Harrison Wilcox is an associate producer on Disney XD's Ultimate Spider-Man and also worked on Heroes between 2006 - 2009. He's written several graphic novels, including the She-Hulks limited series with Superior Spider-Man artist Ryan Stegman in 2010. Last week, we had the chance to quiz Harrison on his involvement with Madhouse's Iron Man: Rise of the Technovore anime (which was recently released on DVD and Blu-ray in both the UK and US) as well as the other projects he's currently working on both at the moment and looking ahead to the future.
What exactly was you involvement with Iron Man: Rise of Technovore?
Megan Bradner and I worked closely with Brandon Auman, who did a great job on the concept and outline. We worked with Sony and Madhouse on translations and the script all the way through to production, post and the English casting and dubbing.
How would you sell the movie to our readers?
Some SPOILERS in here. Terrorists try to blow up Iron Man’s satellite while it’s being launched. Due to civilian casualties at Tony’s facility, Nick Fury has orders to detain Iron Man. Iron Man doesn’t want to wait and goes on the run after the bad guys. Nick Fury sends Hawkeye and Black Widow after Iron Man. Iron Man is forced to team up with Punisher in the process. This is currently the only place in animation where you can see Iron Man, Black Widow, Hawkeye, and Punisher on the screen together.
What made Iron Man the right choice of character to focus on for this movie?
He’s one of our most recognizable characters. He had an Anime series previous to this. And he’s got a big movie coming out this year. We all wanted to tell a big real world, globe trotting adventure story. Iron Man has always lived in both a more realistic world and the world of superheroes. So he quickly became the obvious choice.
Do you see Marvel moving ahead with similar collaborations with Madhouse in future?
Yes there is more coming. Like anything in the entertainment industry, people should vote with their wallets if they want more of something.
Can you tell fans anything about what they should expect from upcoming episodes of Ultimate Spider-Man?
216, unless the order gets swapped, might be the most hilarious and fan favourite episode of the show to date. It’s coming soon!
Any plans to return to the world of writing comic books?
I would love to find the time to do that. But not in the immediate future. Who would have thought that making cartoons would be a full time job! Go buy She-Hulks in trade – Ryan Stegman needs a new speedboat!!!
There’s been talk of a Big Hero 6 movie. Any updates you can offer on that project?
Mr. Joe Quesada would be the best person to ask about stuff like this.
Is there anything at all you can reveal about some of Marvel’s upcoming animated plans?
Not if I want to keep my job. But there is some stuff that, as a fan, I’m very excited about in the coming year. Announcements coming soon -- my guess would be mid July for some reason...
With Star Wars coming to Disney XD at some point, would you like to see some sort of crossover with Marvel?
Stay tuned to Ultimate Spider-Man season two. There’s a fun moment in an upcoming episode that we couldn’t resist…and we tried hard!
How do you feel about the recent announcement of a possible return to the small screen for Heroes? Will you be involved at all?
I haven’t heard anything more than you have. But I would like to see them release the remainder of the webcomics in a physical format. Those hardcovers and trades sold incredibly well and we told some fun stories.