DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Bahrain police raided a town Tuesday that is home to a prominent Shiite cleric facing possible deportation, arresting 286 people in an assault in which officers fired tear gas and shotguns at protesters. At least five demonstrators were killed and others wounded.

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That’s one small step for Lunella Lafayette, one giant water-rippling leap for Devil Dinosaur. Get ready for the 10-second countdown as the dynamic duo from writer Brandon Montclare and artist Natacha Bustos blasts off into space.

“Lunella gets into the MoonMobile thinking she knows where she’s going—but will be in for a few detours when ‘Girl-Moon’ starts in [MOON GIRL AND DEVIL DINOSAUR #19 on May 24],” says Montclare.

With no shortage of cosmic locales within the Marvel Universe, we asked Brandon to list a few he’d like to visit with these two characters. Take it away, sir!

“While she ping-pongs around the farther reaches of the Marvel Universe, here are some cool places I wish I could have visited with them.”

EGO THE LIVING PLANET: “Lunella and Devil Dinosaur only get to within 238,900 miles of Ego. That seems like a lot, but in planetary terms it’s just a near miss.”

ZENN-LA: “I think the pair would love the high-tech home of Silver Surfer. Lunella is a city girl, and has never been more than a few miles from her apartment in NYC’s Lower East Side. The science-society of Zenn-La would both make Lunella feel at home, but also be wondrous enough to teach her a bunch of new things.”

THE BLUE AREA OF THE MOON:” Moon Girl retains complicated feelings towards the Inhumans, and hitting the former location of Attilan would be no pleasure and all business. Lunella has more experience with Kree technology than any other Earthling, and the leftover rubble of the transported Inhuman capital city would be a goldmine.”

PLANET HULK: “Because Devil Dinosaur needs to have some fun too! He’d love to go a few rounds with the galactic gladiators in the arena.”

ASGARD: “I want Moon Girl & Devil Dinosaur to go there mostly because it means I get to see Natacha Bustos draw the Rainbow Bridge and the Norse/[Jack] Kirby/[Walt] Simonson-influenced lords and ladies. For a compelling story point: Lunella is now The Smartest There Is—that’s becoming well known all over our home planet, but it’s time she starts becoming the brainy ambassador to all our cosmic neighbors.”

Pick up the next installment of MOON GIRL AND DEVIL DINOSAUR tomorrow, May 24, from Brandon Montclare and Natacha Bustos—and be on the lookout for issue #20, coming June 28!

Carol Danvers has gone through a lot lately.

CIVIL WAR II definitely took an emotional toll, and now she faces the betrayal of Steve Rogers in SECRET EMPIRE. MIGHTY CAPTAIN MARVEL writer Margaret Stohl filled us in on Captain Marvel’s headspace, and where she finds herself psychologically and emotionally these days.

Marvel.com: Carol found herself in a pretty dark place at the end of CIVIL WAR II. And now SECRET EMPIRE follows right on its heels. It must feel very draining for Carol psychologically and emotionally. Does watching things play out with Steve erode her faith in some of the things she has believed in even more?

Margaret Stohl: Watching Steve Rogers betray everything that Captain America has always stood for is a crushing blow, not just for Carol but for everyone. On the other hand, she’s also an experienced military leader, and she knows better than anyone that the loss of Captain America only makes the role of Captain Marvel that much more important. She steps up when others step down, and she always has. So no, Steve’s betrayal doesn’t erode her faith, it makes her all the more resolved to defend it—because if she doesn’t, who will?

Marvel.com: Steve left Carol and her team outside the planetary shield surrounding the Earth to face wave after wave of the Chitauri army. What kind of state of mind will she have when she gets back?

Margaret Stohl: Carol has her combat brain on now, which means she only has three things on her mind: how to keep her team alive, how to get them back to Earth, and then how to save it. Her first goal is her team’s survival, particularly the three young cadets—Glory, Dante and A’Di—who were caught outside the shield with her during their training at Alpha Flight. That is priority one. Part of what makes Carol such an effective soldier and leader is her ability to compartmentalize when she has to. Making decisions in the moment is tough, but when a leader doesn’t lead, the people fighting for her die.

Mighty Captain Marvel #6 cover by Elizabeth Torque

Marvel.com: Currently, Carol leads Alpha Flight and plays a major role in the Ultimates. So professionally, she seems to really have things together. But personally, she’s facing more challenges.

Margaret Stohl: Absolutely. Carol’s first arc in 2017 was all about her personal journey back from the events of CIVIL WAR II. This arc is much more of a combat adventure, though even the fact that there are teens on Alpha Flight just shows how much her relationship with the Kree child, Bean, from the past few issues, has impacted her. In general though, I think Carol’s emotions are on hold until she gets through the catastrophe of SECRET EMPIRE. If she ever makes it home, Carol Danvers will have to work to process what has happened—not just to her but to her planet.

Marvel.com: Carol had a falling out with Ms. Marvel during CIVIL WAR II, and America is distancing herself from the Ultimates to go to college. How does it affect Carol to see her protégés walking away?

Margaret Stohl: Carol is a lifer in her fight for what’s right. Like many other heroes, she’s seen plenty of teammates come and go, and while that wears on her, she knows it comes with the gig. That said, I’m not sure she’s ever recovered from the end of her friendship with Kamala Khan. Since Kamala moved on in her life, Carol has taken the time to foster a Kree child and train three Alpha Cadets. I think she deeply feels the loss of Kamala, and is still trying to figure it out.

Marvel.com: I would imagine the fall of Maria Hill has had a pretty significant impact on Carol, as well. The two have had their differences, but have often found themselves in similar situations, and frequently worked together. Does it make Carol feel like maybe the same thing could happen to her? Like she could be forced out of the organizations she cares about?

Margaret Stohl: Women in positions of power are always aware of the fates of their female contemporaries, but at the moment, Carol really is caught up in just getting her butt back to Earth. I don’t know how much time she’s spent thinking about it. She’s much more worried about Wendy, who is trapped somewhere on Earth and away from the rest of the A.F. team.

MIGHTY CAPTAIN MARVEL continues to battle through Secret Empire as depicted in issue #5 on May 31 and issue #6 on June 28, both written by Margaret Stohl with art by Ramon Rosanas and Michele Bandini respectively.

The possibility of successfully navigating an angry super villain is approximately three thousand seven hundred and twenty to one! No need to tell Ironheart the odds of victory—chances are, she already knows!

But how invincible is Riri Williams? Can she maintain her sense of youthful idealism and hope in the face of villains seeking her demise daily? Writer Brian Michael Bendis tackles these questions and more not only in the current arc—issue #8 arriving June 21—alongside artist Stefano Caselli, but also in our most recent interview.

Marvel.com: We’ve spoken in the past about Riri Williams as a source of youthful hope for the Marvel Universe. What do you think it is that makes her such a positive character; not just for readers but as a person herself?

Brian Michael Bendis: She has a very unique perspective. I really dove into it when I discovered it, but if I’m honest, it’s hard to describe. She’s a studier. A lot of learning, but not a lot of experience. She has that youthful perspective of not yet knowing just how crappy the world can be. She’s been studying the global situation since she’s been nine years old, but it’s different seeing and experiencing the world versus studying it. That’s something a lot of people can relate to, you know? It’s a real thing in life.

Also, it’s a little similar to what we did with Ultimate Peter Parker in terms of that journey of coming to know something as opposed to just learning about it. But Riri’s process in gaining this perspective couldn’t be more different than Peter’s. The similarity is that they’re both growing up fast as super heroes.

Marvel.com: Sometimes, people do their very best to avoid letting others become aware of their greater weaknesses. What do you think Riri would want to avoid letting people know about herself?

Brian Michael Bendis: She’s terrified. It’s funny, you know? Some people don’t know what they do not know. But then again, there are others who are well aware of what they don’t know and it can be incredibly unnerving. She’s aware of her blind spots, and she can figure out what she doesn’t know.

For example, she could be in a fight and then run the calculations of how much more damage she can take before things go really bad really quickly. And that’s both helpful and a little nerve-wracking to know. With higher intellect comes more fact-based fear.

Marvel.com: Let’s assume you aren’t the mild-mannered writer that you are, and instead, are one of the four-colored comic book villains you write about. How would you go about breaking the heart of Ironheart?

Brian Michael Bendis: [Laughs] I’m actually going to do that in the book, so I can’t tell you that! That’s actually my job: to be the worst person in the world and figure out how to bring low the best person. It’s hilarious you’re asking me that!

Marvel.com: Well, you can’t blame me for trying! Let me ask this another way: How evil are you? What are some ways we can expect to see Ironheart tested to this extent even if in the future? How might you test her limits?

Brian Michael Bendis: [Laughs] Her limits are different. There’s no “Uncle Ben’s killer” to get. It’s not that kind of story. It’s about how she’s going to process her tragedies and move forward in life. That’s what the stories we’re going to tell are going to push her to the limit. Push her up against the wall and make her think twice—like what happened with Peter. How will the technology and legacy that she’s taken on will help her grow?

Invincible Iron Man #8 cover by Stefano Caselli

Marvel.com: It’s interesting as you’ve juxta-positioned Riri against Peter a couple of times. But whereas Peter’s origin seems to be centered around personal responsibility, Riri’s seems more focused on self-assurance.

Brian Michael Bendis: I keep connecting them because, while their stories are so specific, they’re also quite similar in their “everyman” qualities; we can all imagine ourselves in their positions doing something better or more exciting than we might. That’s what inspires.

And going back to your earlier questions, that’s my goal: to create situations that allow me to tell stories where I can push these characters to the extreme. It’s also worth pointing out she’s only two weeks into her super hero origin. She may very well be on a journey that puts her past Ironheart and onto something else. That’s very exciting!

Marvel.com: Looking down that road, there’s a common trope in comics over the past 30 years to go “dark and gritty.” Is this a place you could ever see Riri Williams going?

Brian Michael Bendis: There’s “dark and gritty” and there’s dark and gritty. In a similarly youthful book, Miles finds himself in a pretty dark place. His dark place looks like Matt Murdock’s brunch! [Laughs] It’s all perspective. I look at Riri’s story as a survivor’s tale. I don’t think that kind of darkness has a way “in” right now, but in five years? Who knows? We might discover something that would lend itself to that kind of story. But at the moment, the book is about hope and proactively working to make the world a better place.

As the global news is more chaotic, I’m finding that when I read the scripts back, I’m startled at how intimate and personal they’re getting. Because of that, there’s going to be a lot of “feels” and hope more than I ever have written before.

Marvel.com: Do we need moments of levity when we approach those narrative breaking points for our characters?

Brian Michael Bendis: Yeah, exactly. Fun is a dirty “F word” in some parts of the comics community, but some of my favorite comics right now have a lot of fun in them. Even the darkest ones possess a little fun. You have a suit of armor you made in your garage? You should have fun with it! That would never not be fun—it will always be fun!

See what Brian Michael Bendis and Stefano Caselli have in store for Ironheart in INVINCIBLE IRON MAN #8, coming June 21!

Though known by various names throughout his creative career, including Edmund Perryman, Edmund Kitsune, E.C. Perriman, and Edmund Bagwell, the late British artist perhaps known best as simply Bagwell stood as an important figure in the U.K. comics scene and Marvel recognizes and celebrates his stature and passion for his craft on the event of his recent passing.

Many details of Bagwell’s early life remain obscure, save for his love of comics and in particular the work of the legendary Jack Kirby. Some of his earliest work in the 1970s centered on the famous British comic series 2000 AD, a book he contributed to for much of his career. Writer Rob Williams’ first encounter with the man came through their connection with the series.

“I was writing the third series of ‘The Ten-Seconders’ for 2000 AD [in 2012] and was heading into some big cosmic Kirby territory and I knew Edmund was a huge Kirby fan,” he remembers. “[He] showed his capacity for epic widescreen gods and monsters [on a previous story]. The work he turned in on ‘Ten-Seconders’ was just wonderful. He handled the down-to-earth human moments so well as a contrast to giant warring space aliens, etc, and his storytelling was terrific; it’s amazing to me he wasn’t a bigger star in the industry.”

By the 1990s, Bagwell’s projects included art for the Marvel UK line of books. Soon after a stint with the infamous Motormouth character in 1992, he joined with writer Simon Jowett on BLACK AXE, the story of a uniquely immortal warrior that crossed over with Marvel hero The Black Panther.

“When I started writing BLACK AXE, I was still pretty green as a comics writer,” says Jowett. “I’m not sure how much work Ed had done as part of a team, working from someone else’s full script, and I suspect this arrangement chafed a little, but he was far too sweet a guy to say anything and far too professional to let it affect his work. We kind of felt our way into a working relationship and his pages were really strong, right from our first issue.

“Personally, I think we hit our stride as a team with our second story arc, set in an African state bordering Wakanda, torn apart by civil war and preyed upon by unscrupulous arms dealers. Black Panther featured prominently, but Ed had designed a new character, Afrikaa, who quickly became a favorite of mine to write and one I’d have loved to return to—with Ed providing the art, of course.

“Ed’s biggest strength was, I believe, that he couldn’t draw like anyone but himself. ‘Unique’ is a horribly overused term, but no one laid out a page or framed a panel like Ed. His design sense, from characters up, was distinctly his own. He never hid his influences—Kirby especially—and his love for them shone through.”

The artist also threw in his lot with the Marvel UK imprint known as Marvel Frontier. Michael Wiessmuller, Frontier editor and originator, calls Bagwell a “crazy genius,” a term he uses lovingly.

“I first came across Ed in London in the early 1990s, introduced by a mutual friend, Nick Abadzis,” he notes. “Nick had written a strip for Ed, which found its way into Crisis magazine, the mature readers pendant to 2000AD, where I was the editor. Ed’s winning personality coupled with his crazy, genius Kirbyesque art and his capacity for Lager made him an instant regular at the London comics’ creative community hangouts, aka the pub. In time, we became fast friends, sharing a house together and as I became editor at Marvel UK, I introduced him to the bullpen there, where to the surprise of absolutely no one, he quickly moved in and became friends with everyone there; Liam Sharp, Andy Lanning, Bryan Hitch, to name but a few.

“Before long he was co-creator and penciler on the monthly comic BLACK AXE and a regular go-to guy for designing crazy characters. One of these characters was for DANCES WITH DEMONS, recently collected in MARVEL FRONTIER COMICS, and illustrated by Charlie Adlard.

“His art was not fan-favorite in the heyday of Jim Lee’s X-Men, but instead he was an artist’s artist. Everyone I spoke to or showed his art to afterwards had this strange, happy look in their eyes. I never quite understood what that look was, until now. Looking back over Ed’s art, the books he created and remembering those days of sheer youthful enthusiasm and unbridled creativity, I realize that it simply was love.”

Perhaps friend Nick Abadzis provides the clearest picture and perception of his companion after years of both working and laughing with him. Bagwell’s artistry remains virtually unknown in America, but he touched the lives of many regardless, and on a deep level.

“Edmund was a phenomenal artist whose creativity was inspired by, but not bound to, the comics page or the comics industry per se,” says Abadzis. “I think he’d be slightly bemused by all the attention he’s getting, now that it’s too late. As an industry, and as a society, we need to look after all our artists in this game, not just the A-list stars, but the more obscure ones too, who exist more at the margins, who push the envelope and who extend the language of comics with their imaginative experiments somewhere out of the spotlight.

“Ed was one of these guys. He was very private, not a self-promoter in any way, because that just wasn’t in his nature. Apart from his dedication to his wife Hae Sook and her family, his whole being was devoted to making comics and art, and he did so no matter what, no matter where he found himself in the world. Working with him could be crazy, but it was always fun and the results were always unexpected and often mind-blowing. He observed the world through a most unusual lens, and translated it into lines on paper for us to see. On a personal level, he was a gentle, extremely kind and generous man with a sharp, very wry sense of humor, whose manner belied his passion and dedication to the language of comics.

“I will miss him very much.”

Wide receiver Mohamed Sanu of the Atlanta Falcons stops by Marvel HQ to talk the Hulk, football and much more!

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