Civil War Prose Novel (28 page)

A novel is not a graphic novel, and this particular, brilliant graphic novel required a lot of restructuring to work in prose form. My thanks to Marvel’s Ruwan Jayatilleke, Jeff Youngquist, and David Gabriel for trusting me to do justice to their most popular, most powerful story line of recent years. They gave me all the tools and then let me work, providing just the right amount of guidance whenever I needed it.

I had two editors on this project: Axel Alonso, editor in chief of Marvel, and Marie Javins, the book’s primary editor. Axel schooled me on the moral compass of the Punisher and suggested some excellent plot twists; Marie asked all the right questions, cleaned up my prose, and worked long hours polishing the manuscript. Together, they pushed me in all the right directions.

Tom Brevoort, editor of the original CIVIL WAR series, provided valuable input at the early stages. Tie-in stories by J. Michael Straczynski, Ron Garney, Dan Slott, and Stefano Caselli served as important source material for the novel. Steve McNiven’s artwork, on the main series, was both a constant inspiration and a source of frustration—it really does take a thousand words to capture a battle that he could show in one strong, powerful panel.

Mark Millar, an old friend and one of the smartest, most genuine guys in comics, encouraged me to take his story and make it my own. Hopefully I’ve done that without screwing up the structure, which was as airtight and breathtaking as any comics event in recent memory; or the powerful emotional core of the story.

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My wife, Liz Sonneborn, was unfailingly supportive as I took notes late into the night, pulled out my hair over minor plot points, and paced around the house muttering obscure questions like, “Is it too confusing to have two characters called Hawkeye in one book?” (Answer: Yes.)

Finally, I owe a huge debt to all the writers and artists who’ve contributed to the Marvel Universe over the years. CIVIL WAR couldn’t have existed, in any form, without their contributions. Hopefully, together, we’ve done them justice.