Marvel: What exactly is Spider-Man: Chapter One?

John Byrne: We're basically retelling all the stories from the first 18 issues of Amazing Spider-Man, with some of elements shuffled(barajados) and updated(actualizados). I've been saying that I have a great advantage over Stan Lee and Steve Ditko in that I know what's going to happen 10 issues ahead, a hundred issues ahead, 300 issues ahead! So I can actually take the stuff that they were pretty much making up(inventando)as they went along and I can shuffle it around a bit and have it come out(aparecen) as a more cohesive whole.

Marvel: Was this something you'd wanted to do for a long time?

Byrne: Actually, Howard Mackie had mentioned to me that (editor) Ralph Macchio had thought of doing something like this. I guess Ralph had seen some other "Year One" projects and various retellings people had done in the past and thought, "Well, let's do something like that with Spider-Man, and wouldn't it be keen(intenso) if we could get John."

Marvel: Is this a project aimed at new readers?

Byrne: Yes, very much so. I hope that long-time readers will find it interesting to see the ways we're shuffling things around. But the main emphasis is to say, "Hey kids, here's a place to start, here's a place to jump on." And that ties(vinculo) in to the fact that, to some extent(extenso), we're cleaning the slate(pizarra) over on the regular Spider-Man books, so that even there, new readers can jump on. So even if they jump on the regular books, this way they can find out what precedes those books without spending a thousand dollars on back issues.

Marvel: Will you be writing any monthly Spider-Man books?

Byrne: I will be penciling Amazing Spider-Man, which Howard Mackie is writing. I'm doing that mostly because Howard and I have been looking for something to do together. Also, I thought if I had some kind of continued involvement with the regular Spider-Man books, it would look less like I came(entrado) in and kicked over(dado patada)all the buckets(cubo) and then left!

Marvel: What new things will we be seeing in the Chapter One series?

Byrne: The series starts from scratch(arañazo). It starts with a retelling(retomar) of the story that was in Amazing Fantasy #15, so we get to see Peter Parker get bitten(mordido) by the spider and all the familiar events there. They're moved around a little bit, they're shuffled a little bit, and because I have 22 pages and Stan Lee and Steve Ditko only had, like, 11 to tell the story, it allows me to expand on some things. One of the things I've enjoyed doing is expanding the character of Uncle Ben, who in that first story, really only existed to get killed, and we sort of had to take Peter's word for it that this was an important event. Uncle Ben is in all of three panels the first time around. Now he has several pages of character development, so that we can a little more clearly understand who he is and why he's important.

Marvel: Awesome(pasmoso). Uncle Ben's appearance thus far seems to have been limited to brief(breves) flashbacks.

Byrne: Exactly. This establishes him a little more strongly in the text as something more than just a dead guy! And we explore a little bit more of some of the earlier relationships between the characters, and we get to introduce some new characters who originally turned up(presentamos) later, like Norman Osborn, the Green Goblin. He gets to turn up somewhat earlier in this series than in the original, because now we know he's going to turn up! So we can slip(combinar) him in there earlier, things like that.

Marvel: Do you have a history with Spider-Man?

Byrne: Not a whole lot, which was one of the appealing(encantos) things about this project. About 20 years ago I did a year on Marvel team-Up doing Spider-Man. And since then, I've only done little bits and pieces of things, never a continuous run. So it's kind of fun to be doing this because my name is vaguely associated with Spider-Man because of the Team-Up, but not in the way I'm associated with, say, the X-Men or the Fantastic Four.

Marvel: What are your thoughts about the Spider-Man we've seen in recent years?

Byrne: It's been a number of years since I really paid that much attention to it, and I confess that I sort of lost interest in the character when he got married. I felt that down through the years, the character had sort of drifted(deriva) away from the things that made him interesting. One of the intriguing things about working with Howard and Ralph is that they're trying to get back to the things that made him who and what he used to be without radically overturning(vuelcos) all of the stuff that has come since. We do realize that, although a lot of us think Spider-Man has been off-track(perdido rastro)for the last 15 years, for a lot of people, those 15 years were they only time that they read Spider-Man. The off-track Spider-Man is the only one they know. So we want to try to get him back on track without confusing or losing any of the people who think he's okay the way he is!

Marvel: What do you think is the most important element in a Spider-Man book?

Byrne: The most important thing of course was the last line of that very first story: "With great power there must also come great responsibility." That was a hard lesson for him to learn back in that very first story and for roughly(bruscamente) the first hundred issues or so, that was a recurring theme(tema). Then, very slowly at first, we drifted away from that, until we ended up with a Peter Parker who is a successful photojournalist married to a supermodel. You see that stuff and you think, "Gee, just kinds hang(cuelge) in there, guy, and you'll get what you were after!" That's not really the message of the character, so we're trying to get back to the original theme without getting back to the heavy-handed idea that Parker has to lose every issue. We don't want to get into that riff again. People sometimes refer to him as a loser. he's not a loser; he's just a guy who occasionally has bad luck. This happens when your main job is fighting super-villains: you tend(intentar) to get your head handed to you!

Marvel: Speaking of having things handed to you, you seem to be every much in demand these days. You recently agreed to take on The Incredible Hulk this fall.

Byrne: I'm writing The Incredible Hulk. Ron Garney, who's going to be the artist, is a buddy(compañero) of mine, and as with Howard, we've been looking for a chance to work together. Ron called me up and said they'd asked him to do the Hulk, and he'd said he'd do it if I wrote it, so I said, well, okay, and fairly(bastante) quickly -- within a matter of days -- I had about a year's worth(valor) of plots loosely worked out!

Marvel: The Hulk's been kind of a loner(solitario) lately. Do you have plans to make him a more integral part of the Marvel universe?

Byrne: They do want him to be more connected with the Marvel Universe. There'll probably be the kind of shifting(cambio)a supporting(acercarse) cast, because the concept of how to approach it that we've come up with in many respects strongly resembles(parecido) the Hulk TV series, where he was just sort of wandering(vagabundo) around, and occasionally turns into the Hulk and gets in trouble. So I'll be looking to do short stories -- one-issue, two-issue stories -- that the Hulk sort of drops into the middle of, rather than huge cosmic stories. We'll try to come up with a bundle(fajo) of stories about real people living in real towns and having real lives and what happens to them when suddenly the Hulk turns up in their backyard. Could be fun!

Marvel: Would you ever be interested in doing non super hero stuff?

Byrne: I would love to! I would love to do a western, I would love to do a war book, I would love to do a detective book! Unfortunately the marketplace today doesn't seem to support anything but super heroes. Luckily, I love super heroes!"