna and Gurihiru and I will all have more books. In fact, I’m already writing FUTURE FOUNDATION as we speak. But in the meantime, please share these stories. Please share hope.

Jeremy Whitley