Mark.
LA. It's a cesspool...
of creativity!
Here in Los Angeles, everybody thinks they have the next big idea,
but only one or two actually become the next big thing.
The rest kinda end up in the trash.
See this script? I've been working on this for six years.
It's garbage now.
In LA, everyone knows that a great idea can change your life.
Also, a bad idea can change your life, but for the worse.
I think that's self-explanatory. Anyway, I'm Paul Scheer.
I'm an actor, director, writer, podcaster.
I've been in a movie where I've been attacked by killer piranha twice actually.
I've done a lot of amazing things,
but I still have a big dream and that's to work for Disney.
I mean, they have my favorite properties ever.
Marvel's here now.
I mean, I grew up loving Marvel comic books.
I swear to God, that photo is not doctored at all.
Today, I'm meeting the executives at Disney+
to talk to them about what they're looking for
in their brand-new shows, so we'll see.
-Hey, Paul. They're ready for you. -Okay, great.
-Thank you so much for coming in. -Thank you for being here.
Yes, it's fantastic to have you.
I'm Agnes. Um, I oversee content for Disney+.
Um, this is Sarah.
Hi. Sarah Shepard. I work on the Original Scripted Content team with Agnes.
And Dan Silver.
I run Nonfiction for Disney+.
Let me just tell you, I'm a huge Disney fan,
and I just kinda wanna understand what you're looking for at Disney+.
Disney+ represents the timeless storytelling of our brands,
but, also, we're looking for new stories and new worlds and characters.
So interesting to kinda figure out what I would like to do,
but I think the thing I'm most gravitating towards right now is Marvel.
I mean, I've written a handful of Marvel comic books,
but I gotta be honest,
I feel like all the best Marvel characters are kinda spoken for.
Well, that's not necessarily the case.
There are 8,000 characters within the Marvel Universe.
Just go to the Marvel Handbook, and I would just flip to any page.
There's gotta be something in there that you could probably find.
Yeah. Go deep, um, see what you can find,
think outside the box, and then come back to us with some ideas.
You're right. I'll do my research,
and I'll go back to the basics, like Rocky training for a big fight,
but be warned, you better take off your shoes,
-'cause I'm gonna knock your socks off. -[all laugh]
[Scheer] Killer joke, Paul. You are crushing it.
Disney+ threw down the gauntlet, and it was my chance to pick it up?
I dunno. I'm not really good with medieval metaphors.
All I knew was that I needed to plumb the depths of Marvel's history
and find characters who never really got their shot.
So I gathered my documentary crew
to meet and talk with some of my favorite Marvel writers,
Reggie Hudlin, Donny Cates, and Gerry Duggan,
to pick their brains about some Marvel history and forgotten characters.
There's a great history in Marvel of people taking underutilized characters
-and taking them from B-list to A-list. -Right.
The X-Men was canceled.
They didn't even make it to 100 issues
-when they first came out, -Whoa.
and, all of a sudden, they were reinvented
and became giant superstars, with a number one book at Marvel.
They might seem crazy or, like, dumb at the time,
but Wolverine, when he first showed up, looked like a Goof Troop.
-He looks like a goober. [chuckles] -Yeah, yeah, yeah.
He's got a little kitty cat-like mask on his face,
and his claws were supposed to be a part of his gloves,
but someone found it and had a cool story for it,
and they turned it into a real thing.
[Scheer] Gerry, when you wrote Deadpool,
you often brought back these older Marvel characters.
What was the thinking behind that?
We tried to take a couple of deep dives,
-and we found a character like Madcap-- -Wait, wait, who's Madcap?
[Duggan] He was a young man in a car accident,
who ran into an A.I.M. truck filled with some toxic slop.
We have to have the goop in there. He gets covered in goop.
It's just good comicking to have some toxic slop
that gives you something, as it hopefully takes something from you.
But Madcap ended up, sort of, having an interesting power set for Deadpool.
You can chop off Madcap's arm. It will pop back on.
So we tried to make him a dark mirror for Deadpool.
[Scheer] Yeah.
I think what's fascinating about you is, you take this character of Black Panther,
-at a time when Black Panther, -Mm-hmm.
for lack of a better term, it's like a B-list character when you take it over,
and you, kind of, imbue it with all this energy.
Was it daunting?
I knew what the opportunity was with Black Panther if I did it right.
I said, "I'm gonna write the comic book equivalent of a Public Enemy record,
a completely uncompromised, politically provocative book,"
and that was the key to success.
Suddenly, we're selling huge numbers.
I mean, more comics than when Stan and Jack was writing the book.
Do you remember any of those books that you read,
they didn't maybe catch on or they were a little ahead of their time?
There was a character, uh, named Doctor Druid.
He shows up in an Avengers issue,
-on the cover. -Okay.
He's fighting crime in a bathrobe.
He was like a pre-Lebowski Lebowski,
and I go, "Here's a man of leisure, a magic-user.
-I'm immediately interested." -Yeah.
-"What's his origin? How did this happen?" -Yeah.
Well, his origin was, he just kinda bumped into the same guy
that made Doctor Strange, the Ancient One,
and he gave him some magic powers to go away.
-[chuckles] -And I was like, "Wait, why are we--
Why are we having bargain-basement Sorcerer Supreme now?"
There's a character called the Whizzer.
The Whizzer can run so fast that he can make little tornadoes.
-[Scheer] Okay. -So he will do some stuff really fast,
and then people are, sort of, sucked up.
[Scheer] So, almost like a Tasmanian Devil-esque?
[Duggan] Yes.
His origin was that he, uh, was injected with,
or injected himself with, mongoose blood.
What was in the mongoose blood? Is it like radioactive mongoose blood?
I don't know. Are mongooses known for being fast?
I mean, even if they are,
you wouldn't just get the power of a mongoose through the blood.
You ever heard of the bad guy Typeface?
Like-- like-- like a typeface, like a printing typeface?
-Type on his face. -No.
[Cates] He's this guy who worked for this sign-making company,
and then a new guy comes in and buys his building
-and fires him, -Okay.
and now he's a supervillain.
-I swear to God, that's-- -A sign-making supervillain?
[Cates] He has letters that he took off of the sign, attached all over his body,
and he writes in perfect signage painting.
He puts an "R" on his forehead that is for "revenge,"
and then he just throws these letters, like...
[Scheer laughs]
[Duggan] A super fun idea that came out of the '80s was Damage Control.
-These are not superheroes. -Okay.
This is a group that showed up after the superhero fight,
to, like, dig out from under it.
-They pick up the buildings-- -They're basically contractors?
They're contractors who show up to clean up the superhero mess.
Satan's son is a superhero in the Marvel Universe.
He has a very on-the-nose name of Son of Satan.
Like, no outfit.
He's just got the '70s open chest with a pentagram on it.
-So he's a bad guy obviously. -No, he's a good guy.
-What? -Yeah, he ha--
That's-- See now all of a sudden--
-Yeah, now-- -I-- You--
I would be interested in a villain, but now I'm super interested in a hero.
Yeah. I love that. So he's Satan's son.
-Is he rebelling against Satan? -Yeah.
He's like, "I'm gonna go be with the heroes now."
Okay, so let me tell you about one of my favorite and craziest books.
Okay.
I don't know if you've ever heard of the trucker superhero, U.S. 1.
Wait, I didn't even know there was a trucker superhero.
-Superhero is a real strong word. -Okay. [chuckles]
-Um, it was a 12-issue series, -Okay.
and it was during, like, the big-rig boom
where they had all these films and TV shows
about truckers were, like, the coolest thing in the world.
He grows up in a legacy trucking family.
Everyone in his family are truckers.
So, he wants to be a trucker so bad, right?
But [chuckles] his family insist that he go to college.
-Uh, he doesn't want that at all. -No.
Then, he's in his brother's rig,
and this rig comes out of nowhere and pushes them off the road,
-and his brother dies, and U.S. gets-- -Okay.
his head gets caved in, and he, like, all but dies.
This is insane.
For whatever reason, U.S. was a guy who was important enough,
where they did experimental surgery to fix his brain,
and they put this crazy metal plate in his head,
and when they did that,
he discovered that by pressing his tongue to his fillings,
he could pick up CB radio transmissions.
[Scheer] This is the most insane thing ever.
So, he's got the power of a CB radio in his body--
-Which I don't know what it gets you. -It seems like if he had the power
to control trucks with his mind, that's something.
-That's a thing. -Yeah.
[Cates] By the end of the 12-issue run, it ends in space.
Okay, and now they're in space?
[Cates] He ends this whole thing as a space trucker.
[Scheer chuckles] Come on. How could that not be a hit?
I do have one lead for you. There's a group called Brute Force.
Wait, wait, what's Brute Force?
Brute Force is a group of, uh, superhero animals
-that are fighting for the environment. -Okay.
Wait, [stammers] they're like The Avengers, but animals?
This is amaz-- This is a whole team?
It's a dolphin with a sub-machine gun.
Wait-- How does he hold it?
-Flingers. It's like a flipper... -[chuckles]
Wait, is he literally, like-- So, the flippers are carrying a gun?
These are science heroes.
-Let's be honest. -Okay, sure.
There's not a lot of toxic goop, uh, that made these guys.
Brute Force. I love this. I love the title. I love the idea. This--
-We need more Brute Force. -We do.
I mean, this is an amaz-- This is the best lead I've gotten.
[Scheer] Brute Force was awesome and weird.
I mean, very, very weird, and since it only had four issues,
it didn't take me long to become, kind of, a Brute Force scholar.
So, here's what you need to know.
Brute Force opens with a group of deranged clowns,
yes, clowns, who break into the lab of Dr. Pierce,
who we can tell is a super cool doctor because, you know, he's got a ponytail.
Now they're there to steal a gorilla, which they do,
and Dr. Pierce isn't some nerd scientist
who's gonna wait for authorities to handle this matter. No, no, no.
He's got a ponytail.
So instead, he equips and arms a group of animals,
a bear, kangaroo, dolphin, lion and eagle,
with something he calls power armor,
which gives them human-level speech, intelligence and various other powers.
One of which, seemingly, is infighting.
This team fights more than my estranged family at a forced reunion.
Over the course of the four-issue series,
we find Brute Force facing off against an evil CEO named Frost,
whose evil plans are to defeat all of his corporate enemies
and/or turn humanity into pollution breathing monsters?
I'm not 100% clear on that.
Did I mention that Frost also has a team of equally matched cybernetic animals?
'Cause, yeah. He does.
That's why he kidnapped a gorilla in the first place, and, seemingly,
that's the only successful mission he's able to pull off in the entire series.
Brute Force were basically animal mercenaries
who protect the planet from those who would do it harm.
They attacked oil tankers, destroyed coal plants
and even saved the rain forest, twice.
Even though they were victorious,
it seemed like they sometimes created major collateral damage in the process,
but it's all good when you have a kangaroo who can quip like this.
I mean, honestly, after reading this, I was curious why it didn't work.
I mean, what's not to love about this superhero team?
What do you think the difference is when an idea works and when it doesn't work?
You have to look at a couple of things. One is, did you do it good enough?
-Right. -It's very easy to project out,
"Oh, the people are stupid," or "I was ahead of my time,"
or maybe you just didn't quite execute the idea as strong as it should have been.
The other thing is, you could suffer the pains of being first.
-Right. -Right?
And sometimes you're the breakthrough, but not the breakout.
You know, maybe, people will look back and go,
"This book was the first to actually go there, to cross the line,
and then other people built off that," or maybe not.
We can't know how history's gonna judge us.
[Scheer] Reggie was right.
Brute Force was ahead of its time,
and I know he didn't directly kinda "say that" say that,
but this is a documentary. I gotta find connective tissue somewhere.
So, if I was gonna rebirth Brute Force, I needed to find out more about it.
I mean, its creation, its development, who was behind it,
and that brought me to its editor.
My name is Bob Budiansky, and from 1976 through 1996,
I was an artist, writer, and editor for Marvel Comics.
I had a fairly-- [stammers] a fairly unique job at Marvel.
My job evolved into becoming the special projects editor.
This is back in the middle of the 1980s,
and Marvel was getting all of these companies
coming at Marvel, right and left, saying,
"Hey, we want you to develop our property into a comic book."
These were toy companies, movie companies, the National Football League,
and so my job as an editor was to work with the company
to create their vision, whatever that might be,
and make it a successful comic book.
I had the opportunity to get a whole range of experiences like this,
of trying out new things and seeing if the market would accept it.
I think it all began with Star Wars.
Marvel started putting out Star Wars comic books
a few months before the movie came out, and they were tremendously successful,
and, obviously, Star Wars was tremendously successful,
and that, uh, evolved into the next big project that Marvel did,
which was G.I. Joe, a similar success story.
And then the next big one was Transformers.
The job of an editor is to get the product out the door,
to assemble the creative teams, to give 'em guidance,
and to get it out by certain deadlines.
I was multitasking, you know, 10 or 15 different projects at a time, typically.
So, Brute Force was just another blip on the radar for me.
It was a miniseries. Sure, we'll give it a shot.
I didn't make the decisions about whether to accept publishing it or not.
It was given to me by my editor in chief at the time, Tom DeFalco.
I think the thinking behind it was, up until then,
Marvel had been extremely successful developing story lines
for toy properties owned by other toy companies,
G.I. Joe and Transformers being the obvious examples,
but Marvel had yet to develop its own line of characters
that could be turned into toys as successful as Transformers and G.I. Joe.
So, Charlie came, you know, made his presentation.
I think Tom DeFalco thought there was some potential there.
We could produce these characters that are very toyetic.
You know, they are these animals that have all these robotic features.
It was the hot thing back then with Transformers being in the market.
So, Marvel wanted to give it a chance
and see if it could be developed into animation, into a toy line somewhere.
I don't remember the conversation and how I said to Simon, "I want you,"
or whatever, but he was a guy I was familiar with, and he was hungry.
So, it was a good fit.
[Scheer] I was getting close to unlocking the mystery of Brute Force,
and now I had a clue: Simon Furman, the writer of Brute Force.
And I needed to travel to London to speak to him immediately.
Hey, Paul. We're not budgeted for international travel.
[Scheer] On second thought, why travel when I have a computer
and a semi-fast Internet connection...
which is truly the best way to communicate,
especially in a documentary
where you really wanna see the person and be in the same room with them.
I'm Simon Furman, a writer for Marvel Comics.
[Scheer] Simon was an influential comic creator
that started at Marvel on books like Alpha Flight and Death's Head.
He took over Transformers from Bob in the 1990s
and has become one of the most prolific writers in that series' history.
He also wrote all four issues of Brute Force,
and I wanted to see how he got involved
with such a crazy, weird book and what he thought of it.
Brute Force is a strange one
because it came from an animator originally, called Charles Viola,
-Okay. -who had developed these characters,
brought them to Marvel, and said,
"Look, you know, we could do this the other way around.
Rather than you have a toy line that you make a comic book out of,
we make a comic book set up to be a toy line."
So he and Bob Budiansky, more or less,
developed this together, the characters, the setup.
Then they just needed a writer,
so he just came to me and said would I jump in at that point.
So, are you getting just raw designs and character names?
Like, how much do you have to go off of when you're creating this series?
I had a, sort of, loose bible, I suppose, for the series,
you know, the general setup, the character designs, some of the names.
The heavy lifting was done by Bob and Charles.
So, do you have any connection to them, or this was more of a-- just another job?
It was, kind of, another thing on my desk, you know,
and honestly, if it had taken off, I'd have been very happy,
but once it kinda didn't, it just sort of was maybe wrong time, wrong place for it.
I think they were quite unique, in a way, for their time.
You know, it was very eco-themed, which wasn't widespread at the time.
[stammers] It had tapped into something quite early I think,
and concerns about animal welfare,
even though, strangely, what you've got is a set of animals
who have effectively been experimented on and augmented,
but, you know, if we skip over that little bit.
-[chuckles] -But I think it felt properly all ages,
which I think was part of the great thing about it and part of the problem.
[Scheer] So it's a comic book that was made to be a toy,
but it wasn't adult enough for adults and not kid enough for kids.
I needed to find out what the creator truly was inspired by,
which is why I had to meet Charles Viola.
Now he lived in Iowa,
and since we couldn't afford to fly everyone to Iowa, I guess,
I just rented a place in LA and pretended like it was his house.
You'll never know the difference.
My name is Charlie Viola, and I'm the creator of Brute Force.
-Okay, so I'm talking to you. -Yeah, we're just gonna...
Just you and me.
Where did this idea come from?
Well, animals have always been a part of our society,
but usually you have them pulling a wagon or something like that.
I think in the future, we're gonna be able to communicate with them,
and we're gonna find out they're a lot more intelligent than we thought.
In this case, you can see the dolphin now has become a vehicle.
He's got wheels here.
So, what he can do is, he can retract his arms and legs...
-Oh, wow. -...and work with wheels.
Now some people, when this came out, said,
"That's impossible. You can't have bionic arms and legs,"
but actually, it is possible.
Here we got the bear on a trike and on a motorcycle.
-And here he's driving, like, a-- -How many vehicles do these animals have?
You see, these were all experimental. We talked about them in the meetings.
-Here he's on some other motorcycle-- -[Scheer] By the way, this is--
[Viola] That's with the bear-zooka that he's got there.
[Scheer] I love this bear-zooka.
I've seen circuses where they have bears ride on motorcycles.
-I don't know if you've seen that. So... -Yeah.
-...somehow that stuck in my mind. -Yeah, you're--
It's almost like making him partly comfortable
because I think it's in their nature a little bit.
-What is this? This is amazing. -If they wanted to know a little bit--
At the meetings, they wanted to know about their personal life.
So I had the bear in his own home there,
and he's got the refrigerator, and he's got the honey dispenser.
[Scheer] I love that the bear has a home life
where he actually takes off the armor,
and you've made it so he doesn't even have to use his fingers.
He's basically pressing a button to open the fridge door to get honey.
This is amazing.
[Viola] So now we got the lion--
Talk to me about the headband on the lion. What is the headband doing?
Well, you know, I wanted to have some type of neuroenhancer technology.
Nowadays, they're experimenting with technology
that allow people to operate prosthetics, like people who've lost a limb,
-with their brain waves. -Yeah. Got it.
And you have something--
They actually install the technology right now,
but they could put it on in a case-- headband,
so that people could use their brain waves to move body parts.
So I was already thinking ahead to that kind of technology.
This is amazing. Charles, you're a toy designer
who is so far down the rabbit hole in science,
you're almost like a modern-day Jules Verne in a way.
This is so ahead of its time.
So I know that you created this, and this is very dear to you.
Would you be okay with, you know, someone, like,
leading the charge of a future Brute Force team?
Oh, sure. I think they'd be great in TV.
I think they're a little ahead of their time,
'cause back then we didn't have the CGI.
Plus, they could use some updates.
[Scheer] This could be the new X-Men or Fantastic Four.
This is incredible. It's gonna be huge.
There was a lot to do, but first,
I needed to walk contemplatively down a nondescript street.
It's a good documentary technique that helps the audience understand
that I'm really wrestling with something very important.
After talking to Charles and seeing his passion,
I realized this was the perfect property for Disney+.
I mean, it had limitless possibilities,
but I needed to see if people were ready to accept an animal superhero team.
Because a Marvel show is nothing without its fans, but where could I go?
-[producer] Hey, Paul. -Yeah.
How about San Diego Comic-Con?
[Scheer] Ah, yes, Comic-Con. What a great idea, Paul.
You really are a natural at documentaries.
So, we went to Comic-Con to secretly focus-test the idea of Brute Force
without telling anyone exactly what it was.
What would you think of an animal superhero team?
-I think that would be great. -We're definitely animal lovers.
We have snakes. We have turtles. We have German shepherds.
-Dogs. -Big dogs, yeah.
I would absolutely love to see a superhero animated series with animals, 100%.
Probably the lion. The lion seems pretty good.
I'd give him the power of the sun 'cause of the way he looks,
'cause the mane will energize him.
I am very partial to kangaroos and would love to see one have superpowers.
I could definitely see kung fu abilities.
I would definitely see boxing, like, a wide range of different fighting styles.
[Scheer] What do you think these animal Avengers would do?
They'd be environmentalists,
so they'd wanna protect the Earth, wanna protect nature,
stop all these people from trying to destroy it.
[Scheer] Comic-Con was a success.
These fans totally got the idea and seemed genuinely excited to see it.
Bringing Brute Force to life was a tall order.
On the surface, a group of cybernetic animal superheroes
could be comical if done wrong.
And I also knew that equipping actual animals with cybernetic implants
was not only immoral but would probably enrage the ASPCA
and shut down production before we even began.
Which left me with one option: animation.
Marvel has this amazingly long history of producing
some of the best animated shows on TV, and they still do to this day.
But for me, this is where I fell in love with Marvel.
I would race home every day from school
and watch all the classic '90s Marvel animated TV shows.
These shows hold a special place in my heart
as they took the fantastical world of Marvel
and grounded them in a real world,
which was something that was very rarely done at the time.
Working in animation is a really collaborative art.
Animators and writers get together to pitch ideas
in the hopes to find the perfect way to embody these characters.
Many times, you go through several stylistic and tonal changes,
and it's a process that I went through with 6 Point Harness,
which is an animation studio in LA.
-Welcome to 6 Point. -Thanks so much.
Here we're getting into that, kinda, '90s throwback feel.
Yeah.
Like the Land Before Time, All Dogs Go to Heaven.
-So classic. -[animator] Yeah, it's classic.
Very cartoony in a way.
-This is almost a little too kiddie. -[animator] Mm.
I want this to be the show that the kids sneak into their parents' room
and they're watching it, and they're like, "What? How did I get to see that?"
That's great. That goes right into our next one,
which is kind of like a band, a musical band.
K-pop, so hot right now.
No, they're not a K-pop band. No, that's not--
-But K-pop is huge. -I know K-pop is huge.
They're not that. They're never in a band.
There's never been anything about being in a band.
I want it to be action-packed.
I want it to feel a little bit scary but also really accessible.
Maybe something like this. You know?
He's devouring that soldier.
-The soldier has a ripped-off foot? -[animator] Mm-hmm.
They have knives for teeth.
Okay. Well, they don't. The animals don't have knives for teeth.
I'm sad to say this is closer to what I pictured.
Great!
When people think about animation, I want them to think about this show
and be like, "Oh, my God. I can't believe that they did that."
-We could do that. -We'd love that.
So, I wrote down a number.
What can I get for this?
-Uh... like two-- -Two minutes.
-Two? -Two minutes.
-Two minutes? -Yes.
Okay. Yeah, two minutes. Let's do two minutes.
-Two minutes is good. -Yeah, totally.
-Let's do two minutes. -All right, great. Two minutes.
[Scheer] I left that meeting confident
that we'd eventually land on the proper animation style.
But now it was time to focus on story and the way that Marvel tells a story.
Which is why I reach out to Steve Wacker,
who not only was a senior editor at Marvel Comics,
but also was the VP of Marvel Animation.
Under his watch, he guided the voices and styles of dozens of characters,
and I figured Steve would have some very good insight
on what makes something exclusively Marvel.
All right, so there is a ton of Marvel books,
but what are the things that connect it with an audience?
It's a great question. If we knew exactly how to do it, we'd hit it every time.
We've got, at this point, over 8,000 characters,
most of which you've never even heard of.
-I'm talking about Leather Boy. I'm talk-- -Who is Leather Boy?
I don't wanna talk about it. Uh... Street Poet Ray.
That's not a real character.
Street Poet Ray was a comic that we published.
It was the early '90s, when that, sort of, poetry slam thing
-was getting to be big again. -[Scheer laughs]
Is he a superhero?
No, but he has opinions on the state of the world, circa 1990.
[Scheer] I need to get this.
For me, when I was editing comics,
what I would talk to writers about and artists about
is find the character that you can pour yourself into.
-Use that as the starting point. -Right.
The first time I noticed it as a reader was
when Frank Miller came onto Daredevil as the writer,
and slowly Frank took over the book.
His art style was second to none,
and you could see Frank's experiences color the entire book.
So it's almost like you're putting yourself as the character.
-It's a version of acting. -Right.
I guess what I'm wondering is, what makes certain comics work?
I mean, like Spider-Man.
It's been around forever, but what about it connects with people?
[Wacker] It's at the right time.
So it's '62, this comes out,
and it's right at the time teenagers are gonna take over pop culture.
-Stan at the time was around 40. -That's what I'm saying.
You're saying throw yourself into it. You have a 40-year-old man--
But he found new stories about what it was like to be a teen
at a time when we didn't have teenage superheroes.
All these other big superheroes tended to skew older.
[Scheer] Right.
-All his villains are old. -Right.
There's the Vulture who looks like Larry David with wings.
-[Scheer chuckles] -It's just frustrating that they find out
they're getting beat up on by a 15-year-old.
So it's like finding a little niche that no one's been, kind of, cultivating.
Actually, the essence of everything we do is finding characters that don't exist,
-finding an audience. -Yeah.
You know, this led, 50 years later, to when I worked on Ms. Marvel.
I was speaking with Sana Amanat, who worked at my office,
talking about her experiences as a young Muslim girl in New Jersey
and always having to look at the white superhero
and never having a superhero that looked like her.
I said, "Why don't we do that?" 'Cause there's an audience for it.
There are these young girls all over the world,
and suddenly, we've got a new young hero representing someone else.
In my mind, the Spider-Man DNA runs right through all of Marvel,
right to characters of today, like Ms. Marvel.
We talk about individual characters. What about teams?
Teams seem to be a big part of the Marvel Universe.
To me, the most Marvel way of approaching it is approaching it like a family
'cause that's what Stan and Jack did with Fantastic Four.
They're Marvel's first team.
They're really what launched the modern Marvel Universe.
That family dynamic was also new when Stan and Jack did it.
-[Scheer] Yeah. -People on teams arguing with each other.
With Fantastic Four, the Thing is quitting every third issue.
[Scheer] Right.
[Wacker] Johnny Storm, he's a pain in the ass, lighting everybody on fire.
Sue's very much a 1950s housewife mom trying to keep the peace.
Then you got Reed,
who's a little above it all watching the madness go around him,
and he's so distracted by inventing time machines.
So the reason why I'm bringing you here
is because I'm thinking about rebooting Brute Force.
[chuckles]
But, wait, don't they make sense? I mean, they're family. They're niche.
It's a big problem in the world.
We're having all these ecological disasters,
so they're gonna be fighting that. I mean, what do you think?
Look, I don't think there are any bad characters.
Okay. That's a good thing. Better than Street Poet Ray?
Uh... on par with Street Poet Ray,
-I can fairly say. -Okay, okay.
What might be an interesting story is the way that Brute Force is created.
-They are suddenly given intelligence... -Right.
...and it happens relatively quickly.
There's a lot of story space there to explore.
That feels like a struggle that we all have universally,
to try to figure out what our humanity is. What does it mean to be human?
What is it like to suddenly have consciousness?
-Right. -And I think there's something in there
that's kind of rich, and I know we're talking about this for laughs,
-but now I'm into this a little. -No! I love this.
It's, kind of, becoming like this idea of what Spider-Man was.
-Like, you know, it's a new iPhone. -Slow down.
I mean, I think you're right. This is the new Spider-Man.
This is gonna launch Marvel for the next 80 years, right?
I don't want you to say that I'm right about that.
Yeah. Yeah.
But there is something there.
Yeah, as you're talking, I work closely with Marvel Animation
on shows like Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy.
I could see a version of this in that world a little bit.
So, you'd green light it if it came to you across your desk?
You have it on tape now.
[Scheer] I needed to find these characters' humanity.
And speaking of these characters,
I needed to check back in at 6 Point Harness
to see how the designs were coming along.
Hey. What's up? What's going on?
-Oh, just finished these. Check it out. -They look great.
-Yeah, let me... -Here. Hit enter.
Huh?
So, they still have knives for teeth? Yeah. Okay. [sighs]
What? Uh...
[Scheer] After a few more notes,
we were able to settle on an animation style that we all loved.
Yeah, see? Much better.
And now it was time for the most important part: casting.
Marvel Animation is known for finding the perfect voice actors
that bring their characters to life.
Oh, and I know firsthand, as you might remember
my star turn as Mysterio in the Ultimate Spider-Man.
Don't you forget who the original Mysterio was, kiddo.
See? I killed it, and then I was killed.
They never asked me back.
I needed to find my cast.
So, I turned to some of my favorite actors
to see if they loved Brute Force as much as I did.
[dolphin trills]
[Scheer] This is, uh, Dr. Eko.
-And that's a dolphin person? -Yes, it's a dolphin.
[Byer chuckles] I love his tail. His tail's protected. He's got feet.
Well, I don't see the doctor part of him.
Usually, doctors are a little bit more intelligent,
a little more regal with how they present themselves.
He's just yelling with Uzis that are aimed in different directions.
-So I don't even what he's shooting at. -Yeah.
The Eko comes from the echolocation, that idea?
-Hey, look. Yeah, you see. And... -Yeah, sure.
I think that maybe the Uzis are gonna cause a problem with the echolocation,
just the noise factor.
Wow. I did not think about that.
If you saw this kind of a creature,
does it feel like an Iron Man to you, or does it feel a bit more frightening?
More frightening. I mean, the scars, the teeth, the bullets.
-[spring pops] -[thumps]
This is Boomer. This is a character you would be great for.
-Honestly, I really love this character. -Yeah.
[Bloom] I like that she has a silencer on her gun.
Yeah, she's more of a silent-but-deadly type of character.
But she's the one you're gonna see coming 'cause she's hopping.
So it's like mechanical hopping. So you're gonna hear that, kung-kung-kung.
Yeah, the hydraulics. I didn't not think about the hydraulics of that.
Do you think that that's odd that she has a silencer?
I don't think of kangaroos as particularly quiet creatures.
-Hmm. -So the idea that she would be stealthy,
-but the gun was the problem... -That... [chuckles]
I think it's a good metaphor for female rage.
Really? Talk to me about this.
-'Cause she has a silencer on her gun. -Yeah.
Because women are taught to be silent and apologize,
but yet, you're gonna hear her coming.
So she's trying to be something she's not, but it's like...
"Girl, you don't need the silencer.
You're a red, half-kangaroo machine. Like, be heard."
-I like Boomer. -Boomer.
I like how that might sound when she would say it 'cause it's, like, Australian.
[both, Australian accent] Boomer.
-Oh, yeah. I like that sound. -Watch out for Boomer.
[normal] That's talking to the international appeal here.
-You have an Australian... -[normal] Huge.
But Dr. Eko is, like, based in Miami.
[salsa playing]
This is Lionheart.
[lion roars]
-[Woodward] Quick question. -Yeah.
Um, they're vehicles?
Yeah, a lot of them have vehicle elements.
Each of these animals are part robot, part vehicle. Yeah.
Right. [stammers] So, but you said they're eco-warriors...
Yeah.
-So, are these low-emission... vehicles? -This is a good point.
I'm gonna have to get back to you on it.
-I think a lot of them are plug-ins. -Okay.
-So he also turns invisible, just FYI. -Oh, my God.
Well, that's-- You buried the lede.
A lion that turns invisible?
I'm not seeing the direct correlation there. [chuckles]
-'Cause we're all frightened of a lion. -Right.
But what's more frightening than a lion?
-An invisible lion. -Yes.
You see? Now you're kind of, like...
[eagle screeches]
[Scheer] This is Soar. Soar is an American bald eagle.
Why is a eagle American? Why did we decide that the bald eagle was us?
That's a really good point. Maybe what we do is give him a French accent.
Ah, yes! That would be fun.
-And he's revolting against this. -Yes!
That he has been called...
Yes. [French accent] Bonjour, I am Soar.
Here's my question about Soar, though, is that he's a eagle that turns into a jet,
which really doesn't help him 'cause he could already fly.
So he's like, "I'm flying," and then he transforms,
and he's like, "I'm really flying now."
[both laugh]
[bear growls]
[Scheer] This is the real fun character here.
-We just call him Bear. -[Bloom] Bear. I was gonna say. That's...
-Yeah. And that's-- -Is that a grill?
-Um, yeah. It says-- -So he has a bear grill?
Yeah, that is a bear grill. Yeah, that is a pretty-- [laughs]
Okay. I wanna be him. First of all, he's fierce. He is stro--
-Obviously he's strong... -Yeah.
...but with a sensitivity and a sexuality that I'm drawn to.
Do you think this is scarier than a normal bear?
It might make me laugh upon first sight
because it looks like he just ballooned out so big
that his clothes got too small.
[both laughing]
With all due respect.
He seems to be missing armor in some very crucial spots.
Little bit, right?
I'm like, "Oh, here comes this bear in a tank top.
I'm gonna shoot him in the belly."
But what is the power gauge on his tummy?
-That? -Is that, like, how full he is?
Is it a battery indicator?
I have to talk to our animators about that.
-Maybe, like-- Yeah. -Here's my pitch.
First of all, I would reverse the colors to green, yellow, red.
-Right. -It starts green and then,
as soon as it fills up-- If he gets to X, trouble. You're in trouble.
-Right. Yeah. -'Cause that's full power.
Yeah, 'cause green is traditionally the go symbol. Yellow is, like--
-But I like it green being safe. -That's what I like.
When you get to red, when you get to a big red X, watch out.
-Watch out. -Bear is going off.
The design could be softened a little bit.
You want to relate to this guy.
But we wanna make it edgy for the kids. We want this to be from six to 60.
-Years old? -Yeah. That's the audience.
-From six to 60 years old? -Like Frozen.
[both chuckle]
By the way, the merch on this stuff is gonna be through the roof.
I'm so happy that you brought that up.
That's-- Yes, you-- We're right on the same page.
Dr. Eko, dolphin head, body armor, double Uzi.
-It's gonna be sold out. -It writes-- It Halloweens itself.
[Scheer] It was great getting all this fearless feedback,
and now it was time for me to pick my cast.
[Producer] Paul.
We can only hire non-union actors.
[scoffs] I wish you would've told me this before I had all my auditions.
Thanks a lot.
And stop interrupting my voice-over. I'm trying to make a documentary here.
[sighs]
If I couldn't hire Jon Hamm,
I could at least steal his idea and make it my own.
Brute Force was prime for a toy line. And who does toys better than Marvel?
When it comes to creating lifelike action figures
to amazing costumes to perfect play sets,
Marvel toys makes you feel a part of the action.
From ages six to 60, there is a toy for everyone.
I can picture kids under the Christmas tree holding Dr. Eko and Soar.
It would be like my Christmas but with actual toys,
not just frozen meat dressed as toys.
My parents were not well.
Anyway. This was the last step in developing the perfect Disney+ show.
If Brute Force was gonna be a contender,
I need to sit with one of the minds behind Marvel's toy design, Jesse Falcon.
If we're gonna design toys for Brute Force,
what do you think the goal would be?
I think there are three major segments that we could talk about.
There's role-play, where you can put on elements of the characters
and reenact those parts.
There's action figure play.
There's vehicle play. And, of course, there's masks.
Talk to me about role-play toys. What are some examples of role-play toys?
Great. So I got two great ones here.
This is a deep cut,
-the Hulk hands from 2003. -Oh, wow.
-Love this. -Made of foam.
So, really, kids or collectors can play with those.
Super simple. You put it in and you grab it and uh...
-Boom! You-- -Boom! You're off to the races.
-Love it. -This one's brand-new.
This is from Avengers: Endgame.
This is the Nano Gauntlet, the sized-up one.
Got lights and sounds.
So this is-- Basically, you could become the character?
Yeah, you could become the character. You could sit here and read comic books.
So what kinda stuff could we do that could be, like, a tactile thing like this?
A hand or a fist. Yeah.
So you've got a great character that's a bear.
You put a big bear claw on.
It's all covered in mech, and then you'd have pop-off bear claws.
It would come with a log so you could scratch,
and then the kid could give himself a great back scratch, just like bears do.
Are there any toys that we can kinda come up with
that would help the environment?
So the kids are playing, but they're doing something good.
Could we figure out a way to make recycling in the real world with the toys?
[Falcon] The bear with the retractable claws can come with seeds
so that you can claw holes in the ground, and you can fight deforestation.
Right. So you're actually planting seeds
while you're playing out in the back. I love that.
The lion, we could have a very small grinder inside of his mouth.
Once you've torn it out of the packaging, what do you do with this packaging?
You feed it in and grind it into regrind,
and then you can melt that down and create your own toys.
This is amazing. So we're talking about a Brute Force compost bin,
which means that we can make kids buy more toys
-because they wanna compost the packaging. -Correct.
[Scheer] What could we do with our dolphin character, Dr. Eko?
You can do so much with pool inflatables these days.
You can literally recreate that as something that is a life-sized inflata--
-I'm dead serious. -So you can get in.
Maybe make it a little flat so you could put a drink cozy in the blowhole,
-and a kid can paddle around in the pool. -[laughs] Right.
Do you think that Brute Force has legs in the merchandising world?
I really think this is a cool concept.
[Scheer] Developing Brute Force has been an amazing journey.
Before I was ready to go back to Disney+, I needed to do one more thing...
have a flashback montage.
This is where I just visually remember everything I learned.
Things like, "Anything can be cool in the right hands,
and that while at first glance unbelievable,
that doesn't mean impossible."
And I also remember this guy.
I'm still trying to figure out what character he is.
I think it's the Spider-Verse.
I also remember some of the sad times.
But I got through it because I realized at the end of the day,
this isn't about creating great toys.
It's about creating great characters, characters who are full of humanity,
and I knew this had every element of what Disney+ and Marvel were looking for.
Whoo! Now that this montage is over,
I feel like I'm ready to go back in and pitch.
Let's do this!
Thank you so much for having me back. I brought Steve with me here.
-Hi, Steve. -Pleasure to see everybody.
Nice to see you.
My job is to find the projects that resonate both with me personally
and that I think tells the Marvel story the best.
When you can't find those, you turn to projects outside the box.
And that's when I turned to Paul Shore.
-It's, uh, Scheer. -That's right.
And what I'm excited about is for him to talk to you
about the things that he's about to say.
-Thank you for that... that introduction. -My pleasure.
It's the least you could do, literally.
We are back, and I really took your advice.
I thought about Marvel characters and what has, kind of, been untapped.
I believe I found a property,
and I know Steve's excited about this property, that--
-Well... -Well, you said you were excited about it.
Well, I said, "Okay, let's talk about it."
He essentially green lit it.
-He said, "I would green light this." -I didn't green light it.
Well, I have that on tape, so I could just play it for them. I gue--
Uh, anyway, let's take a look.
I'd like to introduce you to Brute Force.
[woman on PA] Sea Land is now closed.
Feeding time.
Whoops! What's the matter, stupid?
You can't get out of the cage to get your food?
[spits] Chew on this. [laughs]
Let's go mess with the turtles next. They're so stupid.
-Yeah, them and their stupid shell-- -Larry?
-[growling] -No! The stories are true!
-Look, man, I was only following orders. -[Dr. Eko] We will not be ignored.
[zookeeper screams]
Destruction, assault and dolphin theft.
[spits, groans]
What type of person would do such a thing?
Not a person.
Meet Brute Force, a group of genetically engineered animal vigilantes
who use any means necessary to achieve their eco-agenda.
I guess.
Animals that fight for the rights of other animals?
You gotta be kidding me.
Oh, they're no joke,
and if they have it their way, we'll soon be an extinct species.
Boomer. Kangaroo and martial artist.
By the time you hear her hop... you'll be stomped dead.
A kung fu kangaroo?
[female detective] Soar. An eagle that can go Mach 3.
When he drops something from the sky, you'd better watch out.
This is what he did to a local circus that came to town.
Oof! Was not expecting that.
Oh, it gets worse.
Lionheart. He's a lion and a motorcycle,
claws and teeth bonded with an adamantium vibranium mix.
There's not a substance in the known universe he can't tear through.
-And this kitty can turn invisible. -[grunts, screams]
All right. Well, that seems pretty cool.
Dr. Eko. He's a dolphin scientist that can walk on land...
with a mind that rivals Tony Stark and Professor Xavier.
If you don't do what he wants, he'll blast you with 500 gallons of pure H2O.
That gives a whole new meaning to wet and wild.
And Bear. Know the Hulk? Yeah, well, this guy's stronger.
Only double as dumb and with a bazooka.
More like a bear-zooka. [chuckles]
Yeah, you really come up with them.
Anyway, now you're responsible for finding them and bringing them in alive.
All right, but why me?
Simple. You turn everything into a pun, and it's annoying.
Well, I guess I just found my life's porpoise.
See, that's what I'm talking about.
[man narrating] Brute Force!
There you go. So, what do you think?
Wow, really exciting. I mean, wow, wow.
Interesting.
Have you thought about maybe bringing in Jon Favreau
and having him share some of his vision for this idea?
Um...
-But if Jon Favreau does it, would I-- -That's a great idea.
Well, hold on one second. The-- But would I be involved in it?
-[Wacker] Uh... yeah. -To be discussed. We'll talk about it.
If you can get Jon Favreau, we don't need Paul.
I'm right here. You guys, you need me. Can I be involved in it in some way?
Favreau's the perfect choice for this.
Have you ever thought about making a doc about it?
Yeah, I do have this camera crew.
[Silver] Oh, that's normal.
[Scheer] They're great. I just like to document my life.
[Silver] Yeah.
-So this would be on the show? This pitch? -Right now?
But how would it end?
Think there'd be a climactic ending here, you know?
-Yeah. -Right now it just kind of--
What could end-- What if Paul fails and then we get Favreau?
The ending would be right now, here, now, and you just roll credits.
Oh, like right now.
-So, who are these guys fighting? -They're fighting, um...
Corporations, probably, are going to be their big thing.
So they're the 99%.
Yeah. They're going in if your company is maybe polluting the atmosphere,
-they're gonna go in. -Oh, I see.
This is the force maybe Greenpeace calls in.
-I got you. -Yeah.
Greenpeace is like, "We need to bump it up a notch."
-His name is Dr. Eko? -He's the smartest of the bunch.
So he has a degree?
Yeah, we don't know if he went to--
probably an online degree, I would imagine.
Okay, so the name is Boomer. Is it because of Boomerang, kangaroo?
-No. -No?
-No. -Okay.
It's a missed opportunity. [chuckles]
Would this be scary to you?
I think if the kangaroo was riding that motorcycle,
I'd be completely confused and terrified.
-A kangaroo with a sword, just, yeah. -With a sword and two hip guns going.
[Byer] You're making him, so why not give him an outfit that fits?
Yeah, that was an interesting choice that a large part of his body is exposed.
Or I'm into it 'cause it's body positivity.
-Ooh, I like that. Okay, yeah. -You know?
He's a little overweight so he's just like, "I'm gonna show my body."
-I do like showing off a bit of fur. -Right? I like it.
That's a bazooka.
Let's go a different way. I don't think that's a bazooka.
I think that shoots out what's called "the bear growl,"
and it's a sonic weapon.
-Tell me more, okay. Yeah. -You know what I'm saying?
-So it shoots out a-- -Just a shock wave of--
Shock wave of sound. That way there's no blowback on the bicep.
Oh, I like that.
And maybe that's what-- when he gets to X...
-He can shoot out-- -He's ready to go.
-Maybe it's a roar. Like-- [growls] -The big growl. Yeah. [growls]
-[Funches] Did you draw this? -[Scheer] I did not draw this.
If you did I was like,
"I got some questions that we could ask your therapist."
[Bloom] I guess my ultimate no would be
if they can just rip open someone with their teeth, why are they robots?
What if I told you his teeth were knives?
Actually that solves it. That solves it for me.