Howdy.
It’s been a minute. Sorry about that, PROJECT MARBLE and PROJECT VISTA have been keeping me rather busy of late. Yesterday, I also turned in the conclusion of Bring On The Bad Guys, so I’ve been hopping a bit.
Believe it or not, in the past two weeks, things have begun to churn up such that I’m the busiest I’ve been in (at least) five years. Accordingly, I think it’s going to prove difficult to get this newsletter out on a weekly basis in the near-term.
STAR WARS: JEDI KNIGHTS
Last week, I turned in the script for Jedi Knights #10. It’s a pretty cool one, with the conclusion of the long-running Qui-Gon Jinn/Corlis Rath storyline.
Speaking of Jedi Knights, Issue 2 drops next week (on Wednesday, April 9). AIPT has a preview which I’ve included below:
That title — “The Deepest Cut” — has a cheeky double-meaning. On the one hand, it refers to the antagonist, Atha Prime, arguably one of the deepest cuts in all of Star Wars. On the other hand… well, you’ll just have to check out the issue.
THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES MONARCH
When the pandemic shut down the world, I decided to use the free time to make good on my 2020 New Year’s Resolution to do more creator-owned comics. That resolution produced books like Too Dead To Die and Last Flight Out. But the longest-gestating of those projects is a book called The Adventures of Ulysses Monarch. I’m doing it with Harvey Tolibao, a renowned Star Wars artist who I’d previously collaborated with on X-Men.
The other week saw the announcement that Monarch will be published through Amazon’s Comixology, meaning it will be free to read for subscribers of Comixology Unlimited and Kindle Unlimited, as well as available for a la carte purchase.
The series is five issues long. Here’s the logline:
The Year 3026. Adventurer and archeologist Ulysses Monarch searches for rare artifacts left by an ancient civilization.
You can check out the announcement here and here.
X-MEN OMNIBUS
Another recent cool announcement is that Marvel is publishing a 1552-page hardcover omnibus collecting all of my X-Men work over the years. Here’s the Amazon write-up:
Prolific TV writer/producer Marc Guggenheim has a long history of writing the X-Men, and this omnibus collects his work on Marvel's mutants in its entirety!
From the teen mutants of YOUNG X-MEN to the A-list stars of X-MEN GOLD to the heroes of alternate presents and futures, Marc Guggenheim knows how to write the Children of the Atom!Now his various runs are collected in a single volume! In a dark time for Homo superior, Rockslide, Blindfold and Dust are alone and directionless — until Cyclops recruits them to hunt the new incarnation of the Brotherhood alongside other young mutants! On the Battleworld of SECRET WARS, the fight is on to save Genosha from X-Tinction! Kitty Pryde returns to the fold to lead the X-Men into a golden future — with Storm, Colossus, Nightcrawler, Rachel Grey and Old Man Logan by her side! But will two of them finally tie the knot after years of will-they, won’t-they?! Plus: Discover how the dystopian world of the classic Days of Future Past came to be, and see how some of your favorite X-Men met their doom!
COLLECTING: Young X-Men (2008) 1-12, X-Men (2013) 18-22, X-Tinction Agenda (2015) 1-4, X-Men Prime (2017) 1, X-Men Gold (2017) 1-36, X-Men Blue (2017) 13-15, X-Men Gold Annual (2018) 1, X-Men: The Wedding Special (2018) 1, X-Men: Days of Future Past - Doomsday (2023) 1-4; X-Men: Manifest Destiny (2008) 3 (B story), X-Men: To Serve and Protect (2010) 3 (B story)
The omnibus drops on October 14, 2025. You can pre-order it by clicking here.
YOU GOTTA WRITE
One of the exciting things about PROJECT VISTA is that it has me assembling my first writers room in five years. As you might imagine, I’ve been besieged with submissions. And one thing that’s taken me aback is that a lot of them are… pretty old? By which I mean, I read a lot of these same samples three years ago when I was reading writers for LA Law. I even read more than a few from five years ago when I was reading for Carnival Row Season 2.
Part of me wonders if this phenomenon (if it can be called that) is simply the result of agents sending out old material simply because it’s worked for their clients in the past. (I myself was shocked to discover that when the PROJECT VISTA director asked for a sample of my work, my reps had sent over a pilot I wrote back in 2011.)
So, that may very well be the explanation: Agents.
But what if it’s not?
What if a lot of the submitted samples are old because the writers in question don’t have any more recent ones. I know a lot of the writers submitted for PROJECT VISTA and I’m pretty up to date on what they’ve been writing — or haven’t been writing — and I’m a bit concerned that people just aren’t writing samples of late.
There are several good reasons for this, of course. We’ve had a global pandemic, two strikes, and a precedent-setting industry-wide contraction. I don’t know too many writers who are feeling creative enough or inspired enough to write a pilot on spec at the moment.
But that’s the thing about being a professional writer: You gotta do it even when you don’t feel creative or inspired to write. To put it another way: Unemployment may make one disposed not to write, but writing is — if not the “only” — the best way out of said unemployment.
SHOOTING MY MOUTH OFF
I recently chatted with the fine folks at Hops Geek Podcast about a wide variety of things. It was a fun, wide-ranging conversation. You can check it out below:
Or on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
Today also saw the publication of an interview Spider-Man & Wolverine artist Kaare Andrews and I did with IGN about our new series. You can check it out here, but it also included some cool preview images which I’ll share below:
And those aren’t even the best pages.
The first issue drops Wednesday, May 7.
THE FORGOTTEN FIVE
My friend Alex Segura — who manages to be more prolific than me somehow — has a new creator-owned comic coming out called The Forgotten Five. Here’s how Alex talks about it:
The Forgotten Five is a love letter to a lot of the comics me and my collaborators enjoyed as kids, with a (hopefully) modern twist - like Claremont's X-Men, Giffen's 5YL Legion, Locas, and lots more. Long-running series with simmering subplots and fun, soap operatic drama. It's about outcasts forced to grapple with not only a terrible world, but the curse of super-abilities.
This is so totally up my alley, it’s as though Alex wrote it just for me.
But he didn’t write it just for me. And he’s gone the unconventional route of getting it out into the world through Patreon.com. I think this is a bold step to go along with an equally bold book. Please check out the Patreon and consider making a donation by clicking here.
FROM THE VAULT
Back when we were shooting Crisis On Earth-X, we knew we’d have to film Dr. Stein’s funeral at a cemetery. Said cemetery being public, I was concerned that paparazzi might shoot the production and catch a glimpse of Stein’s tombstone, which would certainly have been spoiler material.
To hedge against this possibility, I had the art department engrave Felicity Smoak’s name on the tombstone. Felicity was the perfect choice for a decoy for two reasons. First, she’s Jewish, like Stein, and therefore only the name on the stone would have to be changed and we could leave the coffin untouched. Second, Felicity was a lightning rod of a character and if a rumor spread that we were killing her off, well, it would have made me chuckle.
And in case it wasn’t obvious, we changed Felicity’s name to Stein in postproduction. Super-easy.
Here’s the original grave:
Be good to each other.
Best,
Marc
JetBlue Flight 723
4.4.25
COMING ATTRACTIONS
A regularly-updated list of upcoming releases and events:
STAR WARS: JEDI KNIGHTS #2 (April 9, 2025)
STAR WARS: JEDI KNIGHTS #1 2ND PRINTING (April 16, 2025)
STAR WARS CELEBRATION: JAPAN (March 18-20, Makuhari Messe, Japan)
STAR WARS FREE COMIC BOOK DAY 2025 (May 5, 2025)
SPIDER-MAN & WOLVERINE #1 (May 7, 2025)
BRING ON THE BAD GUYS: DOOM (June 7, 2025)
STAR WARS: JEDI KNIGHTS #5 (July 2, 2025)
STAR WARS: JEDI KNIGHTS #6 (August 6, 2025)
STAR WARS: JEDI KNIGHTS #7 (September 9, 2025)
GALAXYCON DES MOINES (September 12-14, Des Moines, Iowa)
NEW YORK COMIC CON (October 9-12, 2025)
X-MEN BY MARC GUGGENHEIM Omnibus (October 14, 2025)
STAR WARS: JEDI KNIGHTS Volume 1 (November 4, 2025)
Congrats on being busy, Marc!! I am soooo happy for you!! 🥳
Question about the sample thing: Do you (and other showrunners) mostly look for original pilots or specs of other shows when hiring (in today's market)? Are you seeing a trend in old scripts for just one of the two categories, or just across the board?
I do have another question, but please feel free to address it when you have the bandwidth!
- Preface: I have been gnawing on a script for some time now that I absolutely love, but hasn't seemed to get the same response from folks who've read it. I know the underlying concept is enough (and when I soft pitch it, folks love the concept and are excited to read), but it isn't flying off the page for them. I have tried stylistic changes, switching out scenes, simplifying the story beats, etc. but none of the obvious routes seem to be working... recently, I have considered a couple different ways to tell the story that would require full rewrites that may or may not pan out, so I am not sure if I'm just spinning out or my instincts are right and I need to try something radically different.
- Questions: If you are working on a script that isn't working for a mysterious reason, how have you approached troubleshooting what the issue is or the best way to move forward?
- And based on your experience, are there patterns or "typical issues" that you have noticed in scripts/stories that aren't zinging for readers?
I remember when these pictures gravestone popped up on the Arrow subreddit. I knew they were fake because there were already paparazzi photos of the double wedding from the end of the crossover, but It was really fun to see the Felicity haters get their hopes up and make up wild theories and then totally crash out when it didn't happen. I've always wondered if someone from production/crew released these photos on purpose because they were so close up and clear.