Wednesday, August 06, 2008

Guess Who's Comin' to Town?


I'm sure someone worked this out, but Tales #56 will see the introduction of a new character to the Mirage Universe... Actually, a reintroduction of sorts...



His name is Hunter Mason.


...



Hunter Mason.






13 comments:

Will Tupper said...

This post is to reinforce that I'm dumb, right? ;)

WT

Tristan Jones said...

You know it!

No, actually I'm kinda surprised someone didn't shout it out earlier!

Dragon Turtle said...

How did the decision to turn this character into Hun come about between you and Peter?

Tristan Jones said...

AAAGES ago, after #36 hit, Steve asked me to pitch some more stories, turn #36 into a trilogy. At the time, the editorial team was changing and the story was rejected.
That story involved a character called Copperhead, who was essentially Hun, who didn't talk, and had a steel plate in his head. I sat on the character (and his boss) for a while and when the opportunity to pitch came up this year, I repitched Copperhead, but this time as a talking villain, who was aiming to take over his current syndicate's leader and take control of the NYC underworld.
From the very beginning the character was modeled on Hun, to be roughly the equivalent for the comics and to reinforce that post-CAW scenario set up in #36.
Copperhead became a nameless gang leader for that pitch (I didn't initially want to use the name Hun - at least not in the pitch - because I wasn't sure how well it would go down). Anyway, Pete picked up on it and said let's just make it Hun, which I was more than happy to do! What was good about doing that was that it allowed me to get deeper into the mythos, and not retcon, but add more to the characters we know, while introducing a heavy hitting new villain. One that could rival the Shredder even(nudge nudge, wink wink)...

So yeah, Hun was the model for Copperhead, who was the model for Hunter Mason (storywise). Diamondback from the old pitch (who appears in the opening of #36) became two characters - King Cobra and a new version of Diamondback (essentially the same as the one we see in #36).

Paul's actually done a couple of rough concepts of Casey and April, which both look fantastic! Can't wait to see Hun!

~ tOkKa said...

-->> ..so i can call him "HUN " ..then ??


Or will he be called Mason & Hun .. in the books ??

>v<

Anonymous said...

I KNEW IT!!!!

Summer said...

I love backstory, especially on the bad guys. Can't wait!

Dragon Turtle said...

Does King Cobra take the place of Diamondback (as the head of the gang), while Diamondback is his second-in-command(as was the old role of Copperhead)?

Was the original naming of the villains after snakes (Vipers, Copperhead, Diamondback)a sort of play on Marvel's snake themed groups, the Viper Squad and Serpent Society?

Tristan Jones said...

Not so much. Originally I was looking at lethal snakes. Diamondback was a cool sounding name, so I came up with "Diamond" Jack Trent. He was notorious for being a double dealer (or snake) and was nicknamed Diamondback. The name stuck, and eventually the mob tries to blow him up. He lives, but is minus a face. Paul and I came up with this awesome snake-like helmet/mask that he would wear. Anyway, Diamondback was originally this gun-for-hire who took on his own group (the vipers). Copperhead would be his right hand man. Copperhead was essentially a Hun rip, and when I decided to make Copperhead Hun I had to split the dynamic. Diamondback was given a hood and this gauntlet and became King Cobra. The ORIGINAL Diamondback stayed the way he was, regular old Jack Trent, but he works for King Cobra. I think snakes just lend themselves to awesome villains - The Snakemen from MOTU, Cobra from GI JOE, the various snake themed villains in both Marvel and DCU's...

~ tOkKa said...

-->> ..so am i gonna call him Hunter .. or HUN ..


..what will his final name be, bucket head ?!

Yeh .. i like that name better, Buckethead..

Buckethead snakes are much more lethal than copperheads.


>v<

Tristan Jones said...

Well, you can call him what you want. His real name is Hunter Mason, his nickname was "The Hun" which was culled back to "Hun", but most people call him Mason. The only person who called him Hunter was his mother, but she's dead... oh and there was one more, but I can't say who she is ;)!!

~ tOkKa said...

-->> ok ok .. that's all i needed to know then.

Brilliant !! ~~ **

Well anyway yeh it's his nome de Purple Dragons then .."Hun".

I like it ..also give him a greater back story that he's needed for a long time now, even tho' he's different than in the animation.
Yeh 'Hun' short for Hunter..

Sorta like Buckethead is short for Tristan Jones.

Yeh that's so great !!

>;]

>v<

dark turtle said...

I can already tell that I'm going to love this issue. Looking forward to learning more about Hun!