Cornell elaborated on the story. "Wisdom is the story of Pete Wisdom's day job, with the group of (largely super) operatives he runs as the sole intelligence officer at MI-13, the division of British intelligence that deals with Weird Happenings.
"It's a MAX series, which means not so much sex and violence
well, quite a bit... okay, it's a bloodthirsty shagfest, all right?...as the chance to tell stories in different ways. For a start, the first three issues are three complete stories. They contribute to the six-issue storyline, though, and should make for a satisfying compilation. It's beery and bawdy and entirely set in Britain. And British territorial waters. I get to use a few of my favourite British Marvel characters. Black Jack Tarr and Sir Clive Reston KCBE! Nobody else got a little shiver then, did they? I'm trying to deal with a genuine modern Britain that's not twee, but where we can still visit the mystical. So we're on a helicopter-borne military assault on Otherworld/Avalon in the first issue, automatic weapons against fairies, and in the second issue we've got something ancient and terrible in a little Wiltshire village. Those familiar with the character will recall how much Pete enjoys popping down to Wiltshire. It's not parochially British. If you like that hard-nosed sense of pubbish humor that the Brits in the field already have toyed with, you could do worse than give this a try.
"Pete's team are entirely new characters, apart from one who's been mentioned and seen in flashbacks during the Bronze Age. (Couldn't we find a better name for my favourite comics era?) There are some X-guest stars a few issues in, including a scene with Captain Britain that I've wanted to write since I was ten. One of the team is John the Skrull, who was part of Operation British Invasion, where in the 1960s the Skrulls wanted to replace the Beatles and influence the world. He decided that anyone could do an alien invasion, that he wanted to do something more arty, and stuck around, still pretending to be John. He's starting to think he should put his relationship with Captain Boko of the Kree behind him, call Skrull Paul and maybe talk about getting the band back together.
"In one way, it's about Fortean mysteries, that lead into a big Marvel Universe apocalyptic British battle, in another it's about Pete's life and backstory. And there's a new romance for him. Terrifyingly. Because if you want to get involved with Pete, there are some things you really should know about him but probably don't." |