This year marks the 20th anniversary of Amadeus Cho, the Asian American hero who has experienced an interesting character arc during his time in the Marvel Universe. Amadeus graduated from being a sidekick of the demigod Hercules, to a member of the Hulk family as the Totally Awesome Hulk, and finally as his own musclebound hero, Brawn. Throughout that time, Amadeus has served as a member of the Champions and Agents of Atlas, and recently appeared on the new Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man animated series on Disney+. Many of Amadeus’ early tales were penned by his co-creator Greg Pak, who is back to help guide the super-strong genius’ next evolution.
ComicBook spoke to Greg Pak about Amadeus Cho 20th Anniversary Special #1. Pak is writing three different stories in the one-shot, each covering a unique stage in Amadeus’ wild history. We asked Pak about creating Amadeus Cho back in 2005, developing his personality, the three time periods he’s exploring alongside artists Takeshi Miyazawa (who co-created Amadeus Cho with Pak), Creees Lee, and Jethro Morales, guest stars fans can look forward to, and the tease that Amadeus will experience another transformation by the one-shot’s end. We can also exclusively reveal the first look at interior pages from Amadeus Cho 20th Anniversary Special #1.
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ComicBook: It’s wild to look back at just how Amadeus Cho has evolved since he debuted back in 2005. What were those early conversations like when the team was developing Amadeus and coming up with his personality, etc.?
Greg Pak: Marvel had a fun plan to let a few new writers take old character names Marvel owned and reimagine them in short stories for Amazing Fantasy (Vol. 2) #15. I picked “Mastermind Excello,” because it was so big and goofy and fun, and came up with the idea to make the hero a scrappy Asian American kid who wins a soap company’s “Brain Fight” internet game show — which turns out to be a recruiting tool for a secret agency so his home gets blown up and he ends up on the run from everybody.
I had a specific plan to introduce an Asian American male kid into the Marvel Universe, because that was a thing comics really lacked at the time. And I wanted the kid to talk too much and have a huge problem with authority and get into all kinds of trouble, which would just be fun, but would also undermine the Asian American model minority myth in a very good way. And I loved the Hulk, so I wanted his first encounter with any superhero to be with the Hulk.
And everyone at Marvel gave me the thumbs up without question, which was a huge deal to me as someone who’d come over from film in 2004, where everyone gave the thumbs down all the damn time to anything with Asian American heroes. And Tak Miyazawa drew the hell out of it, and Christina Strain colored the hell out of it, and Dave Lanphear lettered the hell out of it, and Mark Paniccia and Nate Cosby edited the hell out of it, and it was a huge hit, and here we are twenty years later!
What can you tell us about the three stories/time periods you’re exploring? It is fun that we get to follow Amadeus during three of his key transition moments, like going from the Totally Awesome Hulk to Brawn.
It’s a huge blast and I love editors Mark Paniccia, Darren Shan, and Jordan White for letting me write all of ’em! Amadeus has been through many phases in his career — a Hulk superfan, Herc’s best friend, leader of the Olympus Group, the Totally Awesome Hulk, and his current stage as Brawn. Getting a chance to dig into untold stories from a few of those eras and show the emotional throughline has been incredible.
What guest stars can fans look forward to seeing throughout the stories?
Herc! Angel! Jimmy Woo! Silk! And of course Maddy Cho, Amadeus’s sister! Their relationship is really the heart of the issue, and Creees Lee did an incredible job drawing that story.
How has the collaboration process been going with Takeshi Miyazawa, Creees Lee and Jethro Morales?
Tak co-created Amadeus with me back in the day, so getting him on board was absolutely essential and I’m so thrilled every chance we get to do another Amadeus story together. I’ve been watching Creees for years as he’s built his career and did a Jimmy Woo story with him a couple of years ago. He’s doing amazing new things with every new project and brought some really specific Korean American nuances to the Amadeus/Maddy story that I absolutely love. And this is the first time I’m working with Jethro Morales, but he’s amazing and brought so much fun and energy to the last story I’m still grinning. Y’all are gonna love his Herc and Angel!
I know you can’t say much, but what can you say about the “whole new form” that Marvel teased Amadeus will undergo? I can’t help but notice a character that looked a lot like Brawn in Marvel’s preview art for Imperial.
No spoilers, but dontcha dare miss it!
Amadeus Cho 20th Anniversary Special #1 goes on sale May 7th. Let us know what you think of Marvel’s plans for Amadeus in the comments below!
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